Basic Setup After zPanel Install

So lets say you’ve installed zPanel already, a fresh install on your VPS. So, what next to do? In this part of my serial zPanel articles I will tell you some basic yet essential configurations for your shinny new Control Panel, the zPanel CP. However if you did not installed zPanel yet, simple refer to my previous guide on how to install it on CentOS VPS.

1. Personalizing Your Account

At first, you must customize your account according your need. The fact that default generated zadmin password is very strong but also very hard to remember, so it is a good practice to change that to something you easy to remember but don’t forget to keep it strong and unpredictable.

Go to Account Information >> Change Password

Then enter your current password, new password and repeat the new one. Finally hit that Change button.

Next, go to Account Information >> My Account page. From there you can enter your account details, change the default ones with yours. The most important part here is your Email Address.

2. Configuring zPanel Settings

Go to Server Admin >> zPanel Config. This part is very important because changes made there affect the entire ZPanel configuration. Make sure you’ve please doubled check everything before saving changes there.

What should you change?

1. The From Address section. Change zpanel@localhost to your email address or your custom email address. This is the email address to appear in the From field of emails sent by your ZPanel VPS.

2. The From Name section. Pretty explanatory. This is the name to appear in the From field of emails sent by ZPanel.

That’s it and now hit the Save Changes button. There are many other options you can change there but I don’t explain here because without altering other settings in that page your server will still run nice. Except if you want some advanced behavior like using SMTP instead of PHP Mail method.

3. Remove / Edit The Notice Message

There is a notification message displayed in top saying “Welcome to your new ZPanel installation! You can remove this message from the Client Notice Manager module. This module allows you to notify your clients of service outages, upgrades and new features etc“.

I am sure you wish to remove that. Go to Reseller >> Client Notice Manager.

Simply remove what already there and hit the Save Changes button. For your information, this part can be useful if your server is hosting some clients there.

4. Customize Hosting Package

Think zPanel CP as WHM/cPanel. It also features Package manager where administrator can add, edit and delete hosting packages. A hosting package is the part where you can configure how much disk space, bandwidth quota, ftp accounts, email accounts, number of domains and sub-domains, etc. The packages are relevant to hosting plans you can offer to your potential clients.

Go to Reseller >> Package Manager.

Are settings there are pretty explanatory and I believe you can understand it all easily. However, the most important thing here –especially if you use your server personally– is to change default Administration package, the package assigned to you as zadmin.

Go ahead click the Edit button for Administration package and change each section to the value you wish, e.g: No. Domains, Sub-domains, Mailboxes, FTP accounts, MYSQL Databases, Disk space quota and bandwidth quota. Once done, hit the Save button.

If you want to host clients, you can simply create new package.

5. Adding Your First Website

So it is time to add your first website onto zPanel. Just follow these steps to add new sites:

Step 1 – Go to Domain Management >> Domains. Enter your domain name in the Domain name: field. In the Home Directory choose Create a new home directory.

Hit the Create button.

Step 2 – Then go to Server Admin >> zPanel Config. Scroll down the page till you see the ZPanel Daemon section. Click the Go button at Run Daemon Now.

Step 3 – A new window will appear. Click the Run Now button to execute the daemon.

Once succeed, you’ll see something like this:

Step 4 – Then go again to Domain Management >> Domains and make sure the status of your website is now Live.

Step 5 – Navigate to Domain Management >> DNS Manager. Select your domain name and click the Edit button.

Step 6 – From there, click the Create Records button.

Step 7 – Next, you will see the main DNS Manager page where you can add, edit or delete DNS records. If you don’t add any, simply leave it as it is.

Step 8 – If you need an FTP account, go to File Management >> FTP Accounts and create new one:

Type in your username and password. In Access Type choose Full Access while in How Directory choose Use Domain Directory and pick your site’s directory. Once done hit the Create button.

Step 9 – If your scripts you are going to host in your server need MYSQL database, then you can create it via Database Management >> MYSQL Database.

Give your database a name. If you named it as “wordpress“, then the real usable name of that database is “zadmin_wordpress”.

Finally hit the Create button.

Step 10 – Now create new MYSQL user and assign that to newly created database. Go to Database Management >> MYSQL Users. Do not forget to Map that MYSQL database to correct MYSQL database.

That’s it for now 🙂

Any other questions?

Index of all zPanel tutorials

1. How to Install zPanel CP on CentOS
2. How to install Ajaxplorer File Manager on zPanel
3. Basic zPanel Setup (you are here)
4. How to add new site in zPanel (you are here)