Download the ISPConfig Manual for ISPConfig 3.1 (Date: 09/27/2016)

The good news first: the updated ISPConfig 3 Manual (version 1.4 for ISPConfig 3.0.5) is finally available (in PDF format).

On more then 400 pages, it covers the concept behind ISPConfig (admin, resellers, clients), explains how to install and update ISPConfig 3.1, includes a reference for all forms and form fields in ISPConfig together with examples of valid inputs, and provides tutorials for the most common tasks in ISPConfig 3. It also lines out how to make your server more secure and comes with a troubleshooting section at the end.

ISPConfig Manual for ISPConfig 3.1 (Date: 09/27/2016)
Authors: Till Brehm, Falko Timme (c) ISPConfig UG

Now the bad news: we can't offer it for free. But it will be available for as low as 5 EUR per copy - we think this price is more than fair for a manual with more than 400 pages.

We don't want to bore you with long explanations, so here are the facts:

Why Do We Charge For The ISPConfig 3 Manual?

We hope that this will allow us to employ an additional full-time ISPConfig developer who can disburden the core team. This would accelerate ISPConfig development a lot and also allow us to provide more support for ISPConfig users.

Will ISPConfig 3 Continue To be Free?

Yes.

What Does the ISPConfig 3 Manual Cost?

You can download it either through an active HowtoForge subscription, or you can buy a single copy.

Downloading through a HowtoForge subscription has the advantage that you get updates of the manual for free as long as you are a subscriber, while if you buy a single copy, no updates are included (i.e., you would have to pay again for new versions of the manual).

A HowtoForge subscription costs 5 EUR for one month or 25 EUR for six months.

If you want to download a single copy of the ISPConfig 3 manual, this costs you 5 EUR which is equal to buying a one-month HowtoForge subscription.

Copyright Information

The ISPConfig 3 manual is protected by copyright. No part of the manual may be reproduced, adapted, translated, or made available to a third party in any form by any process (electronic or otherwise) without the written specific consent of ISPConfig UG. You may keep backup copies of the manual in digital or printed form for your personal use. All rights reserved.

This means it is not allowed to redistribute the ISPConfig 3 manual in any form (for example by offering it as a download on your web site). Your copy of the ISPConfig 3 manual will be personalized with your real name (or HowtoForge username) and email address.

If you are an ISP and need multiple copies (e.g. for your clients), please contact us, and we will find a solution.

Table Of Contents

1 Conventions Used In This Manual
1.1 Commands
1.2 Contents Of Files
1.3 File Names, Protocol Names, System Specifications, Technical Specifications, User Names, Etc.
1.4 Highlighting

2 ISPConfig Users – Admin, Resellers, And Clients
2.1 Summary
2.1.1 admin
2.1.2 Resellers
2.1.3 Clients

3 Installation & Updating
3.1 Single Server Setup
3.1.1 HHVM and Let’s Encrypt
3.1.2 Metronome XMPP
3.1.3 ISPConfig 3.1 Installation
3.2 Multiserver Setup
3.2.1 Installing A Multiserver Setup With Dedicated Web, Email, DNS And MySQL Database Servers On Debian 8 With ISPConfig 3.1
3.2.1.1 Installing The Five Debian Base Systems
3.2.1.2 Installing The Web Server
3.2.1.3 Installing The Mail Server
3.2.1.4 Installing The MySQL Database Server
3.2.1.5 Installing The Primary DNS Server
3.2.1.6 Installing The Secondary DNS Server
3.2.1.7 Adjust The Server Settings In ISPConfig 3.1.3 Mirror Setup
3.3.1 Installing A Web, Email And MySQL Database Cluster On Debian 8 With ISPConfig 3.1
3.3.1.1 General note
3.3.1.2 Install the Master Server
3.3.1.3 Prepare the Slave Server
3.3.1.4 Keyless Login from Server1 to Server2
3.3.1.5 MySQL Master-Master Replication
3.3.1.6 Install ISPConfig on the Slave Server
3.3.1.7 Install Unison
3.3.1.8 Sync Emails with Dovecot
3.3.1.9 Additional Notes
3.4 Updating
3.4.1 Creating A Backup
3.4.2 Command Line Update

4 Reference
4.1 Tabs
4.2 Login
4.3 Home
4.4 Tools
4.4.1 User Settings
4.4.1.1 Password and Language
4.4.2 Interface
4.4.2.1 Interface
4.4.3 Sync Tools
4.4.3.1 Resync
4.4.4 Import
4.4.4.1 ISPConfig 3.1 mail
4.4.4.2 PowerDNS Tupa
4.5 Client
4.5.1 Clients
4.5.1.1 Add Client
4.5.1.2 Edit Client
4.5.1.3 Edit Client-Templates
4.5.2 Resellers
4.5.2.1 Add Reseller
4.5.2.2 Edit Reseller
4.5.3 Messaging
4.5.3.1 Edit Client Circle
4.5.3.2 Send Email
4.5.3.3 Email Templates
4.5.4 Domains
4.5.4.1 Add or Edit Domains
4.6 Sites
4.6.1 Websites
4.6.1.1 Website
4.6.1.2 Subdomain for website
4.6.1.3 Subdomain (Vhost)
4.6.1.4 Aliasdomain for website
4.6.1.5 Aliasdomain (Vhost)
4.6.2 Database
4.6.2.1 Databases
4.6.2.2 Database Users
4.6.3 Web Access
4.6.3.1 FTP-Accounts
4.6.3.2 WebDAV-Users
4.6.3.3 Protected Folders
4.6.3.4 Protected Folder Users
4.6.4 Command Line
4.6.4.1 Shell-User
4.6.4.2 Cron Jobs
4.6.5 APS Installer
4.6.5.1 Available packages
4.6.5.2 Installed packages
4.6.5.3 Update Packagelist
4.6.6 Statistics
4.6.6.1 Web traffic
4.6.6.2 FTP Traffic
4.6.6.3 Website quota (Harddisk)
4.6.6.2 Database quota
4.7 Email
4.7.1 Email Accounts
4.7.1.1 Domain
4.7.1.2 Domain Alias
4.7.1.3 Email Mailbox
4.7.1.4 Email Alias
4.7.1.5 Email Forward
4.7.1.6 Email Catchall
4.7.1.7 Email Routing
4.7.2 Mailing List
4.7.2.1 Mailing List
4.7.3 Spamfilter
4.7.3.1 Whitelist
4.7.3.2 Blacklist
4.7.3.3 User / Domain
4.7.3.4 Policy
4.7.4 Fetchmail
4.7.4.1 Fetchmail
4.7.5 Statistics
4.7.5.1 Mailbox quota
4.7.5.2 Mailbox traffic
4.7.5.3 Backup Stats
4.7.6 Global Filters
4.7.6.1 Postfix Whitelist
4.7.6.2 Postfix Blacklist
4.7.6.3 Content Filter
4.7.6.4 Relay Recipients
4.7.7 Jabber/XMPP
4.7.7.1 XMPP Domain
4.8 DNS
4.8.1 DNS Wizard
4.8.1.1 Add DNS Zone
4.8.1.2 Import Zone File
4.8.1.3 Templates
4.8.2 DNS
4.8.2.1 Zones
4.8.3 Secondary DNS
4.8.3.1 Secondary Zones
4.9 System
4.9.1 User Management
4.9.1.1 CP Users
4.9.1.2 Remote Users
4.9.2 System
4.9.2.1 Server Services
4.9.2.2 Server Config
4.9.2.3 Server IP addresses
4.9.2.4 Additional PHP Versions
4.9.2.5 Directive Snippets
4.9.2.6 Firewall
4.9.2.7 Server IPv4 Mapping
4.9.3 Interface
4.9.3.1 Main Config
4.9.4 Apps & Addons
4.9.4.1 Repositories
4.9.4.2 Packages
4.9.4.3 Updates
4.9.5 Language Editor
4.9.5.1 Languages
4.9.5.2 New Language
4.9.5.3 Merge
4.9.5.4 Export
4.9.5.5 Import
4.9.6 Remote Actions
4.9.6.1 Do OS-Update
4.9.6.2 Do ISPConfig-Update
4.10 Monitor
4.10.1 System State (All Servers)
4.10.1.1 Show Overview
4.10.1.2 Show System-Log
4.10.1.3 Show Jobqueue
4.10.2 Server to Monitor
4.10.3 Hardware Information
4.10.3.1 Show CPU Info
4.10.4 Server State
4.10.4.1 Show Overview
4.10.4.2 Show Update State
4.10.4.3 Show RAID State
4.10.4.4 Show Server Load
4.10.4.5 Show Disk Usage
4.10.4.6 Show Memory Usage
4.10.4.7 Show Services
4.10.4.8 Show OpenVz VE BeanCounter
4.10.4.9 Show MySQL database size
4.10.4.10 Show Monit
4.10.4.11 Show Munin
4.10.5 Logfiles
4.10.5.1 Show Mail Queue
4.10.5.2 Show Mail Log
4.10.5.3 Show Mail Warn-Log
4.10.5.4 Show Mail Error-Log
4.10.5.5 Show System-Log
4.10.5.6 Show ISPC Cron-Log
4.10.5.7 Show Freshclam-Log
4.10.5.8 Show Clamav-Log
4.10.5.9 Show RKHunter-Log
4.10.5.10 Show fail2ban-Log
4.10.5.11 Show IPTables
4.11 Help
4.11.1 Support
4.11.1.1 Send message
4.11.1.2 View messages
4.11.2 FAQ
4.11.2.1 Manage Sections
4.11.2.2 Manage Questions
4.11.3 About ISPConfig
4.11.3.1 Version
4.13 VServer
4.13.1 OpenVZ
4.13.1.1 Virtual Servers
4.13.1.2 OS Templates
4.13.1.3 VM Templates
4.13.1.4 IP addresses
4.14 Global Search

5 Howtos
5.1 How Do I Create A Reseller?
5.2 How Do I Create A Client?
5.3 How Do I Create A Web Site?
5.4 How Do I Create An SSL Web Site?
5.4.1 How Do I Import An Existing SSL Certificate Into A Web Site That Was Created Later In ISPConfig?
5.5 How Do I Redirect My Web Site To Another Web Site Or To A Specific Directory On The Server?
5.6 How Do I Create An FTP Account So That I Can Upload Files To My Web Site?
5.7 How Can I Use Perl/CGI Scripts With My Web Site?
5.8 How Do I Create An Email Account?
5.9 How Do I Activate The Spamfilter/Virus Scanner For An Email Account?
5.10 How Do I Blacklist/Whitelist Email Addresses In The Spamfilter?
5.11 How Do I Fetch Emails From A Remote Server With ISPConfig And Put The Emails In A Local Email Account?
5.12 How Do I Create A DNS Zone?
5.13 How Do I Create A Secondary DNS Zone?
5.14 How Do I Create A Mirror?
5.15 How Do I Split Up Services Between Multiple Servers?
5.16 How Do I Unblock An IP Address That Got Blocked By fail2ban?
5.17 How Do I Create A Subdomain And Redirect It To A Different Folder/Web Site?
5.18 How Do I Manually Configure New IP Addresses On My System?
5.19 How To Build A PureFTPd Debian Package For OpenVZ Virtual Machines (Without Capabilities Enabled)
5.20 How To Display Hidden Files With PureFTPd On Debian And Ubuntu Linux
5.21 PureFTPd Does Not Show More Than 2,000 Files On Debian And Ubuntu
5.22 How To Speed Up Logins In PureFTPd On Debian Or Ubuntu Linux By Disabling Name Resolving
5.23 How To Enable Verbose Logging In PureFTPd On Debian And Ubuntu Linux
5.24 How To Enable FTPS For PureFTPd On Debian And Ubuntu Linux
5.25 How Can I Access SquirrelMail From My Web Sites?
5.25.1 Apache
5.25.2 nginx
5.26 How Can I Access phpMyAdmin From My Web Sites?
5.26.1 Apache
5.26.2 nginx
5.27 How Can I Access Mailman From My Web Sites?
5.27.1 Apache
5.27.2 nginx

6 Security Considerations
6.1 How Do I Disable Certain PHP Functions?
6.2 Enabling SSL For The ISPConfig Web Interface
6.3 Using SuExec For The ISPConfig Web Interface
6.4 What Are Secure Settings For Web Sites Created Through ISPConfig?
6.5 How Do I Make fail2ban Monitor Additional Services?
6.5.1 PureFTPd
6.5.2 SASL
6.5.3 Courier
6.5.4 Dovecot

7 Troubleshooting
7.1 How Do I Find Out What Is Wrong If ISPConfig Does Not Work?