web hosting

Getting Comfortable with the Yahoo Control Panel

Webmasters throughout the world will probably agree that website administration tools have come a long way over the last few years.  The software these days has been injected with more features and functionality than many ever imagined was possible.  One of the most powerful management tools on the market today is a type of software program known as the control panel.  This application provides you with an easy way to maintain a complex web server and all the essential features of your hosting account.

Different web hosting providers tend to utilize and offer different control panel applications.  For example, some use the industry leading Linux-based cPanel, while others prefer Plesk because of its ability to support both Windows and Linux platforms.  You also have hosting providers that offer their own custom or proprietary control panel software.  One such company happens to be one of the largest and most well know entities in the internet world.  This article will introduce you to the Yahoo control panel, very underrated yet highly effective and easy to use.

Tools and Features

In order to access the control panel, you must first sign in with the username and password designated for your Yahoo web hosting account.  After entering the required information, click “OK” to log in.  Once inside, you will see that you have a variety of options to work with.  Below are some of the options you will find:

Home - The Home tab lets you view your daily website traffic in the form of detailed reports.

Email – The email tab allows you to create additional email addresses that will be associated with your website and domain.  Simply click on “Add an Email Address” and enter the required information in the short fields.

Create and Update – The Create and Update tab allows you to incorporate a number of add-on programs and utilities such as the WordPress blogging platform, and intuitive file management tools.  It also offers a variety of helpful support resources for beginners.

Manage – The Manage tab lets you add or remove files from the web server and password protect specific domains, sub-domains and web pages.  It also allows you to generate online snapshot backups of your website data.

Promote – The Promote tab is a powerful SEO tool that allows you to submit your URL to all the major search engines in one easy click.  Underneath this tab you can also send news about the launch of your website via email and create a Yahoo local listing for your site or business as well.

Help – The Help tab offers a comprehensive menu that can be used to assist you with all the functions of the control panel.  This is where you want to go if you get lost creating emails or maintaining your domains.

Index – The Index tab gives you an alphabetized index of the features and options that come included with the hosting control panel.

While the Yahoo control panel in not the most sophisticated piece of software, it does provide all the tools you need to create and maintain your hosting account.  Hundreds of thousands of personal and business customers agree that it delivers more than enough functionality for their needs.

Move Over cPanel: Make Room for Kloxo

Formerly known as Lxadmin, Kloxo is a control panel that usually accompanies CentOS Linux-based VPS hosting packages.  Offering a comprehensive web-based interface, the software enables various administrative tasks including database administration, domain and sub-domain management, email and file management, resource distribution and more.  While more robust VPS control panels like HyperVM are mainly used for general management tasks such as maintaining server resources and power control, Klox is designed for everyday administration, making it a tool you will certainly want to become familiar with.  However, because the two applications are so tightly integrated, all of Kloxo’s functions be accessed directly from the HyperVM control panel.

Kloxo Benefits

Kloxo built a reputation as a control panel that consumes very few system resources.  Lxlabs, its developers, claim that it is the lightest application on the global control panel market as the software only requires 15 MB of memory to run.  Since the program only requires minimal resources, hosting customers can get unrivaled speed and performance out of their VPS solution.  Aside from being extremely lightweight and highly functional, Kloxo also offers a 5-tier security model and many advanced, yet user-friendly features.

Kloxo Key Features

The main features of the Kloxo control panel can be broken down into five categories: General Account Management, Server Tools, Email Management, Security and System Services.

General Account Management

Domain and Sub-domain Control

DNS Template Management

Web-based File Manager

SSL Certificate Installation and Management

Resource Plan Management

Data Backup and Restoration

SSH (Secure Shell Host) Access

Device Driver Configuration

Resource Monitoring

Reboot and Power-off Control

Server Tools

MySQL and Postgre SQL database administration

Ability to Add and Delete Dedicated IP Addresses

FTP Session Management

PHP, modPHP and suPHP Configuration

phpMyAdmin Access

Web Server and DNS Applications

Email Management

Ability to Create and Delete Email Accounts

Web-based Mail Interface

Email Queue Access

Multiple Spam Filtering Applications

Security

SSH Configuration

Ability to block and delete local hosts

Watchdog application to FTP, mail and web servers

Brute Force Attack Monitoring Provided by LxGuard

System Services

Server Process Status Menu

Server Service Status Menu

Server Components Status Menu

HTTP, Mail and MySQL Logs

Cron job and Task Scheduler

InstallApp

One of the most popular features of Kloxo is a built-in model known as InstallApp.  This utility is quite similar to the Fantastico application that comes bundled with cPanel.  The major difference is that InstallApp offer more than 130 add-on programs.  Some of the software on the menu include blogs, forums, ports, customer relations applications and much more.  InstallApp allows these programs to be created with ease as it automatically creates a database and configuration for the chosen application.

Hosting with Kluxo

You can enjoy Kloxo and all it has to offer with virtually any VPS hosting provider utilizing the HyperVM control panel.  Virtualization has its complexities but Kloxo should be easy to use for anyone that is familiar with cPanel.  Most VPS administrators appreciate the panel’s many Linux friendly features while end-users find comfort in its user-friendly design.

Efficient VPS Management with HyperVM

It is often said that a VPS (virtual private server) is the perfect compromise between a shared and dedicated server.  However, what many don’t understand is the technical challenges involved with maintaining a virtualized platform.  While this type of environment isn’t recommended for the rookie webmaster, it can be greatly simplified with the aid of powerful control panel software.  There are many control panels designed to run with a VPS but the one we will discuss in this article is a program known as HyperVM.

What is HyperVM?

HyperVM is a software product that enables the easy provision and management of VPS platforms based on OpenVZ and Xen virtualization technology.  Because the package is tightly integrated with the Kloxo hosting control panel, it essentially gives web hosts the power to deploy a fully functional web hosting system right out of the box.  HyperVM performs with the utmost efficiency in the virtualization environment, allowing VPS end-users to maintain their operations transparently across multiple servers.  The software includes a mechanism that has the ability to manage networking configurations such as gateways and IP addresses independent of the control panel and also offers an IP address pool to support larger scale administration.

Advanced Virtualization Technology

HyperVM is a multi-tiered, multi-server, multi-virtualization program.  Here are additional details on the relevance of each key component.

Multi-Tiered - Multi-tiered describes the application’s ability to run partially on one server while other parts of it run on another or multiple servers.  This technology serves as added protection just in case on of the virtual servers happens to crash.  If something of this nature does occur, HyperVM’s multi-tiered structure ensures that your data can still be accessed from the other available servers.

Multi-Server – By acting as a multi-server platform, HyperVM allows hosting providers to move customer accounts from one server to another.  By doing so, they can prevent overcrowding and better assure that customers enjoy an optimal performance.

Multi-Virtualization – The implementation of multi-virtualization technology enables VPS hosting providers to offer different forms of virtualization technology to their customers all from a single control panel.  HyperVM currently supports OpenVZ and Zen but compatibility with other virtualization platforms are said to be in the works.

HyperVM Control Panel Features

The HyperVM VPS control panel delivers a wealth of features that customers can use to effectively maintain their accounts.  Listed below are just some of the features that have made it one of the premier control panels on the VPS hosting market:

Comprehensive Administrative Tools – HyperV comes included with Kloxo, a website configuration and comprehensive interface that allows you to manage and update your site with ease.  This tool offers many of the same capabilities as control panels like cPanel and Plesk.

Centralized Console – With HyperVM, you can manage all the vital aspects of your hosting account from a single location.

Complete Management Authority – HyperVM defines what a VPS solution is all about, providing you with extreme control from configurations and rebooting to reloading and monitoring.

The HyperVM control panel gets the job done in the virtualized hosting environment.  If you have been considering VPS lately, this is one tool you may want to look out for.

Control Panel Customization with RVSkin

The highly customizable nature of cPanel gives it many advantages over other control panels.  Boasting ease of use and a rich set of features, cPanel offers benefits that can be extended to hosting providers, resellers and end-users alike.  One of its most underrated features is RVSkin, a unique third-party program that adds new meaning to customization.

What is RVSkin?

RVSkin is a popular add-on made to function with the cPanel and WHM software.  This multi-theme, multi-language tool comes packed with some amazing features and a user-friendliness that coincides perfectly with  the leading web hosting control panel.  RVSkin currently supports over 20 languages including English, Dutch, French, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Italian to name a few.  What many like about the software is that it allows you to easily brand your cPanel skin in a matter of minutes.  As a reseller, you can incorporate logos, links to your company website and more.

RVSkin Key Features

RVSkin is integrated with numerous features.  Some of the most noteworthy  include:

Themes: RVSkin gives you a selection of 14 themes for customizing your control panel. Furthermore, these themes can be modified by the reseller and end-user within their version of the control panel.

Reseller Tool: The reseller features in RVSkin gives server administrators the ability to decide what features are available in their clients’ control panels.  If you don’t want your resellers providing features such as shopping carts and databases, they can be easily disabled and made invisible to the user.  You can also control what level of RVSkin access resellers enjoy.

Skin Editor: Branding your skin is made easy with the Skin Editor.  Server administrators and resellers can control the look of client control panels with customization that drives the brand name home.  Aside from inserting links to your site, you can also customize the skin with links to your support department or any other areas who want customers to have direct access to.

Page Editor: The Page Editor feature allows you to easily create pages in many different languages within RVSkin.  It offers full support for HTML programming as well PHP and Python.  Once your pages have been created, they can then be added to the skin using the Add Body Links function, which lets you exclude pages from the certain packages or allocate them to different language settings.

Marketing Tools: RVSkin is integrated with a number of tools that can help hosting providers and resellers increase their revenue.  In a few easy clicks, you can make configurations that provide your customers with the content they need to view certain information or place orders all from their control panel.

Third-Party Integration – One of the best things about RVSkin is that works seamlessly with various add-ons.  The software can be fully integrated with popular third-party applications such as Modernbill, CPSkins Auto Installer and Fantastico.

RVSkin Availability

Not every company provides RVSkin to their customers.  However, every host and reseller that utilizes cPanel has the ability to do so.   This powerful customization tool is admired for its ease of use and often preferred over similar applications such as X Skins and others that come standard with cPanel.

Viewing Your Web Stats Through cPanel

As you probably know, having a website is the best way to establish your presence online.  However, though you might hit a few bumps along the way, actually building the site is the easiest part.  Generating traffic is an entirely different story.  If you are in the midst of promoting, it is crucial to know how many people are visiting your site and where those visitors are coming from.  Because traffic is so critical to your longevity, analyzing website statistics should be a practice you incorporate into your regular routine.  This will help you better determine the popularity of your site, figure out what search engine visitors they are coming from and much more.

cPanel’s Website Analyzation Tools

There are a number of programs that will allow you to view and analyze your website statistics.  Believe it or not, some of the best tools are included free in many of today’s web hosting packages.  You are sure to find a nice blend of applications in any hosting plan that offers cPanel, the most popular control panel on the market.  cPanel generally offers these three web stat programs: Analog, AwStats and Webalizer.  While they all help you analyze web traffic, each has its own unique features and capabilities.  Best of all, each application is incredibly easy to use and provide in-depth insight on your statistics.

Webalizer

The Webalizer program delivers your site stats in comprehensive graphical form.  It shows you information on the people that visited your site on a month by month format.  Though very useful, these are basic statistics and just a quick way to analyze web traffic.  If you want more detailed information on your visitors, utilizing the other statistical programs is highly recommended.

Analog

Both Analog and Awstats offer different presentations than Webalizer.  Many view Analog as the more complex of all three, mainly because it is a text-based solution that requires you to visually process a considerable amount of data.  Analog provides a lot of information about your site so on first glance, it can be a little intimidating.  On the other hand, this application provides essential details about your visitors.  More than likely, the stats that could help you the most can be found with Analog.

Awstats

Awstats is perhaps the most popular and user-friendly of the web stat applications in cPanel.  This program gives you tons of information about your visitors, such as where they originated from in host terms and country, the amount of time they spend on your site, what browser they used and other important details.  You can also learn how many hits your pages received, how many times your files were accessed and much more.  Although it may take a couple of minutes to get familiar with the interface, finding the information is made easier by the colorful graphics and simplistic layout.

cPanel has many great qualities and this suite of web stat programs is just one of many.  By utilizing the applications mentioned in this article, you can gather valuable insight about your promotion tactics, and find out what is and what is not working.  When it comes to gauging site traffic, cPanel is an extremely valuable tool.