Hosting Manual - Tutorials, Guides and Tools from A to Z

Using the Java Compiler

January 30, 2013/in Managing a Web Hosting Account /by Coty Lance

So you’ve written (or downloaded) java code and you need to compile it. Easy enough. First, upload your .java source code using ftp. Remember to upload your code in ASCII format. Then, telnet to your account and log in. Navigate to the directory in which you uploaded your .java source code. At your telnet prompt, type: javac yourcode.java where yourcode is […]

Creating Custom Error Messages With .htaccess

January 30, 2013/in Managing Websites /by Coty Lance

Most servers default to the “standard” Apache error message pages for most common browser errors. If you want to develop your own error pages, you’ll need to define those pages in a file named .htaccess, which you upload into your main www directory. The custom error pages that you develop also need to be uploaded into your www directory.

Creating a Custom 404 File Not Found Error Page

January 30, 2013/in Managing Websites /by Coty Lance

With some web hosts a file named missing.html or 404.html already exists in the www directory of your account. This is the page that is returned to the visitor when they attempt to visit a page that does not exist (resulting in a 404 error) on your account. You can edit this file to your liking, or create […]

Server-Side Includes (SSI)

January 25, 2013/in Setting Up Websites /by Coty Lance

What are Server-Side Includes? Server-Side Includes (commonly called SSI) are small commands that you can put in your HTML document. These commands perform specific functions, such as inserting text, the date, server variables, etc. For example, on the page that you’re reading right now, the main navigation links in the left column and the section […]

Secure Shell (SSH) Access

January 25, 2013/in Managing a Web Hosting Account /by Coty Lance

In order to increase the security of networks, servers now support Secure Shell (SSH) connections. SSH is a secure shell system; it encrypts data between a client and server. This is in contrast to telnet (or FTP, or most other services), that send information in plain text. SSH encrypts all traffic, including passwords, typed text, […]

Accessing your Files through FTP

January 25, 2013/in Managing Websites /by Coty Lance

The process by which files are transferred to the web server is called “FTP” (File Transfer Protocol). You have unlimited access to your account by both SSH (only some web hosts) and FTP 24 hours a day. Online services which offer an Internet gateway, such as AOL, CompuServe, and Prodigy may have a built-in FTP interface. […]

Linux File Permissions Tutorial

January 23, 2013/in Managing a Web Hosting Account /by Coty Lance

What are Linux File Permissions for? Just for a few minutes, forget about Windows, where you start up your computer, create a file, can open it for reading and writing or delete it without doing anything special. On Linux servers, the server needs to know two things about files: What can be done to a […]

Majordomo Commands

January 23, 2013/in Emailing /by Coty Lance

Majordomo is an email list manager developed by Brent Chapman of Great Circle Associates. It is written in Perl and works in conjunction with sendmail on UNIX and other operating systems. How do I get started using Majordomo? If you requested a digest when you requested Majordomo with your web host, you are set up with […]

Fun with .htaccess – A Tutorial with Examples

.htaccess File Tutorial: Let’s Have Some Fun With .htaccess [Examples]

January 23, 2013/in Managing Websites /by Coty Lance

The Apache web server has some configuration options that are available to the server administrator. In a shared hosting environment, you don’t have access to the main Apache configuration, so you’re stuck with the default settings. However, it is possible to override some of the default settings by creating (or editing) a file named .htaccess. This […]