Managed Dedicated Server Quick Start Guide

Congratulations and thank you for purchasing a managed dedicated server from hosting.com! This Quick Start Guide will help you get up and running with your new Managed Dedicated Server.

Using the hosting.com Hosting Panel

After you purchase a managed dedicated server from hosting.com, you receive a welcome e-mail message that provides information about how to access your account on the hosting.com Hosting Panel. Within the Hosting Panel, you can contact our support team, submit a migration requisition, pay your bills, and view your account information. The Hosting Panel enables you to view your account's product information, including:

• The domain name and IP address.

• cPanel and WebHost manager URLs and login information.

• FTP server and login information.

• E-mail server and login information.

• DNS name server information.

• SSH account information.

• If you requested root-level access, your WHM and SSH root login information is also here.

To view this information, log in to the hosting.com Hosting Panel at https://my.hosting.com/.

Your new managed dedicated server account is located in the Products & Services section.

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Warning

For security reasons, we recommend changing all initial passwords. For information about how to create a strong password, please see this article.

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Tip

You can add additional dedicated IP addresses to the two dedicated IP addresses that are included with your account. If you want to purchase an additional dedicated IP address, please see this article.

Managing your account with cPanel and WebHost Manager

You can use cPanel and WebHost Manager (WHM) to manage your account and your customers' accounts.

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Note

If you require multiple cPanel accounts and/or WHM (multi-cPanel account) access, please open a support ticket to enable access.

WebHost Manager

WebHost Manager enables you to run your business exactly as you see fit and offers unique customization to cater to the unique needs of your clients with the ability to create custom packages. With WHM, there are endless possibilities that you can use to deliver the best experience for your clients. WHM gives you control over the packages and features you’d like to sell and enables you to manage your customers' accounts. The Knowledge Base article How to manage WebHost Manager packages walks you through the process of creating packages so you can best serve your clients’ needs.

Once you have your customers set with packages that will best suit what their sites need, you will want to create accounts for your clients. Our How to manage web hosting accounts with WHM article walks you through creating, modifying, and deleting accounts within WHM. Delivering to clients a customized experience is one of the best WHM features. Our WHM branding guide walks you through how to deliver a personalized experience for your clients.

For information about how to log in to WHM, please see this article.

cPanel

cPanel is the primary administration interface for individual accounts. For more information about how to log in to cPanel, please see this article.

Billing interfaces

The WHMCS and Blesta billing interfaces are comprehensive billing, support, and automation solutions that can help you streamline how you run your business from your managed dedicated server plan.

To order, install, and configure a WHMCS license, please consult these articles:

• Ordering a WHMCS license

• Installing WHMCS using Softaculous

To order, install, and configure a Blesta license, please consult these articles:

• Ordering a Blesta license

• Installing Blesta using Softaculous

Migrating sites

If you’re coming from another hosting provider and need to have your accounts transferred to hosting.com, our Migration Team is happy to assist you. Our Migrating an account from another web host article explains how to request a migration.

The majority of our migrations are completed within a few hours of the request being received. We take great pride in providing fast migrations. However, several factors, such as the current host's network speed, the number of sites being migrated, and migration complexity can all influence the migration speed. Our Migrations team will keep you informed of your migration's progress.

Domains and DNS

Domains

Domains are crucial to a site’s success. If you’re just starting, our Introduction to Domains article walks you through all of the basics when it comes to domains. If you would like to do an even deeper dive into the types of domains available, please see this article.

Transferring domains

If you already own a domain that you purchased from a different registrar or hosting company, you can transfer the entire domain to hosting.com. All aspects of the domain, including billing and domain administration, are transferred from the registrar to hosting.com. For information about how to do this, please see this article.

Default nameservers

If you would like to use the default name servers for your account, this article shows you how. This article also covers a wide variety of other topics, such as viewing domain information and setting the registrar lock for a domain.

Custom nameservers

Custom name servers are yet another way that you can customize your experience with hosting.com’s managed dedicated server plan. For example, you can use name servers such as ns1.example.com and ns2.example.com, where example.com represents your domain name.

You must register the custom name servers with the domain’s registrar. After completing these steps, reach out to our Support Team, who will add the new custom name servers to the hosting.com DNS cluster. The process is detailed in this article.

DNS propagation

After you’ve updated your domain settings, DNS propagation usually takes 24 hours to complete. You may not be able to access your site using your domain during this time. However, our article How to access your web site before DNS propagation is complete shows you several methods for being able to access your site while you wait for DNS propagation to be completed.

Setting nameservers

If you already own a domain that you purchased from a different registrar or hosting company, you can change the domain's name server (DNS) settings to point to hosting.com's servers. Unlike a transferred domain, billing and domain administration remain with the domain's current registrar. For information about how to do this, please see this article.

FTP/SFTP

Secure Shell File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) is available on all managed dedicated server hosting accounts. This method is more secure than traditional FTP, as it utilizes SSH protocol to encrypt file transfers. Most FTP clients support SFTP. Our article Using FTP (File Transfer Protocol) covers FTP basics, while our article How to use FTP with Linux hosting accounts demonstrates how to use an FTP client and connect to your account.

SSH

Secure Shell (SSH) is a protocol that provides secure command-line access to your hosting.com account. SSH is a powerful tool that allows you to automate many processes for yourself and your clients. By using SSH, you can remotely log in to your hosting.com account and run commands as if you were sitting right at the server, and allows you to perform tasks that you cannot do with your account's included hosting control panel. Our Using SSH (Secure Shell) to access your account article covers the basics of how to get started with using SSH, and our Accessing your account using SSH keys article covers how you can deploy a variety of automated processes, such as two-factor authentication and allowing multiple users to transfer files securely using SFTP.

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Important

Please note that for added security, we use non-standard SSH port 7822 by default.

E-mail

E-mail is an important part of running a website, and cPanel makes it easy to set up and manage accounts. For more information about how to set up e-mail accounts for your domain, please see our article Configuring and accessing your e-mail. The article Managing e-mail accounts in cPanelshows you how to add, modify, and delete e-mail accounts. Furthermore, our article Accessing webmail through cPanel walks you through accessing webmail directly through cPanel. These articles will help you and your clients get your sites up and running in no time.

Free SSL certificates

Free DV SSL certificates are provisioned automatically through a server-side program called AutoSSL. SSL Certificates renew automatically to ensure continuous coverage. There are a few issues that might prevent AutoSSL from working as intended. This article will help you troubleshoot any problems that arise.

Customizations

The ways to customize your dedicated server are limitless. If you’re wondering whether or not hosting.com supports particular customization for your dedicated server, please see this article.

Need any help?

Do you have any questions about your account? We are here 24/7 to help. You can search the hosting.com Knowledge Base, open a Support ticket at https://my.hosting.com, or chat live with one of our support team members.

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