Web Hosting Manual

formats

Is iPage’s vDeck Any Good?

I was asked by a friend to take a look at iPage and it’s control panel called vDeck. The most used control panel online is cPanel. The second one is Plesk Panel. vDeck is mostly used by Endurance International Group Brands. Both in functionality and appearance it’s very much like cPanel which this iPage Review confirms, although I would still prefer the latter if I had the choice.

ipage-vdeck

There are five separate sections in vDeck:

  1. Website
  2. Email
  3. Domain
  4. Marketing Services
  5. Account Information

Let’s look at some of the features in each group.

Website

  • Htaccess editor: you can use this tool for Hotlink Protection, Password Protection, Blocking IP Adresses and more.
  • AcceptSafe: you can process credit cards with this one.
  • Archive Gateway: you can compress/uncompress files and directories using this tool. It would be much more practical if they have included this in their file manager, like cPanel does. Much more handy that way.
  • File Manager: Good for basic copying, renaming, file creation. cPanel’s file manager is much more robust.
  • FrontPage Extensions: You can enable Microsoft’s Frontpage on your account.
  • SimpleScripts: vDeck’s version of Fantastico, but much slower. Fantastico usually installes WordPress in less than 10 seconds. For SimpleScripts it takes anywhere from a minute to five minutes to do the same.
  • TextToGo: A content writing service for people who don’t want to write content for their websites themselves.
  • goMobi Site Builder: For an additional monthly fee you can create a mobile friendly website.

Email

  • MailCentral: Create and manage email addresses.
  • Webmail: Access your email accounts through a web interface.
  • Change Catchall: Specify an email address that catches all emails that come to an address that doesn’t exist.
  • Manage Spam Filters: Fine-tune your email spam settings.

Domain

  • DomainCentral: Manage your existing domains, addon domains, DNS settings.
  • Register Domain: Register a domain name with FatCow.
  • Registrar Transfer: Transfer Domains to FatCow.

Marketing Services

  • Email Marketing, Facebook Credits, Google Adwords Credits, Yahoo Search Credits, free YellowPages Listing and more are in this section.

Account Information

  • Change your account information
  • Change your password
  • Manage Subscriptions
  • Update your Credit Card Information

All in all vDeck is not bad, but I would prefer cPanel anytime. vDeck is more tuned to selling you additional services and has a very limited set of features absolutely necessary for managing websites. For advanced users it will be a disappointment in my humble opinion.

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Protect Yourself Against Viruses and Worms

A new breed of viruses is rapidly spreading across the Internet. Many of these viruses and worms appear as deceptively-innocent e-mails, which accounts for their rapid spread. In addition to the damage they do to individual computers and networks, they also overload mail servers and networks, which can cause delays and other problem with normal e-mail delivery. You can protect yourself (and the rest of the Internet community) by following a few simple rules:

  • NEVER open any file attached to an e-mail from an unknown, suspicious or untrustworthy source.
  • NEVER open any file attached to an e-mail unless you know exactly what it is even if it appears to come from a friend or someone you know.
  • Install and run a good anti-virus software, and update the anti-virus files regularly.
  • Make sure that your e-mail client is up-to-date and set to high security.
  • Make sure that your operating system is regularly updated.
  • Avoid downloading files you can’t be sure are safe. This includes freeware, screensavers, games, and any other executable program. Scan the programs that you do download with your anti-virus software before executing or installing them.

Three of the more common worms in current circulation are the W32.Mimail.A@mm worm, the W32.Dumaru@mm worm, and the W32.Mydoom.A@mm worm. These worms are delivered with attachments and one of the following (or similar) subject lines:

  • Use this patch immediately!
  • Your account
  • test
  • hi
  • hello
  • Mail Delivery System
  • Mail Transaction Failed
  • Server Report
  • Status
  • Error

For more information, see the following:

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Configuring and Using FormMail

What is FormMail?

This script is one from Matt’s Script Archive which we have installed and preconfigured for your domain. FormMail is a generic www form to e-mail gateway, which will parse the results of any form and send them to the specified user. This script has many formatting and functional options, most of which can be specified through the form. This means you don’t need any programming knowledge, nor do you need multiple scripts for multiple forms. This also makes FormMail the perfect system wide solution for allowing users form-based user feedback capabilities without the risks of allowing freedom of CGI access.

Note: If you wish to use FormMail on a secure server please see the special instructions.

CLICK HERE for the script author’s formmail documentation.

How do I use it?

There is only one form field that you must have in your form, for FormMail to work correctly. This is the recipient field. IMPORTANT NOTE: The recipient field must specify an e-mail address from the domain that the form resides on (in other words, if your domain name is fred.com, the recipient value must specify a fred.com e-mail address — specifying an e-mail address from another domain will cause the form submission to fail.) Other hidden configuration fields can also be used to enhance the operation of FormMail on your site.

The action of your form needs to point towards this script, and the method must be POST in capital letters. Here’s an example of the form fields to put in your form:

<FORM METHOD=POST ACTION=”http://yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/formmail.cgi”>
<input type=hidden name=”recipient” value=”whoever@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 following are descriptions and the proper syntax for many of the fields you can use with FormMail.

Recipient Field

This form field allows you to specify to whom your form results will be mailed. Most likely you will want to configure this option as a hidden form field with a value equal to that of your email address.

Syntax:

<input type=hidden name=”recipient” value=”email@yourdomain.com”>

Subject Field

The subject field will allow you to specify the subject that you wish to appear in the email that is sent to you after the form has been filled out. If you do not have this option turned on, then the script will default to a message subject: “WWW Form Submission”.

Syntax:

If you wish to choose what the subject is:

<input type=hidden name=”subject” value=”Your Subject”>

To allow the user to choose a subject:

<input type=text name=”subject”>

Email Field

This form field will allow the user to specify their return email address. If you want to be able to return e-mail to your user, it is strongly suggested that you include this form. This will be put into the From: field of the message you receive. If you want to require an email address with valid syntax, add this field name to the ‘required’ field.

Syntax:

<input type=text name=”email”>

Realname Field

The realname form field will allow the user to input their real name. This field is useful for identification purposes and will also be put into the From: line of your message header.

Syntax:

<input type=text name=”realname”>

Redirect Field

If you wish to redirect the user to a different URL, rather than having them see the default response to the fill-out form, you can use this hidden variable to send them to a pre-made HTML page.

Syntax:

To choose the URL they will end up at:

<input type=hidden name=”redirect” value=”http://yourdomain.com/to/file.html”>To allow them to specify a URL they wish to travel to once the form is filled out:

<input type=text name=”redirect”>

Required Field

You can require certain fields in your form to be filled in before the user can successfully submit the form. Simply place all field names that you want to be mandatory into this field, separated by commas. If the required fields are not filled in, the user will be notified of what they need to fill in, and a link back to the form they just submitted will be provided.

To use a customized error page, see ‘missing_fields_redirect’

Syntax:

If you want to require that they fill in the email and phone fields in your form, so that you can reach them once you have received the mail, use the syntax like:

<input type=hidden name=”required” value=”email,phone”>

Env_report Field

Allows you to have Environment variables included in the email message you receive after a user has filled out your form. Useful if you wish to know what browser they were using, what domain they were coming from or any other attributes associated with environment variables. The following is a short list of valid environment variables that might be useful:

REMOTE_HOST- Sends the hostname making the request.
REMOTE_ADDR - Sends the IP address of the remote host.
HTTP_USER_AGENT - The browser the client is using.

(Note: In our case, both REMOTE_HOST and REMOTE_ADDR are the same, since our servers don’t do the reverse DNS lookup needed to generate the true REMOTE_HOST string).

Syntax:

If you wanted to find all the above variables, you would put the following into your form:

<input type=hidden name=”env_report” value=”REMOTE_HOST,REMOTE_ADDR,HTTP_USER_AGENT”>

Sort Field

This field allows you to choose the order you would like your variables to appear in the email form that FormMail generates. You can choose to have the field sorted alphabetically or specify a set order in which you want the fields to appear in your email message. By leaving this field out, the order will simply default to the order in which the browsers send the information to the script (which is usually the exact same order as they appeared in the form). When sorting by a set order of fields, you should include the phrase “order:” as the first part of your value for the sort field, and then follow that with the field names you want to be listed in the email message separated by commas.

Syntax:

To sort alphabetically:

<input type=hidden name=”sort” value=”alphabetic”>To sort by a set field order:

<input type=hidden name=”sort” value=”order:name1,name2,etc…”>

Print_config Field

print_config allows you to specify which of the config variables you would like to have printed in your e-mail message. By default, no config fields are printed to your email. This is because the important form fields, like email, subject, etc. are included in the header of the message. However some users have asked for this option so they can have these fields printed in the body of the message. The config fields that you wish to have printed should be in the value attribute of your input tag separated by commas.

Syntax:

If you want to print the email and subject fields in the body of your message, you would place the following form tag:

<input type=hidden name=”print config” value=”email, subject”>

Print_blank_fields Field

print_blank_fields allows you to request that all form fields are printed in the return HTML, regardless of whether or not they were filled in. FormMail defaults to turning this off, so that unused form fields aren’t emailed.

Syntax:

<input type=hidden name=”print_blank_fields” value=”1″>

Title Field

This form field allows you to specify the title and header that will appear on the resulting page if you do not specify a redirect URL.

Syntax:

If you wanted a title of ‘Feedback Form Results’:

<input type=hidden name=”title” value=”Feedback Form Results”>

Return_link_url Field

This field allows you to specify a URL that will appear, as return_link_title, on the following report page. This field will not be used if you have the redirect field set, but it is useful if you allow the user to receive the report on the following page, but want to offer them a way to get back to your main page.

Syntax:

<input type=hidden name=”return_link_url” value=”http:// yourdomain.com/index.htm”>

Return_link_title

This is the title that will be used to link the user back to the page you specify with return_link_url. The two fields will be shown on the resulting form page as: Back to Main Page

Syntax:

<input type=hidden name=”return_link_title” value=”Back to Main Page”>

Special Notes about Using FormMail.cgi with the secure server

If you are using formmail.cgi through the secure server, you can still place your form anywhere on your webspace you want to, but you MUST use the following URL as the ACTION of your form: https://machinename.safe-order.net/cgi-bin/formmail.cgi

Here’s an example of how the first parts of your form might look:

<FORM METHOD=POST ACTION=”https://machinename.safe-order.net/cgi-bin/formmail.cgi”>
<input type=hidden name=”recipient” value=”whoever@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”>

It is still important that you call your order page through a secure URL in order for it to work properly. You must use: https://machinename.safe-order.net/yourdomain/order.htm. If you call formmail.cgi through the secure server, you must also call the order form through the secure server. Otherwise, a “bad referrer” message will result.

formats

MP3 Streaming Instructions

[REMINDER: The transmission, storage, or presentation of any information, data or material in violation of any United States Federal, State or local law is strictly prohibited under the terms and conditions of your hosting account. This includes copyrighted material used without permission.]

To stream an mp3 file, upload your mp3 file to your www directory (or to a subdirectory of your www directory) in BINARY format. Then create a text file with a .m3u extension. The .m3u file should contain only the URL to your mp3 file, and it should be uploaded in ASCII format.

For example:

  1. Create a subdirectory (e.g., media) in your www directory.
  2. Then, upload your mp3 file named (e.g., mysongfile.mp3 into that directory. Be sure to upload The mp3 file in BINARY format.
  3. Finally, create a text file (e.g., mysong.m3u) that contains only one line of text: the fully-qualified URL of your mp3 file (e.g.,http://yourdomainname.com/media/mysongfile.mp3).
  4. Then point your browser to the URL of the m3u file (using the above examples, http:///yourdomainname.com/mysong.m3u) and the .mp3 file will buffer and play.

Note that if you bypass the m3u file and point your browser directly to the mp3 file, the file will not stream — the visitor will have to download the entiremp3 file before the media will play.

In the case of mp3 media, the buffering is determined by the media player on the listener’s computer — it’s not a server-side function.

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PHP

PHP is installed on our servers for those users who are familiar with the language. Please note that we do not provide support for this language. For the definitive PHP reference, visit http://www.php.net.

If your PHP scripts are not working, try reinstalling PHP from your Control Panel’s Free Scripts section. That will put a fresh installation of PHP on your account.

To use PHP on your domain, just name your web files with the .php extension (e.g., index.php instead of index.html.) Some servers have both PHP version 3 and PHP version 4 installed. On those servers, if you name your files with the .php3 extension, you’ll invoke the PHP3 interpreter; if you name them with the .php extension, you’ll invoke the PHP4 interpreter.

What is PHP?

PHP is an HTML-embedded scripting language. Much of its syntax is borrowed from C, Java and Perl with a couple of unique PHP-specific features thrown in. The goal of the language is to allow web developers to write dynamically generated pages quickly.

For many users, PHP is an attractive alternative to ASP (active server pages). ASP is not really a language in itself, it’s an acronym for Active Server Pages; the actual language used to program ASP with is a script version of Visual Basic. ASP is said to be a slower and more cumbersome language than PHP, less stable as well.

If you’ve already developed your pages using ASP and would like to convert those pages to PHP, asp2php is the most popular converter.

Viewing Current PHP Configuration

To view the current configuration of PHP on your account, create a php file with the following code (we typically name ours phpinfo.php, but you can name it anything you want, as long as it includes the .php extension):

<html>
<head>
<title>PHP Info</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php phpinfo()?>
</body>
</html>

Upload the file to your www directory, and then point your browser to it; the file will return all relevant details of the PHP installation on your account.

Customizing Your PHP Installation

You can change the default PHP configuration by uploading a customized version of the php.ini file into your cgi-bin directory.

An example of the php.ini file is available below. Download the file that matches your version of PHP, edit it as needed, change the name to php.ini, and then upload it into your www/cgi-bin/directory to override the default configuration. IMPORTANT: Be sure to check your existing PHP scripts to ensure that they still function as expected after uploading the php.ini file!

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Zipping and Unzipping Files in UNIX

There are several methods of archiving files and retrieving archives. We recommend using the “zip” function to compress your files for its ease of use and portability. (Files zipped in Unix can be extracted using WinZip or PKunzip in Windows). We have provided various “unzip” methods. The “right” unzip method depends upon the method used to zip the file. You can tell the zip method by the file extension (e.g., .zip, .tar, .gz, etc.)

Zipping Files Using ZIP

This Unix program is compatible with the zip program for DOS and Windows. To zip files, first have the files uploaded to your server, then log into your account with Telnet. Navigate to the directory where the files are that you want to zip (for instance by typing cd www then cd sounds to move to your/www/sounds directory). Then type:

zip myzip file1 file2 file3

This puts the files named file1, file2, and file3 into a new zip archive called myzip.zip.

Unzipping Files

Please note that the unzip method you use is defined by the filename you are trying to unzip. For example, if you are trying to unzip a file calledfile.tar - you would use the method described in “tar“. Files ending in .gzip or .gz need to be extracted with the method described in “gunzip“.

Zip

If you have an archive named myzip.zip and want to get back the files, you would type:

unzip myzip.zip

Typing zip or unzip by itself will give you a usage summary, showing nearly all the options available.

Tar

To extract a file compressed with tar (e.g., filename.tar), type the following command from your telnet prompt:

tar xvf filename.tar

Basically, this command means that you will see the file “explode”, so don’t worry when you see your screen scrolling wildly. It also means that you will see any errors in the archive.

Gunzip

To extract a file compressed with gunzip, type the following:

gunzip filename_tar.gz

then if you receive no errors, type:

tar xvf filename_tar

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MySQL Database Instructions

You can create up to 4 MySQL databases using the “Add MySQL Database” function of your Control Panel. Please note that we do not provide any support related to the use of this complex application beyond the information provided on this page. For more information, please visit the MySQL Home Page.

Your MySQL USERNAME is your domain name without the extension (e.g., if your domain name is fred.com, your MySQL USERNAME is: fred.) MySQL truncates usernames to 16 characters, so if your domain name is longer than 16 characters, just use the first 16 (e.g., the USERNAME for ihaveanincrediblylongdomainname.com would be: ihaveanincredibl.)

Your MySQL PASSWORD is the password you chose when you created your first database from your control panel. Any databases you create after the first one must use the same password.

Accessing MySQL through Telnet

Use the following outline to connect and begin querying the mySQL server from telnet. Remember that you cannot connect to your databases remotely due to security concerns, you can only connect from localhost.

    1. Connect to the mySQL Serverservername:> mysql -u USERNAME -p

      Enter Password: PASSWORD

    1. Connect to the Databasemysql> use DATABASENAME;
    1. Receiving Helpmysql> help

 

Accessing MySQL with the MySQL Perl Module

Use the following outline to connect and begin querying the mySQL server from a Perl script. Remember that you cannot connect to your databases remotely due to security concerns. You can only connect from localhost.

    1. Declarations: You must require the mySQL package for your script to function properly. Do this by including the following line in your code: use Mysql;
    1. Connect to the Database: Somewhere near the beginning of your script, you need to make your initial connection to the database server. Using the following form, substitute your database, username, and password for the examples to connect successfully.Mysql->connect('localhost','DATABASENAME','USERNAME','USERPASSWORD');
    1. Executing a Query: You are now ready to begin querying the database server. [Most problems that you may incur will generally occur due to invalid permission settings for the specified user.]

 

Accessing MySQL with PHP

Use the following outline to connect and begin querying the mySQL server from within your PHP scripts. Remember that you cannot connect to your databases remotely due to security reasons. You can only connect to them form localhost.

    1. Connect to the mySQL Server: Use the following statement to connect to the database server. Substitute the username, and password for ones you have created in the WebControl System.MYSQL_CONNECT('localhost','USERNAME','PASSWORD');
    1. Select Your Database: Use the following statement to select the database you wish to connect to. Make sure you substitute the example with your database name.@mysql_select_db("DATABASENAME");
    1. Executing A Query: You are now ready to execute your queries. (Most problems that arise with your scripts will be due to incorrect permission settings.)

 

Export (Dump) or Backup your MySQL Database

To create a backup (dump) of your MySQL database through shell: Connect via SSH, navigate to the directory in which you want your backup stored, and issue the following command:

mysqldump -uusername -ppassword dbname > file.txt

(where username is your MySQL username; password is your MySQL password; dbname is the name of your database; and file.txt is the name of your backup file.)

Import / Restore your MySQL Database

To import/restore your database from an existing backup: Connect via SSH, navigate to the directory that contains your backup, and issue the following command:

mysql -uusername -ppassword dbname < file.txt

(where username is your MySQL username; password is your MySQL password; dbname is the name of your database; and file.txt is the name of your backup file.)

ODBC & JDBC

At this time, we do not offer support for ODBC or JDBC.

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Using Miva Empresa (HTMLScript)

What is Miva Empresa?

The Miva Engine makes building dynamic web sites as easy as writing HTML. Quickly develop server and browser independent dynamic sites using the XML standard. Dynamic sites that integrate scripting, database, and commerce can be developed and tested on a Microsoft workstation and deployed on Microsoft or Unix servers.

Miva runs on the web server, interprets the Miva tags and outputs pure HTML to the browser. You can also use Miva to output Javascript and other browser languages, and use the built-in database to easily manipulate and publish data.

Full documentation for Miva Script is offered by Miva Corporation.

How do I use Miva on my server?

The following is what you will need to know to run your Miva script on your domain.

    • The script being called is named miva, and is located in your cgi-bin directory.
    • The active pages (pages with the .hts or .mv extensions) need to be placed in your root www directory, not in subdirectories.
  • A sample URL call for this would be as follows:http://yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/miva?yourpage.mv

 

Miva Script has a variety of pre configured products that require path information. We have preconfigured miva to automatically look in the/home/yourdomain/htsdata directory for data files. If data is placed in this directory an example call would be as follows:

<export file=”file.dat”>

To call Miva Script through the secure server use the following:

https://machine.safe-order.net/cgi-bin/smiva?yourdomain/yourpage.mv

machine should be replaced with the name of the server your account is on. yourdomain should be replaced with your domain name without the TLD extension (i.e., do not include the .com, .net, .org, etc. extensions.)

Supported Standards

HTML SGML XML HTTP
POP3 SMTP ISAPI CGI
NSAPI UNIX WINDOWS JAVA
ODBC xBASE APACHE JAVASCRIPT

Miva (Htmlscript 3.0) tags are XML compliant and include:

<MvEVALUATE>, <MvIF>, <MvELSE>, <MvWHILE>, <MvEXPORT>, <MvIMPORT>, <MvCOMMERCE>, <MvLET>, <MvASSIGN>, <MvCALL>, <MvHIDE>, <MvEXIT>,  <MvCOMMENT>,<MvFUNCTION>, <MvMAIL>, <MvOPEN>, <MvCLOSE>, <MvFIND>,  <MvSKIP>, <MvGO>, <MvADD>, <MvUPDATE>, <MvDELETE>, <MvUNDELETE>,  <MvMAKEINDEX>,<MvSETINDEX>, <MvREINDEX>, <MvPACK>, <MvPRIMARY>, <MIVA>

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Using the Java Compiler

So you’ve written (or downloaded) java code and you need to compile it. Easy enough.

    1. First, upload your .java source code using ftp. Remember to upload your code in ASCII format.
    1. Then, telnet to your account and log in.
    1. Navigate to the directory in which you uploaded your .java source code.
    1. At your telnet prompt, type:

      javac yourcode.java

      where yourcode is the name of the java source code you uploaded.

  1. Hit ENTER and a file named yourcode.class will be created.

If the above command does not work, try issuing the command using the full path to javac:

/usr/local/java/bin/javac yourcode.java

Please note that java servlets are not supported on our servers due to security issues.

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Using the GCC Compiler

We offer the gcc compiler on our servers.

The C and C++ compilers are integrated. Both process input files through one or more of four stages: preprocessing, compilation, assembly, and linking. Source filename suffixes identify the source language, but the name that you use for the compiler governs default assumptions.

You can get further information on the compiler from your telnet prompt by typing:

man gcc

This command will return full syntax and options for the compiler.