Tag Archives: VPS

The Difference Between cPanel & WHM Hostings & Servers

Linux VPS or Dedicated Server provides you with WHM to manage your website hosting accounts. WHM allows you to host multiple websites on different domains but that’s what cPanel may also do. So what is the difference?

The difference is that WHM allows you to set up separate cPanel accounts for websites and not only this but you can assign a package to limit the resource usage of websites hosted on your server.

Now if you only have one single website to host on your server and you want to use all your resources on that specific website then you simply set cPanel without assigning any package to it.

WHM

WHM stands for Web Host Manager. It is the main control panel for setting up a server and not the websites on the server, but the server itself. Setting up a website is the second step which you do after creating new cPanel accounts from the WHM of your server.

The Differences Between WHM & cPanel

WebHost Manager, or WHM, provides administrative control of your dedicated or Virtual Private Server (VPS). You use WebHost Manager to create individual accounts, add domains to your server, manage hosting features, and perform basic system and control panel maintenance

The main features of WHM are:

  1. Server-Level Control Panel: WHM is designed for hosting providers and server administrators. It’s used to manage the server as a whole and to create and manage cPanel accounts for individual hosting clients.
  2. Server Management: WHM focuses on server-level tasks, such as server configuration, software installation, security settings, and resource allocation to individual cPanel accounts.
  3. Reseller Hosting: WHM allows for the creation of reseller hosting accounts. Resellers can use cPanel to create and manage their own hosting clients and accounts.
  4. Security: WHM offers server-level security settings and access controls for managing cPanel accounts, including the ability to enforce security policies for all hosted accounts.
  5. Resource Allocation: WHM lets administrators allocate resources like disk space, bandwidth, and other server resources to cPanel accounts.
  6. User Authentication: WHM is accessed by administrators using their own login credentials. It’s used to create and manage cPanel accounts, each with its own set of credentials.
  7. Typical Users: WHM is used by hosting providers, data center operators, and server administrators who manage multiple hosting clients or accounts.
cPanel

The cPanel is designed for managing particular domains or hosting accounts on your server. End users can control everything from adding/removing email accounts to administering MySQL databases etc.

The main features of cPanel are:

  1. End-User Control Panel: cPanel is designed for end-users, typically website owners, and administrators who manage their hosting accounts. It provides an easy-to-use graphical interface for various website and account management tasks.
  2. Website Management: cPanel is primarily used to manage individual websites and their associated settings, such as creating and managing email accounts, databases, file management, and domain settings.
  3. User-Level Features: cPanel offers features like website backups, email management, website statistics, domain management, and one-click application installations (e.g., WordPress).
  4. Security: While cPanel provides security features, it focuses on the security of individual hosting accounts and websites.
  5. Resource Usage: cPanel allows users to monitor and manage their resource usage, including bandwidth and storage.
  6. User Authentication: Users log in to cPanel with their credentials.
  7. Typical Users: cPanel is used by website owners, bloggers, small business owners, and anyone with a web hosting account.

cPanel is the end-user control panel used by individuals and businesses to manage their website and hosting account, while WHM is the server-level control panel used by hosting providers and server administrators to manage server resources, create and manage hosting accounts, and enforce security and resource allocation policies for multiple cPanel users. The two often work in tandem, with WHM allowing administrators to create and manage cPanel accounts for their clients.

How To Resell Hostings After Subscribing A Dedicated Server?

If you are a web developer looking forward to setting up your own reseller hosting then this lesson will guide you step-by-step in creating your own reseller account on a Dedicated Server or VPS of Sangkrit.net.

What is a Reseller Account?

A reseller account is a special account created from WHM of a Dedicated Server or VPS. It is a cPanel account with more privileges.

The system allows reseller accounts access to a limited version of the WHM interface, which allows them to manage the cPanel accounts that they sell.

A reseller can allocate system resources on individual cPanel hosting accounts and then sell them to his clients.

To start up with a reseller account, you must own a Dedicated Server or VPS. Read our lesson on configuring a server at Sangkrit.net to start with WHM and cPanel.

How To Manage Reseller Accounts?

You can manage reseller accounts using one of the following WHM user interfaces:

  • The Resellers section (Home -> Resellers) provides you access to all of the reseller features.
  • The Reseller Center interface (Home -> Resellers -> Reseller Center) allows you to add or remove reseller privileges and provides links to all of the other reseller features.

By default, the system grants a set of limited privileges to reseller accounts. But you can add more privileges to any reseller account using the Edit Reseller Nameservers and Privileges interface present in Home -> Resellers -> Edit Reseller Nameservers and Privileges section.

The Instant Dynamic Caching System Of Sangkrit.net Hosting & Servers

Now every server owner at Sangkrit.net can easily accelerate his websites by caching both static and dynamic content and reducing the load on his servers.

How Dynamic Caching Works?

Dynamic caching works by temporarily storing the dynamically generated content in a cache. When a user requests a particular piece of content, the web server first checks if a cached version of that content is available. If it is, the server serves the cached content, which is faster than generating it from scratch. If not, the server dynamically generates the content, serves it to the user, and caches it for future requests.

How To Enable Dynamic Caching On Your Server?

After you buy any Linux-based VPS or Dedicated Server, you can enable caching for yourself and also your clients by providing a caching button on every hosting account you make on your server. You and your users may use this button to turn on catching, simply follow these steps:

  1. Login to your Sangkrit.net account
  2. Visit your ‘My Products’ page
  3. Click the ‘Servers’ option
  4. Next to ‘Server Actions’ click ‘Launch WHM’
  5. Open ‘Nginx Manager’ from the software section menu on the left
  6. Enable the caching

The page allows you to enable the caching on any or all hosting accounts running on your server You can also enable cache by default for all hosting accounts or click the ‘User Settings’ tab to enable NGINX caching selectively on accounts. It also provides you the option to selectively or collectively delete your server’s cache.

Nginx Cache i.e. “HTTP Caching” Or “Proxy Caching

Nginx cache, often referred to as “HTTP caching” or “proxy caching,” is a powerful feature that allows you to temporarily store and serve web content more efficiently. It is designed to reduce the load on web servers, decrease page load times, and improve the overall performance and user experience.

Every cPanel user account created by you on your VPS or Dedicated Server also gives an option to enable caching over the websites running on the same server but have different hosting accounts.

You can turn on, turn off, or delete the cache on any website simply from the server’s main page on your Sangkrit.net account.

How To Use Secure Shell SSH On Your VPS Or Dedicated Server?

Secure Shell (SSH) is a more secure and popular network protocol that delivers secure communication over an unsecured network, such as the Internet. SSH is primarily used for remote login and command-line execution on remote machines but it can also be used for securely transferring files from one system to another just like FTP. So in this case you can say that SSH is a more secure version of FTP.

After you subscribe to a VPS or Dedicated Server, you can transfer files and backup using SSH and for that, you will need to follow a few general steps to connect your server via SSH Secure Shell using a local client. This is needed to transfer, backup, or upload your web/app files, etc.

SSH is a cryptographic network protocol for operating network services securely. Since it is a method for doing a secure remote login from one device to another, here, the two devices are your local machine i.e. your computer, and your server i.e. your VPS or Dedicated Server.

Now following are the exact steps to make a connection via SSH but a few things may depend on the SSH client you use. If you don’t use Linux Terminal then you may use PuTTy for Windows, or Terminal on a MacOS machine.

​​Before you start with the SSH login you will need to obtain this info:

  • Your domain name or IP address
  • Your primary FTP username
  • Your primary FTP password

In case you don’t know where to find these things, you may search their tutorials or simply email or call the online support team to get help.

For security reasons, your dedicated server is provisioned with disabled admin/root access. But you can enable it by following these steps:

  1. Login to your Sangkrit.net account
  2. ​​Navigate to your My Products page
  3. Click Servers
  4. Next to the Generation 4 server, click Manage
  5. Select Settings from the top of the page in your account dashboard
  6. In the access section, next to the admin access, click Manage
  7. Select Enable Admin Access (this is actually root account sudo access) 
  8. Now click Save
  9. Admin access is now enabled

Next, Establish a connection:

Launch your SSH client, enter the host i.e. your domain name or IP address, and your SSH port number (which by default is 22) to establish the SSH connection.

Now you will be asked to enter the FTP details. As prompted for that, enter your primary FTP username and password and click GO or whatever action button is there in your client. That’s it. Your client will now make a connection.

How To Map Domain Names When Name Servers Don’t Work?

Domain mapping is a process that allows you to use a domain name on your website or web service on any hosting option such as cPanel WebhostingPlesk Windows HostingWebhosting PlusVPS, or Dedicated Server. It is generally done by updating the name servers on domain names to point to the server where you are hosting or planning to host your website.

Sometimes on self-managed servers and advanced hostings, the nameserver needs complex configurations to work, these settings might not be easy for general users. If adding custom name servers doesn’t work for you, you can set your domain name to work simply by editing its DNS zone.

In this case, you don’t need to edit or use custom name servers but make some changes in the DNS zone file and it will start working with default nameservers provided during the time of registration.

The first thing you need to do is log in to your VPS or Dedicated Server and copy its IP address which you will find on the My Products -> Servers -> Manage page. If you have a hosting, the IP address would be visible on the cPanel’s information page.

Once you have the IP address the next step is to log in to your domain account and click the ‘Manage‘ button to open up domain details.

DNS 1

Select the DNS Zone File tab to edit your domain’s zone information. Click the ‘Add Record‘ button present in the zone file section and add records as shown in the following screenshot.

DNS 2

The examples:

  • Hostname – www, record type – A address, ***.***.***.*** (IP)
  • Hostname – @, record type – A Address, ***.***.***.*** (IP)
  • Hostname – *, record type – A Address, ***.***.***.*** (IP)

Don’t forget to replace the ***.***.***.*** with your server’s IP address. You can add records one by one by clicking the ‘Add Another’ button. Once DNS records are added, save changes, log out, and wait for the DNS propagation.

DNS propagation refers to the process by which changes made to Domain Name System (DNS) records are distributed and adopted across the internet. When you make changes to your DNS records, such as updating the IP address associated with a domain or adding new records, these changes need to be propagated to DNS servers worldwide to ensure that internet users can reach your website or services using the updated information.

This might take up to 24 hours to complete but generally at Sangkrit.net, it starts working for you in a few minutes.

Webhosting Options To Power Your Specific Business Purpose

You have already learned how many types of webhosting options are there. Now this lesson clarifies what webhosting services can be used at what specific purpose in your business. Hosting your website on a Dedicated Server is the best thing you can do but if your budget is small, many other options are also available for you.

Webhosting For New & Small Businesses

The shared hosting is cheap and can power new and small websites that just entered the internet. These hostings can be subscribed as simple cPanel Hosting or Plesk Hosting from Sangkrit.net.

Once you register or transfer your domain name at Sangkrit.net, you can subscribe to the hosting and your account will guide you how to set it up to work. The one-click application installer will auto-install WordPress and you can bring your business online yourself very easily.

Apart from this a Website Builder offers you an easier way of doing the same. It can be a choice for businesses looking for quickly building an informative website with a responsive mobile friendly design, want to sell products or receive payments online.

Webhosting For Growing Businesses

When your business grows and you start to receive good traffic, you will at least need a VPS i.e. Virtual Private Server. It offers you more resources than a shared hosting option such as cPanel and Plesk hosting, we have already discussed them above. Now VPS is something that gives you more RAM, multiple CPUs, and greater processing power so that you don’t face downtime due to a lack of resources.

Apart from VPS, WordPress Hosting is an easier option if you want a straightforward interface of preinstalled WordPress with no worries of SSL security setups, malware scanning and backups, etc.

A Managed WordPress plan can be a choice of each individual who wants to bring his business online, startup as a blogger to earn money, or want to start an Ecommerce shop. Managed WordPress is for anyone who wants to startup and grow online.

Dedicated Hosting For High Traffic Websites

A Dedicated Server is the best hosting option because on a shared hosting, the resources are shared between multiple users. A server powers multiple shared hostings that means multiple users host their websites on the same server by susbcribing to a shared hosting option.

On a VPS you get more resources as its hosting packages are more powerful but still the resources are shared.

Whereas on a Dedicated Server, all resources are allowcated only to you and that gives you more proccessing power so that your website don’t go down when a large number of requests are made in a small time.

Apart from this, Webhosting Plus is a fresh option especially created for the users who don’t have a budget of leasing Dedicated Servers or they are not use to it. Webhosting Plus offers you higher resources, with an easier interface than of a Dedicated Server and it is also cheaper than that.

What Webhosting Do I Need?

Web hosting provides you space for hosting your domain. It stores your website files. Sangkrit.net has hostings for everyone, from low budget offering limited resources to options that can handle very heavy traffic.

What hosting option you need depends on your budget. You are here for achieving success and for that you will certainly need a Dedicated Server at some point in time especially when your success starts. Having it beforehand can save you from issues that you will face while moving to a bigger hosting option everytime you require more RAM, more processing power and more database space because of sudden increase in traffic.

Still, if your budget is less, you may go for other hosting options based on your present time need. There are hosting options for everyone and this lesson will explain you how one differ from the other and what exactly you need as it is going to impact your website’s availability, and performance.

Cheapest Hosting Options

cPanel Starter is the cheapest hosting option that enables you to host one website. Cheapest doesn’t mean its worthless, it is good for hosting one website of any kind, the bandwidth is unmetered and storage is 30GB which is good as your first step online.

You can use it for hosting any dynamic website such as an eCommerce store or WordPress, Joomla or Magento etc.

cPanel Economy, this is second cheapest option. It lets you host one domain but gives you 10 MySQL databases, and 100 email accounts capacity. The core difference between cPanel Starter and cPanel Economy is that cPanel Starter gives you the power to host one website i.e. one domain having one database.

Whereas, cPanel Economy lets you host one domain but 10 MySQL databases which means you can create 10 websites on separate databases using a subdomain (example: sudomain.yourdomain.com) or subdirectory (yourdomain.com/subdirectory) option. You may create more websites using different table prefixes on one database. Well that you can do on cPanel Starter too if you want to host multiple subdomain or subdirectory sites on one database. But see the storage capacity of the database is limited.

cPanel Deluxe, lets you host unlimited websites which means you can add unlimited domains but the database limit is 25. That means you can either run 25 websites on 25 separate databases or host more websites (that’s what is unlimited) by using one database for multiple websites and you have 25 databases so you can run many websites here also. It lets you create 500 email accounts.

cPanel Ultimate enables you to add unlimited domains and lets you create unlimited databases. Gives you 1 year of free SSL subscription, more processing power, and 1000 email accounts that you can create on your own domain.

WordPress Hosting

Also called Managed WordPress, these hosting options lets you start your own website or online store in minutes.

They save you from the hassles of configuring and managing WordPress installations. They give you dashboard access with the power to start your website on your own without the need of hiring a web developer. They offer automatic setup, backups, and software updates paired with 24/7, online support.

The WordPress Hosting options include:

  1. WordPress Basic – Good for hosting one website with a capacity of handling 25,000 visitors a month
  2. WordPress Deluxe – One website with a capacity of handling 100,000 visitors a month
  3. WordPress Ultimate – One website with unlimited visits
  4. WordPress Ecommerce – Ideal for starting your own online shop i.e eCommerce website
  5. WordPress Developer – You can start and manage 5 different WordPress sites
  6. WordPress Pro – Lets you manage up to 25 different WordPress sites

Webhosting Plus

The Webhosting Plus offers you the simplicity of cPanel hosting with resources that you generally get on a server. It includes more dedicated resources than WordPress or cPanel hosting we discussed above.

This is a great option if you are hitting or going to hit massive traffic, you need more power and resources but at the same time, you don’t know how to manage a server and you don’t want to hire a system administrator.

It also includes multiple plans starting from 4GB RAM to 32GB RAM with the power of up to 16 CPUs:

  1. Webhosting Plus Launch – 4GB RAM with 2 CPUs
  2. Webhosting Plus Enhance – 8GB RAM with 4 CPUs
  3. Webhosting Plus Grow – 16GB RAM with 8 CPUs
  4. Webhosting Plus Expand – 32GB RAM with 16 CPUs

This hosting option is easier to manage just like other cPanel hostings.

VPS & Dedicated Servers

These give you complete control and no resources are shared with other users. A common hosting plan you purchase is located on a server running multiple hostings whereas on a dedicated server all resources are only for your use.

You can build multiple cPanel hostings, allocate resources to each hosting plan, you can decide how many domains each webhosting can have and how much server resources a website or hosting can utilize or you can simply allocate all server resources to your main website.

There various type of servers with higher-lower RAM and space options. But the subscription is of only two types: Self Managed and Fully Managed.

Self-Managed Servers: – These give you command line control. To manage this type of server you may either learn system engineering or hire a system administrator or you can simplify things for yourself by adding the cPanel WHM option.

Fully-Managed Servers: These servers come with round-the-clock dedicated online support from experts.

Subscribing a VPS or Dedicated Server is just like purchasing a computer machine. So while subscribing to a server what you should see is its RAM, storage option such as HDD or SSD, and processor.

Using The Upgraded Hostnames On Your Sangkrit.net Server

The hostnames will upgrade shortly so if you are still using legacy hostnames you will need to update them to the new format i.e. the reversal of the IP octets.

You can update the hostname for your VPS or Dedicated Server. You can do that simply by logging into your Sangkrit.net account and then following these steps:

  1. Visit your ‘My Products’ page
  2. Select ‘Servers’
  3. Next to your server click select ‘Manage’ 
  4. Select the ‘Settings’ option next to the ‘Dashboard’ section, the default page
  5. From the Server section click Change which is next to Hostname
  6. Now type or paste the new hostname in the Server Hostname field,
  7. Select Save

The hostname should meet the requirements, the server tests the hostname, and then only it accepts to save it. After you have successfully saved all the changes, the new hostname will appear in the Settings section.

Managing The Hostname For Your Linux Server

A hostname is a selectable name for your Dedicated Server or VPS host. These are composed of a sequence of labels attached with dots. Here’s how you can change the hostname of your server by following a few easy steps.

  1. Login to your SANGKRIT.net account
  2. Visit your My Products page
  3. Click the Servers option
  4. Click Manage
  5. Select Settings
  6. Next to Hostname, click Change
  7. Enter the new hostname in the Server Hostname field
  8. Click Save.

Remember, the hostname should meet the requirements of an appropriate hostname before you can save it. Once you save your changes, the new hostname will appear in the Settings section and will start to work like the old one.

Managing Apache & PHP Modules On Your Server

You can install necessary PHP modules for Apache on your VPS and Dedicated Server and then enable them manually.

You can enable, disable, or customize such modules using a tool called EasyApache. By using this tool, the PHP and Apache options are rebuilt on the basis of the options you select.

  1. Login to your SANGKRIT.net account
  2. Visit your My Products page
  3. Click the Servers option
  4. Click Manage
  5. Open WHM

The easiest way to upgrade PHP is through EasyApace which you can find in the software section of WHM:

  1. Lookup for EasyApache using the search box on the left section of WHM
  2. Click to open it then click EasyApache (ApacheUpdate) option
  3. This will open the present time Apache Configuration Profile
  4. Click the gear icon for a customized profile option
  5. You will see Apache wizard guiding you through various steps
  6. Here, select the Apache version
  7. Then, select your PHP versions
  8. Next, from the Short Options List, select the features you like to include in your Apache
  9. You can enable the modules you like to add and you can also disable the modules which you don’t want
  10. For more configuration options you may click the Exhaustive Options List
  11. Finally, select the Save and Build option

In the Exhaustive Options List, you can select or deselect various other modules. There is also an option called Save Only that only saves your profile and doesn’t starts the building process.

To start building you will need to click Save and Build option as explained above. Once you click this option, do not close your browser window and wait for the process to complete.

This may take some time depending on the options you have selected and the power of your server. If you are using a small server with limited resources then you should not enable many options at once and instead enable a few options first and then repeat the process for enabling more modules.

Upgrading PHP On Your Dedicated Server

Before upgrading PHP on your VPS or Dedicated Server, you need to make sure that all applications and websites are compatible with the version of PHP you are switching to.

Next, take a backup of all your websites and apps, then follow the given steps.

  1. Login to your SANGKRIT.net account
  2. Visit your My Products page
  3. Click the Servers option
  4. Click Manage
  5. Open WHM

The easiest way to upgrade PHP is through EasyApace which you can find in the software section of WHM:

  1. Lookup for EasyApache using the search box on the left section of WHM
  2. Click to open it then click EasyApache (ApacheUpdate) option
  3. This will open the present time Apache Configuration Profile
  4. Click the gear icon for a customized profile option
  5. Apache version screen will appear
  6. Select the Apache version you want
  7. Click on the next step button
  8. A screen will appear where you can select the PHP version
  9. Select the PHP version and click the next step button
  10. Follow the next two steps to save, build, and upgrade

The directories you must know:

Directory for the specific references to the PHP directory or extensions:

/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/php/version-number/

Directory for the specific references to PHP libraries or extensions:

/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/php/version-number/lib

Directory for the specific references to PHP binaries:

/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/php/version-number/bin/

Every version of PHP has its own php.ini file which is found in:

/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/php/version-number/etc

Every time you edit this file, the changes are not transferred to other PHP versions you upgrade to or switch to. Hence, after an upgrade, you also need to change your php.ini file to match it with your newer version of PHP.

Perform Power Cycle When You Lose Access To Server Boot Options

Power Cycle is an option used to immediately disconnect power from your server to power it up again. This is mostly done when you lose access to rebooting options on your server.

Before performing a power cycle you should know that it does not shut down your server applications gracefully and thus could result in data loss.

If you are a Dedicated Server owner, and you want to turn it off and then restart it forcefully, just follow these steps:

  1. Login to your SANGKRIT.net account
  2. Visit your My Products page
  3. Click the Servers option
  4. Click Manage next to the server you want to restart
  5. Select Server Actions > Power Cycle from the upper-right corner of the page
  6. Click the Request Power Cycle option

Now the power cycle begins and this may take some time, a couple of minutes. Next, when it is finally done the cycle is added to the history list of your server.

The VPS owners need to follow a different set of steps:

  1. Login to your SANGKRIT.net account
  2. Visit your My Products page
  3. Click the Servers option
  4. Click Manage next to the server you want to restart
  5. Select Server Actions > Restart Server

That’s it. These options are useful especially when you are not able to boot your server via SSH. These don’t cause any loss to saved content but you may lose any unsaved files or temporary settings on your server after enforcing a power cycle.

Reprovisioning Your Linux VPS or Dedicated Server

In the previous lessons of System Engineering, you have learned how to startup working with VPS or Dedicated Server. Now sometimes it happens with the newbies that they mess up with config on their server and in that case when no return is possible or you don’t know the solution you can just rebuild your server to give yourself a fresh start.

For reverting to a clean setup on your Linux Server, you can rebuild it which is also called reprovisioning. This reprovisioning process is done to return your server to a newly purchased state.

Reprovisioning erases all problematic code and content on your server’s hard drive, including all backups, files, everything and this cannot be undone.

To start, simply login to your SANGKRIT.net account and follow these steps:

  1. Visit your My Products page
  2. Click Servers
  3. Next to your server, click Manage
  4. On the upper-right corner, click Server Actions
  5. Select Rebuild Server

Now, follow the prompts on the rebuild your server screen, and then re-set-up your server by following these steps:

  1. Next to your server, click Manage
  2. Enter a name for your server in the Server name field
  3. Select an OS and data center location (if available) and then click Next
  4. Complete the fields for making a username and password
  5. Click Finish

It takes sometimes and your server is rebuilt, configured, and restarted and then you may log in to your server and do whatever you like doing.

Patching Your Linux Server For Security Vulnerabilities

Once your Linux VPS or Dedicated Server is up and running the websites. You’ll need to keep it protected from security vulnerabilities. To do that, keep patching your server regularly.

Develop a monthly or weekly practice of performing this uncomplicated task and it will save you from a lot of hassle thereafter.

To start, you need to connect to your server via SSH, we have discussed it before, read this tutorial. Once you are connected, switch to root user by running this command:

  • sudo su –

and enter your server password. You now have root access.

Next, run the following command:

  • yum clean all
  • yum update

If you have Ubuntu Linux on your server then replace the above two commands with the following one:

  • apt-get upgrade

That’s it. In the case of Windows Server, you need to connect the server via RDC, follow these steps:

  1. Launch Remote Desktop Connection
  2. Enter your server’s IP address
  3. Enter your user name and password
  4. Select Control Panel from the Start menu
  5. Click Windows Update
  6. Click Check for Updates
  7. Complete the steps to update your server

Managed Hosting, Business Hosting, WordPress, and other assisted service plan customers do not need to patch their own servers. It works either automatically or by the support team.

How AutoSSL Secures All Websites On Your Server At SANGKRIT.net

AutoSSL is a free feature of VPS and Dedicated Servers you subscribe from SANGKRIT.net, it can be used as a free alternative to paid SSL certificates. Configuring AutoSSL, you can automatically secure your websites using a Domain Validated (DV) SSL.

Apart from the users of VPS and Dedicated Servers, the Business Hosting users also get the advantage of AutoSSL. The domain names associated with your VPS or Dedicated Server account automatically get an SSL certificate by AutoSSL unless you have purchased and installed another one. In that case, AutoSSL won’t override the existing certificates but still works for other domains on your server.

After the SSL certificate is installed, the auto-application installer of your server (that allows you to install WordPress and other apps) also lets you choose an HTTPS connection for your website. If you have made or uploaded a website manually then you can manually redirect it to a secure HTTPS connection.

This is done by making a few modifications to your .htaccess file which can be created (if not already present) in the root i.e. public_html directory of the domain you want to secure

If you just created the .htaccess file, use the following code (replacing the example.com with your own domain name) to set up the redirect to the HTTPS version of your website:

RewriteEngine On 
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?example\.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R,L]

At the time you change the primary domain or add another domain to your server, the AutoSSL immediately attempts the installation of an SSL certificate. But for the SSL to install and work successfully, your domain name must point to the server’s IP address.

If you see that the SSL is not working for any domain name or you want to manually activate or deactivate the SSL on some domain, you can do that manually from the SSL/TLS Status page in the cPanel administration area of your server.

Configuring SSL On Linux VPS & Dedicated Servers

To configure an SSL on your server there are mainly three steps: subscribe to it, generate a certificate signing request, and once SSL is approved, install it on your server.

This lesson shows you the step-by-step process of implementing SSL on a Linux-based server.

What is SSL? The SSL certificate establishes encryption over information that is sent to the server. It scrambles data into an undecipherable format that can only be returned to a readable format with a proper decryption key. 

How Does SSL Works? When a client attempts to send confidential information to a Web server, the user’s browser accesses the server’s digital certificate and establishes a secure connection.

SSL authenticates the identity of a website. It contains the following information: 

  1. The certificate holder’s name & public key 
  2. The certificate’s serial number and expiration date 
  3. The digital signature of the certificate-issuing authority

How to install SSL on your VPS or Dedicated Server?

  1. Open SANGKRIT.net account
  2. Visit your Products page
  3. Select SSL Certificates 
  4. Select Manage for the certificate you want to use
  5. Under Download Certificate, select a Server type and then select Download Zip File.

Launch your dedicated server:

  1. Visit your Products page
  2. Click the Servers tab
  3. Next to the account, you want to use, click Launch
  4. From the management interface, next to cPanel Site,
  5. Click Manage Server (WHM) and click Proceed

Upload & Install SSL certificate

  1. Search SSL on the left sidebar menu on WHM cPanel
  2. Click Install an SSL certificate on the domain
  3. Type your domain name in the first field
  4. Click the Browse button
  5. Select and upload your SSL certificate
  6. Click Install button

When you choose the browse and upload option, the empty fields are auto-discovered and filled from the SSL you are uploading. Once SSL is installed you may redirect your HTTP site to an HTTPS connection.

Testing Linux, Apache, MySQL, & PHP On Your VPS Or Dedicated Server

In the previous lesson, you learned about configuring the super admin access to your server.

Next, while launching a new web application project or a simple website you will need to make sure that the server versions of Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP are compatible with the application you like to build or install on your VPS or Dedicated Server.

At SANGKRIT.net, you always get an up-to-date server so you won’t be facing any such compatibility issues here. But, there are commands to check different versions of commonly installed services on your LAMP Server (VPS or Dedicated) running CentOS, Ubuntu, or Fedora.

Simply run these commands to check your versions of Linux, Apache, MySQL & PHP:

Apache: /usr/sbin/httpd -v or httpd -v

Server version: Apache/2.2.29 (Unix) Server built: Oct 9 2020 11:35:25 Cpanel::Easy::Apache v3.26.8 rev9999


Apache on cPanel: /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd -v

Server version: Apache/2.2.29 (Unix) Server built: Oct 9 2020 11:35:25 Cpanel::Easy::Apache v3.26.8 rev9999


Curl: rpm -q curl

curl-7.19.7-40.el6_6.3.x86_64


Bash: bash –version

GNU bash, version 4.1.2(1)-release (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>


Exim: exim -bV

Exim version 4.84 #2 built 9-Oct-2020 15:02:41


Glibc: ls /lib/libc-*

/lib/libc-2.12.so*


Kernel: uname -r

2.6.32-042stab093.5


PHP: php -v

PHP 5.4.33 (cli) (built: Oct 7 2014 11:48:26) Copyright (c) 1997-2014 The PHP Group Zend Engine v2.4.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2014 Zend Technologies


MySQL: mysql -v

Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g. Your MySQL connection id is 213432 Server version: 5.5.40-cll MySQL Community Server (GPL)


CentOS/Fedora: cat /etc/redhat-release

CentOS release 7.6 (Final)

Here, Linux is the operating system you are using on your VPS or Dedicated Server, Apache is the most popular HTTP server used on the public internet, MySQL is the database that contains all text and password information of your website and PHP is the programming language used to code web applications.

These most commonly used services need to work on your server so that you can build websites and web applications on your domains.

Accessing The Recovery Console Of Linux VPS & Dedicated Server

In the previous lesson, you learned about the secure shell i.e. SSH. Next important thing is that if you lose access to your server due to some security issue, you can use the recovery console provided to you to regain access (via SSH) to your Linux VPS or Dedicated Server.

For example, in a case, if you have been accidentally locked out by some new firewall or IP rule then a recovery console is the thing you will need to regain access to your server. But there also you will need to know your server username and password so that you can connect to your server via SSH.

But before that, you should know while working on Linux VPS, some steps to regain access are different from the actual steps of the recovery console on the Dedicated Server.

So, If you are a VPS user simply follow these steps:

  1. Login to your SANGKRIT.net account and visit your Products page
  2. On your My Products page, click Servers, and next to the server you like to use, click Manage button
  3. Now in the top left corner of the Account Dashboard, select Recovery Console
  4. Next press Enter and now you can now log into your server to make changes

Whereas on a Dedicated Server, log in to your SANGKRIT.net account and follow these steps:

  1. Click the Servers option on your My Products page
  2. Click Manage right next to the Server you like to use
  3. On the top-right corner, click Server Actions
  4. Select Recovery Console

It takes a moment for the Recovery Console and then it automatically launches in a new browser tab. You will have to use your SSH login credentials to get into your server to make the required changes.

Now, the next important thing you should know is in case logging in through the Recovery Console does not work for you or it is of no help to you then, you should try booting your server in Rescue Mode. We will discuss the Server Rescue Mode in our next lesson.

Enable Remote Domains To Resolve Addon Domain Error On WHM/cPanel

Remote domain is a WHM option that allows users to create parked domains (aliases) and addon domains to resolve to other servers. By default this setting is turned to off. Hence, sometimes causes a common issue while adding addon domains in cPanel of any WHM of VPS or Dedicated Server.

Continue reading Enable Remote Domains To Resolve Addon Domain Error On WHM/cPanel

How To Find Your VPS Or Dedicated Server’s IP?

All VPS and Dedicated servers on SANGKRIT.net provides you a dedicated IP address which is used for completing various important tasks such as pointing any domain to your server so that you can create a website on it and more.

Continue reading How To Find Your VPS Or Dedicated Server’s IP?