cPanel Feature: Web Disk

Web Disk is a very useful interface that is meant for managing as well as manipulating the files that are on your server, on devices that are of multiple types. File management tasks which use the WebDAV (Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning) protocol could be easily completed through this interface.

cPanel >> Home >> Files >> Web Disk

cPanel is a popular web hosting control panel, which is Linux-based. A web hosting control panel is a web-based interface that lets users manage their servers and hosted services. It is provided by a web hosting company. A web hosting company offers the service of web hosting through which websites are made accessible over the Internet. The most popular web hosting service providers are usually referred to as the “Best Website Hosting Company”, the “Best Windows Hosting Company”, the “Best Cloud Hosting Company”, etc.

A web hosting control panel, generally comes equipped with the following modules:

• Web server, such as NGINX, Apache HTTP Server, Internet Information Services, etc.

• Mail server

• Domain Name System server

• Spam filter

• Database

• FTP (File Transfer Protocol) server

• File manager

• Firewall

• System monitor

• phpMyAdmin

• Web log analysis software

Main Web Disk Account

The system creates a Web Disk account by default for your cPanel account. Additionally, your home directory is set as the Web Disk location by the system. The same login information is used by this account as that which is used by your cPanel account. Moreover, all the files that are in your home directory can be accessed by this account. This Web Disk account cannot be deleted. Some important points are mentioned below:

• You need to click Access Web Disk in order to access the files of this account.

• You should click Configure Client Access if you want to view the Web Disk account’s login details, or for downloading a configuration script.

• If you want to enable Digest Authentication in Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, or Microsoft Windows Vista, then you need to click Enable Digest Authentication. You should click Disable Digest Authentication in order to disable it.

Creating Additional Web Disk Account

You need to carry out the below-mentioned steps in order to create an additional Web Disk account:

• The desired account information should be entered in the text boxes that are available.

If your account has more than one domain or subdomain, then a domain or subdomain can be selected from the menu at the time of entering a username.

• Next, you need to enter the new password in the appropriate text boxes, and then confirm it.

Here it needs to be mentioned that the password entered by you is evaluated by the system on a scale of 100 points. A value of 0 indicates a weak password, whereas the value 100 indicates that the password is very secure. A certain minimum password strength is required by many web hosts.

A password Strength meter that is green indicates that the password is equal to, or greater than the password strength that is required. You can click Password Generator in order to generate a strong password.

• The home directory of the Web Disk account needs to be entered in the text box, Directory.

Here it needs to be noted, that the home directory of the cPanel account is represented by the house icon. The Directory text box is automatically populated by the system with the public_html/username. The term “username” represents the entry in the Username text box.

• Next, a Permissions setting has to be selected:

• Read-Write – Access to all the operations inside the directory are granted by this setting to the account.

• Read-only – Access is granted by this setting to the account to read, download, as well as list the files inside the directory.

• Select the Enable Digest Authentication checkbox, if Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, or Microsoft Windows Vista is being used.

Here you should remember that you need not enable Digest Authentication, if a signed SSL certificate is used by the domain.

• Click Create to ensure that a new interface appears.

• Click Go Back to return to the main interface.

• Click Access Web Disk in order to navigate to your new web Disk account’s setup instructions.

Manage Additional Web Disk Accounts

The table, Manage Additional Web Disk Accounts, shows the below-mentioned information for all the created additional Web Disk accounts.

• Account - The username of the Web Disk account.

• Directory – The assigned directory of the Web Disk account and the related actions.

You need to click the directory name in order to open the assigned directory in the File Manager interface of cPanel.

cPanel >> Home >> Files >> File Manager

You should click the edit icon if you want to change the assigned directory of the account.

You need to click the lock icon if you want to use the Directory Privacy interface in cPanel for the purpose of password protecting the directory, creating a user to access the directory, removing a user from the directory.

cPanel >> Home >> Files >> Directory Privacy

It needs to be mentioned here that Password protection doesn’t control the access of Web Disk to a directory. This action should be performed for protecting the files that are uploaded to a directory which is publicly-accessible on your account with a password. You need to create a user to access the directory in the event that you opt to password protect a Web Disk directory.

Web Disk and Digest Authentication

If you change the usernames of Web Disk accounts which use Digest Authentication, then you need to reenable it. The usernames of Web Disk accounts that use Digest Authentication are stored in the /etc/digestshadow file in a password hash. When the account username is changed, the password from the file gets removed by the system.

The username of the account is also changed by updates to the associated domain of a Web Disk account. Such updates will disable Digest Authentication.

You need to note the following points with regard to the fact that you do not need to enable Digest Authentication if the below-mentioned conditions are met.

• The domain has an SSL certificate, which had been signed by a recognized certificate authority.

• It is possible to connect to Web Disk with SSL over port 2078.

You might encounter errors while attempting to connect to your Web Disk account if you are using Windows 2003, Windows XP, or Windows Vista. The patch that is required by these operating systems isn’t being offered by Microsoft. These operating systems are no longer supported by it.

The users of Windows 7 might face a discrepancy that might exist between the amount of disk space that is reported by the system and the actual available disk space.

Source: https://www.htshosting.org/knowledge-base/cpanel/210/cpanel-feature-web-disk