If you are setting up a website, you will certainly need to work with cPanel at some point. To those who may not be aware, cPanel is the most popular web-based control panel that allows users to efficiently manage their web hosting account even without having a technical background or knowledge.
From creating emails to installing software, managing FTP accounts and creating subdomains, you can perform a number of tasks using the simple yet intuitive cPanel interface.
However, if you are setting up a website for the first time and have no idea what a control panel looks like, it can a bit confusing to use the cPanel. But don’t fret!
This simple guide will instruct you on how you can perform basic management tasks using the cPanel.
UPDATING CONTACT DETAILS
To receive important updates about your account, you need to provide an email address.
- Click Contact Information in the Preferences section to land on the following screen;
- Enter the email address where you want to receive notifications.
You can also specify an alternative email address for the same.
It is suggested to leave all the options under the Contact Preferences checked as they will only notify you about any suspicious activities on your account.
ADDING A NEW USER
If you have multiple individuals responsible for managing the website, you will need to use the “User Manager”. 
The User Manager allows you to set up varied user accounts in the cPanel. On the screen, you will see three icons displayed on the right side of each account.
Mail Envelope Icon: Indicates that the respective account has an associated email account in the cPanel.
Delivery Truck Icon: Indicates that the account has access to FTP.
Disc Drive Icon: Indicates that the user is allowed to leverage web disc services.
To add a new user,
- Click the Add User button on the top right of the User Manager
- You will need to specify the user’s full name, the desired username, the linked domain and an alternative email address where the user can be reached at.
You can then create a password for the user account.
Below the Confirm Password field, you will find the “Services” section which allows you to adjust the following settings:
Email: Allows you to enable/disable an email account for the given user. You can also set a space limit for each account depending on your needs.
FTP: Allows you to enable/disable a user from accessing File Transfer Protocol. You can also set the maximum size of the files the user can store in their directory via FTP and set the directory that the user will have access to.
Web Disk: Allows you to set the path to the user’s webdisk directory. You can grant two different levels of permissions to the user:
- Read-write: allows the user to view, upload and modify any files within the given directory.
- Read-only: allows the user to only view and download files within the given directory.
ADD, EDIT AND REMOVE A DOMAIN NAME
As the name suggests, the “Domains” section allows you to perform all the domain related tasks including adding a domain name, managing subdomains and redirecting domains.
To add a new domain;
- Click Addon Domains in the Domains
- On the Addon Domains screen, you will be promoted to enter a new domain name and the cPanel will automatically create the subdomain and document root.
New Domain Name: It is the registered domain name excluding “www.”.
Subdomain: The subdomain to your primary domain on your cPanel account.
Document Root: The location that stores all your new domain’s files.
- Click Add Domain to complete the process.
To edit/remove a domain name:
- Click the Modify Addon Domain on the Addon Domains
Here, you can remove any domain, edit the document root and any redirections you want.
That’s all for Part I. We will instruct you on other activities you can do using the cPanel, in the next part.
