ISPmanager 5 Lite Documentation

Create a WWW-domain

This is documentation for an outdated product. See the current documentation

A website is a webpage on the Internet that you can access through its URL. Website layout and content are formed by its source files. To make your website available to all users, you need to create it on a server connected to the Internet. To create a website in ISPmanager go to Domains WWW-domains Add .

Note
Before you create a WWW-domain, you need to install the web-server. Learn more under Set up a web-server.To modify the web-server settings for the WWW-domain go to Domains WWW-domains Config. ISPmanager checks only the syntax of the data that were specified manually in the configuration files.When you add a WWW-domain, the system automatically creates a domain name. Learn more in Domain names.
Note
For stable operation of the control panel, we do not recommend creating more than 50-100 domains in ISPmanager Lite.

Main settings

  1. Enter a WWW-domain Name.
    Details
  2. Aliases — enter the name of the alias(es) that you want to add for this WWW-domain. By default, after you enter a WWW-domain name the alias "www." is set automatically. The A-record is created for the alias. Learn more under Resource records.
    Details
  3. Enter a Root directory of the website. It contains the website files on the server. 
    Details
  4. Select a content management system (CMS) in the Select a script field.  A CMS is used to add different content to a website (articles, photos, pages, etc.). If you don't have a CMS you will need to edit the website source file manually in order to add or edit the content.  ISPmanager supports CMS Drupal, Prestashop, WordPress, joomla, phpBB.
  5. Select a WWW-domain Owner. This is an ISPmanager user.
    Details
  6. Select an IP-address source:
    1. allocate automatically — the control panel selects an IP address from the pool in Settings → IP addresses.
    2. enter manually — you can select an IP address in the  IP address field from the list of IPs in SettingsIP addresses.
      Details
  7. Enter the Administrator email that will be displayed on the web-server and WWWd-domain error pages.
    Details
  8. Select Encoding. It defines a set of characters to represent the content of your website:
    1. Do not select— use the default value for the database;
    2. utf-8 — contains any Unicode characters including Latin and Cyrillic ones. We recommend that you use this universal encoding; 
    Details
    Note
    To modify a list of encodings create the /usr/local/mgr5/etc/charset file and enter the required values.
  9. Enter the Index page of the website. This page will open if a user tries to open a website buy its domain name but doesn't specify a certain page. E.g. trying to open www.example.com or www.example.com/test instead of www.example.com/index.php. You can enter several pages separated by spaces in descending order of priority. If the first page doesn't exist, the second one will open, etc. 
    Details
  10. Check the SSI box to execute SSI commands before a page will be shown to users. SSI is a programming language which allows adding the dynamically generated content to a page.
    Details
  11. Select the Default domain check box. If several websites are associated with a single IP address and a user tries to open the website by its IP, the website marked as a "default domain" will be opened. If this option is not selected for any website, the first domain in the alphabetic order will be opened. 
    Details
    Note
    Enabling the Default domain name will check that the IP address specified for the domain is assigned to the existing default domain. If the domain exists, it won't be a default one any longer.
  12. Select the Auto-subdomain creation method. This function allows creating subdomains automatically without modifying their configuration. Subdomains are added automatically when the subdirectory is created in the website root directory: 
    1. disabled — do not create subdomains;
    2. separate directory — subdomain files will be created in the subdirectories /var/www/www-root/data/ with the name of the subdomain. E.g. for the subdomain www.test.example.com which root directory is located in /var/www/www-root/data/example.com, the subdomain files must be created in  /var/www/www-root/data/test.example.com.
      Details
    3. domain subdirectory — subdomain files will be created in subdirectories of the website root directory. E.g. for the subdomain www.test.example.com which root directory is located in/var/www/www-root/data/example.com, the subdomain files must be created in /var/www/www-root/data/example.com/test
      Details
      Note
      Selecting "separate directory" or "domain subdirectory" adds "*." into the  Aliases field.
    Note
    You can select Auto-subdomains provided that the Default option is disabled for the domain.

Secure connection 

Select the checkbox Secure connection (SSL) if you want to use the secure connection through the SSL protocol. You will need to install an SSL certificate on the website. 

Details

Secure connection parameters:

  1. Select the HSTS option to enable encrypted connection and ensure better security. When HSTS is enabled for a website, browsers automatically change insecure requests to secure ones provided that the browser was connected to the website over a secure connection before. The server returns the response "301 Moved Permanently";
    Details
  2. Check the Redirect HTTP-requests to HTTPS box to change insecure requests to secure ones. The server returns the response "301 Moved Permanently.
    Details
  3. Change the SSL port if needed. It is used to open a secure connection. The default value is "443". 
    Details
  4. Select an SSL certificate that encrypts information transmitted between a user browser and a website.
    1. New self-signed — a free self-signed SSL certificate that is not trusted by browsers. When you open a website with a self-signed certificate, the browser will display a security alert. 
    2. New Let's Encrypt — a free trusted SSL certificate. 
    For more information please refer to the article  SSL certificates.
Note
When editing a domain, you can only select the SSL certificate that the domain owner has access to.

DDoS-protection 

You can set up a DDoS-protection tool that allows blocking IP addresses that send too many requests.  This feature is available only on Nginx. For more information please refer to the article  Install a web-server. 

To enable the DDoS protection tool, open the WWW-domain edit form and select the Enable DDoS protection checkbox. 

  1. Requests per second — if the limit is exceeded,  requests from the IP address will be delayed for 5 minutes; 
  2. Maximum peak attack size — if the limit is exceeded, new requests will be blocked. 
Details

Support of dynamic content

PHP-scripts

To enable support of PHP scripts for the website, activate the PHP option:

  1. PHP — select a PHP mode:
    • PHP as an Apache module — the apache mod_php module is used for PHP. One of its advantages is a higher speed capability.
    • PHP as CGI — PHP is run as a CGI script (Common Gateway Interface). It starts with each request and terminates after the script is executed.
    • PHP as FastCGI — Apache mod_fastcgi is used for PHP. 
    • FastCGI (Nginx + PHP-FPM) — dynamic content is managed by PHP-FPM.
  2. Select a PHP (CGI) version for "CGI" and "FastCGI (Apache)". 
  3. Disable the Use open_basedir option for "Apache module" if you want to allow PHP-scripts access all the server directories. With this option enables access to the WWW-domain root directory will be restricted. .

For more information please refer to the article  PHP modes .

CGI-scripts

To enable CGI-scripts for the website select the  CGI-scripts checkbox and select File extensions for the CGI-scripts.

Note
This option is available only for Apache. Learn more under Install a web-server .
Details

Logs

  1. Enable the option Access log to collect web-server statistics.
  2. Enable the log analyzer for the WWW-domain:
    1. Select an Analyzer.
      Note
      This feature is available provided that Apache and the modules Awstats or Webalizer are installed. Learn more under Install a web-server
    2. Select a statistics Period
    3. Select a Report language.
    4. Enable the Restrict access to statistics option. Enter a Password and Confirm it. The login is the name of the WWW-domain owner.  
  3. Error log — specify whether you want to store WWW-server error logs archives and rotate it.
  4. Select a Rotation period.
  5. Store archives —  enter the number of log file archives to be stored on the server. 


Details
Note
Disk space occupied by the archives is included into the user quota. Learn more under Disk quotas .

To view the log go to Web-server settings → WWW-logs.

To view the reports go to Domains → WWW-domains → Statistics. Statistics for a WWW-domains is kept in /var/www//data/www//webstat.

Learn more under  Website statistics .

Optimization 

Website optimization allows improving your website performance. This option is available only for Nginx. 

  1. Enable the Compression check box to compress static content, i.e. the files that are not modified very often: images, sounds, music, video, etc. Normally, such files occupy much space and slow down your website. Enter the Compression level. The maximum value is 9. The minimum — 1. We recommend that you set 5.
    Details
  2. Select the Caching check box to enable website content caching and specify how long the data will stay in cache. If you have caching turned on, slow operations that run when a user opens the website will be saved for a specified period. It allows performing fewer operations and showing the prepared data to users. However, if the cached content has been changed, it will be invisible to your users until the caching period expires.
    Details