# Install CorePanel on AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux and host your first website with free SSL > From a fresh VPS to a live website on HTTPS: install the free CorePanel control panel, delegate your domain to the server, create a hosting account and get a Let's Encrypt certificate that renews itself. Source: https://www.corepanel.net/tutorials/install-corepanel-first-website-ssl-almalinux-rocky Author: CorePanel Team Published: 2026-10-05 Track: CorePanel · beginner · ~30 min Tested on: AlmaLinux 9.8 · CorePanel 1.9.0 (2026-10-05) Tested on: AlmaLinux 10.2 · CorePanel 1.9.0 (2026-10-05) Tested on: Rocky Linux 9.8 · CorePanel 1.9.0 (2026-10-05) Tested on: Rocky Linux 10.2 · CorePanel 1.9.0 (2026-10-05) CorePanel edition needed: Personal (free) Tags: corepanel, control-panel, web-hosting, lets-encrypt, ssl, almalinux, rocky-linux, cpanel-alternative From CorePanel Tutorials — https://www.corepanel.net/tutorials --- This tutorial takes a server that has nothing on it but AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux and ends with a website answering on `https://` with a trusted certificate. Along the way the server gets a complete hosting stack — web server, PHP, MariaDB, mail, DNS and FTP — and a control panel to run it from. The panel is **CorePanel Personal**, which is free, with no time limit, for up to 20 websites. Everything here works the same on the paid editions. You need: - A **VPS or dedicated server** with a fresh install of AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux 9 or 10, at least **2 GB of RAM** (4 GB is comfortable) and 20 GB of disk, and root access over SSH. - A **domain name** you can manage at your registrar. `example.com` stands in for it throughout, and `203.0.113.10` for the server's public IP address. > **Start from a clean server** > > CorePanel takes over the whole hosting stack — web server, mail, DNS, databases — and > there is no uninstall. Install it on a server built for it, not on one that already runs > websites or another control panel. ## Delegate your domain to the server Do this first, because DNS changes take a while to spread and the rest of the tutorial runs while they do. CorePanel works best when it is the **DNS server for your domains**: it then publishes every record a site and its mail need, and it can obtain one wildcard certificate that covers the website, `mail.`, `webmail.` and `ftp.` at once. Your server becomes the domain's nameserver in two steps at your registrar: 1. **Register two nameservers**, `ns1.example.com` and `ns2.example.com`, both pointing at the server's public IP. Registrars call this *Register nameservers*, *Personal nameservers*, *Host records* or *Glue records*. 2. **Switch the domain to custom nameservers** and enter `ns1.example.com` and `ns2.example.com`. ![A registrar's Register Nameservers screen: ns1.example.com and ns2.example.com are each pointed at the server's own public IP.](https://www.corepanel.net/_astro/domain-setup-glue.CuKtUgaH.svg) Until CorePanel is installed nothing answers for the domain, which is fine: nobody is visiting it yet. Every screen and term is explained step by step in [Preparing your domain](https://www.corepanel.net/docs/domain-setup). > **Keeping DNS somewhere else?** > > If the domain's DNS has to stay at your registrar or at Cloudflare, skip this section > and create an `A` record for `example.com`, `www.example.com` and `panel.example.com` > pointing at the server instead. The website still gets its certificate. Mail and FTP > hostnames do not, which [SSL certificates](https://www.corepanel.net/docs/ssl-certificates#recommended-setups) > explains. ## Install CorePanel Log in to the server as `root`. Bring the system up to date first: ```bash dnf -y upgrade --refresh ``` Then run the installer: ```bash curl -fsSL https://get.corepanel.net/install.sh | bash -s -- --yes ``` `--yes` answers the installer's confirmation and setup questions for you, so the next step can set those values explicitly. Leave it out and the installer asks for them instead. The installer takes 10 to 15 minutes. It installs CoreHttpd (CorePanel's web server), PHP 8.4 and 7.4, MariaDB 10.11, Postfix, Dovecot, Rspamd, PowerDNS and Pure-FTPd, opens their ports in firewalld, and checks that every service is running before it reports success. If it ends with **INSTALL FAILED**, stop there: it names the service that is down and the command to read its log. ## Name the panel The **panel domain** is the address you open CorePanel at. Use a name under your own domain: ```bash corepanel system init --domain panel.example.com --admin-email admin@example.com --no-interactive ``` The command prints the panel address and the password for the `coreadmin` user. It may also say that DNS is not yet pointing to this server: nothing publishes the panel's address until the next step, so that is expected here. The password is also saved in `/root/.corepanel_password`, readable by root only: ```bash test -s /root/.corepanel_password corepanel status ``` `corepanel status` lists the four CorePanel services. Every one of them should be `active` and `running`. ## Finish the setup in the panel Open `https://panel.example.com` in your browser and sign in as `coreadmin`. If the delegation from the first section has not spread yet, the name does not resolve. Open `https://203.0.113.10` (your server's IP) instead: the browser warns about a self-signed certificate, which is expected on that address. The wizard printed the certificate's fingerprint, so you can check it before accepting. The first sign-in asks two things. **The edition.** Choose **Personal** to stay on the free edition. You can start a trial of Pro or Business from **Server → License** whenever you like. **The initial configuration**, a four-step assistant: 1. **Company** — the name your customers see. 2. **Server basics** — the panel hostname and the main IP, already filled in. 3. **Nameservers** — `ns1.example.com` and `ns2.example.com`, each with the server's IP. They must be exactly the names you registered at the registrar. 4. **Review** — check and click **Finish**. ![CorePanel's Initial configuration assistant on Step 3 of 4, Name servers: two cards with Hostname fields ns1.example.com and ns2.example.com, each pointing at the server's public IP.](https://www.corepanel.net/_astro/domain-setup-wizard.DMU5gEuN.svg) When you click **Finish**, CorePanel publishes the panel's address and the nameservers' addresses in a DNS zone for `example.com`. From now on, your server answers DNS for the domain. ## Create your first hosting account A **hosting account** is one customer, or one site of yours: a Linux user, a home directory, a website, a database allowance, mailboxes and a DNS zone. In the panel, go to **Accounts → Add account**, enter `example.com` as the domain, generate a password and click **Create**. The same from the shell: ```bash ACCOUNT_PASSWORD="$(openssl rand -base64 24)Aa1!" printf '%s' "$ACCOUNT_PASSWORD" | corepanel account create example.com --password-stdin --owner-email admin@example.com corepanel account list ``` The password is read from standard input so it never shows up in your shell history or in the process list. Keep it: it is also the password of the account's first FTP user. CorePanel derived the Linux username, `example`, from the domain. Creating the account did several things at once: - a Linux user that owns `/home/example`, with the website in `public_html`; - a PHP-FPM pool running as that user, on the newest PHP installed; - a virtual host for `example.com` and `www.example.com`; - DNS records for the website and for mail, with an SPF record and a DKIM key; - an order for a Let's Encrypt certificate covering `example.com` and `*.example.com`. Your server now answers for the domain the way the rest of the internet will ask it. Query it directly: ```bash dig +short @127.0.0.1 NS example.com dig +short @127.0.0.1 A www.example.com dig +short @127.0.0.1 MX example.com dig +short @127.0.0.1 TXT example.com ``` The answers are your two nameservers, the server's IP, `10 mail.example.com.` and the SPF record `"v=spf1 a mx ~all"`. ## Put something on the site Upload your site over SFTP with the account's username and password, or from the panel's **File manager**. For this tutorial, a one-line PHP page is enough. Write it as the account's user, so the file belongs to the site and not to root: ```bash sudo -u example tee /home/example/public_html/index.php > /dev/null <<'EOF' /dev/null; do sleep 5; done' curl -fsS https://www.example.com/ ``` The first line retries for up to five minutes. The second must print the greeting from your PHP page, over HTTPS, with no certificate error. Look at the certificate itself: ```bash echo | openssl s_client -connect www.example.com:443 -servername www.example.com 2>/dev/null | openssl x509 -noout -ext subjectAltName > /tmp/san.txt cat /tmp/san.txt grep -F 'DNS:*.example.com' /tmp/san.txt ``` The certificate names `*.example.com`, so `mail.example.com`, `webmail.example.com` and `ftp.example.com` are covered by it too. CorePanel renews it in the background before it expires; there is no cron job or certbot timer for you to look after. The panel has a certificate of its own. CoreHttpd obtained it for `panel.example.com` the first time the name was asked for over HTTPS, and renews it the same way: ```bash curl -fsS -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}\n' https://panel.example.com/ ``` That prints `200`, with no certificate warning. One more detail: `example.com` and `www.example.com` both answer, but only one should be the real address, or search engines see two copies of the site. New domains use `www`, and the bare name redirects to it with a `301` that keeps the path: ```bash curl -sS -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code} %{redirect_url}\n' https://example.com/about ``` That prints `301 https://www.example.com/about`. To use the bare name instead, change the domain's **canonical host** in the panel, or run `corepanel domain canonical set example.com nonwww`. ## What you have now | | Where | |---|---| | Control panel | `https://panel.example.com`, user `coreadmin` | | Website | `https://www.example.com`, files in `/home/example/public_html` | | DNS for the domain | This server, as `ns1` and `ns2.example.com` | | Certificate | `example.com` + `*.example.com`, renewed automatically | | Mail | Ready for mailboxes, with SPF and DKIM already published | ## Next steps - [Host a WordPress site with email, SSL and nightly backups](https://www.corepanel.net/tutorials/wordpress-email-ssl-backups-corepanel) - [Set up email so it reaches Gmail: SPF, DKIM, DMARC and reverse DNS](https://www.corepanel.net/tutorials/email-deliverability-spf-dkim-dmarc-ptr-corepanel) - [Secure a new hosting server: WAF, firewall, brute-force protection and SSH](https://www.corepanel.net/tutorials/secure-hosting-server-waf-firewall-ssh-corepanel)