Here are 5 easy steps to fully configure your new cPanel dedicated server. This will make your server ready to serve websites. Gogax handles all the intial configuration of the server and the following steps are to make sure your cPanel server is ready to go.
1. Complete the cPanel intial setup when you login for the first time.
Do not skip this section, we've seen many people jump through this very critical step of the setup. There are many options in that section which, if properly configured the first time, will make future configurations much easier in the long run. The first thing to check is if the hostname and nameservers are correct. By default, cPanel will try to help you with this and configure them based on the hostname provided during server os installation. The next thing to check is to make sure you provided a contact email on that configuration page. Gogax cPanel dedicated server will alert you of any problem which occurs on your server in a timely manner so you can react quickly and fix the issue(s).
2. Execute the Apache Update on your cPanel Server
This is a crucial step for your secure cPanel dedicated server. It will configure the different types of PHP scripts which can be used on the websites. It is very easy to proceed with this update. Simply check the box for the PHP version and the different available modules you want and click on the start build. Be very careful once the process is started, do not close your browser's window, as you will need to restart the process if you do close it. It should be complete within half an hour. If it takes longer, please feel free to open a ticket with our support team and we will be happy to assist you with it.
3. Create web hosting plans for your cPanel server accounts.
This step is important in order to limit the resources used on the cpanel server. Many people do not create web hosting packages and end up with many websites going over the allocated resources for their website. Create web hosting packages in order to make sure all accounts signed up under that package can only use the resources defined within the plan.
4. WHM Security Center is your friend
Many customers completely ignore that section of their WHM control panel. With these tools, you can greatly improve on cpanel dedicated server security. The first thing to look at are the compilers. Make sure you enable them only for the users which require it like root and apache users. As well, the nobody user account should never have access to those. Another important feature to enable is the SMTP tweak. This will secure your mail server and make sure people cannot use it to relay spam using your server. This is very common practice for spammers to find open relays on the internet and use them.
5. Backup your cPanel dedicated server
To make your life easier, cPanel came out with a great integrated tool to create backups of almost every aspect of your cpanel setup, websites, databases etc. Simply go to the backup section in WHM and configure the backup services. Many options are there for you to choose, so check what you need and simply save it. You can also transfer the backup automatically to a third party FTP so you create another copy which is not on the same server. Every night, the backup script will run and execute the different tasks it has in its configuration, ensuring your cPanel dedicated server data is safe. |
