I am new to running a server without a control panel and to spite searching for most of the day I have not learned a whole lot.


I was hoping some kind soul would explain the process of creating a new user account and getting it up and running with a domain name. Or at least point me in the direction of a good tutorial.

In cpanel you just enter the domain name and the username and it does everything for you. I am just wondering how you go about doing all this by hand.

Thanks!

Install webmin and you're on the way.
Keep in mind that managing a server is not just create accounts ... you'll encounter ongoing problems that you'll need to go through.

As root

/usr/sbin/useradd username

If you want other custom settings then you can look at the manual for useradd. This will add their homedirectory as /home/username with all the usual settings for a standard user.

Also remember to change the password on the account:
passwd username

Personally I would never install webmin, as it is just another control panel and I wanted to learn to do stuff without them.

However, if those accounts do not need ssh access then you could compile an ftpd with virtual account support. Personally I use PureFTPd and it's own user system. This allows unix accounts (above) and virtual accounts to login. The virtual accounts ftp directly to a directory for their website whereas my unix accounts go to their homedir. The web directory is a simple virtual host on apache.