How to use the Site Publisher in cPanel

cPanel > Home > Domains > Site Publisher

Overview

This interface enables you to quickly create a simple website, even if you have never created a website before. When you use this interface, you will select an appropriate template for your website, and then enter the website content that the template requests.

For example, you can use this interface to create a simple website with your business’s information, or to create a placeholder page while you prepare a more elaborate website.

Note:

Hosting providers and third-party developers can create and add additional Site Publisher templates. For more information, read our Guide to Site Publisher Templates documentation.

Create or modify a Site Publisher website

Note:

When you select an option, the interface automatically hides that section of the interface and displays the next section. To return to a section, click that section’s title.

To create or modify a Site Publisher website for one of your domains, perform the following steps:

1. Select a domain from the list of available domains, addon domains, and subdomains.

   • If you only own a single domain, or if you accessed this interface via a link after subdomain or addon domain creation, the system automatically selects that domain and proceeds to the next step.

   • For more information about domain selection, read the Select a Domain section of this document.

2. Select a template from the available options.

   • The Select a Template section of this interface displays a preview image, name, and description for each available Site Publisher template.

   • If you selected a domain that already uses a Site Publisher website, the system preselects the current template.

3. Enter or update the desired website content.

   Note:

   The template that you select determines the content that you enter in the Customize and Publish section.

4. Click Publish. A confirmation message will appear with a link to your new website.

5. Warning:

   If the directory that will contain your Site Publisher website already contains other files or directories, the system will perform the following actions when you click Publish:

   1. Back up the directory’s contents. For more information, read the Site Publisher files section below.

   2. Delete any existing files that use the same filenames as your new Site Publisher website’s files.

   3. Save the new website’s files to the directory.

   Note:

   You can also click the following helpful links for other common tasks within your cPanel account:

   • Add an email account. — Create and manage email addresses in cPanel’s Email Accounts interface (cPanel >> Home >> Email >> Email Accounts).

   • Manage my website’s files. — Upload and manage files in cPanel’s File Manager interface (cPanel >> Home >> Files >> File Manager).

   • Connect to this website with Web Disk. — Create Web Disk accounts in cPanel’s Web Disk interface (cPanel >> Home >> Files >> Web Disk) to upload and manage files from your local computer.

   • Publish another Site Publisher website. — Use this interface to create another Site Publisher website.

Select a Domain

The Select a Domain section of the interface lists the domain name and website directory (document root) for every domain that your cPanel account owns. If a domain currently uses a Site Publisher website, the interface also lists the website’s template’s name.

• Click the domain name to open the domain in a new browser window.

• Click the website directory to open that directory in cPanel’s File Manager interface (cPanel >> Home >> Files >> File Manager) in a new browser window.

If your cPanel account owns a large number of domains, the interface automatically paginates the table. Click the page numbers in the top right corner of the section to navigate between pages of domains, or use the Search text box at the top of the list to search for a domain.

Site Publisher files

When you publish a Site Publisher website, cPanel automatically performs the following actions:

1. The script saves a copy of the domain’s document root’s current contents as a tarball in the /home/user/site_publisher/backups/ directory, where user represents your cPanel account’s username.

   Note:

   If the system encounters a file system or file quota error during this step, it will not save the tarball and will not publish the new Site Publisher website.

2. The system deletes any existing Site Publisher backups that are more than 30 days old.

3. The system generates the new Site Publisher website’s files and stores them in the domain’s document root.

   • If one of the new website’s files conflicts with an existing file, the system overwrites the existing file with the new file.

   • If the system encounters an error during this step, it restores the website’s original contents from the backup tarball and does not publish the new Site Publisher website.

   • The system saves configuration information for the new website in the /home/user/site_publisher/configurations/ directory, where user represents your cPanel account’s username. It saves this file as the home-user-public_html-example.com.json file, where home-user-public_html-example.com represents the Site Publisher website’s target directory, with hyphens (-) instead of slashes (/).

     Important:

     The configuration file stores all of the data for your Site Publisher website. We strongly recommend that you do not modify this file directly. Instead, always use cPanel’s Site Publisher interface (cPanel >> Home >> Domains >> Site Publisher) to modify Site Publisher websites.

Your selected template determines the other files that your website uses. These files may include HTML files, images, or other types of files.

• For information about template development, read our Guide to Site Publisher Templates documentation.
• For more information about individual templates, contact your hosting provider or the template creator.