What is the TurnKey Server Administration Panel?
The Turnkey Server Administration Panel is the tool that dedicated server and virtual private server customers use to manage their server. All functions
ranging from adding additional web sites, uploading and download files, editing your web site, setting up password protected web folders, changing passwords, adding users, and
viewing web reports can be done from the TurnKey Server Administration Panel.
What is a Dedicated Server?
Dedicated Servers are physical computers that are setup and maintained by
TurnKey Internet in one of the TurnKey Data-Centers.
You have your own physical computer, dedicated to your business - your own
private hard drive, cpu, memory, and direct bandwidth connection to the
Internet via the TurnKey next-generation fiber-optic
network. You have complete root access to install and configure the
server to your needs, and unlimited potential to add more domain names, web
sites or other features. Dedicated servers include a built in Firewall
Security system with the TurnKey Real Time Firewall Monitor software. All
dedicated servers include custom intrusion detection software, 24x7 system
and performance monitoring, secure remote backups, advanced web statistic
reports, detailed system reports and the easy to use Server Control panel.
Dedicated servers come with large volumes of monthly bandwidth, over 1,000
GigaByte of monthly usage on some billing plans!
What is a Virtual Private Server?
Virtual Private Server (VPS) Technology is a new technology based on the
concept of partitions on mainframes and advanced resource scheduling to
divide computers into many virtually isolated servers. A VPS simply put, is
a server that runs inside another server. VPS's are now offered as an
advanced web hosting platform providing superior performance, security and
cost savings over standard 'shared hosting' options of the past. Each VPS
acts like a dedicated server but shares hardware. Also known as a Virtual
Dedicated Computer, Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS), Virtual Machine,
vserver, semi-dedicated, virtual colocation, shared dedicated, or virtual
node - the TurnKey Virtual Private Server (VPS) technology provides you with
a true dedicated private server environment, for a fraction of the cost of
managing your own physical computer. Virtual Private Server technology is
the next evolution in high end web hosting, with all the benefits of playing
like a big shot, and none of the headaches.
How do I add a new web site to my server?
To add additional web sites, login to the TurnKey Server Administration Panel, and click on
Servers then on Add New Web Site on the left hand menu.
In the text box, add the full name of the web site you wish to add, such as mynewwebsite.com, and click the save button.
You can add an unlimited number of new web sites through this method, all at once simply by placing each web site on a separate line such as:
mynewwebsite.com
thiswebsite.com
mybusiness.com
anotherwebpage.com
you can add an unlimited number of web sites to your server in this quick and easy 1-step process. Click save
when completed.
Next, you will see the status output of the created web site(s). Now you need to reload the apache
web server to have the changes take effect, so click on click here to restart apache and
your new web sites will now be active on your server.
You can also add specific subdomains such as:
staff.mybusiness.com
support.mybusiness.com
NOTE: When adding a new domain, you can just use sitename.com, the "www"
portion of a web url is automatically aliased by the apache web server
unless you specifically use a subdomain (as listed above).
Each web site will be added to your apache web server, and the folder (path)
to the web site will be created for you (the default location is always
/www/websitename). A 'default' under construction index.htm
file will be placed in the folder for you automatically, which you can
over write or modify when ready.
To 'add content' to your new web site, simply upload the files (using
SCP/FTP or the File Manager tool from your administration panel) to the
folder, for example the folder for our example web site of
newwebsite.com would be /www/newwebsite.com.
How do I configure new and old domain names to work with my web sever?
When adding web site(s) to your server,
you also need to point the proper dns records from your registrar (the company which you
purchased your domain name(s) from) to the IP address of your dedicated or virtual private
server. The specific IP address was sent to you via email when you signed up for your
account, and should simply be entered into your registrar's domain name panel. For example
if your virtual private server's IP is 192.168.1.118, you would configure via your registrar
to point www.yourdomainname.com at 192.168.1.118. As long as you configured your
web server to work for that domain name as described in the adding web site(s) section,
then your web site should now be live to the world. Note: making dns changes at
your registrar can take up to 48 hours before fully in effect, meaning you may have configured
your web site(s) on your server, but
until the domain name is pointing at your IP no one can see your web site.
TurnKey Internet offers below wholesale prices for all new domain name registrations via
our automated domain name
registration system. If you used our registration services, your dns updates will often
be much faster (as little as 3 hours) versus up to 2 days with other registrars. To point
a TurnKey Internet hosted domain name at your newly created web site on your server,
simply login to the TurnKey Customer Care System and
click on Domain Name Manager, then select update for the domain name
you wish to make changes to, and then modify host and address records and input
the IP address in the field for www for the hostname, unless you wish to use
a different hostname. Use '*' for a hostname if you want a wild-card dns entry to
be assigned to that IP, so that any hostname attached to your domain name will find
your web server directly.
How do I schedule a cron (crontab) job?
To schedule cron jobs, login to the TurnKey Server Administration Panel, and click on
System then on Scheduled Cron Jobs and Create a new scheduled cron job as
shown.
next enter in the specific command, and user you wish the cron job to run as. Select the
interval you wish the command to be performed, and then finally click on create. Your
cronjob will now be active, you can verify if a specific cron job has been run by viewing the
system logs from the cron daemon after it was scheduled to be run (select Tools then System Logs and view the cron log).
How do I edit my web site (and other files)?
To edit your web site, login to the TurnKey Server Administration Panel, and click on
Tools then on File Manager. Your web browser will now load a custom
java applet (click yes if your web browser asks for permission to run the software and
be sure to NOT disable pop-ups as some features such as the text editor require opening
pop up windows) as show:
Select EDIT at the top menu bar, once you navigate to the file and directory you wish
to modify. Remember, your web site typically will be stored in /www/websitename.com so
that is the folder (or path) you wish to go to. When you click EDIT on the file you wish
to modify - the editor window will open, letting you modify the actual text of your web site.
Click Save and Close once completed modifying the file, and the updated copy will now be
live on your web site. Note: Some web browsers cache remote web pages, so even if you edit
and save the changes, you may need to click refresh on your web browser (or hold the ctrl key while clicking
refresh/reload in your web browser to force a page reload even if cached) to see the effected changes.
You can always access your server files (and web site content files) via FTP and
via SCP. TurnKey Internet highly recommends using SCP (secure copy protocol)
instead of using FTP because SCP is more secure and 100% encrypted. Your server is
configured to work with both methods. If you wish to install a free secure SCP client
on your windows PC, please visit http://winscp.sourceforge.net/eng/.
How do I password protect certain web sites and folders?
To password protect a web site directory (folder), login to the TurnKey Server Administration Panel, and click on
Tools then on Protect Web Directories. Next, click on add protection for a new directory as shown:
Next, type in the path (or navigate using the .. button) of the folder to protect. Remember
your web site(s) are typically stored at /www/websitename.com, so if you wanted to protect that
entire web site you would enter that in the directory path field. Select the Choose Automatically option
for the users file, and be sure that the password encryption is set to unix crypt. The Authentication Realm
is the text message that is displayed when trying to login to a protected folder. Click create once you have made your selections.
Next, to add specific 'users' that can login to this protected directory, select the add a new user for this directory option as shown:
Finally, type in a username and password and click create and this user will be able to
login to the protected directory you configured in step 1.
Note: password protected configurations are stored in a file named .htaccess, and the
username and encrypted passwords are stored in a file named .htpasswd in the folder
your configured to be protected. You can create as many protected and separate folders as
your wish, the web server will not permit remote access to any files named .htaccess
or .htpasswd, since the web server knows those are for internal use only (protecting
your encrypted user files from prying eyes).
How do I upload, download, and change permissions on files?
To modify files (upload, download, set permissions, delete files, etc) on
your server, login to the TurnKey Server Administration Panel, and click on
Tools then on File Manager. Your web browser will now load a
custom java applet (click yes if your web browser asks for permission to run
the software and be sure to NOT disable pop-ups as some features such as the
text editor require opening pop up windows). From the graphical file manager,
in your web browser, you can navigate your entire server's file system and upload,
download, copy, delete, and view files. You can also create directories, files,
and modify permissions of any file or directory.
In this example we have modified a file (named .system1.txt) by highlighting the file, and
selecting the INFO button at the top menu, which opens up the file information
window. There you can 'check' the box to make a file 'world writable' as we have done
in this example by adding a 'check' to the write permission field for 'group' and 'other'.
This in essence will make that file editable by anyone. This is a useful trick with some
custom web scripts and software you may later choose to install, where the author says to
make a file "world writable", they mean that you need to make the 'write permissions' of a specific
file or folder writable by everyone.
You can always access your server files (and web site content files) via FTP and
via SCP. TurnKey Internet highly recommends using SCP (secure copy protocol)
instead of using FTP because SCP is more secure and 100% encrypted. Your server is
configured to work with both methods. If you wish to install a free secure SCP client
on your windows PC, please visit http://winscp.sourceforge.net/eng/.
How do I scan and protect my web site from viruses?
To protect your web site and server from viruses, login to the TurnKey Server Administration Panel, and click on
System then on Clam Antivirus. Select Local Directories Check as shown:
Next, select the directory to your web site you wish to check, click on the also check sub-directories if you want
to check the entire web site, and then click on check this directory. Within a few minutes the virus
scanning system will generate a report for your directory as shown in this example:
How do I monitor and restart my web, database and other daemons?
To monitor the current status of your server daemons, login to the TurnKey Server Administration Panel, and click on
Servers then on System and Server Status. You will see a green check mark next to any
active running software daemon, such as your web server.
To restart, reload configuration changes, or simply temporarily stop your web server, select Servers then Apache Web Server from the left hand menu. Next you can
click the start apache, stop apache or apply changes links at the top right of
the administration panel.
To restart, or stop other software daemons, simply select the specific server from the Servers menu and
perform the same steps as listed above.
How do I view my server's status (cpu,disk,memory)?
To monitor the current status of your system resources, login to the TurnKey Server Administration Panel, and click on
Hardware then on System Information. You can view the available memory, cpu load,
network statistics, and file system status in real time.
