Introduction
Linux is one of the most popular operating systems for running on a web server and is usually cheaper than an equivalent Windows package. cPanel/WHM is one of the most popular control panels for managing a hosting package on Linux.
In this tutorial we are going to go through the steps to create a new e-mail address (and account).
What Is An E-mail Address
Now, I’m sure that all of you will be familiar with what a e-mail address is – for example – me@domain.com. An example of an e-mail address that we might have at DPS Computing could be new@dpscomputing.com. Everything after the ‘@’ symbol is your domain name that you have associated with your cPanel account. So if you web address/URL/domain is ‘mydomain.com’, all of your e-mail address will be@mydomain.com. What you put in place of ” is completely up to you – however it is advisable that it gives an indication as to what the e-mail address represents and/or who it is for!
For example, for e-mails relating to the running and administration of your website you may create the e-mail address webmaster@mydomain.com.
It’s a relatively simple process to create a new e-mail account within cPanel and we’ll go over how to do this in the rest of this tutorial.
Creating Your New E-mail Address in cPanel
Firstly, you need to log into your cPanel area – this is usually at mydomain.com/cpanel, mydomain.com:2082 (both ‘insecure’) and mydomain.com:2083 (secure SSL connection, where available).
After this, you will be presented with the main menu. You then need to select the ‘E-mail accounts’ icon (shown below):
After you select this icon you will be presented with a new area, at the top of the page, where you can create new e-mail accounts:
The Different Parts…
Lets go through the different fields now.
E-mail – this is the e-mail address that you are going to create. E-mail addresses typically consist of alphanumeric characters as well as dashes (-) and dots (.). However, they don’t have to include all of these – in a lot of cases, only letters are used. For a full list of e-mail address rules, see here. You get to configure the ‘local part’ of the e-mail address in the text box – that is everything before the ‘@’. Then for the ‘domain part’ your usual domain (or a subdomain of your domain) will be selected. This can be changed to other available options using the drop down menu. You will only be able to select domains or subdomains that are associated with your web hosting account.
Password
Password – this is where you select a password for your e-mail account. You will use this along with your e-mail username (the first part, ‘local part’ of your e-mail address). It’s always a good idea to make sure this is secure (as with any password) but especially with passwords relating to your website as you will find that even with a modestly popular website, bots (and humans) will come along trying common and ‘simple’ passwords in an attempt to gain access to your e-mail account. You can also use the ‘Password Generator’ to create a very secure password – the chances of your remembering this password that it generates are negligible – so it’s advisable to take a note of it, in a secure manager, by using a password manager such as KeyPass. If you create your own password, make sure you don’t select any words from the dictionary or other simple passwords. The best combinations consist of at least lower and upper case letters as well as numbers. The best passwords will register as ‘Very Strong (100/100)’ in the ‘Strength’ indicator box.
Mailbox Quota
Mailbox quota – this is the size of your mailbox – i.e. how much disk space on your web hosting account the emails to this address can take up. If the mailbox reaches this quote, new e-mails are usually bounced back to the sender with the appropriate error message. In most circumstances it will be fine to set the mailbox quote to ‘unlimited’ – meaning that the e-mails to this address can use as much space as necessary, although you are welcome to accept the default limit of 250MB (or indeed set another value in the text box).
The New Configuration
After you have configured all the options you should have something similar to the image shown below:
The ‘ticks’ next to the boxes represent that valid values have been entered. In order to successfully create the e-mail account, all the fields should have a tick next to them.
Your New E-mail Address
After you have verified this you click the ‘Create Account’ button at the bottom of the form. After you have done this you should get a message informing you that the creation of your new e-mail account has been successful:
And you should also notice that it has appeared in the table of e-mail addresses (which shows all your other e-mail address, as well as the new new e-mail address):
And there you have it – another e-mail account for your website successfully created! :).