How To Setup Your Site on ISPconfig
This is by no means a complete manual on how to use ISPConfig 3. This a quick guide to get your first site up and running.
Step 1. Installation http://wiki.a2hosting.com/index.php/ISPConfig_Install_Instructions
Step 2. Logging in and getting your password changed
After the installation has completed in Step 1, we can login to ISPConfig. You will be able to access the login page at:
https://<<vpsip>>:81
If your domain is already pointed to your VPS, then you can use:
https://<<domain>>:81
- You can temporarily point your domain to your VPS by following the steps in this knowledgebase article:
https://my.a2hosting.com/knowledgebase.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=444
You will be presented with the following screen:
Your login information will be presented to you at the end of the installation in Step 1.
Now that you are logged in, you will see the following:
First thing to do is change your password. Click on the following tab:
Tools - Change Password
- You can change your choosen languages with the "Change Language" right under "Change Password"
Step 3. Setup
1. We need to adjust ISPConfigs default mail delivery setting from a mbox to maildir structure. To do this click on:
Management - Server - Settings - Mail Tab - Maildir
Click Save
2. Now lets setup an admin email address where you will get server related emails. Go to:
Management - Server - Settings
In the Admin Email section, enter a real email address for your admin email. Repeat the process on the Email and DNS tabs.
Step 4. Tools
Webmail:
By default, ISPConfig does not come with a Webmail client. We can fix that right now. Two popular webmail clients are SquirellMail and Roundcube. To install either of these, go to:
Management - Update Manager - Update - Choose URL
In the URL field enter either of the following urls:
Roundcube - http://www.ispconfig.org/downloads/ispconfig_bb_hosting_org/roundcubemail-0.3.1.pkg
SquirellMail - http://ispconfig.org/downloads/squirrelmail.pkg
Click install
- You can install them both if you like. Just follow this process for both mail clients.
After install you can find them listed under Tools:
2. phpMyAdmin
phpMyAdmin is just as easy to install. Just go to:
Management - Update Manager - Update - Choose URL
Follow the same install process we did for Webmail. Click on URL and enter the following url to install the latest version of phpMyAdmin.
phpMyAdmin - http://www.jnsc.ch/downloads/ISPConfig/phpmyadmin-3.4.5.pkg
After install you can find them listed under Tools between SquirrelMail and Roundcube.
Step 5. Setting up your first site
Before you can setup your first site, you have to setup a client to connect the site to. You can do that here:
ISP Manager - New Client
The master data tab contains all the personal information you want to add for the client. The only required fields are Title, First Name and Surname. All other fields are options.
Now that we have someone to assign the websites to, we can get the first site up and running. To get started setting up the first site, click on:
ISP Manager - New Site
Since we only have 1 Client setup, the Customer field will already be filled in for us. Click next.
Enter a Title for the site (ie My Firts Site, Domain: Example, etc).
In the drop down for folder choose "Sites"
Now you will be able to setup the domain with some additional settings. These settings are divided amongst the 6 tabs you see on this page. Those tabs are:
Basis - These are your sites main settings. This is where you will enter your domain, access option (ssh/ftp), as well as optional Apache settings you may need for your site to work properly.
User/Email - These are your Email and FTP user settings.
Codomains - This is where you would setup any sub-domains.
Statistics - This will contain web traffic information after your site has viewed.
Options - You can choose whether the mail is hosted local or external (ie google apps), how apache log file size for this domain, Index file types (ie index.html, index.php, etc), and what type of statistics application the site will use (webalizer or awstats).
Invoices - This contains the information about the site you would be billing your clients for. For this guide it is unused, but you can find more information in the manual (Help - Language - Administrator Manual).
Now that we have briefly gone over the different tabs, let's setup up the first site. On the Basis tab, enter the following (if you have a question about a setting, click on info and it will provide some information on what that setting is):
Hostname: www
Domain: Your domain (ie example.com)
IP Address: Should default to your VPS' main IP (If you have more then 1 select one from the menu)
Create DNS: Check the box
Create DNS MX: Check the box
Space MB and Traffic MB are all set for unlimited access. You can change these if you want settings in megabytes.
Max User and Max Domain are set to unlimited.
Shell Access: Check the box
FTP Access: Check the box
Now click on the User & Email tab.
Click new and fill in:
Real Name: Real Name of the user. (ie John Doe)
Email Address: Name for the email. (ie jdoe)
Username: This is the ftp username. (ie jdoe)
Password: Email/FTP password for the user.
WebSpace: Is set to unlimited. Can be changed to a limit. The setting is in Megabytes.
Administrator: Check the box
Shell Access: Check the box
Now click on save. If you followed the above, you will see the site listed under Sites on the left hand side under:
ISP Manager - Sites
(You may need to refresh the page for it to show up)
If you go to your domain you just setup (if your domain is already pointed to your VPS), you will see a page similar to this:
- You can temporarily point your domain to your VPS by following the steps in this knowledgebase article:
https://my.a2hosting.com/knowledgebase.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=444
You should now be able to log in via FTP or SSH with the created user to upload your site. The username is client_username. From the setup guide examples, that would be:
web1_jdoe
Site information will go in the web directroy if your logging in with the created user. The directory listing will look like:
[root@server.example.com]# ls
cgi-bin log Maildir passwd.dav phptmp ssl user web
You now have a working ISPConfig. If you want to explore ISPConfig further, you can download a copy of the ISPConfig manual right from your control panel. Click on:
Help
On the left, choose your language and the click on the Administrator Manual.
You can also find more assistance and documentation here:
Documentation - http://www.ispconfig.org/ispconfig-2/documentation/
Community - http://www.ispconfig.org/ispconfig-2/community/
Forums information - http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=14
