First steps

1. Open the panel

Open https://<server-ip>:1500 in your browser. During the first minute, while the certificate for the IP address is being issued, the browser may warn about a self-signed certificate. Reload the page after a minute: once the Let’s Encrypt certificate for the IP is in place, the warning is gone.

Sign in with the name and password the installer printed. A setup wizard for the first sign-in is planned for 2.3. Until then, follow the steps below.

2. Add a site

1. Open Sites and press Create site.
2. Enter the domain, for example example.com. Add aliases such as www.example.com if you want them.
3. Choose what runs the site: No handler for HTML, CSS and JavaScript files, PHP for WordPress and other PHP sites, or Node.js for an app. You can change this later (see handlers).
4. Save.

3. Point DNS at the server

At your domain registrar or DNS provider, create an A record for every name of the site (the domain and each alias) with the server’s IPv4 address. If you also create AAAA records, each of them must point to this server’s IPv6 address, because Let’s Encrypt checks over IPv6 first.

DNS stays at your registrar, your DNS provider or Cloudflare (see Cloudflare). Name servers run by WardPane on the server itself are planned for 2.4 (see DNS).

4. Wait for the certificate

WardPane checks DNS and orders a certificate as soon as the names point to the server. You can follow the progress in the site’s status and on its SSL tab. A name whose DNS is not ready yet is skipped for now and added to the certificate later without your help. Details are on the certificates page.

5. Upload your files

For a new site, files go into its folder, /var/www/www-root/data/www/<domain> with the default owner. Upload them over SFTP as the user that installed the panel (it is in the www-data group), or open the site’s terminal in the browser: it starts in the site folder.

The PHP page lists the folders a PHP site may write to. Node.js apps are covered on the Node.js page.

6. Review protection

Protection is already on when a site is created. Each check can be adjusted on the site’s Advanced tab, and how protection works gives the order in which the checks run. Ready-made protection presets are planned for 2.3.

7. Watch the dashboard

The dashboard counts the sites that need attention, for example a certificate that could not be issued or an app that stopped. In the sites table, each site’s status says what is wrong; the site’s SSL and Handler tabs give the reason. Health checks with a button that fixes the problem are planned for 2.3.