What is the .htaccess File?

The .htaccess file is a configuration file used primarily by Apache web servers to control various aspects of website behavior on a per-directory basis. It allows you to override server-wide settings and apply specific configurations to individual directories without directly modifying the main server configuration file.

The .htaccess file is a remarkably powerful tool in managing various backend website tasks efficiently. One of the more common tasks is implementing redirects, where you can execute redirects at the level of individual URLs, across entire domains, and even on the HTTP protocol level.

In this tutorial, we'll go over the myriad options .htaccess offers for redirection, walking you through the various implementations so you can effectively redirect your URLs with confidence.

Enabling the .htaccess File

Enabling the .htaccess file tells Apache web servers to recognize and accept directives written within it, which will set you up to override default server configurations at the directory level.

If you have a shared hosting account, your hosting service provider should already have it enabled, so all you have to do is create a file.

Step 1: Open Virtual Host File

Using your preferred text editor (we'll use nano for this example), open your website's configuration file with the following command:

For Red Hat-based systems (CentOS, Fedora, RHEL):

sudo nano /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

For Debian-based systems (Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint):

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/domain_name.conf

The VirtualHost file block will look something like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@example.com
    ServerName domain_name
    ServerAlias www.domain_name
    DocumentRoot /var/www/domain_name/public_html
    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Note: Depending on how your website files are organized, the 'DocumentRoot' may differ. There are two common setups:

• '/var/www/domain_name/public_html' (above) indicates that your website files are in a subdirectory called 'public_html' within the 'domain_name' directory, a structure commonly used to separate public-facing files from other site-related files. Enabling the .htaccess file in this directory will only affect the files within 'public_html'.
• Example:

/var/www/domain_name/
├── public_html/
│   ├── index.html
│   ├── about.html
│   └── .htaccess
└── logs/

• '/var/www/domain_name' indicates that all your website files are located directly in the 'domain_name' directory. This setup means that all .htaccess file directives will apply to every file (public-facing or not) within this directory.
• Example:

/var/www/domain_name/
├── index.html
├── about.html
└── .htaccess

While both are valid, it's important to be aware of what site files you may or may not want to be affected by the .htaccess file.

Step 2: Add 'AllowOverride All' directive

Within the VirtualHost block add the following directory content block:

<VirtualHost *:80>  

<Directory /var/www/domain_name/public_html>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
</Directory>

</VirtualHost>

This directive, specifically 'AllowOverride All' is what allows you to apply .htaccess directives across all the website files within the given directory.

Step 3: Save File

After adding the directory block, save and close the file. In nano, this can be done by pressing CTRL +  X, then Y and pressing ENTER.

Step 4: Restart Apache

For the full enablement of the .htaccess file, you'll need to restart Apache:

For Red Hat-based systems (CentOS, Fedora, RHEL):

sudo systemct1 restart httpd

For Debian-based systems (Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint):

sudo systemct1 restart apache2

That's it! Apache will now allow you to use .htaccess files within the given directory.

Creating an .htaccess File

With support for .htaccess enabled, we can now create the .htaccess file.

To create the .htaccess file, you need to go to the root directory where you enabled the .htaccess file. Using your preferred text editor (again, we'll use nano) input the following command, replacing 'domain_name' with your domain name.

Note: Remove 'public_html' if you did not enable the .htaccess file in that subdirectory.

sudo nano /var/www/html/domain_name/public_html/.htaccess

You've now created an .htaccess file and can start laying out redirect directives.

Redirecting a Single URL Using 'Redirect' Directive

The 'Redirect' directive is the most straightforward option for simple 1-to-1 redirects. This directive can be used to redirect URLs on the same domain or to a different domain.  The following directives will work for any 3xx status codes (301, 302, 307, and 308)

If you want to redirect one URL to another URL on the same domain:

Redirect 301 "/original_url_path" "/new_url_path"

If you want to redirect a URL to one on different domain:

Redirect 301 "/orignal_url_path" "https://new_domain.com/new_url_path"

Bulk URL Redirect Using 'RewriteRule' Directive

The 'RewriteRule' directive allows you to add additional rules to redirects, such as pattern matching, through the use of regular expressions and conditions.

Check if 'mod_rewrite' is enabled

In order to use the 'RewriteRule', we need to ensure the 'mod_rewrite' module is enabled.

For Red Hat-based systems (CentOS, Fedora, RHEL):

httpd -M | grep rewrite

For Debian-based systems (Ubunutu, Debian, Linux Mint):

apache2ctl -M | grep rewrite

If you see the following output, the 'mod_rewrite' module is enabled

rewrite_module (shared)

How to Enable 'mod_rewrite'

For Red Hat-based systems (CentOS, Fedora, RHEL):

Step 1: Open Apache configuration file (usually 'httpd.conf' or 'apache2.conf')

sudo nano /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Step 2: Ensure the following line is not commented out (no # at the beginning). If it is, simply delete '#'

LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

Step 3: Restart Apache to apply changes

sudo systemctl restart httpd

For Debian-based systems (Ubunutu, Debian, Linux Mint):

Step 1: Enable 'mod_rewrite' module

sudo a2enmod rewrite

Step 2: Restart Apache to apply changes

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Redirecting URLs based on a Common Pattern

If you have a common pattern in your old URLs, such as the same subdirectory (ex. /blog)  you can use regular expressions to match and redirect them:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^old-section/(.*)$ http://www.example.com/new-section/$1 [R=301,L]

In this example, any URL that starts with 'old-section/' will be redirected to 'new-section/' with the same suffix.

Redirecting an Entire Domain to a New Domain

The following directive will redirect all traffic from 'old-domain.com' to 'new-domain.com,' preserving the URI path.

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^old-domain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.new-domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Force HTTPS with 'RewriteRule' Directive

When you "forces HTTPS," it means that you're redirecting any incoming HTTP requests of your site to the secured HTTPS version.

There are a couple of ways to force HTTPS using the 'RewriteRule' directive:

Force HTTPS on All Traffic

When you force HTTPS on "all traffic," you are telling the server to redirect every incoming HTTP request to HTTPS, regardless of the domain or subdomain.

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

This method of forced HTTPS is ideal for servers hosting a single domain.

Force HTTPS on Specific Domain

When you force HTTPS on a specific domain, you are telling the server to redirect HTTP requests to HTTPS only for that particular domain (or subdomain).

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?specific-domain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

Forcing HTTPS with this method is particularly useful when hosting several domains on a single server and you only need to secure a select number.

Adding and Removing 'www' Prefix

You can also use the .htaccess file in conjunction with the 'RewriteRule' directive to redirect 'www' prefix.

To Add 'www' Prefix:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [L,R=301]

To Remove 'www' Prefix:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://example.com/$1 [L,R=301]

LiteSpeed Web Server is a high-performance web server software that offers an alternative to the Apache web server. It is designed to handle a high volume of traffic with minimal use of server resources. LiteSpeed provides a number of benefits to website owners, including faster website loading times, better security, and improved scalability.

One of the main benefits of LiteSpeed is its speed. LiteSpeed is capable of processing up to ten times more requests per second than Apache, which makes it an ideal choice for websites with high traffic volume. This improved performance is achieved through a number of optimization techniques, such as efficient memory usage and caching. As a result, website visitors experience faster page load times, which can help to improve user engagement and satisfaction.

Another benefit of LiteSpeed is its improved security features. LiteSpeed includes a range of built-in security features that help to protect websites from common threats, such as DDoS attacks, SQL injection, and cross-site scripting (XSS). Additionally, LiteSpeed is compatible with a number of popular security plugins, such as ModSecurity, which can further enhance the security of a website.

Finally, LiteSpeed is highly scalable, which means it can handle sudden spikes in traffic without any impact on website performance. This is achieved through LiteSpeed's ability to process multiple requests simultaneously, which helps to distribute the load evenly across the server. This makes LiteSpeed an ideal choice for websites that anticipate sudden traffic surges, such as e-commerce sites or news websites.

Using Litespeed at Hostwinds

Business Hosting Services

Hostwinds offers a cost-effective solution for individuals and businesses by using Litespeed Enterprise Edition (LSWS) as the web server for its business web hosting. While customers cannot modify the Litespeed configuration on business hosting plans, Hostwinds' plans come with a variety of features and resources that can meet your needs without requiring customization. You can find more information on these features and resources by checking out the Business Hosting Overview, which provides a detailed breakdown of what you can expect from Hostwinds' business hosting plans.

However, if you have specific customization needs or require more advanced features, Hostwinds also offers VPS hosting plans that give you more control over your server configuration. With VPS plans, you can install custom software, configure server settings, and even choose your own operating system.

Overall, Hostwinds' business hosting plans provide a cost-effective solution for businesses that need reliable and high-performance web hosting, without the need for advanced customization. And if you do require more advanced features or customization options, Hostwinds' VPS plans offer flexibility and control at an affordable price.

VPS and Dedicated Servers

If you have a VPS or dedicated server with sufficient resources, you can install any web server, including Litespeed. If you have a cPanel/WHM license, you will also have the option to install Litespeed. Hostwinds provides guidance on the installation process through its Tiers of Support, which can be useful for customers who require assistance.

It's worth noting that enterprise-level Litespeed may require further licensing for its use. However, customers can still install the free version, OpenLitespeed, which is a great alternative. OpenLitespeed provides many of the same benefits as the enterprise version and is a popular choice for customers who require a high-performance web server but prefer a cost-effective solution.

Overall, Hostwinds provides its customers with flexibility and control over their web server configuration, allowing them to choose the web server that best suits their needs. Whether you require enterprise-level Litespeed or prefer a free version, Hostwinds' Tiers of Support can assist you with the installation process.

Related Resources

• How to Install OpenLitespeed Web Server
• What is a Web Server?

Apache 2 is a widely used, open-source web server software. It was developed by the Apache Software Foundation and is designed to run on a variety of operating systems such as Windows, Linux, and macOS. Apache 2 is used to serve web pages and other content across the internet. Its primary function is to receive incoming requests from clients and deliver the appropriate response.

Apache 2 has many features that make it a popular choice for web server software. One of its key strengths is its flexibility, which allows it to be customized to suit a wide range of needs. Apache 2 is highly configurable, with many modules that can be added to extend its functionality. Additionally, it is highly scalable, meaning it can handle large volumes of traffic and requests.

Apache 2 also provides many security features that make it a secure choice for web server software. It has a robust authentication system that can be used to restrict access to certain pages or directories. It can also be configured to use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption to secure the communication between the server and the client. Overall, Apache 2 is a reliable and secure web server software that has been trusted by millions of users worldwide for over two decades.

Using Apache 2 at Hostwinds

Shared Hosting Services

Hostwinds uses Apache 2 as the web server for its shared web hosting services. However, it's important to note that customers cannot modify the Apache 2 configuration on these plans. This means that if you have specific customization needs, you may want to consider other hosting options like VPS plans. Hostwinds shared hosting plans come with a variety of features and resources that may suit your needs, which can be found in the Shared Hosting Overview.

VPS and Dedicated Services

At Hostwinds, customers who have VPS or dedicated servers can easily install and operate Apache 2 according to the resources available in their selected plan. Those who have a cPanel/WHM license will have the option to install Apache 2 as well. If customers require assistance with the installation, they can refer to Hostwinds' Tiers of Support for guidance. By requesting Apache 2 installation from Hostwinds' technical experts, customers can be assured that they will receive the necessary support to use Apache 2 optimally and efficiently.

Related Resources

• Creating An Apache Web Server On Your Linux VPS
• Apache Configuration in WHM
• What is a Web Server?

The Hostwinds Affiliate Program allows eligible Hostwinds clients to refer customers to Hostwinds using a unique referral link. This overview explains how to use the affiliate area in the Hostwinds client area, what the available fields mean, and how to review referral and commission activity.

For instructions on joining the program, see Getting Started as an Affiliate with Hostwinds.

Accessing the Affiliate Area

After your affiliate account is activated, you can access your affiliate area from within the Hostwinds client area.

Your affiliate area is connected to your Hostwinds client account. You do not need a separate affiliate portal login.

The affiliate area displays your referral link, referral statistics, commission balances, withdrawal option, and referral history.

Your Unique Referral Link

The Your Unique Referral Link field displays the referral link assigned to your affiliate account.

This is the link you can share with your audience when referring customers to Hostwinds. When someone visits Hostwinds through your referral link, the visit may be tracked for affiliate attribution.

Your referral link may look similar to the following format:

https://clients.hostwinds.com/aff.php?aff=XXXXXX

Your actual affiliate ID will be unique to your account.

How to Use Your Referral Link

Copy your unique referral link from the affiliate area and place it wherever you plan to promote Hostwinds, as long as the promotion follows the Hostwinds Affiliate Program Agreement.

Common ways to use your referral link include:

• Adding it to a website or blog article
• Including it in a hosting guide or tutorial
• Sharing it through approved social media content
• Adding it to an email newsletter
• Sending it to someone who asked for a Hostwinds recommendation

When someone clicks your link, WHMCS uses affiliate tracking to associate that visit with your affiliate account when possible. If the visitor completes an eligible purchase and the referral meets the Program requirements, the referral may earn a commission in accordance with the Hostwinds Affiliate Program Agreement.

Tracking does not guarantee commission. Commission eligibility depends on the referred purchase, payment status, service eligibility, account standing, and the current Affiliate Program Agreement.

Affiliate Statistics

The affiliate area includes real-time statistics to help you review referral activity.

Clicks

• The Clicks field shows how many visits have been recorded through your affiliate link.

• A click means someone used your referral link to visit Hostwinds. A click by itself does not mean that a customer signed up, purchased a service, or generated commission.

Signups

• The Signups field shows the number of signups associated with your affiliate link.

• A signup is different from an approved commission. A referred account may still need to place an eligible order, complete payment, remain in good standing, and meet the Program requirements before commission becomes available.

Conversions

• The Conversions field shows the percentage of tracked affiliate activity that resulted in signups or qualifying activity as reflected in the affiliate area.

• This field can help you understand how your referral link is performing. For example, if you have clicks but no signups, visitors may be reaching Hostwinds but not creating an account or completing an order.

Commission Balance Fields

The affiliate area includes commission balance fields that summarize your current affiliate earnings.

Commissions Pending Maturation

• Commissions Pending Maturation shows commission amounts that have been tracked but are not yet available for withdrawal.

• These commissions may still be subject to review, payment confirmation, holding periods, service eligibility requirements, fraud review, refund or chargeback checks, or other Program requirements.

Available Commissions Balance

• Available Commissions Balance shows the commission funds currently available in your affiliate account.

• Once your available balance reaches the minimum withdrawal amount, you can request a withdrawal from the affiliate area.

Total Amount Withdrawn

• Total Amount Withdrawn shows the total amount that has already been withdrawn from your affiliate account.

• This field is useful for reviewing the amount previously paid out through the affiliate program.

Requesting a Withdrawal

The affiliate area includes a Request Withdrawal button.

You can request a withdrawal once your available commission balance reaches the minimum required amount shown in the affiliate area and described in the Affiliate Program rules.

If your available balance has not reached the required minimum, the affiliate area will display a message indicating when withdrawal requests become available.

To request a withdrawal:

1. Log in to the Hostwinds client area.
2. Open your affiliate area.
3. Review your available commission balance.
4. Select Request Withdrawal when your balance reaches the required minimum.
5. Follow the prompts provided in the client area.

Withdrawal requests are reviewed before payment is issued. Hostwinds may require additional payout, tax, identity, or account information before processing a withdrawal.

Your Referrals Table

The Your Referrals table shows referral records associated with your affiliate account.

If no referrals have been recorded yet, this section will display "No Records Found".

When referral records are available, the table may include the following columns.

Signup Date

• The Signup Date column shows when the referral was signed up.

Product/Service

• The Product/Service column shows the Hostwinds product or service associated with the referral, when available.

Amount

• The Amount column shows the payment amount associated with the referral, when available.

Commission

• The Commission column shows the commission amount associated with the referral, when available.

Status

• The Status column shows the current state of the referral or commission.

• A referral may be pending, under review, unavailable for withdrawal, approved, paid, declined, or otherwise updated, depending on its current status and the Program requirements.

Searching Referral Records

The referral table may include a search box, sorting options, pagination, and a records-per-page selector.

You can use these tools to review referral activity once your account has recorded referrals.

The search box can help locate a specific referral.

The records-per-page option controls how many referral records are displayed at one time.

The pagination controls allow you to move between pages of referral records.

Understanding Referral Tracking

Affiliate tracking depends on the visitor using your unique referral link. If a visitor does not use your link, clears cookies, uses a different browser or device, blocks cookies, or signs up in a way that cannot be connected to your referral link, the referral may not be tracked to your affiliate account.

To help ensure referrals are tracked correctly:

• Use your exact referral link from the affiliate area.
• Do not change or remove the aff value from the link.
• Direct visitors to use your link before signing up.
• Avoid using misleading redirects, forced clicks, or hidden tracking methods.
• Make sure your promotional method follows the Hostwinds Affiliate Program Agreement.

Promoting Hostwinds

Affiliates are responsible for how they promote Hostwinds.

Your promotional content should be accurate, professional, and not misleading. You should not make unsupported claims about Hostwinds pricing, discounts, service performance, uptime, support, guarantees, security, eligibility, or commission approval.

Examples of acceptable promotional content may include:

• Hosting reviews
• Website setup guides
• VPS tutorials
• Dedicated server articles
• Business hosting recommendations
• Social media posts about Hostwinds services
• Email newsletters to an audience interested in hosting services

All promotional activity must follow the current Hostwinds Affiliate Program Agreement.

Program Rules and Eligibility

This overview explains the affiliate area, but it does not replace the Hostwinds Affiliate Program Agreement.

The Affiliate Program Agreement governs eligibility, commission and payout requirements, prohibited activities, and all other Program rules.

For details about commission rates, eligible services, tracking cookies, holding periods, payout requirements, tax ID questions, and related topics, review the Hostwinds Affiliate FAQ and the Affiliate Program Agreement.

Need Help?

For affiliate-related questions, contact: affiliates@hostwinds.com

Related Resources

• Affiliate FAQ
• Getting Started as an Affiliate with Hostwinds
• Affiliate Terms of Service

Hostwinds offers an Affiliate Program for individuals and businesses that want to refer customers to eligible Hostwinds services. After joining the program, affiliates receive a unique referral link that can be shared on approved websites, in content, on social media, or through other promotional channels.

This guide explains how to register for the Hostwinds Affiliate Program and activate your affiliate account from the Hostwinds client area.

Before You Begin

To become a Hostwinds affiliate, you will need a Hostwinds client account.

If you already have a Hostwinds account, you can use your existing login to access the client area and activate your affiliate account.

If you do not have a Hostwinds account, you can create one during the affiliate registration process.

Before promoting Hostwinds, review the following resources:

• Hostwinds Affiliate Program Agreement
• Hostwinds Affiliate FAQ
• Hostwinds Affiliate Overview

Step 1: Visit the Hostwinds Affiliate Program Page

To begin, go to the Hostwinds Affiliate Program page:

• https://www.hostwinds.com/affiliate-program

Select Register Now to start the affiliate registration process.

Step 2: Sign In or Create a Hostwinds Account

After selecting Register Now, you will be directed to the Hostwinds client registration page.

Existing Hostwinds users can sign in with their current account credentials. New users can complete the registration form to create a Hostwinds client account without ordering a service.

Once registered, sign in to the client area and continue activating your affiliate account.

Step 3: Activate Your Affiliate Account

Once you are signed in to the Hostwinds client area, go to your account profile.

From there, select Activate Affiliate Account.

After activation, your affiliate account will be created and connected to your Hostwinds client profile.

Step 4: Access Your Affiliate Area

After activating your affiliate account, you will be able to access your affiliate area from the Hostwinds client area.

Your affiliate area includes your unique referral link and affiliate statistics, such as clicks, signups, conversions, referral activity, commission information, and, when available, withdrawal options.

For a detailed walkthrough of the affiliate area, referral tracking, commission fields, and withdrawal options, see the Hostwinds Affiliate Overview.

Next Steps

Once your affiliate account is active, you can copy your referral link and begin sharing it through approved promotional channels.

Make sure your promotions follow the Hostwinds Affiliate Program Agreement. The Affiliate FAQ provides additional answers about commissions, referrals, payouts, and account management.

For affiliate-related questions, contact: affiliates@hostwinds.com

Related Resources

• Affiliate FAQ
• Hostwinds Affiliate Overview
• Affiliate Terms of Service

1. From a Windows command prompt, connect to your remote Ubuntu computer as root (i.e., the administrator) using the SSH command:

ssh root@your-ip-number

Replace your-ip-number with the IP number of your remote Ubuntu computer. For example:

2. Update Ubuntu and reboot:

apt update
apt upgrade
reboot

3. SSH back into the remote Ubuntu computer:

ssh root@your-ip-number

4. If necessary, install an Ubuntu desktop environment. For example, the following installs GNOME:

apt install ubuntu-desktop

This could take several minutes.

5. Install XRDP (an open-source Remote Desktop Protocol server) and reboot a second time:

apt install xrdp
adduser xrdp ssl-cert
apt install xorgxrdp
reboot

6. Wait a minute or two, then access your remote Ubuntu computer using Windows Remote Desktop Connection. For example:

Wait about 60 seconds or so and you should see an Ubuntu desktop, GNOME in this case:

Note that one of the command we'll use is locate, which does not natively come with Ubuntu. The locate command is often faster than find because it maintains a database of all files which is updated every 24 hours. The locate command can be installed as follows:

sudo apt install mlocate

Because everything in Unix-like operating systems, including Ubuntu, is considered a file, the term "file" will also indicate "directory" unless otherwise called out. Additionally, the desktop environment examples are based on GNOME. To learn how to access your remote Ubuntu computer using GNOME, see Using Windows Remote Desktop with Ubuntu 20.04 TLS.

With that, let's get started.

Listing files

To list all files from the current directory down, the following commands may be used:

find

The unadorned find command recursively list all files from the current directory:

find

locate

The locate command is similar to find but requires a pattern (the wildcard character in this case):

locate *

The speed of locate comes at a price, however. Recently modified files may not be reflected in the database. To resolve this issue, you can update the database with sudo updatedb (which might take some time) or use the -e option that only lists files existing at the time the locate command is run (essentially equivalent to find):

locate -e *

ls

Using the recursive -R option allows the standard ls command to produce similar results:

ls -Rlha

GNOME

You can produce analogous results using the GNOME desktop environment:

Searching by name

In the following examples, we'll search for all files with the .old extension.

find

Because we're searching for all files, we use the sudo command to avoid permission errors and start the search from the root directory (/):

sudo find / -iname *.old

Note that the -iname option ignore case whereas -name does not.

locate

In the following, the -i option ignores case:

sudo locate -i *.old

Interestingly, even with the -e option, the locate command does not find the /run/blkid/blkid/tab.old file (whereas find does).

GNOME

Without the wildcard character (*), the GNOME desktop Files application provides essentially the same information as the find command:

Searching by size

Let's say we would like to find all files larger than 50 MiB. For this task, we can add the du command to our list of likely suspects:

du

The du command was designed specifically for this task:

sudo du / -ha --threshold=50M

The -h option provides standard (human) file sizes and the -a option includes files as well as directories:

To suppress (the four) error messages, you can use the 2>&- argument. You can can also sort by file size:

sudo du / -ha --threshold=50M 2>&- | sort -h

The last row shows that the disk contains 2.8 GiB of data in total.

find

The following finds all files (excluding directories) larger than 50 MiB:

sudo find / -size +50M

To view the size of each file in bytes, you can use the -ls option (and 2>&- to remove the error messages):

sudo find / -size +50M -ls 2>&-

The 7th column provides the size of each file, in bytes. To view just the file path, type, and size, you can use the -printf option, as shown:

sudo find / -size +50M -printf "%p %y %s bytes\n" 2>&- | column -t

The %p returns the filename, %y the file type, %s the size in bytes, and \n generates a newline character (for details, execute man find).

The column -t command creates columns based on whitespace characters. Note that 140737477885952 bytes is just under 128 PiB, which is clearly incorrect. A more accurate rendition follows:

sudo find / -size +50M -printf "%p %y %k KiB\n" 2>&- | column -t

In the above, %k provides the file size in KiB (as opposed to %s bytes).

locate

Because the locate command's database does not contain file size information, you can't list files larger than 50 MiB solely with locate.

GNOME

GNOME's desktop Files application provides typical GUI results:

As can be seen above, sorting by the Size column isn't entirely helpful with respect to finding all files larger than 50 MiB. The du or find commands are more appropriate for such a task.

Finding empty files

A number of the commands mentioned above have options specifically for finding empty files. We'll examine these next.

find

For the find command, this task is straightforward:

sudo find /tmp -empty -type f,d

This command finds all empty files and directories (i.e., -type f,d) within the /tmp folder, as shown:

But which is which? As above, we can use -printf and column as follows:

sudo find /tmp -empty -type f,d -printf "%p %y %s bytes\n" | column -t

Note that each empty directory requires 4096 bytes (4 KiB) to exist in the Ubuntu file system. Here's an example of a single empty directory and a single empty file:

locate

Again, because the locate database does not contain file size information, there's no way to directly find empty files/directories using just the locate command.

GNOME

GNOME's desktop Files application provides relatively non-helpful results:

One would have to do a lot of clicking to identify all of the empty files using GNOME desktop environment.

Performing actions on file matches

Now that we know how to find files, we may wish to perform actions on them; such as deleting all *.old files.

find

The find command's -exec option executes the provided command once for each matched file. For example:

sudo find / -iname "*.old" -exec echo {} \;

In a nutshell, this executes the echo command on each .old file found. Here, the {} syntax represents each matching file. Thus, if vmlinux.old is a matching file, then the command echo vmlinux.old is executed. The semicolon is used to indicate the end of the command string following the -exec option. Because the semicolon has special meaning, it must be escaped with the backslash characters (\), as follows:

To delete all *.old files from the /home/karlito directory (or ~ directory), you can run the following command:

sudo find . -iname "*.old" -exec rm -f {} \;

We can see that all files in the ~ directory have been removed:

locate

The locate command does not have an -exec option. However, we can emulated this functionality using the xargs command:

sudo locate -i "*.old" | xargs -0 echo

The -0 option allows xargs to correctly handle atypical filename characters.

To remove all *.old files from the /home/karlito directory, you can run:

sudo locate -i "/home/karlito/*.old" | xargs rm

Similarly, to remove all .old files listed in the locate command's database (generally all *.old files on disk), you can run:

sudo locate -i "*.old" | xargs rm

GNOME

To perform the same action using the Files application, first search for all files with a .old extension:

Next, select all matching files by pressing Ctrl + A. Then, press the Delete key and select the Delete button:

We can confirm the deletion at command prompt as follows:

Because the xargs command is fast, flexible, and can be used with many other commands, it generally makes sense to use it for most scenarios. For example, the following copies all files containing "backup" into a directory called "backups" in user's home folder:

sudo find / -type f -iname "*backup*" -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} sh -c 'stat -c "%n %s bytes" {}; cp {} ~/backups'

A detailed explanation of each command and option follows:

• sudo Allows the find command to search without encountering permission denied errors.
  
• find A command that searches for files (execute man find for details).
  
• / Starts the search from the root directory.
  
• -type f Searches for files (and not directories).
  
• -iname "*backup*" While ignoring case, instructs the find command to find all files containing "backup" somewhere in the filename. Note the use of the two (*) wildcard characters.
  
• -print0 Formats the output of the find command such that it can be consumed by other commands, including xarg. In particular, -print0 allows file names that contain newlines or other types of white space to be correctly interpreted by programs that can process such input.  Note that the -print0 option corresponds to the -0 option of the xargs command.
  
• xargs Converts its standard input into arguments for other commands, such as the stat and cp command.
  
• -0 Prepares the xargs command to receive input that might contain white space, quote marks, or backslashes.
  
• -I The capital "i" option allows the input to xargs to be used in more than one place, such as via {} token.
  
• sh -c This invokes a separate command line interpreter (shell) and executes the commands passed to it. In this case, 'stat -c "%n %s bytes" {}; cp {} ~/backups'. This second shell allows xargs to run multiple commands using the {} token.
  
• stat -c "%n %s bytes" {} Displays the name %n and size %s of the file contained in the {} token (in bytes).
  
• ; The semicolon allows two or more commands to be executed on the same line.
  
• cp {}  ~/backups Copies the given {} file to the ~/backups directory.

Putting all of this together results in output similar to the following:

In the above, we can see all files that were theoretically copied to ~/backups. It's theoretical in that not all files were actually copied:

This is an important point - there were no issues with respect to displaying stat related information but there were issues for the cp command (that are not reported).

Refining searches with the grep command

Next, we will search the contents of matching files in order to find one or more keywords. To start, we'll examine all *.log files for occurrences of warning. To do so, we use the ubiquitous grep command:

sudo find / -iname '*.log' -type f -print0 | xargs -0 grep warning

Running the commands prior to the pipe ( | ) operator returns the expected list of *.log files. However, running the entire command line returns per file permission denied errors:

This is because the grep command also requires sudo elevation. Thus, the following command line produces the desired results (both -iname and -i ignore case):

sudo find / -iname '*.log' -type f -print0 | xargs -0 sudo -i grep warning

To find all *.log files containing warning, critical, and/or error, we can use the logical OR ( | ) operator, which must be escaped in order for it not to be confused with the standard pipe operator:

sudo find / -iname '*.log' -type f -print0 | xargs -0 sudo grep -l -i 'warning\|critical\|error'

The lowercase "L" option -l displays the list of matching files and not the associated content:

Conclusion

This tutorial compared and contrasted multiple ways of finding files in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. It also provided techniques for executing commands on found files. Unix-like operating systems, including Ubuntu, offer an extremely rich command line environment to help you manage your Ubuntu computer/server.

In this tutorial, we'll start with some straightforward examples and culminate with using Linux, PowerShell, and DOS (cmd.exe) commands together.

Getting started with WSL

To start, open your installed Linux distribution as follows:

Step 1: Select the Start menu, then Select the Linux distribution you installed - for this example we've installed Ubuntu.

You should now be at the Linux command prompt for your distribution:

One thing to immediately notice is the number of running processes - 12 in this case. This highlights the fact that, as far as Linux is concerned, it's running on its own "machine". Windows, in this case, is actually running 236 processes (including WSL):

This example highlights the fact that you can run PowerShell commands from the WSL Linux environment. In the above, note the quotes around the PowerShell command (not all WSL PowerShell commands require quotes, as in powershell.exe Get-Process). This virtual machine behavior can also be seen by running the Linux top command:

On line four of the above, we see that there's 11911.9 MiB (or legacy MB) of "physical" memory. To determine the actual physical memory of the system, you can run the following Windows commands from within WSL:

systeminfo.exe | finstr.exe

This shows that there's actually 15,289 MB of physical memory:

In other words, some percentage of Windows' physical memory has been allocated to the Linux virtual machine.

Next, we'll examine the WSL Linux and Windows files systems and how they're exposed to each other.

WSL and Windows File Systems

From the WSL, run the following commands:

cd /
ls -lah

For example:

This is a typical Linux root directory listing. However, if we look within the mnt directory, we can see how the Windows file system is exposed through WSL (note commands):

In the above, we see standard Windows folders such as Program Files, Users, Windows, etc.

Now, on the Windows side of things, we can access the WSL file system as follows:

1. Open Windows Explorer and in the address bar, type the network drive \\wsl$, as shown:

Note that the above image implies that you can have multiple Linux distributions installed at the same time, which is indeed the case.

2. Double-click the Linux distribution you installed (Ubuntu in this example). This provides access to the WSL file system:

WSL and Windows du command

Next, lets examine a Linux command that Windows really should have - the du command. In Windows, it can be challenging to sort both files and directories by size. For Linux, this task is relatively straightforward:

du -aSh 2>&1 | sort -n -r | head -n 5

An example follows:

For the above:

• du -aSh 2>&1 returns file/directory size information, ignore any permission errors.
• sort -n -r sorts the file/directory list by size, from smallest to largest.
• head -n 5 returns the top 5 largest files/directories.

Now wouldn't it be nice if Windows could do this? Well, thanks to WSL, it now can. From an elevated Windows command prompt (cmd.exe), run the following:

wsl du -aSh 2>&1 | wsl sort -n -r | wsl head -n 5

This results in output similar to:

Note the wsl preceding each Linux command. This is required to let Windows know that we're running a Linux command (from your installed distribution) and not a malformed Windows command.

Next, let's dig in a little deeper with respect to combining Linux, PowerShell, and DOS (cmd.exe) commands.

Mixing Linux and Windows commands

Here's an example of mixing commands at the WSL Linux command prompt. This combines Linux, PowerShell and DOS:

powershell.exe Get-ChildItem -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | findstr.exe "karlito" | awk '{print $2}'

We first run the Get-ChildItem PowerShell command, then pipe that into the DOS findstr command, and finally pipe that into the Linux awk command. To better understand the command flow, we'll start with representative Get-ChildItem output:

We then use the findstr DOS command to select the output containing "karlito":

Finally, we select the second column using the Linux awk command:

Next, we'll run a similar command from the PowerShell command prompt, as shown:

Get-ChildItem -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | findstr.exe "karlito" | wsl awk '{ print \$6 }'

Again, we'll look at this step-by-step, starting with representative output of Get-ChildItem:

We next find the files/directories containing "karlito:

Note the six columns above (the PM/AM data is considered a column). Because of this, we need to change the awk command as follows:

Observe the \ character before the $6 in the awk command. Because the $ character has special meaning in PowerShell, so we must escape using \, as shown.

The last example runs the same command but from the Windows command prompt (cmd.exe):

Note the use of powershell.exe to run the PowerShell command and wsl to run the Linux command.

To conclude, by using WSL to attach a Linux distribution to Windows, you extend the power and capabilities of Windows as well as having a handy Linux shell at your fingertips. And, hopefully the information presented in this tutorial will improve your command savvy and efficiency.

What is WSL?

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is a feature introduced by Microsoft, aimed at giving users the ability to run Linux distributions directly on the Windows operating system. It serves as a compatibility layer, allowing the execution of native Linux binaries within the Windows environment.

At its core, WSL operates by creating a translation layer that allows Linux and Windows to communicate with one another. This allows Linux command-line tools and utilities to function on a Windows operating system, bridging the gap between the two distinct operating systems.

What's Covered in this Tutorial

In this tutorial, we'll go over the following:

• Installation of WSL on Windows systems.
• Setting up your WSL environment
• Troubleshooting errors.
• Benefits of integrating WSL into your workflow.

Once you've finished with this tutorial, you'll be able to run a Linux distribution on your Windows machine. To get the most out of this feature check out our tutorial on how to use Windows Subsystem for Linux where you'll learn how to utilize the file system and mix Linux and Windows commands.

Updating Windows

To ensure you have all of the required WSL components, make sure Windows is updated. A relatively universal way to do so is as follows:

Step 1: Open Run Box

• Press Windows key + R.

Step 2: Open Windows Update

• Type "control update", then hit ENTER or select the OK button.

Step 3: Update and Restart

• Select the Check for updates button.
• If an update is required, you'll need to restart your computer.

How to Install and Set up Linux on Windows with WSL

Now that we have updated Windows, let's walk through the steps for installing WSL on your computer and go over a few setup considerations thereafter.

Installing WSL on your Computer

Step 1: Open PowerShell

• Access Powershell through the command-line interface by right-clicking on the Start button, select "Windows PowerShell (Admin)" from the menu.

Step 2: Enable WSL Feature

• In the PowerShell window, type the following command and press ENTER:

dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart 

Step 3: Restart Your Computer

• Save your work and restart your computer. This step is necessary to complete the enabling process.

Step 4: Install Your Linux Distribution

• After restarting, open PowerShell as Administrator again, and run the following command to install the default Linux distribution Ubuntu:

wsl --install

(Optional) Installing Alterative Distributions

• You have the option to download other Linux distributions (distros) from the online store. To view a list of those distros use the following command:

wsl --list --online

• To install a distribution from the store, use the following command:

wsl --install --distribution <Distro Name>

• Replace <Distro Name> with the name of the distribution as it's written in the prompt window

Step 5: Restart Your Computer

• Since you're at the PowerShell command prompt, this can be done as follows:

Restart-Computer

Note: If you receive the following error, Go to the section titled "Error 0x80370102" below. Otherwise, proceed to the next step.

Step 6: Launch Your Linux Distribution

• Once the Linux distro is installed, you can launch it by selecting the Start menu, then the Linux distribution you installed. For example:

Step 7: Setup User Account

• Enter a Linux username and password (admin is not an option, as shown):

That's it! You've successfully installed Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) on your Windows machine. You can now use Linux command-line tools and utilities directly within the Windows environment.

Setting Up Your WSL Environment

Once your Linux distro is install, you can you can start customizing it. Here are a few options to consider:

Set Default WSL Version: If you installed both WSL 1 and WSL 2, you can set the default version to be used by running the following command in PowerShell:

wsl --set-default-version 2

Note: Replace 2 with 1 if you prefer to use WSL 1.

Customize Terminal Emulator: Consider installing and customizing a terminal emulator such as Windows Terminal or ConEmu to enhance your command-line experience. These tools offer features like tabs, customizable themes, and better integration with WSL.

Configure Shell: You can customize your shell environment by editing configuration files such as .bashrc or .zshrc in your Linux home directory. These files allow you to set environment variables, define aliases, and customize your shell prompt.

Install Additional Tools and Packages: Use the package manager (apt for Debian-based distributions like Ubuntu, dnf for Fedora, etc.) to install additional tools and packages that you need for your development or system administration tasks.

Integrate with IDEs and Editors: Many popular integrated development environments (IDEs) and text editors offer support for WSL. You can configure them to use WSL as the default terminal or to access files directly from your WSL filesystem.

Enable File Sharing: If you want to access files stored on your Windows filesystem from within WSL, you can enable file sharing by creating symbolic links or using the \\wsl$ <distro name> path.

Explore WSL Configuration File: Take some time to explore and configure WSL settings using the wsl.conf configuration file. This file allows you to customize various aspects of WSL, such as filesystem performance and network settings.

Update and Upgrade Packages: After setting up WSL, you can update and upgrade the packages in your Linux distribution by running the following commands in the Linux terminal:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Updating WSL

You always want to be sure you're running the latest version of WSL. To do this, return to Powershell and run the following command:

wsl --update

• If a WSL update is available, you will see:

• As suggested above, run the following command (from an elevated PowerShell or Windows command prompt):

wsl --shutdown

How to fix Error 0x80370102

WSL requires Hyper-V and virtualization to be enabled on your computer. If you received the 0x80370102 error during installation, it is likely due to the absence of those features.

Follow these steps to make sure Hyper-V and virtualization are active.

Enable Hardware Virtualization

Step 1: Open Task Manager

• Press press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager.

Step 2: View Virtualization

• Select the Performance tab, then CPU, and note if virtualization is disabled:

  
  

• If virtualization is enabled, then move down to the Hyper-V section below

Step 3: Open BIOS/UEFI Settings

• To access BIOS/UEFI settings you need to restart the computer, and while it's booting up press and hold the F2 key or whichever key is appropriate for your system (How to enable or disable Hardware Virtualization in Windows 11/10 may be helpful in this regard).
• Once BIOS/UEFI window opens, find the setting that enables hardware virtualization and select it - the following example should give you a sense of this process:

Example:

• Select Advanced > CPU Configuration > SVM Mode (i.e., Secure Virtual Machine), and then Enabled.
• Select Exit > Save Changes and Exit > Yes
  

Step 4: Verify Virtualization

• Open Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) and verify that virtualization has been enabled:

Enable Hyper-V

Step 1: Open Windows Features

• Press Windows key + R, type "optional features", and select the OK button.

Step 2: Enable Hyper-V

• Ensure that Virtual Machine Platform and Windows Hypervisor Platform are both checked
• Select OK

Step 3: Restart Computer

• Restart the computer (shutdown /r /t 0 at a Windows command prompt will do this).

Step 4: Open Linux Distro

• Select the Start menu, then the Linux distribution you installed. If you do not receive an error, you're good to go.

If you're still running into issues with the Hypervisor, run the following command from the Powershell:

bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto

You should see:

Restart the computer and open the Linux distro once more and you should be good to go!

Benefits of WSL

WSL bridges the gap between Windows and Linux environments, removing OS barriers and offering you more options for an improved workflow

Here are a few key reasons why it might be worth considering adding WSL to your virtual toolbox:

Enhanced Development Experience: Developers can leverage WSL to access Linux development tools, libraries, and frameworks directly on their Windows machines, streamlining the development process and eliminating the need for separate Linux-based environments.

Cross-Platform Compatibility: WSL promotes interoperability by enabling users to work with both Windows and Linux applications side by side, fostering a cohesive computing experience regardless of the underlying operating system.

Expanded Utility for System Administrators: System administrators benefit from WSL's ability to execute Linux administrative tasks and scripts on Windows servers, simplifying management and maintenance operations in heterogeneous IT environments.

Seamless Integration: WSL seamlessly integrates Linux capabilities into the Windows ecosystem, allowing users to harness the strengths of both platforms without the overhead of traditional virtualization solutions.

Also, we offer free migration services for those who want to transfer their website to Hostwinds. If you're interested in migrating to Hostwinds, please take a look at our Migration Policy for more information.

What is Shared Hosting

Shared web hosting is a type of hosting where multiple websites share the same server resources. This type of hosting is cost-effective because the cost of the server is shared among many users. Shared hosting providers typically offer an easy-to-use control panel that allows users to manage their websites without needing advanced technical skills.

Hostwinds Shared Web Hosting is a hosting service that provides all the features of shared web hosting, including unlimited bandwidth, disk space, and email accounts. In addition, Hostwinds provides users with a user-friendly control panel called cPanel, which allows users to manage their websites, files, and email accounts with ease. Hostwinds Shared Web Hosting also includes 24/7 customer support, ensuring that users can get help with any issues that may arise.

Compared to other shared hosting providers, Hostwinds stands out for its excellent customer support, user-friendly control panel, and feature-rich hosting plans. Hostwinds offers flexible plans to suit the specific needs of each user, making it an ideal choice for individuals, small businesses, and large enterprises alike. Overall, Hostwinds Shared Web Hosting is a reliable and affordable option for anyone who wants to create a website or blog.

Hostwinds Shared Web Hosting Details

Hostwinds Shared Web Hosting offers various benefits without any extra cost. The only significant difference between the different shared hosting packages is the number of domains that can be hosted.

• Shared Basic, users can host one (1) domain.
• Shared Advanced users can host up to (4) domains
• Shared Ultimate, users can host an unlimited number of domains.

Apart from this, all shared hosting packages offer the same features and technical details.

Technical Details

When you buy Shared Web Hosting from Hostwinds, you'll get a powerful server that uses CloudLinux-powered cPanel accounts and runs with SSDs to keep your website running at top speed while staying secure. We provide you with our Hostwinds Tiers of Support, which means we are here to help you whenever needed. Here are some of the main things that you can expect from our Shared Web Hosting:

• cPanel and a one-click login feature from the Client Area management page for easy access.
• Softaculous Installer for easy installation of over 400 applications, including WordPress.
• Weebly (Basic, but may be upgraded for additional pricing)
• A dedicated IP address.
• Free SSLs
• Unlimited storage
• Unlimited MySQL databases
• Unlimited Email Accounts
• Unlimited FTP Accounts
• Unlimited Subdomains
• Unmetered bandwidth
• Multiple versions of PHP, including 5.6, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4 (default version), 8.0, 8.1, and 8.2, and select the version per domain/subdomain.
• CGI access (Common Gateway Interface scripts)

In addition to the above features, all Hostwinds Shared Web Hosting plans are configured with the following information and cannot be changed:

• The web server uses Apache2 optimization.
• The maximum number of accounts allowed on a server is 60.
• The PHP memory limit is set at 256MB per cPanel (the maximum threshold for how much memory a PHP script is allowed to use)
• Physical Memory Usage is set to 512 MB (a measure of the actual amount of RAM being used by a system)
• A maximum of 25 emails per hour on every shared service
• Parked domains are disabled.
• iNode limits are set to 250,000.
• Up to 5 entry processes (simultaneous connections that a website can handle at one time)
• Up to 20 Processes (number of system processes that a website can use at once)
• 100% CPU Usage of 1 CPU
• 1024 IOPS
• Disk I/O Usage 1MB/s

Upon successfully purchasing a Shared Web Hosting package, details will be sent to the email you used to register for the service.

Our shared hosting services do not include admin privileges or root access to the server. For those requiring this control level, we recommend exploring our VPS or dedicated server options.

Checkout Expectations

The following can be expected when checking out with a Hostwinds Shared Web Hosting package.

Adding a Domain

At Hostwinds, we want to ensure that your cPanel operates smoothly. In order to do so, we require a primary domain during checkout. Don't worry, this does not mean you have to register a new domain with us if you haven't already done so. It simply means you need to select a domain to be associated with your Shared Hosting purchase.

In order to add your domain successfully, simply click on "Select Domain" and enter the domain name that you would like to use. If you wish to register the domain (if available), please click "Add to Cart." On the other hand, if you would like to proceed with transferring, select "Transfer My Domain." You can easily check if your domain has been added correctly by verifying that it appears next to your web hosting package and as a separate line item in your cart at the bottom of the checkout page if you are registering or transferring.

We want to clarify that our Shared Hosting plans do not include domain registration costs as part of our packages. However, at Hostwinds, we do provide domain name registration and transfers for your convenience. By registering or transferring your domain to Hostwinds, you can easily manage your hosting and registrations all in one place.

You have the option to perform domain registration before, during, or after your Shared Hosting order at any time. If you want to register or transfer your domain to Hostwinds, please visit our registration portal here. We'd be happy to assist you with any questions you may have.

Backups

We understand the importance of keeping your data safe, which is why we offer backups as an additional feature during checkout by default at Hostwinds. We believe backups are crucial, regardless of your hosting provider. If you want to learn more about our Shared Hosting backups, we have a comprehensive guide available for you. Visit our "Shared and Business Hosting Backups" and "Backups Retention Periods" pages to find out more about this feature.

Upgradable Options

Great news! Hostwinds has got you covered with several upgradable options to choose from should you ever need more resources to accommodate your specific needs or business growth. These include:

• Business Web Hosting
• Virtual Private Servers (VPS)
• Dedicated Servers

Moreover, Hostwinds is always willing to lend a helping hand with any migration required for managed services upon request. However, kindly note that we won't be able to migrate to Windows operating system as our shared web hosting is Linux based. Also, remember that additional charges may apply for required licensing, if applicable.

Related Resources

• Business Hosting Overview
• Cloud Hosting Overview
• Submit Migration Request and Process

At Hostwinds, we also offer free migration services for those who want to transfer their website to our platform. If you're interested in taking advantage of this service, please visit our Migration Policy page for more information. We'll guide you through the process and make it as seamless as possible for you.

What is Business Web Hosting

Business Web Hosting is a web hosting service where multiple websites are hosted on a single server, sharing its resources such as disk space and bandwidth. However, Business Hosting offers key advantages than our Shared Web Hosting.

If you're looking for an optimized shared hosting environment, our Hostwinds Business Web Hosting is a perfect choice. With LiteSpeed web server, designed to handle high levels of traffic efficiently, you'll experience faster website load times and better overall performance compared to Shared Web Hosting. Business Hosting plans are also hosted on servers with fewer customers per server, meaning fewer shared resources, resulting in faster load times and better overall performance. Plus, with more resources in a shared environment, including additional memory and inodes, Business Hosting offers the perfect balance between affordability and performance.

Hostwinds Business Web Hosting Details

At Hostwinds, our Business Web Hosting packages come with a range of benefits at no additional cost. The main difference between the packages is:

• Shared Basic, users can host one (1) domain.
• Shared Advanced users can host up to (4) domains
• Shared Ultimate, users can host an unlimited number of domains.

However, all of our Business Hosting plans offer the same great features and technical specifications.

Technical Details

At Hostwinds, we offer Business Web Hosting packages that feature powerful Linux servers with SSDs to ensure that your website runs efficiently and securely. Our Hostwinds Tiers of Support are available to assist you whenever you need it, and our Business Web Hosting includes key features to help you get the most out of your website.

• cPanel and a one-click login feature from the Client Area management page for easy access.
• Softaculous Installer for easy installation of over 400 applications, including WordPress.
• Weebly (Basic, but may be upgraded for additional pricing)
• A dedicated IP address.
• Free SSLs
• Unlimited storage
• Unlimited MySQL databases
• Unlimited Email Accounts
• Unlimited FTP Accounts
• Unlimited Subdomains
• Unmetered bandwidth
• Multiple versions of PHP, including 5.6, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4 (default version), 8.0, 8.1, and 8.2, and select the version per domain/subdomain.
• CGI access (Common Gateway Interface scripts)

All Hostwinds Business Web Hosting plans are equipped with the following information, which cannot be altered, in addition to the aforementioned features:

• The web server utilizes Litespeed optimization.
• The maximum number of accounts allowed on a server is 50.
• The PHP memory limit is set at 512MB per cPanel (the maximum threshold for how much memory a PHP script is allowed to use)
• Physical Memory Usage is set to 512 MB (a measure of the actual amount of RAM being used by a system)
• A maximum of 250 emails per hour on every shared service
• Parked domains are disabled.
• iNode limits are set to 600,000.
• Up to 10 entry processes (simultaneous connections that a website can handle at one time)
• Up to 25 Processes (number of system processes that a website can use at once)
• 100% CPU Usage of 1 CPU
• 1024 IOPS
• Disk I/O Usage 4MB/s

After purchasing a Business Web Hosting package successfully, you will receive details regarding the service through the email address that you used to register.

If you require admin privileges or root access to the server, please note that our business hosting services do not include these features. In such cases, we highly recommend that you consider our VPS or dedicated server options, which can provide you with the necessary level of control.

Checkout Expectations

Adding a Domain

To ensure the smooth operation of your cPanel, Hostwinds requires a primary domain to be selected during checkout. Rest assured, this doesn't mean you have to register a new domain with us if you haven't already done so. It simply means you need to associate a domain with your Business Web Hosting purchase.

Adding your domain is a breeze - just click on "Select Domain" and enter the domain name you want to use. If you wish to register the domain (if available), click "Add to Cart." Alternatively, if you would like to proceed with transferring, select "Transfer My Domain." To confirm that your domain has been added correctly, check that it appears next to your web hosting package and as a separate line item in your cart at the bottom of the checkout page if you are registering or transferring.

We want to make sure that you are aware that our Business Web Hosting plans do not include domain registration costs as part of our packages. However, we're here to help make things easy for you! At Hostwinds, we offer domain name registration and transfers to make your life simpler. By registering or transferring your domain to Hostwinds, you can easily manage your hosting and domain registrations all in one place.

You can register or transfer your domain to Hostwinds before, during, or after your Business Hosting order at any time. To register or transfer your domain, simply visit our registration portal here. And don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions - we're always here to assist you!

Backups

At Hostwinds, we believe that backups are always crucial, regardless of your hosting provider. That's why we include backups as an additional feature during checkout by default. If you want to learn more about our Shared Hosting backups, we have a comprehensive guide available for you. Check out our "Shared and Business Hosting Backups" and "Backups Retention Periods" pages to find out more about this feature.

Upgradable Options

At Hostwinds, we offer a variety of upgradable options to support your growing needs, whatever they may be. These options include

• Virtual Private Servers (VPS)
• Dedicated Servers

We're always here to assist you with any migration needs for managed services. Please be aware that we can't migrate to Windows operating systems from our Business Web Hosting since it's Linux based. Nevertheless, we're more than willing to assist you with any of your Linux-based hosting needs. Please note that there may be additional licensing charges if necessary.

Related Resources

• Shared Hosting Overview
• Cloud Hosting Overview
• Submit Migration Request and Process

Choosing a WordPress ratings/feedback plugin

There are numerous choices when it comes to choosing a ratings/feedback plugin for WordPress (WP). Based on customer ratings and feedback, Rate my Post was chosen for this tutorial but feel free to choose whichever plugin you deem most appropriate for your situation. Similarly (because of popularity), the (e-commerce compatible) Astra theme was used.

Installing the Rate my Post plugin

Contrary to the name, the Rate my Post plugin works for web pages (as well as blog posts). The following procedure describes how to install the plugin:

1. Log in to your WP dashboard by navigating to one of the following URLs:

• http://<your domain>/wp-login.php
• http://<your domain>/wp/wp-login.php
• http://<your domain>/wordpress/wp-login.php

2. Select Plugins, then Add New:

3. In the Search plugin... field, type rating. You are presented with a number of available options. Find Rate my Post - WP Rating System and then select Install Now:

When installed, select the Active button. You may then (optionally) wish to enable auto-updates:

4. Select Rate my Post, then Settings:

Adjust the settings as appropriate for your situation. Because this article is assuming an e-commerce style site with no blog posts (see the "Removing WP blog components" section of Creating a WordPress site for a small business), we'll only show the rating widget on product pages:

5. Select the Customize tab and adjust the text as necessary. For example:

And perhaps:

When you're satisfied (no pun intended), select the Save Customize Options button.

6. You should now see, near the bottom of all of your product pages, the following rating widget:

By default, the Rate my Post plugin is set to request feedback if a rating is two stars or less:

We next discuss accessing and analyzing the acquired plugin data.

Rate my Post numeric data

1. To view the detailed star rating data, select Rate my Post, then Analytics:

You should see data similar to the following:

2. Sort by Time and then by Post. This will allow your to make sense of the Average Rating column:

In the table above, we see that "Total Votes" is the total running vote count. Thus, in row four (ID 7), we see that we have 2 two-stars votes and 2 one-star votes, whose average is (2 + 2 + 1 + 1) / 4 = 1.5, as shown. In row nine (ID 16), we see that 9 total votes were cast for the Concentric Ring Table with an average rating of 2.3 (average the associated Rated data, 21 / 9 ≈ 2.3). In the last row (ID 17), we see that 8 total votes were cast for the Elliptic Torus Table with an average rating of 2 (again, average the associated Rated data, 16 / 8 = 2).

These summary statistics can be seen by selecting Rate my Post, and then Stats:

So, if we had to pick a product to improve first, the summary statistics indicate that it should be the Elliptic Torus Table. But what sorts of improvements should be made? This is where textual feedback can come in handy.

Feedback analysis

If the amount of feedback is relatively small, one can manually read through each response to get a sense of actionable themes. However, an alternate approach may be indicated if you have hundreds of responses. There are several possibilities, but one straightforward approach is to use a word cloud to tease out possible themes. A procedure for doing so is presented next.

1. From the WP dashboard, select Products, then All Products:

2. Select the product you're interested in, for example:

3. Scroll to the bottom of the product page and note the associated feedback:

4. Copy the content of the feedback table and paste it into a spreadsheet (or similar tool). Deleted all columns and rows, leaving just the responses:

5. Choose a word cloud tool. Some online possibilities include Free Word Cloud Generator, WordItOut, etc. Next, copy and paste the feedback into the word cloud tool and note the results:

Ignoring the red herring "Product", one word does clearly pop out: "cart". This result may indicate that the website's cart system should be investigated. Given the extremely small dataset, the above results are purely for demonstrative purposes only. However, as the size of one's dataset increases, so does the veracity (in general) of the results, as discussed next.

Data analysis

To provide realistic examples, we'll work with a relatively large dataset of Amazon shoe rating data (n = 6.8K).

Mean and standard deviation

The first thing to discuss is the average (mean x̄) and standard deviation (s) with respect to a 5-star rating scheme. The distribution (histogram) of the Amazon shoe data follows:

The data has a mean of x̄ = 4.13 and a standard deviation of s = 1.34. This implies that at least 95% of all ratings fall within two standard deviations of the mean. That is, between 4.13 - 2·1.34 and 4.13 + 2·1.34, or 1.5 and 6.8. Since 6.8 is an impossibility, we could say with greater confidence that at least 95% of all ratings fall between 1.5 and 5. However, these results are entirely predicated on the assumption that the data is normally distributed, which is clearly not the case. A normal distribution for the above data would look similar to:

Because the 5-star rating data is not normally distributed, we must narrow the above (x̄ ± 2s) 95% confidence interval. One method to do so is to use Chebyshev's theorem, which states, for a broad class of probability distributions, that at least 75% of all data falls within two standard deviations of the mean. So, we can confidently say that at least 75% of all ratings will fall between 1.5 and 5.

Note that the average (mean) rating statistic (4.13) is valid and the same for both approaches.

Per product ratings

For a site with many products, the Rate my Post summary table would have numerous rows providing the mean product rating (as opposed to the two rows shown here):

You can copy and paste this data directly into a spreadsheet. From there, you can compare products with 30 or more votes (n ≥ 30 being a statistical rule of thumb). For the shoe data, such a procedure produces:

With one exception, we see that the average rating is relatively constant (nearly all around 4). Since a vote is roughly equivalent to a sale, we can create the following chart from a sufficiently large Rate my Post summary table:

Interestingly, there appears to be little correlation between estimated sales and ratings in this case.

Another possibility might be plotting product page views (via the WP-Statistics plugin or similar) against product ratings:

In the above chart, each blue dot represents a particular product page. The vertical dashed line represents the average number of product page views. The horizontal dashed line represents the overall average rating for all products. This breaks the chart into four quadrants. The product pages with high page views and low ratings (bottom right corner) may merit some investigation (particularly the three product pages in the far bottom right of the quadrant).

Clearly, there are many possibilities when it comes to the analysis of website-related data, but the above should get you started in obtaining the essential metrics of your WordPress e-commerce site.

The terms "memory" and "speed" are two computer-related words that can be legitimately confusing in that both terms can correctly refer to different forms of "memory" and "speed". To better understand these terms, it helps to consider the three essential components of any computer system:

• Processor
• Memory
• Disk

The processor uses its (volatile) memory and (non-volatile) disk space to do its work. And since a computer wouldn't be much fun without a connection to the internet, we can add "Network" to this list as well (with a bit more parenthesized detail):

• Processor (CPU/GPU)
• Memory (RAM/DIMM)
• Disk (HDD/SSD/USB)
• Network (Ethernet/WiFi)

In fact, for Windows, you can press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to see these core components in action. For example:

In a nutshell, the CPU orchestrates the other components and is essentially responsible for the fact that:

• 54% of memory is being utilized.
• 3% of the disk is being utilized.
• 0% of the network is currently being utilized.
• 4% of the GPU is being utilized.

Each of these core components is discussed next.

CPU

The CPU (central processing unit), is the "work-horse" of a computer system. Such a processor can contain multiple cores. For example, using the Windows Resource Monitor (Win + R, resmon, OK), we see that this particular processor is composed of four cores (0 through 3):

Additionally, the CPU can leverage the processing power of the GPU, particularly for graphics processing, video editing, and machine learning tasks. The key metric by which CPUs are measured is clock speed, usually in GHz. A CPU running at 1 Hz can generally process one instruction per second. You can think of an "instruction" as a relatively simple calculation, such as the addition of two numbers. A CPU running at 2.9 GHz can process about 2.9 billion instructions per second, which is quite mind-boggling. For example, your average book contains about 400 pages and since each page contains about 3000 characters, a typical book contains about 1.2 million characters. If the CPU can process one character per instruction, then a 2.9 GHz CPU could process about 2416 books per second (755 pounds worth of physical books).

Memory

Memory or RAM (random access memory) is where the CPU stores the results of its various calculations (as well as other data). This form of memory is volatile in nature meaning that when the computer is properly shut down, all data is lost by design. The key metric for memory is the amount of it, typically measured in GB. 1 GB equals 1024^3 bytes or about 1.07 billion bytes (see the conversion factor section below). Since a byte contains 8-bits (0 or 1), 1 GB of memory can contain a little over 8.5 billion bits. 8-bits can represent 2^8 = 256 characters, more than enough for your typical book. Therefore, 1 GB can store at least (1.07 billion characters) / (1.2 million characters per book) = 892 average-sized books.

Note that memory speed is also an important consideration, typically measured in MHz (millions of cycles per second).  For Windows, pressing Ctrl + Shift + Esc will start the Task Manager, which in this case shows the memory speed to be 1200 MHz:

Generally, a more accurate means of measuring memory speed is via transfer rate and bandwidth:

• Transfer rate is the actual delivered speed as opposed to the frequency of the clock (clock speed). Transfer rate is typically measured in MT/s (millions of transfers per second).
• Memory bandwidth is the rate at which data can be read from and stored in memory via the CPU. Memory bandwidth is usually measured in GB/s (gigabytes per second).

In general, the faster the memory, the faster the processor can access said memory. However, the actual memory data transfer rate is generally determined by the system's CPU and motherboard configuration.

Disk

A computer system's disk drive or drives are the non-volatile space in which the system "permanently" stores its data. Unlike RAM, when the computer system is properly shut down, this data is not (by design) lost. Compared to RAM, this form of memory is relatively slow. That said, solid-state drives (SSD) are significantly faster than traditional hard disk drives (HDD).

Like memory, the key metric for disk space is how much of it there is, usually measured in GB or TB (1 TB = 1024 GB). From the above, we know that 1 GB can contain about 892 books. Therefore, 1 TB can contain 1024 · 892 = 913,408 average-sized books using 8-bits per character. If we want to include artwork, images, and other common book items, we can use the fact that the average Kindle e-book is about 2.6 MB, so 1 TB can hold about:

(1 book / 2.6 MB) · (1024 MB / 1 GB) · (1024 GB / 1 TB) = 403,298 books

If we assume it takes a day to read a book, then 1 TB of disk space can provide about 1104 years of worth of continuous entertainment. Note that the multiplicative "chain" used above is explained in the conversion factor section below.

And as with memory, disk speed is also an important factor. An SSD is roughly 50 times faster than an HDD for large file transfers and roughly 200 times faster for small file (4 KB) transfers (which can make a large difference in OS speed and boot times).

Network

The primary metric for a network is speed, usually measured in Kbps or Mbps. In fact, to quickly test your current network speed, you can use Google's Test your internet speed, an example of which follows:

From above, we see a download speed of about 772 Mbps or megabits per second. That is, 772 million bits are, on average, being transferred (downloaded) per second. Note that the SI prefix M indicates exactly 1 million (and not 1024^3 ≈ 1.07 million as is the case for memory/disk). It is common to have asymmetric download and upload speeds, as seen above. This is because a significant percentage of people are more interested in fast download speeds (video streaming, internet radio, etc.) than upload speeds (sending email, posting social media images, etc.)

Note that the maximum rate of data transfer across a given path is called bandwidth and is measured in Mbps. The above test is attempting to measure the network's bandwidth.

You may have noticed that the speed test reported a 20 ms (milliseconds) latency. Latency measures how quickly you receive a response from the server. Low response times are important for real-time applications, like video calls and online gaming.

The conversion factor section below provides an example of how to calculate the time necessary to download a 2.6 MB e-book at 772 Mbps.

GPU

The GPU or graphics processing unit, generally part of your graphics card, is primarily used for graphics rendering but the CPU can leverage the GPU to handle some of its processing, particularly around graphics processing, video editing, and machine learning. GPUs are excellent for matrix/vector operations and parallel processing. For such scenarios, you can think of the GPU as a subservient sub-component of the CPU.

GPU speed is typically measured in MHz (millions of processing cycles per second ) but unlike a CPU, other metrics such as frame rate and pixel fill rate are applicable.

Conversion factors

We occasionally need to convert from one unit to another. For example, what's 2250 MB (megabytes) in terms of TB (terabytes)? We can reliably calculate such quantities via conversion factors.

Recall from algebra that y · (x / y) = x and x · (y / x) = y. In the first case, the leading y cancels out the y in the denominator. Similarly, in the second case, the leading x cancels out the x in the denominator. This same algebraic manipulation can be applied to units. For example, if we wanted to convert 1 cm to mm, we can treat "cm" and "mm" as algebraic quantities, as follows:

1 cm · (10 mm / 1 cm) = 1 · (10 mm / 1) = 1 · 10 mm = 10 mm

That is, the leading cm cancels out the cm in the denominator, leaving 10 mm. Similarly,

17.6 cm · (10 mm / 1 cm) = 17.6 · (10 mm / 1) = 17.6 · 10 mm = 176 mm

The quantity (10 mm / 1 cm) is known as a conversion factor, which you can "flip" as needed. For example:

176 mm · (1 cm / 10 mm) = 176 · (1 cm / 10) = 17.6 cm

All that's needed to create a conversion factor is a known equality. For example, if 1 hectare = 2.47105 acres, then we can convert 3.5 hectares to acres, as follows:

3.5 hectares · (2.47105 acres / 1 hectare) = 3.5 · 2.47105 acres ≈ 8.649 acres

Likewise, we can convert 6.649 acres back to hectares by flipping the conversion factor, as shown:

8.649 acres · (1 hectare / 2.47105 acres) ≈ 3.5 hectares

With that in mind, the following list may be of use with respect to memory and disk capacity conversions:

8 bits     = 1 byte
1024 bytes = 1 KB
1024 KB    = 1 MB
1024 MB    = 1 GB
1024 GB    = 1 TB
1024 TB    = 1 PB

Using the above list, we can answer the original question as follows:

2250 MB · (1 GB / 1024 MB) ≈ 2.1973 GB
2.1973 GB · (1 TB / 1024 GB) ≈ 0.0021 TB

You can also "chain" conversion factors together to perform the same calculation in one fell swoop (the only unit left standing is the one we want):

2250 MB · (1 GB / 1024 MB) · (1 TB / 1024 GB) ≈ 0.0021 TB

A quick web search often indicates that 1 GB = 1 billion bytes but this is not correct, as shown:

1 GB · (1024 MB / 1 GB) · (1024 KB / 1 MB) · (1024 bytes / 1 KB) = 1,073,741,824 bytes ≅ 1.07 billion bytes ≈ 1 billion bytes

As a final example, say we would like to estimate how long it would take to download a 2.6 MB e-book over a 772 Mbps network:

2.6 MB · (1024 KB / 1 MB) · (1024 bytes / KB) · (8 bits / 1 byte) = 21,810,381 bits
772 Mbps = 772 Mbit / 1 s
(772 Mbit / 1 s) · (1000 Kbit / Mbit) · (1000 bits / Kbit) = 722,000,000 bits / 1 s
21,810,381 bits · (1 s / 722,000,000 bits) ≈ 0.028 s
0.028 s · (1000 ms / 1 s) ≈ 28 ms

It takes about 400 ms (milliseconds) to blink your eye. In that time, you could download about 14 Kindle e-book books with a 772 Mbps network.

Conclusion

A reasonable way to think about a computer system's "memory" and "speed" is in terms of the system's core components:

• Processor
  • The key metric is CPU clock speed, usually measured in GHz.
  • A 3.2 GHz processor executes 3.2 billion instructions per second (assuming one instruction per execution).
  • The CPU can leverage the GPU for such things as graphics processing, video editing, and machine learning.
• Memory
  • This is the main memory the CPU uses for its tasks.
  • The key metric is memory size, usually measured in GB (1 GB = 1024^3 bytes)
  • This type of memory is volatile by design, data is lost when the computer is properly shut down.
• Disk
  • The key metric is disk size (or space), usually measured in GB or TB.
  • This type of memory is non-volatile by design, data is generally not lost when the computer is properly shut down.
• Network.
  • The key metric is network speed (data transfer rate), usually measured in Gbps (gigabits per second).
  • In general, the faster the network, the faster the upload (data out) and download (data in) speeds.

Conversion factors are a handy way to convert from one unit to another, including computer system units of memory and speed.

This tutorial shows you, in a step-by-step manner, how to install WordPress (WP) using cPanel's WordPress Toolkit. If you're not using cPanel, please see How to install WordPress for information on installing WordPress manually.

If you'd prefer a video explaining how to install WP using the WordPress Toolkit (WPT), see Introduction to WordPress Toolkit for cPanel.

Installing WordPress using the WordPress Toolkit

1. Log in to cPanel.

2. From your browser, press Ctrl + F to open the Find Bar in order to search the current page. Type WordPress Toolkit to quickly find the WPT link. If you can't find the link, try searching for WordPress Manager. If you're still unable to find the WPT link, contact your host provider.

3. Select the WPT link. From the WPT page, select the Install button (upper left).

4. Fill in the fields appropriately, whilst keeping the following in mind:

• If you're planning on using WP for an e-commerce site, for the Plugin-theme set drop-down, choose E-Commerce pack or E-Commer pack with Jetpack.
• For security reasons, Username should not be admin.
• Under Automatic Update Settings, you may wish to select Enable autoupdates by default for new plugin installed via WordPress Toolkit and Enable autoupdates by default for new themes installed via WordPress Toolkit.

Select the Install button. The WP installation process can take a few minutes to complete.

5. When the Installation Complete window appears, select Install Plugins. Next, select the Compatible with my version of WordPress checkbox. Install all appropriate plugins. For example, if you're interested in an e-commerce site, you may wish to install WooCommerce (if not already installed via the prior step).

6. Select the Themes tab (upper left) and choose a suitable theme. For example, if you're interested in an e-commerce site, the WooCommerce storefront Astra theme may be apropos. Select the Install button for an appropriate theme. Close the Plugins and Themes window (upper right x).

7. In the WPT window, select the Themes tab and activate your chosen theme (such as Astra). Only one WP theme can be active at a time.

8. Enable Smart Update (lower left).

9. Select the Dashboard tab to return to your WPT dashboard. Select the Install plugin updates link and update all out-of-date plugins. If you receive a "Smart Update could not connect to the website to fetch the sitemap because the website's domain name could not be resolved. To run Smart Update, make sure that the domain name can be resolved." message, disable Smart Update, and update your plugins again. Place a "Fix my WordPress domain name issue" on your to-do list. Close the window (upper right x).

10. Select the Critical security measures applied link, select all non-secure items, and then select the Secure button:

Close the Security Status window (upper right x).

11. If the SSL/TLS field contains a Self-signed certificate link, follow the link to consider obtaining a valid certificate:

If you choose not to purchase a certificate, you must use the http:// protocol and not the https:// for your WP site.

12. For the PHP field, if you're concerned, you may wish to enable hotlink protection. This prevents other websites from displaying, linking, or embedding your files (usually images). Depending on the popularity of your site, the practice of hotlinking can quickly drain your bandwidth and make your website unavailable.

13. Near the upper right area, resolve any remaining issues as listed:

14. WordPress should not be fully configured and ready for design/development. To see your blank WP site, select the site icon:

15. To log in to your WP dashboard, add /wp-login.php to the end of your domain, as in https://<your domain name>/wp-login.php. From your WP dashboard, configure any plugins (such as enabling automatic updates) and resolve any remaining issues.

Enjoy using WordPress!

• The greatest number of page views (a measure of visibility)
• The greatest average time on page (a measure of engagement)

For example, consider the following chart:

This chart provides, in priority order, the list of web pages that offer the greatest potential return on investment (ROI). For example, if we invest our time and effort in improving /tutorials/how-to-open-or-block-ports-using-windows-firewall/ first, that investment should provide the greatest ROI. The next page to invest in would be /product-docs/account/ordering-a-cloud-vps-service/, and so forth. In this article, we'll show you how (among other things) to create a chart similar to the above to help facilitate the improvement of your own website.

Before proceeding, if you have not set up Google Analytics (GA) to collect data for your website, see Use Analytics with your site to learn how to do so. Otherwise, we'll assume you have a reasonable amount of GA data for your site.

In the following, we'll be analyzing the section of a website containing customer-facing documentation but this is immaterial - you can replace this particular focus with whatever makes sense for you - product pages, support pages, image pages, or all of the pages of your website. With that said, the first step in this process is to download the GA data for your website:

Downloading

1. Navigate to the Google Analytics account associated with your website.

2. Select Behavior, Site Content, and then All Pages:

3. Select the Secondary dimension drop-down and type page depth, then select Page Depth:

This adds an additional column to the report table and can increase the resulting number of rows. Page depth is a dimension that may be useful in identifying high ROI pages for your particular scenario. In a nutshell, page depth is a histogram detailing the number of pages users visit per browser session (i.e., before they leave your site). Consider the following:

Between 5/12/21 and 5/12/22, we see that 7,146 users (7,146/2,287,386 = 0.31%) viewed 1 and only 1 page during their browser session. Similarly, 6,309 users (0.28%) visited 2 pages before leaving the site, and so forth. The above image should help to clarify Google Analytics' official definition of page depth:

This dimension creates a histogram of values by number of pages, ranging from 1 - 20+, which are then applied across visitor sessions. The intersection of the two shows the number of pages viewed in a session. For example, your report might show that 1000 visits accounted for views to one page only, 250 visits accounted for views to 2 pages, 50 accounted for views to 3 pages, and so on through the distribution of possible numbers of pages viewed in a session.

4. Choose a date range that doesn't produce too few or too many rows of data:

Currently, GA can only display and export 5000 rows of data at a time (note the EXPORT button in the prior image). To display and export more than 5000 rows, use the following tool at the bottom of the report table:

In this case, there are 16662 / 5000 = 3.33 report pages to export to Excel (or similar) where they can be combined. Four different export formats are available:

Exporting a report using the Excel format results in a spreadsheet similar to the following:

If you are exporting multiple reports, you will note that at the bottom of each spreadsheet is a row of summary data (see row 5002):

This row of summary data is identical in each export, so you need only keep the last row of the last export.

Processing

1. If you want to analyze all of the pages of your site, you may want to skip this step. Otherwise, you must remove all rows (pages) that are not applicable to your scenario. For this example, we're interested in just the documentation pages. These pages begin with /blog, /product-docs, and /tutorials and so we begin the culling process by removing all rows that do not begin with /blog, /product-docs/, and /tutorials. One approach to this is to sort the Page column and delete all non-applicable rows. For example, we'd delete all rows beginning with /application, /apps, .etc:

Text filters may also be useful in this culling process:

Be aware that other page types may need to be removed as well, such as landing pages, custom error pages (i.e., https://www.hostwinds.com/blog/404), and pages that no longer exist on the website, as discussed next.

2. To test for non-existent web pages, you must first create URLs from the given GA page paths. One approach is to use CONCAT with your base domain name, as in the following example:

Next, you can use HYPERLINK to create clickable URLs:

As opposed to clicking each URL to see if it's valid, we can automate the process by using the following VBA script, which returns TRUE if a given URL is valid:

Function validURL(sURL As String) As Boolean    
  Dim oXHTTP As Object    
  Set oXHTTP = CreateObject("MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP")    

  oXHTTP.Open "HEAD", sURL, False    
  oXHTTP.send    

  validURL = IIf(oXHTTP.Status = 200, True, False)    
End Function

To use the script in Excel, press ALT + F11, then enter and save the above VBA code. Next, save the workbook as an XLSM file. You can then access the validURL formula from within Excel just like any other Excel formula, as shown:

For Google Sheets, the following script will return 200 if the given URL is valid:

function getHtmlStatusCode(url) {    
  var response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url);    

  return response.getResponseCode();    
}

At this point, you should be able to easily sort and delete all rows with invalid URLs.

3. With all of the non-applicable rows (pages) removed, you may note that there are multiple rows of data for a single page. For example, there's a single /blog/ page with multiple rows of associated data (a one-to-many relationship):

All of this data for the single /blog/ page must be combined in some way. Luckily, a pivot table can readily complete this task, as shown in the following example:

To create an Excel pivot table, select all of the relevant data (for example, columns A through I in the above one-to-many image), select Insert, and then select PivotTable. From there, you can obtain the collated sums as shown:

In this process, you may identify various GA page paths that you still need to combine into one. For example, you might notice something akin to /blog and /blog/ that should be combined into a single entity (/blog → /blog/) since they both point to the same page. You might also discover unexpected landing or other pages that must be removed from the set as well. This "discover-and-fix" process is not uncommon and may take a few iterations to complete. With the GA data fully processed, we can move on to analyzing it.

Analyzing

From the above process, you should now have a dataset of pages (rows) meeting your requirements. For the example case, this is a dataset of all individual documentation pages, such as Manage Domains (as opposed to landing and other pages like Domains). An example follows:

From the above table, we see that there are a number of GA metrics/dimensions to help identify key pages. For example, a chart of Pageviews, Unique Pageviews, and Avg. Time on Page might be of utility for your particular scenario (sorted by Pageviews, blue):

1. To create a chart in Excel similar to the above, using the Ctrl key, select the four columns Page, Pageviews, Unique Pageviews, and Avg. Time on Page:

2. Select Insert, the bar chart icon, and then the horizontally stacked bar chart icon, as shown:

3. In the resulting chart, right-click the horizontal axis labels and choose Format Axis... In the Format Axis dialog, check Categories in reverse order:

4. To limit the number of visible labels (pages), select the filter/funnel icon, deselect all categories, and then reselect the top few pages:

From the resulting chart, we see that the page /tutorials/how-to-open-or-block-ports-using-windows-firewall is an important one, followed by /product-docs/account/ordering-a-cloud-vps-service, and so forth. In fact, the above chart suggests an interesting single metric that may be of value, as discussed next.

5. There are a number of possibilities to create useful metrics from the available GA data. For example, one could standardize the sum of Pageviews, Unique Pageviews, and Avg. Time on Page to be between 0 and 1, as shown (note formula bar):

In the above, cell I2 is =SUM(B2,D2,E2) and J2 is =(I2 - MIN(I:I)) / (MAX(I:I) - MIN(I:I)). This standardizes the data and leads to the following chart:


If we are satisfied with this particular metric, then we could conclude that the /product-docs/account/ordering-a-cloud-vps-service/ page is about 65% as important as the /tutorials/how-to-open-or-block-ports-using-windows-firewall page, and so on down the list.

Conclusion

Information similar to the above can help you determine which pages of your site deserve your focus, attention, and investment, and in what order, to help maximize your ROI. For example, the prior chart indicates which documentation pages should be scrutinized and improved upon first by adding, (for example) up-to-date screenshots, ensuring clear and concise content, and so forth. This information could even be used to help identify which topics to include in a customer survey to learn how to best improve the associated documentation.

It is our hope that the example presented in this article can be leveraged to help you improve the performance of your own website using this data-driven approach.

Additional information

As an aside, web-related data, such as page views, tend to follow a Zipf distribution. For example, the documentation page view data presented above has a best-fit Zipf probability density function of P = 0.425048x^(-1.57632), where x is a randomly selected documentation webpage. Thus, the probability that such a page will have 1 and only 1 page view is P(1) = 42.5%, 2 page views P(2) = 14.3%, 3 page views P(3) = 7.5%, and so forth, as indicated:

The probability that a documentation-related page has 3 or fewer page views is the sum of the first three bars, namely 64.3%. And the sum of all possible bars (not shown) is, of course, 100%. For additional information, see Probability density function and Cumulative distribution function.

In this article, we'll walk you through the process of creating a WordPress (WP) website for a small business. To provide concrete examples, we'll assume a hypothetical company called Zelthix Sculpture, whose intent is to promote and sell artwork online. The e-commerce compatible Astra theme for WP will be used.

The first step in this process is choosing how you'd like to host your WP website. Do you want to purchase your own hardware, install and maintain a server OS, web server software, the required WP database, PHP, and so forth? If you're new to website creation, it may be best to use a web hosting company to eliminate much or all of this complexity. For example, a number of web hosting companies (including Hostwinds) allow you to install WordPress, with all of its dependencies, in just a few clicks. Another consideration that can be overlooked is the hosting company's quality of customer service, which if you're new to such things, can be important. Among other things, Hostwinds is known for its customer service, as a few web searches will verify.

Once you've selected a web hosting company or have a system prepared, the next step is installing WP for e-commerce, as discussed next.

Installing WordPress for e-commerce

1. Log in to cPanel.

2. Within cPanel, select the WordPress Toolkit link. If you can't find the link, try searching for WordPress Manager. If you are still unable to open the WordPress Toolkit, contact your host provider.

3. Within the WordPress Toolkit, select the Install button (upper left).

4. For Plugin/theme set, select E-Commerce pack; and for security reasons, use a non-standard administrator username, as indicated:

5. Under Automatic Update Settings, you can (optionally) have plugins and themes auto-updated:

6. Select the Install button. When the Installation Complete window appears, choose not to install any plugins - that is, select the No, thanks button.

7. As necessary, let the WP set installation complete:

8. Choose the Themes tab and then select the Install button:

9. Search for and install the Astra theme:

10. After installation, close the Plugins and Themes panel by selecting X (upper right). Next, active the Astra theme (only one theme may be active at a time):

11. Select the Plugins tab and (optionally) enable Autoupdate all plugins:

If you should have any issues with the above procedure, please refer to Installing WordPress using cPanel's WordPress Toolkit.

12. Select the Log in button to log in to your new Astra-themed WP website (your login credentials shouldn't be necessary).

Removing WP blog components

If you'd like to keep the stock WP blog on your new e-commerce site, skip this section.

1. If necessary, log in to your WP dashboard by navigating to one of the following URLs:

• http://<your domain>/wp-login.php
• http://<your domain>/wp/wp-login.php
• http://<your domain>/wordpress/wp-login.php

For example, https://karlitob.net/wp-admin/

2. Select Settings, then Reading. Choose A static page (select below) and configure it exactly as shown:

Select the Save Changes button.

3. Select Posts, hover over Hello world!, select Quick Edit, and change Status from Published to Draft:

All pages in draft mode are removed from the live website. Next, select the Update button.

4. Open your site in a new browser tab. For example, select Zelthix Sculpture, Visit Site, and then Open link in new tab:

5. Note the blog related items (blocks) in the right sidebar:

To remove all blocks, less Search, select Appearance, then Widgets. Next, select the list view icon , expand Main Sidebar, and remove the four Group's via the vertical ellipses, as domenstrated:

Select the Update button (upper right).

6. Refresh the live page and note that only Search remains in the right sidebar:

You have successfully de-blogified your Astra-themed WP site. The next step is to add a few e-commerce products.

Adding products to the e-commerce site

In the following example, we'll be adding a few pieces of for-sale artwork.

1. From the WP dashboard, select Products, then Add New.

2. Add a product name and description, such as:

3. Near the bottom right (scroll down), select the Set product image link. Next, select the Upload files tab and upload a product image. With the chosen image, select the blue Set product image button. Note that you can edit the images that are in the WP Media Library using the blue Edit Image link:

4. Scrolling down, provide a product type (Simple product, in this case) and a price.

5. Scrolling up, add any additional information, such as product categories or product tags:

When done, select the Publish button (upper right) to push the product live. Refresh the live version of the page and select the Shop link in the main menu - you should see your new product.

You can add additional product images if you're so inclined. For example, you can use the Add Media button to create "inline" product description images:

6. Repeat the prior five steps to add additional products to your e-commerce site.

Modifying the homepage

Given that the Zelthix Sculpture company is selling artistic items, it makes sense to provide an image gallery akin to what a museum or a similar organization might use. In this process, we will change the stock Astra sample page into our official homepage.

1. From the WP dashboard, select Pages, then hover over Sample Page — Front Page, and choose Edit.

2. Change the title Sample Page to Welcome or something apropos.

3. In the next block, replace the "This is an example page..." content with something skillful/witty (beyond the scope of this article).

4. Delete other unneeded blocks by selecting them and pressing Shift + Alt + Z.

5. To add an image gallery, select the black + icon, and then choose Gallery:

Populate the gallery by uploading images or by using the WP Media Library. When done, select the Update button (upper right).

6. To link the images in the gallery to their associated products on the Shop page, select an image, choose the icon, and type the title of the page you're trying to link to, such as "Oval Table". Choose one that matches, and then select Apply:

You can also use a relative URL, such as /?product=elliptic-torus-table

7. Repeat the prior step for each image in your gallery.

Modifying the menu

You may have noticed that the order of the items on the main menu may not be to your liking:

You can change the menu as follows:

1. Select Appearance, then Menus.

2. Even though you currently have a perfectly usable menu by default, to manipulate it, you must create a new one as if it never existed. To do so, provide a menu name, such as "Main", choose the following settings, and then select the Create Menu button:

3. Next, select all appropriate menu items, and then choose Add to Menu:

4. You can click and drag the menu times to change their order, then select the Save Menu button:

You should now see the modified menu on any live WP page:

The prior menu image does beg the question, however - how do we enable the Cart, Checkout, and My account menu items? This topic is discussed next.

Setting up WooCommerce

WooCommerce is an open-source e-commerce plugin designed for small to large-sized online merchants using WordPress. Although its core functionality is freeware, a number of its optional extensions are paid and proprietary.

The following demonstrates how to configure WooCommerce:

1. From the WP dashboard, select WooCommerce, and then Settings.

2. For each of the eight tabs, fill in the requested information and choose the appropriate settings for your particular business scenario. Please note the following details:

• For the Shipping tab: To apply the same shipping rate for all zones (all shipping locations), select Locations not covered by your other zones, Add shipping method, Flat rate, and then Add shipping method.
  
• For the Payments tab: Choose one or more customer payment options such as Stripe and/or PayPal Payments (you must select the Other payment methods link to view the PayPal Payments option). For each payment method, provided the necessary information to complete the signup process.

3. From the WP dashboard, select WooCommerce and then Menu Cart Setup. If necessary, make any changes, then select Save Changes.

With the WooCommerce setup complete, you should now have a basic but functional e-commerce website. You can change your site's color theme, font family, and so forth to make the site unique to your business aesthetic - for details, see Changing WordPress appearance (you may not want to change the e-commerce compatible Astra theme).

Additional Resources

• WooCommerce's Getting Started
• WordPress Security and Hardening
• WordPress How to add a favicon

Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP)  allows you to connect to and manage a remote computer as if you were sitting in front of it. While RDP is commonly associated with Windows systems, you can also use it to connect to Linux machines.

In this tutorial, we'll walk you through the process of setting up and using RDP to access a Linux machine from Windows.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, let's confirm the following:

1. Linux Machine: A Linux system (e.g., Ubuntu, CentOS, Fedora) that you want to connect to.
2. Windows Machine: A computer running Windows with RDP client software (e.g., Remote Desktop Connection).
3. Network Configuration: Both systems are on the same network, or the Linux machine is accessible via public IP/hostname.
4. Permissions: Admin or sudo access to the Linux machine. If you need help with this, check out  our tutorial on How to Create Sudo User

Step 1: Install an RDP Server on Your Linux Machine

Windows uses the RDP protocol by default, so you'll need to install an RDP server on your Linux machine. A popular option is xrdp.

1. Open a Terminal on the Linux Machine
   • You can use the built-in terminal or SSH into the machine if you're accessing it remotely.
2. Install xrdp

• On Ubuntu or Debian-based systems, run:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install xrdp -y

• On CentOS or Fedora, use::

sudo yum install epel-release -y
sudo yum install xrdp -y

3. Start and Enable xrdp

• Start the xrdp service:

sudo systemctl start xrdp

• Enable it to start on boot:

sudo systemctl enable xrdp

4. Check the Status

• Verify that the service is running:

sudo systemctl status xrdp

Step 2: Configure xrdp for Your Linux Desktop Environment

Different desktop environments (e.g., GNOME, KDE, XFCE) require specific configurations. Here's a common approach:

1.Check Installed Desktop Environment:

• If unsure, use the following command to determine your desktop environment:

echo $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP

2. Configure xrdp to Use the Desktop Environment

• Edit the xrdp.ini file:

sudo nano /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini

• Ensure it references your preferred desktop session. For example:

exec=startxfce4

• Replace startxfce4 with the command for your desktop environment (e.g., startgnome or startkde).

3. Restart the xrdp Service:

sudo systemctl restart xrdp

Step 3: Allow RDP Traffic Through the Linux Firewall

Ensure that your Linux machine's firewall allows RDP traffic (port 3389 by default).

1.Open the RDP Port

• For ufw (Ubuntu Firewall):

sudo ufw allow 3389

• For firewalld:

sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=3389/tcp
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

2. Verify the Open Port:

sudo netstat -tulpn | grep 3389

For more information on Linux ports, check out 5 Ways to Check Open on Linux.

Step 4: Connect from Windows to the Linux Machine

Now that the Linux machine is ready, it's time to connect from Windows.

1. Open Remote Desktop Connection:
   • Press Win + R to open the Run dialog, type mstsc, and hit Enter.
2. Enter the Linux Machine's IP Address:
   • In the Remote Desktop Connection window, enter the Linux machine's IP address or hostname.
3. Authenticate:
   • You'll be prompted to log in. Use your Linux username and password.
4. Start the Session:
   • Click "Connect." If everything is set up correctly, you'll see your Linux desktop on the screen.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

If your Linux desktop isn't loading through RDP, it may be due to a variety of factors, but a few simple checks can help you quickly identify and resolve the problem. Here are some of the more common issues you might come across:

• Black Screen or Session Fails to Load:
  • Ensure the correct desktop environment is configured for xrdp.
  • Check that your Linux machine has sufficient resources (RAM, CPU) to handle an RDP session.
• Firewall or Network Issues:
  • Verify that port 3389 is open and the machine is accessible from the Windows system.
• Credential Errors:
  • Double-check the username and password you're using. Make sure the user account has permission to access the desktop environment.

You're Connected!

Using RDP to connect from Windows to a Linux machine is a convenient way to manage your systems. Now you can seamlessly switch between operating systems, leveraging the best of both worlds.

If you have any questions or run into issues, feel free to ask for help or consult the documentation for xrdp and your Linux distribution. Happy remote accessing!

PowerShell is a cross-platform solution commonly used for automating the management of computer systems but it can be used for general coding as well. PowerShell is made up of a command-line shell, a scripting language, and a configuration management framework. PowerShell runs on Windows, Linux, and the macOS operating systems. Because of fundamental differences in operating systems, some PowerShell commands (called cmdlets) do not make sense. For example, the PowerShell Get-Acl cmdlet is not applicable for Linux systems in that the Linux file system does not use NTFS access control lists (ACLs). To view a list of the available Linux PowerShell cmdlets, run Get-Command.

Why Linux PowerShell?

In Linux, the output of one command can be piped into another command. For example:

ls | sort -r | more

This reverse sorts the contents of the current directory and paginates the list (if necessary). That is, the data stream output of the ls command is piped to the sort command whose data stream output is then piped to the more command. The PowerShell analog of this is as follows:

Get-ChildItem | Sort-Object -Descending | Out-Host -Paging

Which begs the question, why would you want to use PowerShell over the native version? One key reason is that objects, and not simple data streams, are piped between PowerShell cmdlets. For example, there's no need to parse text to extract information from another output stream. And because PowerShell objects generally have a plethora of properties associated with them, you can do some fairly powerful things relatively easily. For example, say you would like to find the PID of the cron service. A first attempt might be as follows:

ps -aux | grep cron

This results in output similar to the following:

root      1041  0.0  0.1 126384  1584 ?        Ss   22:25   0:00 /usr/sbin/crond -n
root      3519  0.0  0.0 123360   728 ?        Ss   23:01   0:00 /usr/sbin/anacron -s
root      4089  0.0  0.0 112808   976 pts/1    R+   23:09   0:00 grep --color=auto cron

The cron PID appears to be 1041 although it's hard to tell without seeing the table headers. Assuming this is the case, we need to access the second column in the first line. The first step might be to reduce excessive whitespace:

ps -aux | grep cron | tr -s ' '

This yields:

root 1041 0.0 0.1 126384 1584 ? Ss 22:25 0:00 /usr/sbin/crond -n
root 3519 0.0 0.0 123360 728 ? Ss 23:01 0:00 /usr/sbin/anacron -s
root 4167 0.0 0.0 112808 972 pts/1 R+ 23:11 0:00 grep --color=auto cron

Now we can isolate the second column with cut:

ps -aux | grep cron | tr -s ' ' | cut -d ' ' -f 2

Which produces:

1041
3519
4274

Finally, we can grab the first line, as follows, to get the desired result, namely 1041:

ps -aux | grep cron | tr -s ' ' | cut -d ' ' -f 2 | head -1

Using the fact that PowerShell cmdlets output objects rather than data streams, the PowerShell version of the above is simply:

(Get-Process -Name crond).Id

In this case, Get-Process -Name crond returns an object representing the cron process. This object has a series of useful properties, one of which is the process Id (or PID). To access a property of a PowerShell object, you can wrap it in parentheses and then use standard "dot" notation, as shown.

Installing Linux PowerShell

To install PowerShell on your favorite flavor of Linux, refer to Microsoft's Installing PowerShell on Linux. If your Linux distribution is not listed, consider Alternate ways to install PowerShell on Linux.

As an example, the following four commands install the latest version of PowerShell on Ubuntu:

# Optionally update all software packages:
  sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
  
# Download and Add Microsoft repository:
  wget -q "https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/$(lsb_release -rs)/packages-microsoft-prod.deb" -O packages-microsoft-prod.deb

  sudo dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb


    
# Install PowerShell:
  sudo apt update

  sudo apt install -y powershell


    
# Start PowerShell:
  pwsh

As can be seen, installing PowerShell is straightforward.

Additional Linux PowerShell Examples

One key technique is determining what properties a PowerShell object actually has. This can easily be accomplished with the Get-Member cmdlet. For example, to determine the properties of a PowerShell process object, you can use:

Get-Process | Get-Member -Force

This reveals that there's a Path property for process objects. Thus, we can use it to list the top 10 processes, with respect to CPU usage, as follows:

Get-Process | Sort-Object -Property CPU | Select-Object -Property Name, Path, CPU -Last 10

This produces output similar to the following:

Name           Path                                CPU
----           ----                                ---
xfwm4          /usr/bin/xfwm4                     1.95
systemd        /usr/lib/systemd/systemd           3.63
rngd           /usr/sbin/rngd                     7.39
xfce4-terminal /usr/bin/xfce4-terminal            9.35
xrdp           /usr/sbin/xrdp                    22.05
ksoftirqd/0                                      26.21
pwsh           /opt/microsoft/powershell/7/pwsh  27.37
rcu_sched                                        45.44
Xvnc           /usr/bin/Xvnc                     59.27
NetworkManager /usr/sbin/NetworkManager         955.19

Although useful, we may want to calculate an overall system usage metric. A first cut might be to simply sum the non-paged memory (NPM), page memory (PM), working set (WS), and CPU usage values. That is, we define our overall usage metric as follows:

OverallUsage = NPM + PM + WS + CPU.

In PowerShell, this can be accomplished as follows:

Get-Process | Select-Object -Property @{Label = 'OverallUsage'; Expression = {$_.NPM + $_.PM + $_.WS + $_.CPU}}

The @{} hash table (i.e., key/value pairs) allows us to define a property called OverallUsage whose definition is the expression shown above. In this expression, $_ represents a pipeline object. In this case, an individual process object that Get-Process returns (one per running Linux process). We then sum the four properties. This results in the following (first few lines):

    OverallUsage
    ------------
          520192
       815104.03
          794624
         1093632
      4902912.01
      3330048.37

Now we can combine these two concepts as follows:

Get-Process | Select-Object -Property Name, Path, @{Label = 'OverallUsage'; Expression = {$_.NPM + $_.PM + $_.WS + $_.CPU}} | Sort-Object -Property OverallUsage -Bottom 10

This produces a top 10 overall usage table, similar to the following:

Name                Path                             OverallUsage
----                ----                             ------------
Thunar              /usr/bin/thunar                    14073856.2
xfce4-power-manager /usr/bin/xfce4-power-manager       15970304.3
xfce4-panel         /usr/bin/xfce4-panel               16195584.9
xfdesktop           /usr/bin/xfdesktop                17588224.59
tuned               /usr/bin/python2.7                18898945.66
yum-cron            /usr/bin/python2.7                 22335488.2
xfce4-terminal      /usr/bin/xfce4-terminal            23642123.4
xrdp                /usr/sbin/xrdp                    26570776.34
Xvnc                /usr/bin/Xvnc                     82710598.14
pwsh                /opt/microsoft/powershell/7/pwsh 298852382.66

And if you prefer to display rounded usage values, you can use:

Get-Process | Select-Object -Property Name, Path, @{Label = 'OverallUsage'; Expression = {[Math]::Round($_.NPM + $_.PM + $_.WS + $_.CPU)}} | Sort-Object -Property OverallUsage -Bottom 10

The [Math]::Round() function is used to round the individual sums to their nearest whole values.

Conclusion

There are plenty of scenarios where standard Linux commands make more sense than PowerShell cmdlets, and in a number of cases, the other way around but what's particularly appealing is that you can use both paradigms together. As a simple example, consider:

Get-Process | Select-Object -Property Name, Path, Responding, Id |  grep cron

This produces:

anacron    /usr/sbin/anacron    True   3018
crond      /usr/sbin/crond      True   1033
yum-cron   /usr/bin/python2.7   True   4760

The third column indicates whether or not the process is responsive.

As you can see, PowerShell and the combination of PowerShell with Linux commands provide ample opportunity for solving and simplifying various problems and tasks.

Creating your first WP page

1. Using your WordPress administrator credentials, navigate to http://xxxxx/wp/wp-admin/, where xxxxx is your domain name (or IP address).
   
   Note. The default WP password is password, which should be changed immediately not already done so.
   
   
2. From the Dashboard, select Pages in the left menu. Next, hover over Sample Page and select Edit.
   
   As suggested by the sample page content, we'll delete it and create an About page using the dashboard.
   
   
3. From the sample page, select the WP icon to return to the dashboard.
   
4. Select the Add New button.
   
   
   
5. Let the page title be About. Next, type some information about yourself. A random example follows.
   
6. Select the Preview button.
   
   Select one or more device types, such as Mobile, to see how your page will look prior to publishing it. When you're satisfied, select Publish.
   
7. After the page has been published, select View Page to view your new WordPress about page.
   
   
8. You should now have the skills to delete the Sample Page if you'd like.
   

Additional Resources

• Changing WordPress appearance
• WordPress How to add a favicon

Additional Context

WordPress, which is free and open-source, was originally developed as a blogging platform back in 2003 but is now used for a myriad of things, including:

• Personal blogs or websites
• Photoblogs
• Business websites
• Professional portfolios
• Government websites (including accessibility)
• Magazine or news websites
• Custom applications
• Online communities or even a network of websites

As of 2022, 43% of the web is powered by WordPress. To run WordPress, you'll need PHP, MySQL or Maria DB, and HTTPS support (i.e., a web server). Apache or Nginx is the recommended software for the web server component. In other words, WordPress runs on a LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP). Installing the various LAMP components can be time-consuming and error-prone. This is where Softaculous or another auto-installer can come in handy. An auto-installer is essentially a library of software installation scripts (i.e., software that installs software). It generally takes just a minute or two to install WordPress (along with all of its components) using an auto-installer. For a step-by-step tutorial on how to install WordPress using Softaculous, see Creating a WordPress site with cPanel and Softaculous.

This article describes how to set up a WordPress site using cPanel and Softaculous. As you may know, WordPress is a popular content management system used to build blogs and websites. cPanel is a web hosting control panel (created by cPanel, Inc.) that allows for the management and administration of websites and their related services. Lastly, Softaculous enables users to install many scripts and applications with just a few clicks - it handles all of the installation requirements/dependencies for available software packages (such as WordPress), including uploading and installing files, creating databases, and so forth.

Install WordPress

1. From within cPanel, scroll down until you reach the Software section, then select Softaculous Apps Installer:

2. In the WordPress group, select Install:

3. In the blue Install menu, select Quick Install (you can choose Custom Install for additional installation options):

4. Adjust all fields appropriately. In particular, consider the following best practices:

• Change the default Admin Username to something other than "admin" (record the username).
• Choose a strong Admin Password (record the password).
• Ensure that Limit Login Attempts (Loginizer) is checked.

When complete, select Install:

You should receive a "Congratulations, the software was installed successfully" message with your particular installation URLs. You can select Return to WordPress Management to view your new WordPress site details.

To create your first WordPress webpage, see Creating your first WordPress webpage. Enjoy using WordPress!

Additional Resources

• cPanel and WHM Overview
• Log in to cPanel
• Softaculous Overview

Additional Context

In this section, we provide some optional historical context. cPanel was originally developed in 1996 (using Perl). In 1999, cPanel 3 was released, which among other things, added WHM (Web Host Manager) to the system. In this paired configuration, cPanel is used for website owners to perform common management tasks, including:

• Backup, transfer and manage files.
• Publishing websites.
• Managing individual domains.
• Creating and managing email (including webmail and calendars) as well as FTP accounts.
• Creating and managing databases.

WHM, on the other hand, is designed for system administrators to perform common server administration functions, including:

• Creating, managing, and monitoring website owner accounts (creating cPanel accounts and hosting packages).
• Configuring networking information.
• Security and viewing/analyzing server statistics.
• Managing SSL certificates.
• Monitoring and restarting services.

After WHM joined cPanel, cPanel Manage2 was added to the family. This component is used to manage licenses and billing (including invoice payment).

Next on the list is Softaculous. This is basically a piece of software that installs other website-related software. Otherwise known as an auto-installer, it's a library of software installation scripts. Consider the installation of WordPress, which generally requires a LAMP stack. Traditionally, this is Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Installing all of these required WordPress components is, at a minimum, quite time-consuming. A proven installation script, on the other hand, essentially removes much of the installation time, complexity, and pain (installing WordPress via an auto-installer only takes a few minutes, if that). Softaculous can be bundled with cPanel (and other control panels), which is generally where'd you find it.

Lastly comes WordPress, which is a free open-source platform for such things as blogs, forums, websites, and online stores (e-commerce sites). As of 2021, 43% of the top 10 million websites use WordPress. It all started because the development of an existing blogging system, b2/cafelog, was being discontinued by its core developer (Michel Valdrighi). In 2003, two users of b2/cafelog, Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little, decided to build a new blogging platform on top of b2/cafelog. Over the following years, with a lot of help from the open-source community, WordPress now powers a large majority of all websites (as of 2024).