Welcome
From a bare machine to an Elpan server that hosts accounts, and everything you do to keep it running. These docs are for the server's administrator. If you host with an Elpan provider, the account docs are for you.
Three ways in
| What it is | Where | |
|---|---|---|
| Admin app | The web panel for the whole server: accounts, domains, mail, certificates, admin users. | https://admin.<server hostname>/ |
elpanctl | The operator CLI: most of what the admin app does, and server tasks it has no screen for, such as backups. | A root shell on the server. |
| Server API | An HTTP API for your own systems, such as a billing system that creates accounts. | /api/v1 on the admin host, with a server API key. |
The bare server hostname is not the admin app. It serves a splash page, and
the server API under /api/v1.
An account is what an account holder signs in to. You create it, set its limits, and can act in it, but its holder manages its domains, websites, and mail. The admin app shows every account at once, so you can see what is happening across the server.
How the docs are organized
- Getting started: install a
server, sign in to the admin
app, learn
elpanctl, and create the first account. - Accounts: what an account is, its limits, suspending, terminating and deleting it, acting inside it, and the help requests from holders who cannot sign in.
- Admin access: admin users, the second step and passkeys, allowed addresses, the break-glass on the host, and the Auth Log.
- DNS & addresses: hosts and services, how DNS publication works and what to do when it fails, shared IP address groups, and the DNS backends.
- Certificates: what gets a certificate and how it renews, the ACME client accounts, and a certificate authority of your own.
- Mail: the outgoing queue and quarantine, the traffic log, relaying to an account holder's own server, system mail and virus scanning.
- Websites: the web applications across all accounts and their upgrade runs, and the bot challenge.
- Integrations: the server API and its keys, webhooks, and billing systems.
- Operations: backups, updates, sizing profiles, the panel's appearance, telemetry, the AI assistant and housekeeping.
The sections follow the admin app's menu loosely. The menu puts nearly everything under System; the docs split it by subject, and a subject that is only on the command line, such as installation or backups, gets its pages too. Each page says where its screen is and names its commands.
Getting help
elpanctl list lists every command, and elpanctl <command> --help
explains one. When a page here and the panel disagree, the panel is right:
the panel is what runs.