Step-by-step guides for your website

1. Log in to the client portal and open your hosting service. Copy the two nameservers listed under Account Information.
2. Sign in to the registrar where the domain is registered and open its DNS or Nameserver settings.
3. Choose “Custom nameservers”, remove the existing entries and paste the Webscepts nameservers.
4. Save the change. Propagation normally completes within a few hours but can take up to 24–48 hours worldwide.
5. Check progress with a DNS lookup tool — once your domain resolves to the hosting IP, your site is live.

Domains registered with Webscepts are pointed automatically when you order hosting on the same account.

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1. At your current registrar, unlock the domain and disable WHOIS privacy temporarily if it hides the admin email.
2. Request the EPP / authorisation code. It is usually emailed to the domain’s registrant contact.
3. On Webscepts, choose Transfer Domain, enter the domain name and paste the EPP code at checkout.
4. Approve the transfer email that arrives at the registrant address to speed things up.
5. Transfers complete in 5–7 days. Your website and email keep running because nameservers are not changed.

Domains registered or transferred within the last 60 days cannot be moved again under ICANN rules.

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1. Open cPanel from the client portal and launch File Manager.
2. Go into the public_html folder — this is the web root for your main domain.
3. Upload a .zip of your site, then right-click it and choose Extract to unpack the files in place.
4. Make sure your home page is named index.html or index.php and sits directly inside public_html.
5. Prefer FTP? Create an account under FTP Accounts and connect with FileZilla using port 21 (FTPS) or SFTP if enabled.

Delete the uploaded .zip after extracting so it can’t be downloaded by visitors.

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1. In cPanel, open MySQL® Database Wizard.
2. Enter a database name. cPanel prefixes it with your account username automatically.
3. Create a database user with a strong generated password and store it somewhere safe.
4. Grant the user ALL PRIVILEGES on the new database and finish the wizard.
5. Use localhost as the database host in your application’s configuration file.

Manage tables and imports from phpMyAdmin, also available in cPanel.

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1. Open cPanel and choose Backup Wizard.
2. Select Back Up, then either a Full Backup or a partial backup of Home Directory, MySQL Databases or Email.
3. Download the generated archive to your computer or cloud storage.
4. To restore, return to Backup Wizard, choose Restore and upload the matching partial backup file.
5. Need a point-in-time restore from our daily snapshots instead? Open a support ticket with the date and path.

Full account backups can only be restored by our team — send us a ticket and we’ll handle it.

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1. In cPanel, open WordPress Manager by Softaculous (or Softaculous Apps Installer → WordPress).
2. Click Install, select https:// and your domain, and leave the directory field empty to install at the root.
3. Set your site name, an admin username (not “admin”) and a strong password.
4. Under Advanced Options, enable automatic backups and minor core updates.
5. Click Install. Log in at yourdomain.com/wp-admin once the installer finishes.

Install an SSL certificate first so WordPress is set up on https from the start.

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1. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New, search for “LiteSpeed Cache” and activate it.
2. Open LiteSpeed Cache → Cache and make sure Enable Cache is ON.
3. Under Page Optimization, enable CSS and JS Minify. Test your site after each change.
4. Under Image Optimization, request a domain key and send images for WebP optimisation.
5. Purge all caches and test your site with PageSpeed Insights to compare scores.

Avoid running a second caching plugin alongside LiteSpeed Cache — they conflict.

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1. In cPanel, open Email Accounts and click Create.
2. Choose the address, set a strong password and a storage quota, then click Create.
3. Click Connect Devices beside the new account to see the incoming and outgoing server settings.
4. On your device, add an account with IMAP, port 993 (SSL) for incoming and port 465 (SSL) for outgoing.
5. Use the full email address as the username. Send a test message to confirm both directions work.

Webmail is always available at yourdomain.com/webmail.

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1. In cPanel, open Email Deliverability and find your domain.
2. If SPF or DKIM shows a problem, click Repair and confirm — cPanel installs the recommended records.
3. If your DNS is hosted elsewhere, copy the suggested SPF and DKIM records into that DNS zone instead.
4. Add a DMARC TXT record at _dmarc.yourdomain.com, starting with: v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:you@yourdomain.com
5. After a few weeks of clean reports, tighten the policy to p=quarantine and later p=reject.

Using Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 too? Merge their include into a single SPF record.

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1. Make sure your domain already points to your Webscepts hosting.
2. In cPanel, open SSL/TLS Status, select your domain and click Run AutoSSL.
3. Wait until the domain shows a green padlock status.
4. Open Domains and switch Force HTTPS Redirect ON for the domain.
5. In WordPress, update both URLs under Settings → General to start with https://.

AutoSSL renews automatically — no manual renewals needed.

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1. Connect with ssh root@your-server-ip using the password from your welcome email.
2. Update the system: apt update && apt upgrade -y (Ubuntu/Debian) or dnf upgrade -y (AlmaLinux/Rocky).
3. Create a user with sudo rights and copy your public SSH key into ~/.ssh/authorized_keys.
4. In /etc/ssh/sshd_config set PasswordAuthentication no and PermitRootLogin no, then restart sshd.
5. Enable a firewall (ufw or firewalld) that only allows SSH, HTTP and HTTPS.

Keep your current session open while you test the new login in a second terminal.

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1. Install Node.js LTS on the server using NodeSource or nvm.
2. Clone your repository, run npm ci --omit=dev and set environment variables in a .env file.
3. Install PM2 (npm i -g pm2), start the app with pm2 start server.js --name app and run pm2 save.
4. Run pm2 startup and execute the printed command so the app starts on reboot.
5. Proxy your domain to the app port with Nginx or LiteSpeed and add an SSL certificate with Certbot.

On cPanel plans, use Setup Node.js App instead — no root access needed.

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