Overview
This article explains how to manage your hosted domain with the HELM Control Panel. Using HELM, you can manage the majority of task including E-Mail account management, email forwarding, FTP accounts, database, etc.
Prerequisites
The HELM Control Panel, provided by Superlative Solutions, is only available to clients of Superlative Solutions. Prior to using this tool, you must log in using the username, password and control panel URL provided to you by our staff. If you do not have this information, or are not certain how to log into HELM, the following article may be helpful:
Logging in the HELM Control Panel
If you are not a client of Superlative Solutions, the we can't help you, unless of course, you become one of our many valued clients.
Accessing the Domain Menu
Once you log into the Control Panel, you will see the "User Main Menu". Click on the icon labeled "Domains". A page similar to the following (but with different domains) will be displayed:
Note that one of the domain is of the type "Domain Alias". This is a special type of domain that inherits its properties (DNS settings, e-mail accounts, etc.) from whichever domain it is an alias for. In the above example, yourcompany.net is an alias of the
hosted domain yourcompany.com. Since yourcompany.net is an alias, for the purpose of an example, an e-mail account set up for billy.joe@yourcompany.com can also receive email addressed to billy.joe@yourcompany.
net.
There is not anything to manage for a Domain Alias. As a result, in order to manage the domain "yourcompany.com", you would simply click on that line of the list. This would cause the Domain Menu to appear, similar to that shown in the next section.
The Domain Menu
The Domain Menu is the primary menu you will be working with inr order to manage your site. It could be a bit overwhelming, the first time you get into it, but it is really quite simple. Your Domain Menu may appear different, but should be similar to that shown below:
Let's start with the top section, and explain what field provides:
User: This is the account this domain is assigned to
Hosting Package: The package associated with this domain
URL: The Web site URL this site will respond to.
Temporary URL: If you've recently moved your domain to Superlative Solutions, this will be a temporary URL that will allow you to view the site with a Web browser. It will always be in the format of "yourdomain.dvlp.ssiwt.com".
Domain Status: This should normally be set to "Active"
Name Server Records: These are the DNS servers, provided by Superlative Solutions, used to provide translation of your domain name (i.e., yourcompany.com) into an IP address understood by computers on the Internet. You would set your domain, at your domains registrar, to point to these DNS servers.
Domain Notes: You may enter any notes you wish in this area. If you modify these notes, make sure you click the "Save" button to save your changes.
Domain Management Icons: These icon provide access to specific pages allowing to to maintain various portions of your hosted environment. Note that depending on your hosting plan, you may not see all of these icons. The icons shown, however, are very common and are explained as follows:
- Email Accounts (POP3): This allows you to create, edit, and delete e-mail accounts (mailboxes) stored on the system.
- Email Forwarding: Also referred to as an "alias," it is similar to an e-mail account, however, there is not a mailbox associated with the address. Instead this simply provides a way to have a generic email address forward to an actual mailbox. An example of an excellent use for a forwarding account is setting up a forwarding address for customerserver@yourcompany.com which would forward all email to your personal account of this.is.me@yourcompany.com. Note that the address the forwarder points to does not have to be in your domain.
- Multi-Recipient Addresses (MRA): These are very powerful, but sadly, poorly used. An MRA allows you to set up an email address to forward email to multiple email addresses. In the example above, using an MRA, would could have all email sent to customerservice@yourcompany.com forward to this.is.me@yourcompany.com, is.this.you@yourcompany.com, and even hereIAm@yahoo.com. DO NOT, HOWEVER, USE A MULTI-RECIPIENT ADDRESS AS A DISTRIBUTION LIST! An MRA does not offer any security. Any email sent to it with be forwarded to everybody on this list. This would include SPAM and other undesired e-mail.
- FTP Accounts: This option allows you to manage FTP account, providing the ability for trusted users to manage files stored in your site.
- File Manager: This option allows you direct access to manage all the files stored on your site (including logs, databases, etc.)
- Virtual Directories: Primarily, these are used to redirect an area on your site to somewhere else. For example, if you have a mail server, with a Web interface in your office, you might want your employees to only have to go to your mail server by going to your Web site with a URL of http://www.yourcompany.com/email/. Using a virtual directory, you could instruct our system to redirect the user to your mail server, for example, at http://corporateEmail.yourcompany.com/.
- Domain Aliases: This is simply a list of other domain names that will be synonyms of the hosted domain.
- DNS Zone Editor: This option will allow you to manage the DNS entries stored on our DNS servers for your domain. A word of caution: If you don't know how DNS works, leave this alone. We will always be happy to assist you.
- ODBC DSNs: ODBC is a fairly old way of connecting to a database. It is generally not used in our environment and you probably won't have access to this icon anyway.
- Database Manager: Allows you to main databases associated with your site. The type, or types, of databases allowed depend upon your hosting plan. Typical is Microsoft Access, MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server.
- MIME Types: An advanced option that will allow you to create and edit the MIME type associated with documents stored on your site. Generally not necessary to modify these.
- Custom Error Pages: Allows you to change how errors will appear to your visitors.
- Web Site Settings: Allows you to view the setting in effect for your Web site.
- Statistics: Show general information on the level of traffic and disk space usage of your Web site. Also allows you to enable/disable the SmarterStats Web Traffic reporting program (If it is currently enabled, don't disable it).
- Advanced Domain Options: Provides access to set up a temporary URL and view disk space usage information.
The Domain Menu
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us or submit a ticket to our support department. If you are uncertain of what an option will do, it is always best to check with us to ensure your site continues to operate successfully!
Additional Resources