DirectAdmin is a paid online graphical web hosting control panel and management system for virtual hosts. Through this management system, you can easily manage your server, set EMAIL, set DNS, open FTP, online file management, database management, etc. It offers 3 access levels: Admin, Reseller, and User. This gives convenience to efficiently manage Server resources by administrators and hosting resellers for their customers who want to buy the hosting services on Shared or VPS servers to host their websites. DirectAdmin is a straightforward alternative to the popular WHM Cpanel; however in terms of features it is not as wide as WHM.
See – 6 Best Free Cloud hosting Control Panels for Linux Servers in 2021
Few DirectAdmin Features
Email management: Users can create POP3 accounts, control mailboxes, mail forwarding, mailing lists, automatic replies, and web post offices. Filters allow users to block emails by domain name, keyword, and size. With adult mail filter.
FTP management: Users can create FTP accounts and set folder access permissions for each account, and anonymous login is supported.
DNS management: Users can add and delete DNS records, change mail server address settings, and any other DNS-related controls.
Statistics function: Users have detailed statistics related to their accounts. At the same time, DA also supports more advanced settings and Webalizer.
FrontPage extension: Users can turn on and off the Microsoft FrontPage extension at any time.
Second-level domain name management: Users can list, create, delete, and get statistics related to second-level domain names.
MySQL database: Users can easily create, modify, and delete MySQL databases.
Password-protected directory: The user can protect any directory with a username and password.
Error page settings: Users can create custom error pages for 401, 403, 404, and 500 error codes.
Website backup: Using this powerful tool, users can back up or restore what they need. For example, account data, not site files.
File manager: A very user-friendly and fast file management method that can replace FTP. Including all the functions of creating and editing a website.
Create/list/modify accounts: account creation, listing, modification, and deletion can be done quickly and easily.
System/Service Information: Users can quickly view server and system information.
Storage Space configuration plan: Admin or Resellers can create a predefined storage space configuration plan. When creating an account, the Reseller only needs to choose a configuration plan instead of manually setting the space capacity and other configurations of each account.
Reseller statistics: Hosting Resellers will have a very comprehensive summary of resource usage. They can also arrange data by the user to quickly view the overall situation.
Send messages to all users: With DirectAdmin’s own online support system, the Reseller can quickly send messages to all his users.
Import/manage templates: Resellers can quickly import and use new templates.
IP allocation: The Resellers can easily allocate IP addresses to their customers.
Domain name server: The Reseller can create a custom domain name server for his users.
Complete usage statistics: Administrators can view complete system resource usage statistics. In addition, DA monitors the exact network card input and output in real-time.
Control Server: The administrator can watch, stop, start, and restart services in the server.
Reseller configuration scheme: Administrators can create predefined Reseller account configuration schemes. When creating a Reseller account, the administrator only needs to select a configuration scheme instead of manually setting up each account configuration.
Show all users: Administrators can quickly view any account in the system and can be arranged in multiple ways.
DNS management: create, modify, or delete any DNS records on the server.
IP management: The administrator can conveniently manage and assign the IP address tied to the machine.
Authorization/Update: Administrators can view the DA authorization status on the server and download the latest version of security and software updates.
More advanced tools: Users can install SSL certificates, view server information and installed Perl modules, set cron jobs, mime types, and apache handlers, and enable site redirection and domain name pointing.
DirectAdmin has an open API interface, which can be used as a third-party functional module to connect to other systems.
Pricing
The company offers Trail usage of their DirectAdmin software for 30 days free of cost. After that the user can go for paid plans that are:
- Personal- $2 per month
- Lits: $15 per month
- Standard – $29 per month
All the plans will include free automated upgrades and support, however, the number of accounts and domains will be limited as per the plan.
System requirements for Installation
| OS | Version |
|---|---|
| CloudLinux | 6.x 64-bit, 7.x 64-bit, 8.x 64-bit |
| AlmaLinux / RHEL / CentOS | 7.x 64-bit, 8.x 64-bit |
| Debian | 8.x 64-bit, 9.x 64-bit, 10.x 64-bit, 11.x 64-bit ALPHA |
| Ubuntu | 16.04 64-bit, 18.04 64-bit, 20.04 64-bit |
| FreeBSD | 11.x 64-bit, 12.x 64-bit |
- RAM: at least 4GB
- At least 500 Mhz Intel and AMD CPU
- Minimum 2 gigabytes of free space
- root access
DirectAdmin Installation:
A fresh server without any pre-installation of any other hosting environment or hosting platform to perform a clean installation without any error or issues.
Login as root on your server and run the below single command-
bash <(curl -Ss https://www.directadmin.com/setup.sh || wget -O - https://www.directadmin.com/setup.sh) auto
Once the installation is done, open your system browser and access the server IP-address along with port number 2222.
example– http://youe-server-ip-address:2222
See: the step by step process of setting up DirectAdmin.
