How to Install Interspire with cPanel

cPanel is a popular Graphical User Interface (GUI) provided by many hosting companies to help their customers manage their servers and websites. This guide walks you through installing Interspire Email Marketer (IEM) using cPanel. The focus is on installing Interspire and does not cover the creation of email boxes for example.

Please review the Interspire Server Requirements for more details on what is needed to run Interspire Email Marketer.

Create Domain

Create the new domain that will be used to access Interspire. The domain you create here must match the domain of Interspire’s license key.

1. Use the URL and credentials provided by your hosting provider to log into cPanel.
2. From the cPanel Tools page, navigate to the Domains section and select Domain.
3. A new page listing all the domains configured for your account opens. If this is your first domain the list will be empty.
4. Click on Create A New Domain on the upper right corner at the beginning of the list.
5. Enter the domain name for the instance e.g. iem-installation.example.com
6. Click on Submit

The new domain will be created. Go back to the cPanel Tools page.

Install an SSL Certificate

In this age of hacking, SSL certificates have become an essential tool for protecting web servers. Let’s get and install an SSL certificate using cPanel’s Auto-SSL mechanism.

1. From the Tools page scroll to the Security section of the panel.
2. Click on SSL/TLS Status
3. A new page will open listing all the domains configured and their SSL certificate status.
4. From there include / exclude the domains you need to generate a certificate for. In this case make sure that iem-installation.example.com is included.
5. Click on Run AutoSSL to generate a certificate. This process may take several minutes to complete.

Once the certificate is generated go back to the Domain section and the domain list page to force HTTPS Redirect for the iem-installation.example.com domain.

Disable Directory Index Listing

By default cPanel allows the contents of directories to be listed. Let us disable this.

1. From the Tools page scroll to the Advanced section of the panel.
2. Click on Indexes
3. A new page will open listing all the top-level directories for the account. Click on Edit for the public_html directory
4. Select No Indexing and click on Save.
   
5. Verify that directory listing has been disabled by opening your browser to https://iem-installation.example.com/
6. You will get a 403 Forbidden error. This is what you want.

Create Database And Database User

For the database, you need to create a database, create a user, and give that user the ability to access that database.

Create Database

1. From cPanel’s Tools page go to the Database section and click on MySQL Datbases.
2. A new page will open. In the Create New Database section enter the name for the database that IEM will use. We will use the name iem_db
3. Click on Create Database
4. Once the database is created, click on the Go Back link at the bottom of the page.

Note that default cPanel installations will prefix the database name and database username with the cPanel username. The full name of the database created above would be example_iem_db for example.

Create User

1. From the previous step you are brought back to the MySQL Databases page. Scroll down to the MySQL Users section and add a new user.
2. Enter iem_db_user in the Username field
3. Enter a strong password twice
4. Click on Create User
5. Once the user is created, click on the Go Back link at the bottom status page.

Grant Access To The Database

1. From the previous step you are brought back to the MySQL Databases page. Scroll down to the Add User To Database section.
2. Select the new user example_iem_db_user and new database'example_iem_db
3. Click Add
4. A new page will open. Grant all privileges by clicking on the All Privileges checkbox.
5. Click Make Changes to apply the changes.

Check All Is Ready

Interspire provides a useful script to quickly check if all the pre-requisites are met before starting the installation.

1. Download check_iem.zip from the interspire website at https://www.interspire.com/downloads/check_iem.zip
2. Open the cPanel File Manager and upload the check script to the document root of the website public_html/iem-installation.example.com folder
3. Right click on the file and extract it in place
4. Go to your browser open https://iem-installation.example.com/check_iem.php and verify all is green

All the checks should say OK similarly to the sample screenshot below:

There should not be any entries that does not say OK. You need to fix any item that do not say OK.

Once all the checks complete successfully, remove the check files. From cPanel’s File Manager, right-click on each one in turn and select delete.

The preparatory work is now complete. Let’s move to the actual installation.

Copy Installation File And Unzip.

1. Upload the installation ZIP file using the cPanel File Manager in the web root public_html/iem-installation.example.com
2. Unzip the file in the web server document root by right-clicking on the file and selecting Extract

Run The One Step Interspire Setup Wizard

1. Go to your browser and start the Interspire installation https://iem-installation.example.com/iem_650/

Click on Continue. The installation will proceed.

2. Installation Completes

Once the installation is completed, a splash screen will be displayed.

Log into Interspire Email Marketer

Your installation of Interspire Email Marketer is completed. Click on the ‘Login Now’ button to log into your newly installed IEM instance.

Next Steps

Our guide on sending your first email campaign will get you sending in no time. Additionally, setting up cron and bounce processing is crucial.

Before you send your first campaign though, you should set up the appropriate DNS records for SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to improve deliverability. We recommend using a 3rd party Email Delivery Provider such as Inboxroad or SocketLabs depending on the volumes you will be sending. Whether or not you choose to use a such a service be sure to warm-up your setup.

Additional Information:

• https://www.interspire.com/installations-and-migrations/
• https://inboxroad.com/connect-inboxroad-to-interspire/