Understanding the directory layout.
YOUR HOME DIRECTORY
Where you land when you connect. It contains your website folders, mail, logs and configuration.
Files here, above public_html, are not served to visitors. This is where to keep anything that should not be public.
THE KEY DIRECTORIES
public_html: the document root of your primary domain, served to visitors Subdirectories for addon domains, usually named after the domain mail: mailbox storage logs: access and error logs tmp: temporary files, including session data .cpanel and similar: control panel data, best left alone
FINDING A SPECIFIC SITE
Addon domains have their own folder. cPanel > Domains shows the document root for each, which tells you where to work.
WHAT NOT TO TOUCH
Control panel configuration directories. Changing them by hand causes problems that are hard to diagnose.
A USEFUL HABIT
Confirm where you are with pwd before running anything destructive. Running a delete in the wrong directory is a bad afternoon.
