Web Hosting Support
Getting Started With Leading Edge Hosting
Using your web hosting package can seem a little daunting at first, so we thought we’d take a little time to explain the key features of your web hosting package to you.
This document is a brief introduction to using the Leading Edge Hosting systems.
Using the control panel
Each and every Linux web hosting package supplied by Leading Edge Hosting includes its own web hosting control panel. The control panel is designed to help you configure your web hosting and get your website and email set up exactly how you want it.
It gives you the power to set up new email addresses, change your passwords, view your website traffic logs, set up databases and manage most aspects of your web hosting strategy, making it a useful and powerful tool.
So how do you access it?
There are two main ways to access your web hosting control panel. You can either visit https://www.leadingedgehosting.co.uk/cp_login.php and type your username and password in.
Or you can simply type in your web address adding :8443 to the end (colon, eight four four three) like so:
http://www.yourdomain.com:8443
So what's my username and password?
Your username and password will have been supplied to you in your welcome email. If you have not been provided with a username and password, please contact us.
Ok, I'm in, what do I do now?
We'd like to talk you through some of the most common tasks you'll perform using the web hosting control panel.
The first screen you will see upon logging in is your desktop.
The Plesk desktop provides a quick interface to some of the most common activities you might need to perform on your server and includes some basic reporting facilities.
Once you have familiarised yourself with the desktop, we’d like you to click on the ‘Home’ button on the top left menu:
Clicking on the ‘Home’ button takes you to the domain control panel, the heart of your web hosting system.
The domain screen, provides access to all the functionality of your web hosting package and allows you to configure your email addresses, databases and other features of your package.
Since this guide is only intended to provide a brief overview of the most important features of your control panel, we will only briefly cover setting up email addresses, databases and how to transfer your website files to our server.
Setting up email
Before you start to use your email, you need to set up mailboxes on our server. This section of the guide will introduce you to setting up email addresses on the server and links to a guide on how to set up your email address in Microsoft Outlook.
Before you can start to send and receive emails using your web hosting package you need to create mailboxes on our server. Creating a mailbox on the server allows our servers to receive email to your email addresses and also creates the necessary authentication to allow you to send emails via Leading Edge Hosting.
From your web hosting domain screen, locate the ‘Email’ icon:
Clicking this icon brings you to the email setup page.
This screen allows you to set up new email addresses, by clicking on the ‘Add New Mail Account’ screen. This step is essential; otherwise you will not be able to receive email.
After clicking on ‘Add New Mail Account’ you will see the following screen:
Using this screen, add your email address and set a secure password. Once you have created the email address you can proceed to add the email account into Microsoft Outlook.
Creating a Database
Many of websites we host need to use a database, and most of our web hosting packages come with at least one database included.
To create a database click on the databases icon in the domain control panel.
This will take you to the databases page in the control panel.
Click ‘Add New Database’ to create a new database for your website. Don’t forget to add a user with a username and password to the database, otherwise you won’t be able to use your database.
FTP
In order to put your website live on the Internet you need to upload it to our webserver. This is done using the File Transfer Protocol (FTP). To begin you will need suitable FTP software; we recommend SmartFTP (for PC) or Cyberduck (for MAC).
The ftp connection details will have been provided in your welcome email.
Once you connect to the server using FTP you should see a list of folders, similar to the following:
You will normally upload your website files into the /httpdocs/ folder.
Here is a breakdown of what the folders are for:
- The /anon_ftp/ folder is for anonymous FTP, most users never use this folder.
- The /httpsdocs/ folder is for SSL encrypted files (if your account allows SSL encryption).
- The /cgi-bin/ folder is for executable CGI scripts.
- The /private/ folder is simply a non web accessible folder; you can store private documents here.
- The /squirrelmail/ folder is part of your email configuration; you should never need to access this folder.
We hope this guide covers the main things you need to know when getting started with Leading Edge Hosting, if there is anything you think we’ve missed please let us know by contacting us.