Welcome to the Dark Side 🚀

🛒 Choose a Hosting Plan

Not sure which plan you need?

• Shared Hosting — perfect for websites, blogs, and small businesses. Start at $4/mo.
• VPS Hosting — dedicated resources, root access. Perfect for apps, game servers, custom software. From $12/mo.
• Dedicated Server — full bare-metal hardware. Maximum performance. Linux or Windows. From $99/mo.

💳 Paying in TTD (Trinidad & Tobago)

No credit card? No problem. At checkout, select "TTD — Local Payment" to pay with your Trinidad & Tobago debit card online. It's that simple.

📧 Check Your Welcome Email

After payment is confirmed, you'll receive a welcome email within minutes containing:

• Your WHMCS client area login credentials
• Your Hestia Control Panel URL, username, and password
• Your server IP address
• For VPS/Dedicated: root / Administrator password and SSH/RDP connection details

🖥 Accessing Hestia

Open your browser and go to:

https://[YOUR-SERVER-IP]:8083

Or use the hostname if DNS is already set up:

https://server.digitaldarkside.net:8083

Enter the username and password from your welcome email. You'll land on the Hestia dashboard.

🔑 Change Your Password

For security, change your Hestia password immediately after first login:

1. Click your username in the top right of Hestia
2. Select Edit User
3. Scroll to the Password field and enter a strong new password
4. Click Save

🌐 Adding a Domain

1. In Hestia, click the Web tab at the top navigation
2. Click the green + button in the top right
3. In the Domain field, enter your domain (e.g. mysite.com) — no www needed
4. Under SSL Support, tick Enable SSL for this domain
5. Tick Use Let's Encrypt to obtain SSL certificate
6. Tick Enable automatic HTTPS redirect
7. Click Save

📁 Your Website Directory

After adding the domain, your website files go here:

/home/[username]/web/[yourdomain.com]/public_html/

This is the document root — anything you put here is publicly accessible at http://yourdomain.com. Upload your index.html or index.php here to make your site live.

🔀 Method A — Change Nameservers (Recommended)

Log in to your domain registrar (GoDaddy, Namecheap, TTNIC, Cloudflare, etc.) and update the nameservers to:

ns1.digitaldarkside.net
ns2.digitaldarkside.net

This delegates all DNS management to us. You can then manage DNS records directly from Hestia's DNS tab. Propagation: typically 15 minutes to 4 hours.

🎯 Method B — Add A Record Only

If you want to keep your registrar's nameservers, add a single A record:

Your server IP is in your welcome email and in your WHMCS client portal.

🔍 Check DNS Propagation

Use these free tools to verify your domain is resolving to your server:

• dnschecker.org — check from multiple locations worldwide
• whatsmydns.net — map view of DNS propagation

You can also test from terminal: nslookup yourdomain.com

📧 Create Email Accounts in Hestia

1. Click the Mail tab in Hestia
2. Click + to add your domain as a mail domain (e.g. yourdomain.com)
3. Click the mail icon next to your domain to see accounts
4. Click + to add an email account — e.g. username: info, which creates info@yourdomain.com
5. Set a strong password and click Save

⚙️ Email Client Settings

Configure Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, or your phone with these settings:

🌐 Webmail Access

Access your email from any browser — no app needed:

https://server.digitaldarkside.net/webmail

Log in with your full email address and email account password. Hestia uses Roundcube for webmail.

📁 Upload via SFTP (FileZilla)

1. Download FileZilla (free) from filezilla-project.org
2. Open FileZilla → File → Site Manager → New Site
3. Protocol: SFTP | Host: your server IP | Port: 22
4. Logon Type: Normal | User: your Hestia username | Password: your Hestia password
5. Click Connect
6. Navigate to /home/[user]/web/[domain]/public_html/
7. Drag your website files from your computer to this folder

🌐 Install WordPress (One-Click via Hestia)

1. In Hestia, click the Web tab
2. Click the Quick Install icon next to your domain
3. Select WordPress from the list of apps
4. Fill in: site title, admin username, admin email, admin password
5. Click Install — WordPress is deployed in under 60 seconds

🗄 Set Up a MySQL Database

If your application needs a database (WordPress, Joomla, Laravel, etc.):

1. In Hestia, click the DB tab
2. Click + to add a new database
3. Enter a database name (e.g. mysite_db)
4. Set a database user and strong password
5. Note: Database host is localhost
6. Click Save. Access phpMyAdmin via the DB tab for visual management

🔌 Connect via SSH (Linux VPS)

Open Terminal (Mac/Linux) or PuTTY (Windows) and run:

ssh root@YOUR.SERVER.IP.ADDRESS

Type yes to accept the server fingerprint, then enter your root password from the welcome email.

passwd
# Enter new password twice when prompted

🔑 Set Up SSH Key Authentication (Highly Recommended)

SSH keys are far more secure than passwords. Here's the setup:

Step 1: Generate a key pair on your local computer:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your@email.com"
# Press Enter to accept default location
# Set a passphrase (optional but recommended)

Step 2: Copy your public key to the server:

ssh-copy-id root@YOUR.SERVER.IP
# Or on Windows, paste the contents of ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub
# into /root/.ssh/authorized_keys on the server

Step 3: Disable password authentication (optional but highly secure):

nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
# Find and change:
# PasswordAuthentication yes  →  PasswordAuthentication no
# Then restart SSH:
systemctl restart sshd

🛡 Basic Server Security Steps

1. Update all packages: apt update && apt upgrade -y (Ubuntu/Debian)
2. Install a firewall: ufw allow ssh && ufw allow http && ufw allow https && ufw enable
3. Install fail2ban to block brute force: apt install fail2ban -y
4. Create a non-root user for daily use
5. Disable root login via SSH once you have a sudo user configured

🪟 Windows VPS — Remote Desktop (RDP)

1. Windows: Press Win+R → type mstsc → enter your server IP → connect with Administrator credentials
2. Mac: Install Microsoft Remote Desktop from App Store → Add PC → enter your server IP
3. Linux: Run remmina or install with apt install remmina -y

After connecting: change the Administrator password, enable Windows Defender, configure Windows Firewall, and run Windows Update.