Control Panel

The main sections you will find in your control panel and roughly what lives in each one.

No, shared hosting is a server shared between many customers, so nobody gets root on it.

Where your account's IP address is shown in the control panel, and the couple of situations where you actually need it.

Sending visitors from one URL to another using your control panel's redirect tool instead of editing a file.

How a folder decides which file to show first, and how to change that order if you need to.

In most cases the panel opens via your client area login, so that password is the one to change.

Switching the PHP version your account runs, and what to test straight afterwards.

Finding your current disk space, bandwidth and usage figures, and what to do when one is close to its limit.

Replacing the default blank error page with one that helps a lost visitor find their way back.

Creating a database and a database user, and where to find the connection details afterwards.

Creating login details for an FTP client and connecting to your hosting account with them.

Creating a subdomain, pointing it at the right folder, and cleaning it up again later.

Where to click from your account to reach StackCP, and what to check if the link is not where you expect.

Using the app installer in your control panel to put WordPress or another application onto your hosting in minutes.

Adding and editing the DNS records for a domain that uses your hosting account's nameservers.

Checking the SSL certificate on a domain, and what to do if one needs installing or renewing.

Finding the error log for your site and making sense of the lines it writes.

Getting back one deleted or broken file without touching anything else on the site.

Where basic visitor numbers live in your control panel, and why most site owners add analytics on top.

Scheduling a task to run automatically, and how to read the five-field cron syntax that controls when.

Stopping other websites from loading your images directly and using up your bandwidth to do it.

What causes a folder to show a bare file listing, and how to turn that behaviour on or off deliberately.

What SSH access on a shared hosting account actually lets you do, and how to turn it on and connect.

Opening phpMyAdmin from your control panel and using it to browse, edit, import and export a database.