4Admin(tm) Server Control Panel by WEBMASTERS.COM

Documentation

Overview

The 4Admin™ Server Control Panel brings together most high level server management and diagnostic functions into an intuitive and highly efficient web based control panel designed for users with no previous server admin experience. Users can set up hosting accounts in seconds by clicking two buttons and entering data into three fields. Administrative functions for all accounts including website, email, FTP, DNS, and many others are easily accessible from a single screen without having to navigate from page to page. The Virtual Admin feature allows other administrator accounts to be created to allow others admin level access to most functions of the server, including adding, editing, and managing domains, viewing real time data on running programs, disk space and bandwidth usage, as well as uptime reports.

Adding Hosted Domains

A Hosted Domain is when a domain name is set up as a full hosting account with the capability to create and manage web content, database, and email. To add a new hosted domain, click on "Add", enter the domain name, user name, and password, then check the applicable features, and click on "Create Account". Unless the account is being created on behalf of a Virtual Admin, the "Ownership" field should be left blank. Selecting "Unique IP" will automatically configure the next available IP to be used with the website being set up. Leaving "Unique IP" unchecked will set up the account on a shared IP.

Adding Parked Domains

Accounts can be created as a Parked Domain if you would like to temporarily display a coming soon or for sale page, forward it to another URL, or only use it for email. To maximize server resources, we recommend that all secondary domains which do not have their own web content are parked rather than hosted. To add a new parked domain, click on "Add", enter the domain name, check the "Parked" option under "Account Type", enter the password to manage this domain, then check the applicable features, and click on "Create Account". Unless the account is being created on behalf of a Virtual Admin, the "Ownership" field should be left blank. To make a Parked domain Hosted, please delete that domain from the server, and then re-create it, selecting the "Hosted" option.

Editing Accounts / Changing Passwords

To update available features, change the Master, Stats, FTP, FrontPage or MySQL password, or forwarding information on parked domains, select the account to modify, click on "Edit", enter the updated information in the corresponding field(s), and click on "Save Changes". Unless the account is being turned over to a Virtual Admin for management, the "Ownership" field should be left blank. Selecting another IP Address would change the IP for this domain. Checking "Yes" or "No" for Database will enable or disable MySQL for this account.

Deleting Accounts

To delete an account, select the account to delete, and click on "Delete".

Enabling / Disabling Accounts

To enable or disable an account, select an account, and click on "ON/OFF". When an account is disabled, it will not be accessible from the web.

Managing Accounts

To access the master control panel for an account, select the account to manage, and click on "Manage". You can also log into each account's control panel individually at http://17.webmasters.com/4admin/.

Managing IP's

To view, add or delete IP addresses assigned to your server, select "IP Manager" in the Function menu. To add new IP's, enter the IP Address and Subnet Mask, and click on "Add". To delete IP's from your server, select the IP address to delete in the Active IP's menu, and click on "Delete". Please do not add or delete IP's without prior authorization from us, as doing so may cause considerable downtime for your server.

Warning: This utility should only be used when directed by our support personnel!

Managing SMTP Relaying

This utility allows you to authorize trusted IP's for relaying mail through your server. To view, add or delete IP addresses authorized to relay through your server, select "SMTP Relay Manager" in the Function menu. To add new IP's, enter the IP Address, and click on "Add". To delete an IP, select the IP address to delete in the IP's Allowed To Relay menu, and click on "Delete".

Session Control

Session Control enables viewing all active control panel sessions with the ability to log off selected sessions. To view or log off current control panel sessions, select "Session Control" in the Function menu. To log off any selected session, click on the "Log Off" button next to each session.

Setting Server Time

This function allows you to set the server time to be used on email timestamps as well as all back end applications. To view or change the current server time and date, select "Set Time" in the Function menu. To change the current time or date, enter the new date and time in the same format as listed under Current Date/Time, and click on "Save Changes".

Apache Admin Status

This displays real time traffic information for the admin Apache web server. To access this report, select "Apache Admin Server Status" in the Function menu.

Apache Server Status

This displays real time traffic information for the main Apache web server. To access this report, select "Apache Server Status" in the Function menu.

Apache Throttle Report

This displays real time bandwidth usage information for the main Apache web server. To access this report, select "Apache Throttle Report" in the Function menu.

Process List

This displays all processes running on this server in real time. To access this report, select "Process List" in the Function menu.

Resource Usage Report

This report displays the total disk space and bandwidth used by all the domains on your server along with an itemized listing of each domain's usage. To access this report, select "Resource Usage Report" in the Function menu.

Resource Usage Alerts

This lists the accounts whose disk space and bandwidth usage is close to or over their limit. To access this report, select "Resource Usage Alerts" in the Function menu.

Uptime Report

This displays real time server uptime statistics, such as current time, time elapsed since last reboot, load averages for the last minute, 5 and 15 minutes, as well as the status of major services currently running. To access this report, select "Uptime Report" in the Function menu.

DNS Settings

This displays the primary and secondary DNS settings for your server. To access this function, select "DNS Settings" in the Function menu.

Changing Your Password

To change your server login password, select "Change Password" in the Function menu, enter your new password in the New Password field, and click on "Save Changes".

Virtual Admin Functions

The Virtual Admin feature allows other administrator accounts to be created to allow others admin level access to most functions of the server, including adding, editing, and managing domains, viewing running processes, disk space and bandwidth usage, as well as the uptime report. To access this feature, select "Virtual Admin Manager" in the Function menu.

Creating Virtual Admins

To add a new admin user, from the Virtual Admin Manager, click on "Add", enter the user name, password, the maximum number of domains this user will be allowed to manage, the maximum disk space and bandwidth limit allocated, the number of unique IP addresses to be used, and then click on "Create Virtual Admin".

Managing Virtual Admins

To manage a Virtual Admin account, from the Virtual Admin Manager, click on "Edit", enter the updated settings, and click on "Save Changes".

Deleting Virtual Admins

To delete a Virtual Admin account, select the user to delete from the Virtual Admin Manager, and click on "Delete". Please keep in mind that deleting a Virtual Admin will also delete all domains set up under that user. To delete a Virtual Admin without deleting any or all accounts set up under that user, ownership of each domain must first be changed.

Changing Ownership

There are two ways to change ownership. One is by editing each domain individually, and changing the value in the "Ownership" field. If you would like to assign all domains owned by a specific Virtual Admin to another Admin User at once, select the user which will be giving up ownership from the Virtual Admin Manager, and click on "Ownership". Then enter the new owner's Admin User Name in the "New Owner" field, and click on "Change Ownership". Once ownership to a domain is transferred, the losing Virtual Admin will no longer have access to that domain.

Logging In

Virtual Admin users would log in by accessing http://17.webmasters.com/master/ and entering the User name and Password of the Virtual Admin account.

Custom Secondary DNS

Certain country code registries such as .co.za, .co.il, .ru, and others require custom secondary DNS pointers to accept your DNS assignments. To configure custom secondary DNS for any domain, select "Secondary DNS" in the Function menu, enter your domain, and click on "Add". To delete a custom secondary DNS entry, enter the domain to be removed, and click on "Delete". Please do not use this utility unless you received a DNS configuration error from your registry when configuring nameservers for a specific domain.

Server Mirroring

Server Mirroring uses 2 separate servers (both hardware and software) in different data center locations on completely different networks to improve load handling, and ensure 100% server and network uptime. Our Mirroring technique uses conventional DNS to equally load balance 2 or more servers across multiple networks without using any additional software or hardware. After many years of testing, we have found that this method not only works extremely well, but is also much less prone to failure because it does not use additional processing layers. This technique uses 2 servers to act as each other's primary DNS servers with each having different DNS zone files set to retry every 3 minutes, containing its own unique IP's and pointers. With this configuration, if any single server fails, then its DNS server will stop responding, which automatically tells the requesting server to switch to the secondary DNS server. Since the secondary DNS server is really a mirror image of the primary (that is down), the user automatically connects, and has no idea that one of your servers is down. Mirroring will also increase your overall performance because all the servers in the mirrored cluster receive a proportionate share of the load / traffic.

Once at least 2 servers have been set up (there is no limit to how many servers can be mirrored), please do the following for each domain as needed:

1) Set up the domain(s) to be mirrored on each server.

2) Configure the DNS zone file on each server (to access your zone file, click on the "DNS Manager" icon in your control panel) for the domain(s) to be mirrored as follows:

$TTL 300

@ IN SOA nsx.webmasters.com. admin.webmasters.com. (

	952591081 ; serial
	360 ; refresh
	180 ; retry
	604800 ; expire
	180 ) ; minimum

	yourname.com.			IN NS	nsx.webmasters.com.
	nsx.webmasters.com.		IN A	111.11.11.10
	yourname.com.			IN A	111.11.11.11
	www.yourname.com.		IN CNAME	yourname.com.
	mail.yourname.com.		IN A	111.11.11.10

Please be sure to replace yourname.com with the actual domain being set up, the IP 111.11.11.11 and .10 with the correct IP addresses for the server being set up (the correct IP's will be found in the default DNS zone file for that domain), and nsx.webmasters.com with the correct DNS server. The primary difference in the above DNS configuration is that the "refresh" rate is set to 6 minutes (360 seconds), the "retry" and "minimum" interval is 3 minutes (180 seconds). Also, please note that the IP addresses for each server will be different, as each server will point to itself.

3) Upload a copy of your website to each mirrored server.

4) Set up databases (if any) on each mirrored server.

5) Set up the same mailboxes on all mirrored servers.

6) Configure mail reception on your local mail client for every mailbox (POP account) to be used on each mirrored server. Each server must be treated as a separate POP account in your local mail client, even though mail is being received for the same domain. This means that each time you check for new mail, you must check all servers to avoid unread messages.

7) When making updates, all web file uploads and configuration changes must be applied to each server. For database operations, each server should be connecting to its own database (localhost), and when writing to the database, the query must be performed on all servers at virtually the same time to avoid out of sync data.

8) If one of the mirrored servers fails, make sure to sync up its database with the other server(s) upon recovery.

Mirroring can grow as your needs grow, as you can keep adding more servers to ease the traffic load, and increase overall redundancy of each server. There is virtually no limit to how many mirrored servers you can have.