The Password Generator

When the Generate Password button is clicked, the new password will appear in the text box within the pop-up window. A bar graph indicating the “strength” of the password appears below it. The password’s strength is rated with a number between 0 and 100. A strength rating of 100 is recommended, as this indicates that the password is very secure.

If the password in the text box is not suitable, you can create a new one as many times as you like, until you are satisfied with the password.

To generate a new password:

1. Click the Regenerate button.
2. Dictate the contents of the new password:
   • You can click the checkboxes on the right to include or leave out uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, or symbols.
   • You can specify the length of the password in the Password Length text box.
3. Click Use Password to use the password you have just generated.
   • To close the Strong Password Generator without using the password displayed, click Cancel or the X in the upper left corner of the window.

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Add a MIME Type

To add a MIME type:

1. Enter the name of the file type’s handler into the Mime Type field.
   • For example, application/cgi would be the handler for the .cgi extension.
2. Enter the file extension in the Extension(s) field.
   • A file extension is made of the letters following the dot (“.”) in a file name. For example, filename.fileextension.
3. Click Add.

Delete a MIME Type

To delete a MIME type:

1. Click the X icon under the Remove heading.
2. Click Yes to confirm that you wish to remove the MIME type.

More About MIME Types

A list of MIME types can be found at http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/mime-types.shtml. You may also want to use your preferred search engine to research the MIME type you would like to add.

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Submit a Support Request

To submit a support request using the cPanel interface:

1. Enter the From address, Subject, and Body of the message.
2. Click Send.

Change Contact Email

To change the email address at which your web host can contact you, click Change Default.

To change your contact information using the cPanel interface:

1. Enter the preferred address.
   • If you wish, enter a secondary email address at which you can receive notifications related to your account.
2. Click the checkboxes if you want to be notified when your account is approaching your disk quota, bandwidth limit, or email account quotas.
3. Click Save.

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Domain Lookup

cPanel’s Network Tools will execute a basic command for resolving an IP address from a specified domain name. The query will also return general DNS information about the server.

To look up a domain:

1. Enter the domain you would like to lookup in the Enter a domain to lookup field.
   • Example: cpanel.net.
2. Click Lookup.

The resulting page will display the domain’s mail servers as well as the IP address for that domain. You can also view the domain’s DNS information under the Zone Information heading.

Trace Route

cPanel’s Network Tools includes a function for uncovering the route your computer takes to access your website. This function will show you how many servers your data is passed through before it reaches your website. Included in this information is the amount of time your computer took to reach the server.

• To trace the route your server, click Trace.

The resulting page will display all of the pathways your computer took to reach your server. This can be useful in pinpointing problem servers within your path.

Note: This function may be disabled; contact the system administrator for more information about using the Trace Route function.

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Warning: Installing Frontpage extensions will delete any .htaccess files contained within your web area. This means that any directory or web page that requires authentication (a username and password) will need to be reconfigured after the extensions are installed.

.htaccess files

.htaccess files are an integral part of any basic authentication process. The file lives within a directory on the server and is used to enact the authentication process when the directory is accessed. The .htaccess file is then checked against a file that contains an encrypted instance of the valid password for the directory.

.htaccess files also contain information about how the contents of the directory will be displayed, as well as information about how long visitors’ browsers will “cache” your site, or save it in memory.

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Note: Be careful when scheduling cron jobs. Setting them to run too often may slow down your server.

Adding a cron job

To set up a cron job:

1. If you want the system to email you whenever it runs a cron job, type your email address in the Email field. (If you do not wish to receive an email notifying you of a specific cron job, you can configure its command accordingly; see step 3 below.)
2. Click Update Email.
3. Configure the interval at which you wish to run the cron job.
   • Common Settings — This menu allows you to select a commonly used interval without having to specify settings for the minute, hour, day, month, and so on.
   • Minute — Use this drop-down menu to select the number of minutes between running the cron job, or the minute each hour on which you wish to run the cron job.
   • Hour — Use this drop-down menu to select the number of hours between running the cron job, or the hour each day on which you wish to run the cron job.
   • Day — Use this drop-down menu to select the number of days between running the cron job, or the day of the month on which you wish to run the cron job.
   • Month — Use this drop-down menu to select the number of months between running the cron job, or the month of the year in which you wish to run the cron job.
   • Weekday — Use this drop-down menu to select the day(s) of the week on which you wish to run the cron job.
4. In the Command field, type the command you wish the system to run.
   • Note: If you do not wish to receive an email notifying you of a specific cron job, you add the following line to the command: >/dev/null 2>&1
5. Click Add New Cron Job.

Viewing existing cron jobs

The Current Cron Jobs table displays the cron jobs you have already set up on the server.

From here, you may edit or delete a cron job.

Editing a cron job

To edit a cron job:

1. Locate the cron job you wish to edit.
2. Click Edit.
3. Edit the settings you wish to change.
4. Click Edit Line.

Deleting a cron job

To delete a cron job:

1. Locate the cron job you wish to delete.
2. Click Delete.
3. Confirm that you wish to delete the cron job by clicking Delete again.

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Basic error pages are automatically provided by the web server. However, cPanel allows you to define custom error pages for any HTTP code.

To edit an error page:

1. Click the error code for the page you wish to edit.
   • If you don’t see the error code for the page you wish to edit, click the Show All HTTP Error Status Codes tab.
2. Type a message into the text box.
   • You can select certain HTML tags to be added to a custom error page. These tags will display facts on the error page about the visitor accessing your website.
   • You can further customize your error pages by keying in HTML code.
3. Click Save.

Note: This feature is currently incompatible with the Safari® browser.

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Using the Index Manager, it is possible to define how a specific directory index will appear to those who access it. You can also turn off indexing, if you don’t want a directory’s contents to be visible.

1. To navigate the Index Manager, click the folder icon next to the directory name.
2. Click the name of the directory for which you want to change the indexing style.
3. cPanel offers 4 options; select 1 of the following:
   • Standard Indexing: Contents appear only as filenames.
   • Fancy Indexing: Information about the files, such as the size and time last modified, appear.
   • Default System Setting: The default defined by your web host will be used.
   • No Indexing: The contents of the directory are not listed; visitors will see a message stating that the contents are “forbidden.”
4. Click Save.

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• The Thumbnailer will resize an entire directory of images to your preferred size and store them in a folder called thumbnails.
• The Image Scaler can resize individual images.
• The image converter, under the Convert Image Format link, can be used to convert one type of image file to another.

Thumbnailer

cPanel includes an application for creating smaller versions of images, called “thumbnails.” This can be useful in creating a photo page where smaller previews of your images can be viewed before the larger original image is accessed, saving bandwidth.

The application is known as the Thumbnailer and can be accessed by clicking Image Manager, then clicking the Thumbnailer link. From here, an entire directory must be selected.

Note: The Thumbnailer application will not resize individual images.

Convert Images to Thumbnails

To convert a directory of images to thumbnails:

1. Navigate to the directory you would like to change to thumbnails by clicking the button(s).
2. Click the name of the folder in blue to create thumbnails for the images in the directory.
3. Click Thumbnail Images to finish the process.
   • You may use the Scale Percent text boxes to define how small the images should be.
   • We recommend that you keep the Keep Aspect Ratio checked when creating thumbnails to prevent the image from becoming distorted by keeping the height and width proportional.
   • You may click Reset Dimensions to return the Scale Percent values to the default.

After the application has completed the task of resizing your images, a thumbnails directory will be created as a subdirectory within the selected folder. The thumbnail images will be created with the prefix tn_*, where * is meant to represent the filename and extension.

Click the Your images have been thumbnailed into link to open the thumbnails directory in the cPanel File Manager.

Image Scaler

cPanel can resize a single image with the Image Scaler. The Image Scaler operates by allowing you to key in percentages to scale the image up or down.

Rescale an Image

To rescale an image:

1. Navigate to the directory containing the image you wish to rescale by clicking the  button(s).
2. Click on the image, in blue, you wish to resize.
3. Click Scale Images to finish the process.
   • You may use the New Dimensions text boxes to define, in pixels, how the image should be resized.
   • You may use the Percent text boxes to define the percentage by which the image should be resized.
   • You may click Reset Dimensions to return the Scale Percent values to the default.
   • We recommend that you keep the Keep Aspect Ratio checked when scaling images to prevent the image from becoming distorted by keeping the height and width proportional.
   • You may click the Retain a copy of the old image as checkbox to store a copy of the original image in the directory you specify in the field below.
   • Click the link to view the rescaled image.

Convert an Image Format

cPanel includes an application for converting image file formats. Once you have uploaded the image to your website, it can be selected and converted through cPanel’s format converter. Any of the supported file types can be converted from one type to another using this application. Once the conversion is complete, the new file is placed in the same directory as the original by default.

Note: This feature will convert all of the images in a directory. A single image cannot be converted.

Convert Image Format

To convert the image format:

1. Navigate to the directory of images you wish to convert by clicking the  button(s).
2. Click on the directory, in blue, you wish to convert.
3. Select the file format to which you would like to convert the images. You may select:
   • .PNG
   • .JPG
   • .GIF
   • .BMP
4. Click Convert.

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You can configure Apache to handle a new file type with an existing handler by manually adding the handler and extension to cPanel. For example, to have the server treat files with the extension .example as CGI files, you would type ”cgi-script” under Handler and “.example” under Extension(s).

Add an Apache Handler

To add an Apache handler:

1. Enter the handler name into the Handler field. The built-in handlers are as follows:
   • default-handler: Sends the file using Apache’s default handler for static content.
   • send-as-is: Sends the file with HTTP headers as they are.
   • cgi-script: Handles the file as a CGI script.
   • imap-file: Parses the file as an imagemap rule file; for more information, see Apache’s documentation.
   • server-info: Retrieves the server’s configuration information.
   • server-parsed: Parses the file for server-side includes.
   • server-status: Retrieves the server’s status report.
   • type-map: Parses the file as a type map file; for more information, see Apache’s documentation.
2. Enter the file extension in the Extensions field.
   • You may enter more than 1 extension at a time. Simply separate each entry with a space.
3. A file extension is made of the letters after the dot (“.”) in a file name.
   • For example, filename.fileextension.
4. Click Add.

Note: This interface does not allow you to create custom Apache handlers.

Remove a Handler

To remove an existing handler:

1. Click the X button under the Remove heading next to the appropriate handler in the list.
2. Click Yes to confirm that you wish to remove the handler.

Note: The file extensions automatically handled by Apache cannot be removed.

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