This section explains the basic setup after you installed CloudPanel. This includes basic security setting, adding the first domain for your website, adding a new database, and adding a new FTP user.
Before stepping ahead, follow our previous guide on how to install CloudPanel on your own cloud server / VPS.
Securing CloudPanel Admin Area
While we cannot find official information about brute force protection feature, we are amazed with the fact that such a free panel already supports 2-factor authentication mechanism.
Two-Factor authentication becomes important because it adds an extra layer of security to your account.
Whenever you sign in, you’ll need to enter both your password and also a security code.
This is such a must-have feature to avoid password probing to brute force your CloudPanel admin account.
Activating this feature is pretty much easy.
First, login to CloudPanel using the main administrator account at https://x.x.x.x:8443/ (in which x.x.x.x is your server IP address).
Click your name at the top right-hand corner then click Account.
Next, click the Security tab.
Click the Enable Two-factor Authentication button.
A qrcode wil be displayed and is ready to scan.
Open up Play Store o your phone. Search and install Google Authenticator app.
Once installed, open the app and scan the qrcode (tap the + sign then tap Scan a QR code).
The app will generate a code that you need to enter it in CloudPanel. Click the Submit button.
Congratulation, 2FA Authentication is now enabled.
From now on, you’ll need to enter 2FA code generated from your phone every time you want to log in to CloudPanel dashboard.
Adding New Site Domain
Log in to CloudPanel dashboard.
Click Domains menu from the left sidebar.
Next, click the Add Domain button.
Fill in all the required fields in the New Domain form.
- Domain name: Type in your domain name here (with or without www).
- Document Root: This field will be filled automatically.
- Vhost Template: Choose the Nginx Virtual Host template based on the script/framework/CMS your site is going to use. E.g: WordPrss, Joomla, Magento, Laravel, CodeIgniter, Yii, PrestaShop, OwnCloud, Drupal, etc. Don’t use any of available scripts? Simply choose Generic.
- PHP Version: CloudPanel supports multiple PHP versions. You can choose from 7.1 up to v7.4. PHP 5.x is not available.
Click the Add Domain button once done. Once added, it looks like this:
You can see on that page that Domain name, Document Root, and Delete button are displayed.
You can click the Delete button anytime you want to remove your site from your CloudPanel server.
Adding New FTP User
Unlike cPanel and Directadmin, CloudPanel does not provide File Manager.
Thus, you need to use an FTP client like Filezilla or WinSCP.
Of course, you have to setup the FTP first on your server.
CloudPanel installs ProFTPd automatically when you install the panel. Now all you have to do is creating an FTP user (and its password).
Log in to CloudPanel dashboard.
Click Users menu from the sidebar.
Next, click FTP Users tab then click the Add User button.
Now fill in the Username and Password. You can simply leave the Home Directory as it is unless if you want to change it.
CloudPanel automatically adds the suffix -ftp at the end of any User Name you put. This is beneficial to prevent conflicts with system users.
Finally, click the Add User button. Once done, you’ll get something like this:
Now you can use that FTP username and password in Filezilla or WinSCP.
Enter your server IP address and use port 20 or 21.
Adding New Database
Database is crucial for many web apps. Frameworks and CMS scripts use database to store data.
Cloudpanel comes with latest MySQL community edition by default. I wish it comes with MariaDB instead.
Here’s how to create one.
First, log in to the Dashboard then click Databases menu from the left.
Second, click Add Database button.
Next, give your new database a name, define database username and its password.
Click the blue Add Database button once done.
Once succeed, it looks like this:
Make sure you note down the database credentials that you’ve created.
What if you forgot the password or if you want to grant new user access to an existing database? It’s easy.
Simply click the database name, then click Add User button displayed at the top.
Define the username, password, and access right. In most cases, you can simply choose Read and Write.
Click the Add User button once done.
Forget the password? You can always reset it by clicking at the database username link.
Define a new password. Click Update once done and that’s it.
What’s next?
Now you can upload your website files to your server using any FTP client you like. As of us, we prefer to use WinSCP.
Got questions? Write the down below.
In the next section, we’ll show you how to install WordPress on CloudPanel server. Stay tuned!
