If your web hosting doesn't offer shell access, cPanel will be the only way to
manage your web hosting, cPanel is a web based server control software that allows you to do the following operations and a whole lot more. Common operations such as adding FTP users,creating databases, creating mail accounts and a multitude of other
hosting operations can all be performed with cPanel.

Creating Mail Addresses

If you have the domain xyz.com and you would like to create a mail address called info@xyz.com, you can perform the following. Firstly click on the Mail tab from the front page. There you will see options to create, modify or delete mail accounts. If you to forward mail to an existing account here you can set an addres to forward to the account of your choosing. To read emails access the Webmail tab from the front page.

Managing your domains

You may want more than a single address directed towards one web site, for example if you owned xyz.com and xyz.net, this can be achieved by using the Parked Domains tab, here you can type any address that you own to point to one of your web sites. If you hosting provider allows you to have more than one web site on your account,
you can add domains via the Addon Domains tab. If you hosting provider supports the creation of sub domains you can create these via the Sub Domain tab.

FTP Options

You can create additional FTP users, set their access levels and other FTP related tasks using the FTP tab.

Database Tasks

To create a new database, or modify existing databases use the Database tab. Here you can perform all allowed database tasks, to perform more advanced database operations you will need to use phpMyAdmin, this can also be accessed from the Database tab.

Analyze The Logs

When running a web site you need to know what your visitors like, where they are coming from, which search engines are bringing the most visitors and all other data about them. Normally you will have access to the raw log files, but these are hard to analyze, to see data that is formatted about your visitors in an easy to read way go to Web/FTP Stats, here you will have the option to review your sites statistics using a variety of software such as Webalizer or AWStats.

Fantastico

Most if not all cPanel installations these days come with Fantastico which is an auto installer for many php based scripts. Fantastico can be used to install popular php scripts such as Wordpress, Mambo, phpbb and many other php products. Using Fantastico is the easiest way to setup these php based scripts and will save you having to manually upload the scripts, and more often than not Fantastico will do all
the configuration of the script for you which is a real time saver.

cPanel is a very advanced application for configuring your hosting and learning all the tricks can take some time, but hopefully you now have the basics down and you can progress from here as your experience with web hosting increases.

Check out the full video training HERE

Cpanel is a back end area of sorts offered by many web hosting services. It is an amazing tool but it can be a bit overwhelming at first.

First things first, if your website has a Cpanel you can access it by going to
your website and then /cpanel.

You will then see a log-in screen and will need to put in the user-name and password that your hosting provider gave you for your website.

Once you have done this you will come to a screen with a whole lot of icons.

The Cpanel window is divided into categories. The first one to two categories are probably going to be unique to your web hosting service.

At the bottom of the screen is where all the goodies are. There's one icon that I'm going to talk about..Fantastico.

If you click here you will be brought to a large menu of software that you can install on your website free of charge. Some of the really cool ones include..

- Wordpress (very good blogging software)

- Joomla (web content manager allows you to create many different types of websites)

- Help Center Live (allows for live help chat assuming you have someone manning the computer, otherwise provides a ticket system)

- phpBB (full featured forum system)

- Coppermine Photo Gallery (allows you to upload and organize pictures into attractive galleries)

- Tikiwiki (nice wiki software)

- Moodle (allows you to create online courses)

- Web Calendar (allows you to create an online calendar)

There are many more really cool programs here, but that is a sample of some of the best. You can get all sorts of functionality out of your website from these programs, just be prepared to spend the time to learn them. Hey,you can't beat the price and trust me there are many software packages you can get that do the same type of thing but cost hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Follow THIS LINK to find out how to install and use these great power tools..