Technical FAQ
General | FrontPage | PHP | CGI | E-Mail | Webstats | Miva E-Commerce | MySQL | RealAudio/Video < || > Online Manual
General Questions
- What are all the files
and directories in my home directory?
- Where do I upload all the files pertaining to my web site?
- What should I name the default page in my directories?
- Why would I receive a Forbidden message accessing my website?
-
Where is my web control
panel?
- What is my WebControl System password?
-
I have lost my
password to the web control panel, how can I reset the password?
- How do I upload files using FTP?
-
How
do I create my own "404 Not found" error page?
- How do I
activate my Error-Log file?
- What do I do if I forget my password?
- How do I get my raw
Access-Log?
- Do you provide tech support?
- How do I check Disk Usage?
-
How
do I use the anonymous ftp site?
- What
are your Mime Settings?
- How do I
create a Majordomo mailling list?
- How do I use
the secure server (SSL) for my order form?
- What
is SSH?
- How
do I establish a secure Telnet connection using SSH?
- How do I use
my page counters?
- Where should I store files for anonymous ftp
access?
- How do I update my billing address including my credit card information?
Q: What are all the files and directories in my home directory?
A:
/www........... This is your web
directory. Place all your web files in there.
/infobots...... This is where you
will have your autoresponders, created through web control.
/maillists..... This is where you
will have your mail lists, created through web control.
/htsdata....... This
is a data dir for Miva files. It's empty by default.
access-log..... This
is your raw access log file. Basically it's a symbolic link to the log.
plusmail_pass.. This file stores your
login and password for your PlusMail web control panel.
Q: Where do I upload all the files pertaining to my web site?
A: FTP to your account. Now you are in your home dir. Change
to the /www dir and place all your web files there. There are already a few files and a
lot of sub directories there.
The most important file is the index.htm file. This is the default "under
construction" page, which shows up when you load your domain name into your browser.
Replace it with your welcome page, and your domain is online :-)
You can also use the built-in upload feature within your web control panel. (Option: Site Manager --> File Upload)
Note: If you are using FrontPage, simply connect to your domain, and FrontPage will place the files into the proper location. You don't have to change directories first or something.
Q: What should I name the default page in my directories?
A: It is very important that you name your home
page (the first page that you want visitors to see when they visit your web site), index.htm. When a
browser visits your web site by typing in your domain name, i.e. www.yourdomain.com, the browser program will automatically search for a page
titled index.htm (by default).
If the browser does not find one, your
visitor will not be able to access your web site without a specific page name to add
to the domain URL.
Q: Why would I receive a Forbidden message accessing my website?
A: If this occurs it is generally for one of 3 reasons.
1. You don't have a properly named default page in your main WWW directory.
Acceptable file names are listed below:
index.htm
index.html
default.html
index.sht
index.shtml
index.cgi
index.mv
index.php
index.wml
2. The WWW directory permissions are improperly set. Logging into your domain with SSH and typing the following will fix this problem:
chmod 711 /www/your-user-id
When you receive your account the permissions are correctly set.
3. You put a .htaccess file in your main WWW directory, or you changed the
configuration of an existing .htaccess file which is locking up your web site.
You should contact support if you are not sure what's causing the problem.
Q: Where is my web control panel?
A: http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/plusmail
Q: What is my WebControl System password?
A: The WebControl System password by default is the same as your domain login. If
you don't know your password you can do the following:
Log into your home directory and delete the file called plusmail_pass. Then
log in to your WebControl System with your browser and you will be prompted to reset your password.
Q: I have lost my password to the web control panel, how can I reset the password?
A: The password for your plusmail control panel is stored in the
file called "plusmail_pass" in your home directory. (This is the directory where
you are immediately after logging in via ftp or ssh.)
If you don't remember your password or would like to reset it, ftp to your home dir and
delete the file "plusmail_pass". Then go back to
http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/plusmail and you can add a new login/password
combination.
In order for this to work the main login has to be the domain name without the .com .net,
etc....
Q: How do I upload files using FTP?
A: First of all, you will need your own FTP client. Then follow the instructions in our manual.
Q: How do I create my own "404 Not found" error page?
A: Simply modify the missing.html file in your main web directory.
--> If you are using FTP to up-/download your
files, look for the file missing.html in your web directory (/www).
Download it to your PC, modify it with any HTML editor, and upload it back to
your account.
If you have accidently deleted the file "missing.html".
This is no problem, you can create a simple html page offline, and save it as
missing.html and upload it into your web directory (/www).
Q: How do I activate my Error-Log file?
A: If you had Error-Logging added to your account, you can go to your WebControl System at http://your-domain.com/cgi-bin/plusmail and click on "Extras". Select "Error Logs" under Script/Services and hit "Install Service".
The error-log will be accessible from your home directory using FTP (look for "error-log" in your home dir), or you simply download them from your web control panel (Site Reports --> Error Logs).
Note: Error-Logs may not included with your domain as part of the standard features. Depending on your hosting plan you may activate them for a small additional fee.
Q: What do I do if I forget my password?
A: You will need to contact support. To maintain security for our clients we only email passwords to the e-mail address on record in our database.
Q: How do I get my raw Access-Log?
A:
Utilizing web control:
1) Log into your web control panel
2) Click Site Reports
3) Click Raw Access Logs
4) Enter your password when prompted
Utilizing FTP:
When you FTP into your Home Directory, you will see a file named
"access-log". Download this file and open it in any word processor or text editor such as NotePad
to see exactly what files were accessed, what domain the visitor came from (if
you have referrer logging activated), the dates and times of each visit, etc.
In some FTP programs the link to your access-log appears to be a directory and not downloadable. If this occurs you should look for "manual file select" or "get link as file" in the config menu of your FTP.
Q: Do you provide tech support?
A: Yes, we will handle questions or concerns about your web site and the features we provide. However, we can't provide help with HTML Syntax or CGI programming problems. We will try to be helpful and give advise whenever possible.
Q: How do I check Disk Usage?
A:
Utilizing web control:
Log into your web control and you will see a cell "Disk spaced
used" under "Site Summary". That's all :-)
Utilizing SSH:
Log into your domain using SSH and type:
quota -g
You will see your quota and your current usage.
Example:
Disk quotas for group anythinggrp (gid
5463):
Filesystem blocks quota limit grace files
quota limit grace
/dev/sdb6 391876 600000 610000
9562 30000 30100
blocks
are the actual space you are using in kilobyte
quota
is the actual space you are allowed to use in kilobyte
limit
is the space allowed with a grace limit included
files
are the actual number of files being used
quota
the quota after files is your file limit
Q: How do I use the anonymous ftp site? (--no longer supported on new accounts, Jan-2001--)
A: Your anonymous ftp site is completely different from your
web site.
When people ftp to your domain anonymously, they will see
the following directories:
bin/ dev/ etc/ incoming/ lib/ pub/
"pub" is where you should put all your
anonymously accessible files.
"incoming" is for the anonymous users to upload files. incoming directory is
disabled by default. But you can easily change it.
For security the following applies:
- Only the incoming directory can be written to anonymously
- Subdirectories are not creatable
- The incoming directory is not readable by people dropping files there
You are responsible for any "pirated" software uploaded by the anonymous users. The anonymous ftp sites will be periodically monitored for any abuses.
You may ignore the other directories.
In order to keep the system performance, simultaneous connections to the anonymous FTP server are limited to 5 !
Q: How do I change my login password?
A: There is a feature in your web control panel for changing
the password.
--> Web Control --> User Manager
Q: What are your Mime Settings?
A: Click here for our configuration file.
Q: How do I create a Majordomo mailling list?
A: There is a small extra
charge for a majordomo mailing list.
Once unlocked, you can go to your web control panel --> Mail Lists --> Majordomo
You must specify a list name and a password when you create the list.
Email to this
address for
majordomo usage instructions.
You are allowed to send up to 1500 e-mails/day with your majordomo mailing
list.
Q: How do I use the secure server (SSL) for my order form?
A: Normally, any text (such as your credit card number) sent
from your browser to the web server is sent as plain text. This means that a hacker could
potentially intercept (however unlikely) the information sent from your browser and read
it.
However, by using the secure server, the information is encrypted before it is sent from
your browser. It would be practically impossible for anyone to decrypt it without knowing
the key.
Please use the secure server only when necessary.
Assume your domain is example.com.
!! for machinename you put your system name. This is the name that the prompt says
when you log into the shell.
It's also shown in front of your web control panel.
Use the following URL to access your pages via the secure
server.
https://machinename.safe-order.net/yourname/anypage.html
The above page would be accessed from the normal web server
as:
http://yourname.com/anypage.html
Your cgi-bin dir is:
https://machinename.safe-order.net/cgi-yourdomain/
*SPECIAL NOTE FOR FORMMAIL.CGI*
If you are using formmail.cgi through the secure server,
you MUST use the following URL:
https://machinename.safe-order.net/cgi-bin/formmail.cgi
Here's an example:
<FORM METHOD=POST ACTION="https://machinename.safe-order.net/cgi-bin/formmail.cgi"> <input type=hidden name="recipient" value="sales@yourdomain.com"> <input type=hidden name="subject" value="Order"> <input type=hidden name="return_link_url" value="http://yourdomain.com/> <input type=hidden name="return_link_title" value="Back to Main Page">
The last two line allow a link back to your main page - thus they get a report of what they ordered and a link. We made the modification for you already.
Q: How do I use my page counters?
A: We offer two different page counters. For the documentation click here.
Q: What is SSH?
A: SSH is a secure protocol that replaces existing TCP/IP protocols such as telnet. In simple words SSH is just secure telnet.
Q: How do I establish a secure Telnet connection using SSH?
A: We provide step by step instructions in our online manual. Click here.
Q: Where should I store files for anonymous ftp access? (--no longer supported on new accounts, Jan-2001--)
A: Put files in the directory named /anonftp/pub. This will allow a file to be accessed by a customer with ftp://yourdomain.com/pub/yourfile
Q: How do I update my billing address including my credit card information?
A: Please update your billing address through our secure server here.