A/I User Panel Howto

To use any of the services provided by A/I, you have to own a A/I account and thus be able to access your User Panel where you can find any information about your services and how to handle them.

This manual wishes to detail what you can do within your User Panel

Summary

1. Login
1. Things to do after the first login
1. Set password recovery question
2. Change password
2. Main page
3. How to change the User Panel language
4. How to read a mailbox and how to change its settings form the User Panel
1. How to add or remove an alias
2. How to download your address book
5. How to manage a website from the User Panel
6. How to manage an FTP/WebDAV account from the User Panel (and how to change FTP/WebDAV account password)
7. How to manage a mysql database from the User Panel
8. How to manage mailing lists from the User Panel
9. How to manage a blog on Noblogs.org from the User Panel

Login

As you can easily see from the image, to login into your User Panel you have to click on the big red button in the homepage, fill in your account (the full mailbox address) and your password. Then click on login.

If that button does not work, you can access the User Panel login page directly and fill in your account (the full mailbox address) and your password. Then click login.

Things to do after the first login

Recover question

If it's the first time you login into your User Panel there are some things your have to do right away.

As you can see from the dark red warning on the top of your User Panel, first of all you have to setup a recover question: if you happen to forget or lose your password, this question and its answer will be the only ways to recover it and be able to login to your panel again.

Once you click on the link included in the dark red warning you will enter our Gatti section ("Gatti" means "cats" in Italian and the password recovery procedure is called like this since the default question concerns your pets' name) and will be able to setup your password recovery question.

Fill in a question and its relative answer, then click on the Save button.

Warning: you have to be sure to remember the exact answer to the question that you typed (including Capital letters or symbols or numbers) since providing the correct answer will be the only way to recover your password.

Please keep in mind that we do not know the answer you provided since it's kept encrypted in our database. You are the only person knowing what to answer and thus being able to recover your lost or forgot password.

Once you have clicked on the Save button you will be automatically redirected back to your User Panel where a new darkred warning informs you that you have successfully set your password recovery question. Good, let's proceed to the next step.

Change password

The second thing you need to do right away after you first login into your User Panel is changing your password. The password that has been sent to you on the mail you gave us as contact mail cannot be considered safe: you have to change it. The link to do so has been circled in red in the next picture (note that you won't find the red circle in your User Panel main page).

Please note that in the same red circle you can also find the link to change or set your password recovery question if you have not done so already.

Once you click on the Change password link you will be directed to a form where you can fill in twice your new password. Once you'll have done so and clicked on the Update button, you'll have a new password to login into your User Panel AND to login into your mailbox.

Warning: here you are changing your main account password. If you wish to change your FTP/WebDAV password or Mysql password, you'll have to look into other parts of this manual.

Once you have clicked on the Update button you will be automatically redirected back to your User Panel where a new darkred warning informs you that you have successfully changed your password. Now you are ready to get acquainted with your User Panel. Let's move on.

User Panel Main Page

What you can see in the picture above is a very basic version of how your User Panel could look like. It's the User Panel of someone owning a simple mailbox on our servers. No additional addresses, no website, no blogs, no list, no newsletter, no nothing. More or less like the 50% of our users, so don't feel ashamed or anything.

Now let's try to make it a bit more cheerful and to make sense of it.

You can split up the User Panel in different areas: some of them are really crowded but the colors should help you make out which is which.

• The Blue boxes is where news go: on the right sidebar of the panel you can find the latest post on the A/I collective blog, ie where you can find something we think it's important for you to know, including hardware or software failures; on the bottom part of the panel you can find a three fold news areas, including the latest post about noblogs sysadmin news, the latest post from the noblogs community and the latest topic from our support forums
• Below the bottom blue boxes you can find a single Yellow box: here is where you can change the language your panel uses. By default it's set to the language your browsers shows to understand, but it can be wrong. If you want to know how to change the User Panel's language, see below.
• In the top part of the page the Green box shows you where you can find support, documentation, howtos and anything that could help you sort problems you are facing with our services. The same resources can be found in our Support page.
• Just under the green box there's a single Purple box marking the link to ask for more stuff from A/I: if you already have a mailbox but would like to open up a website or a mailing list, that's the link you have to click. Before you do, i suggest you stroll over our policy and manifesto, just to be sure you are about to know what you are getting messed with. You sure? Go on and click on the link then.
• Last but not list, the central part of the User Panel main page is squatted by a big Red box: here is your account management area, where you'll find all the services you are running on our servers and any information connected to them. Most of what you find in this manual relates to this box. Note, however, that there is a small but very important Red box in the top-right corner of the page: there you can read which user you are for our servers, and a link to logout of the User Panel. If you did not move on to your mailbox, remember to click on it before leaving the panel.

How to change the User Panel language (Yellow box)

If you want to change the language of your User Panel simply choose your desired language from the dropdown menu in the bottom part of the panel main page and click on the Update button (see the yellow circle in the picture below). Once you click on the button the page will reload in the chosen language and a darkred alert (top of the picture) will inform you that your User Panel language has been changed.

How to read mailbox and to change its settings

We have already explained how to change your mailbox password and how to set your password recovery question. Now it's time to move on and to login into your mailbox to read some e-mails: click on the mail icon or on your mail address in the account management area. You will be redirected automatically to our webmail: you can find a useful howto about it in our support page. Remember that once you logout of the webmail, you'll be also automatically logged out of the User Panel.

If you want to know how much space are you using up, just read at the bottom of your mailbox management area: we would like to remind you that we do not set a maximum amount of space for your mailbox, but remember that our resources are not endless and that you share our servers with thousands of other people. Be careful how much space you use up.

How to add or remove and alias

First of all: what is an alias?
An alias is an alternative mail address that you can give around to receive e-mails on your account. You can also configure it as sender in your mail client to send e-mails. But it will always be connected to the same account: that is your mailbox account will be able to send and receive e-mails on both addresses.

On A/I servers you can have and manage at most 5 aliases for any single account you have. If you need more, please contact us.
If you want to create an alias for your mailbox, click on the link next to your mailbox account.

Once you click you will be directed to a form where you can fill the alternative address you wish for and click on the Create button.

Now your mailbox management area changed a bit and you can find your alias next to your mailbox address. A dark red warning at the top of the page confirms you have successfully create an alias for your mailbox.

If you already have an alias an want to remove it, you simply have to click on the minus sign next to the address you wish to delete.
Warning: you won't be asked any confirmation before removing the alias. If you discover you deleted the wrong alias just create it anew. The only memory of the mistake will be the dark red warning you have come now to know so well from the previous pictures! :)

How to download your address book

If you have been using our webmail a lot, you'll have gathered a certain amount of mail addresses in your address book. If at some point you wish to back them up or to move onto a mail client, clicking on the link you find next to your mailbox address will enable you to download a copy of your addressbook to import it wherever you need it.

How to manage a website from the User Panel

If you requested to A/I something more than a simple mailbox address then your User Panel will be somewhat more complicated.
If you are managing some website on A/I servers, your account management area will be enriched by a new dropdown menu.

If you click on the arrow next to the word Websites or Email Addresses you can open or close the related dropdown menu. Since we have already seen what the Email Addresses menu includes, let's move on to the Websites tab.

As you can see managing a website includes three different kind of submenu: one dedicated to your website proper; another one to the FTP/WebDAV account you can use to update your website; and another one to the databases connected to a site. Each of this submenu holds specific configuration possibilities.

If you click on the website name or on the world icon you'll be redirected to your webpage. Right next to the website name you can find four links:

• Stats opens a page where you can find the code you need to add to your site to use A/I webstatistics tool. See A/I stats Howto for more information.
• Description lets you enter a generic description of your website contents and a category it belongs to; this description and the category will show up eventually on A/I hosted sites page
• Options: you can choose if your site need php, python or simple html pages; whether or not to be listed in A/I hosted sites page; if your site needs to send mail via php.
• Help is a link to A/I website hosting howtos

How to manage an FTP/WebDAV account from the User Panel (and how to change FTP/WebDAV account password)

To update your site you have been given a username and a password (different from the one you use to login into the User Panel and mailbox account).
Using those credentials through and FTP or WebDAV client as detailed in A/I FTP Howto and A/I WebDAV Howto will allow you to update your website.

Next to the FTP/WebDAV Account tab of your website management area in the User Panel you'll find two useful links:

• One states the server you have to connect to in order to update your site. It will always be something like ftpN.autistici.org with N a specific number, that may vary during your long and welcome hosting on A/I servers. If you cannot connect to your website FTP account, please check that the server has not changed before asking for A/I support
• Through the second link you can change your FTP/WebDAV account password. Click on the link, fill in the new password (twice) and then click on the Save button. After having done so, you'll be returned to your panel with the familiar dark red warning confirming your success in changing your FTP/WebDAV Account password

How to manage a mysql database from the User Panel (and how to reset your database password)

If you are using a MySQL database to run your website, this tab of your website management area lets you do the following:

• Click on the admin link to reach our MySQL Web Administration interface. You'll have to provide it with your database username and password: they should have been sent to you with the website or database activation message. Remember that once you logout from the Mysql Administration website you'll still be logged into your User Panel. Remember to log out from that as well.
• Reset your database password by clicking on the Reset password link.

How to manage a mailing list from the User Panel

If you are a mailing list administrator you will find your mailing lists in your User Panel.

Clicking on the Mailing list address or on the mail icon will direct you to the mailing list administration web interface. If your mailing list is public, you will find the link to the public archives next the the list address.
To change a list password, click on the Reset admin password link.

How to manage a blog on noblogs.org from the User Panel

If you subscribed to the Noblogs.org platform using your A/I account, then the blogs you participate to will be available in your User Panel.

Clicking on the Blog name or on the World icon will direct you to the blog webpage. Clicking on the admin link will direct you to noblogs.org admin page.