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This service allows you to administer your web site and control
the performance of web site services. In this document we
will look at the web service in the Unix plan. The Windows
plan works similarly to Unix, but offers a somewhat different
set of features.
Accessing the Web Service
Page
To access the Web Service page, select Domain Settings
in the navigation menu, and on the page that appears click
the Edit icon in the Web Service field:
This will open the Web Service page.
Working with Web Service
Settings
At the top of the page you will see your basic web settings:
- Domain Name: the front door address used by visitors
to enter your site. Click the domain name to go back to
the Edit Domain Info page. You can enter your site
from here clicking the View icon.
- Server Configuration: Any changes you make to this
page will take effect only!
after you restart the apache web server. To restart it,
just click the Apply link. If no changes have been
made, Server Configuration will show as OK.
- IP Address: If you have a dedicated IP address,
you can go to your site by clicking the link. The difference
between dedicated and shared IP is discussed in the Domain Management chapter.
- Preinstalled Scripts (version 2.09 and higher):
H-Sphere comes with free pre-installed CGI scripts written
in Perl, PHP, and ASP. These are the counter, guestbook
and a web-chat. If you accidentally delete any of your CGI
scripts and/or index page (index.html), you can restore
it by clicking the Restore to default link. The system
will create the missing files and skip any of existing ones:
this way you will not lose any of your changes. If you want
to get rid of any undesirable changes in you CGi scripts
and restore H-Sphere's default settings, you will have to
delete the files you want to restore and then click the
Restore to default link. Also, use the Restore
to defaultlink to fix up your temporary index page and
graphics to default.
See the Contents
of Your Home Directory chapter of this manual for more
information on the files and catalogues not to be deleted.
- Site Studio: Toggle the ON/OFF button to
enable SiteStudio, a powerful site construction tool enabling
you to create a professional-looking site in a matter of
minutes. Having enabled, click Login to enter.
Configuring Your
Apache Web Server
The next section allows you to configure your apache web
server:
- Indexes: The index page is the first page entered
on your site. If for any reason it is corrupted or missing,
apache can automatically generate a substitute index page.
Switch the radio buttons to enable or disable this option.
- Symbolic links: If your file system supports symlinks,
enabling these options will allow you to use them.
- Multiviews: If for any reason the requested file
is not available, apache will redirect the request to other
files with the same name, but a different extension. This
is exceptionally useful in handling files with similar extensions,
such as .htm, .html, .shtm, etc.
Adding More Features
Further below is the list of features that you can add your
site to enhance its functionality:
SSL support
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer protocol) is a standard for transmitting
confidential data such as credit card numbers over the Internet.
Most true business sites support this feature which allows
more security in data transmitted over the WWW. This is the
standard minimum safe security level for true business on
the Internet. SSL works by using a private key to encrypt
data that is transferred over the SSL connection. To read
more about what is SSL and how it works, go to
http://www.modssl.org/docs/2.8/index.html
Click here to go
to the SSL page of this manual.
Shared SSL support
Shared SSL uses WildCard (server-wide) certificates to service
multiple domains. Thawte
determines a wildcard certificate as "a single certificate,
with a wildcard character in the domain name field. This allows
the certificate to secure multiple hosts within the same domain.
For example, a certificate for ' *.domain.com ', could be
used for www.domain.com, www1.domain.com, www2.domain.com,
in fact, any host in the domain.com domain. When a client
checks the host name in this certificate it uses a shell expansion
procedure to see if it matches."
According to VeriSign,
a shared SSL certificate "enables Internet Service Providers
(ISPs) to provide SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption and
business authentication to Web business customers, but without
the need to issue unique digital certificates to each hosted
customer. The service offers ISPs the convenience and streamlined
management of a single specially licensed SSL digital certificate
to share among multiple hosted Web sites".
WildCard certificates work only within one domain level.
For example, if you get a domain name for *.domain.com, it
will work for www.domain.com and subdomain.domain.com. But
it will not work for www.subdomain.domain.com.
FrontPage extensions
To enable FrontPage Extensions support, click the ON/OFF
button. In the window that appears, enter the login and
password you will need to upload your web pages with the FrontPage
Publish Web feature:
You can change FPE login and password at any time in the
future by clicking the Edit icon that appears
next to the ON/OFF button.
CGI
To add a CGI alias, click the Add icon.
In the window that appears, enter File Extension for the
files you want to be regarded as scripts. For example, entering
.pl extensions will mark all *.pl files as executable scripts.
The file extension must begin with a dot. This configuration
will not affect other users.
Server Side Imagemap (version
2.09 and higher)
This feature allows your server to regard files with a specific
extension as map files. In other words, the server checks
the file with the specified extension to define the links
of an image (unlike a client-side image map, which uses the
info inserted into the HTML code) and reports back to the
browser where to go.
To add an imagemap file extension, click the Add icon.
Enter the File Extension in the window that appears. The
files extension must begin woth a dot, for example .map.
MIME
According to Webopedia,
MIME is "Short for Multipurpose Internet
Mail Extensions, a specification for formatting
non-ASCII messages so that they can be sent over the Internet.
Many e-mail clients now support MIME, which enables them to
send and receive graphics, audio, and video files via the
Internet mail system. In addition, MIME supports messages
in character sets other than ASCII.
There are many predefined MIME types, such as GIF graphics
files and PostScript files. It is also possible to define
your own MIME types.
In addition to e-mail applications, Web browsers also support
various MIME types. This enables the browser to display or
output files that are not in HTML format."
There are many predefined MIME types, such as GIF
graphics files and PostScript
files. In addition, you can also define your own MIME types.
To do so, click Add MIME Type link. New MIME Type page will
appear:
- File Extension: Begin file extension with a dot.
- MIME Type: e.g.: text/rtf or video/mpeg.
PHP3
According to Webopedia,
"PHP Hypertext Preprocessor is a server-side, HTML embedded
scripting language used to create dynamic Web pages.
In an HTML document, PHP script (similar syntax to that
of Perl or C) is enclosed within special PHP tags.
Because PHP is embedded within tags, the author can jump
between HTML and PHP (similar to ASP and Cold Fusion) instead
of having to rely on heavy amounts of code to output HTML.
And, because PHP is executed on the server, the client cannot
view the PHP code.
PHP can perform any task any CGI program can do, but its
strength lies in its compatibility with many types of databases.
Also, PHP can talk across networks using IMAP, SNMP, NNTP,
POP3, or HTTP. Click the button to enable PHP support."
SSI
To add an SSI alias, click the On/OFF button. In
the window that appears, enter your SSI File Extension.
The file extension must begin with a dot.
CGI dir
Click the ON/OFF button to enable or disable the cgi-bin
directory. This will not delete the directory or any of its
content, but will stop running any cgi scripts for your site.
MIVA
For details read the Creating
an Online Store section.
Error
Define the actions to be taken if the requested page on
your site is missing. Click the Add icon to configure
the error document. In the form that appears enter the error
document settings:
- Error Document Code : Enter the error code to change
the default message. One of the common errors is File Not
Found.
- Message or URL : Enter a text message the visitor
will receive or the URL of the page that the visitor will
be taken to if the requested page is not found.
- Type : Specify if the text in the previous field
is a URL (Redirect) or an error message (Message).
Logs
Enable writing error logs, transfer logs, referrer logs
and agent logs. You can view these log files using Telnet.
See Viewing Web Statistics.
Webalizer
Enable the program that analyzes the transfer log and generates
readable HTTP transfer reports. It requires transfer log to
be enabled. See Viewing Web Statistics.
Modlogan
This package is functionally similar to Webalizer, but it
also supports FTP, RealAudio and other protocols. See Viewing Web Statistics.
Server Alias
Add an alias to the domain.
Redirect (Unix)
With this feature you can redirect visitors from one
URL to another. When an visitor tries to connect to
a URL that is redirected or its folders recursively,
he is taken to the address this URL is mapped to.
To redirect a URL, click the Add icon in the Redirect
entry. The following form will appear:
For example entering:
http://www.demo.com/products in the 'Redirect
from: ' field and http://www.demo.com/new_products.html
in the 'to' field will take all the 'http://www.demo.com/products'
visitors to the 'http://www.demo.com/project.html' page.
Note: In H-Sphere version 2.09.6 and higher, you can leave the Redirect from field empty.
In this case visitors will be redirected from any point in the site.
Note: In H-Sphere version 2.09.6 and higher, you can enter
URLs with parameters in the to field, as shown in the screenshot above.
- Permanent
returns a permanent redirect status (301) indicating that
the resource has moved permanently.
- Temp
returns a temporary redirect status (302). This is the default
and indicates to the client that the resource has moved
temporarily.
- Seeother
returns a "See Other" status (303) indicating
that the resource has been replaced.
- Gone
will cause a visitor's browser display "The requested
resource is no longer available on this server and there
is no forwarding address. Please remove all references to
this resource." message when trying to go to the 'to' URL.
Redirect (Windows)
In Windows plans, redirect works in a slightly different manner:
- The exact URL entered above
redirects requests
for any files in the indicated directory to one file.
- For example, to redirect all requests for files in the
'products' virtual directory to the file new_products.html,
type 'www.demo2.com/new_products.html in the 'to'
text box and select this option.
- A directory below this one
redirects a parent directory to a child directory.
- For example, to redirect your 'demo2.com/products/new'
directory to a subdirectory named 'products', type
'products' in the 'to' text
box and select this option. Without this option, the Web
server will continually map the parent to itself.
- A permanent redirection for this resource
sends the following message to the client: '301 Permanent Redirect'.
Redirects are considered temporary, and the client browser
receives the following message: '302 Temporary Redirect'.
Some browsers can use the '301 Permanent Redirect' message
as the signal to permanently change a URL, such as a bookmark.
ColdFusion
Windows plans include some services that are unavailable
under UNIX plans. One of them is ColdFusion, a popular and
sophisticated set of products for building Web sites and serving
pages. With ColdFusion, you can build a content database using
input templates and combine these with application programs
to create a Web site in which pages are developed dynamically
as they are served. Find out much more about ColdFusion at
the Allaire
home page.
Users that were created under H-Sphere Winbox will automatically
have .cfm and .dbm extensions handled by ColdFusion libraries:
Users can also assign custom extension to be handled by ColdFusion.
NOTE: Users that were not created under Winbox, will not
have the default extensions included.
Directory Indexes (version
2.09 and higher)
In H-Sphere 2.09 you can set custom directory indexes. In
other words, you can tell the Internet users' browsers which
page should be loaded first as they enter your URL e.g. www.mywebsite.com
into thier browsers' Address field. H-Sphere sets this page
to /index.html by default, but you may still set another
custom welcome page or even the sequence.
To disable H-Sphere's defult settings, toggle the ON/OFF
button to enable the resource.
On the page that appears, click the Edit icon next
to the ON button.
In the Directory Index box enter the page(s) that
you want your visitors to be referred to when entering your
site and press Update. You may enter several pages
separated by spaces (e.g. index.html cgi.bin about.html).
This way, you point the visitor's browser to a different page
(in the order that you enter them into the box) if the first
one on the list for some reason cannot be reached.
NOTE: Under Unix plan you have to restart Apache to
apply the changes you have made. Press Apply in the
Web Service -> Server Configuration row.
Throttle Policy
Throttle Module was developed to to reduce the load
on your bandwidth by delaying or refusing requests to your
sites. To enable the Throttle Module, toggle the ON/OFF
button to enable the resource.
Next, click the Edit icon next to the ON
button. In the drop-down box that appears, choose of eight
throttling policies.,
The eight 'throttling policies' (each expecting two
parameters: a limit and a time period) are:
- Concurrent - impose a limit on the number of concurrent
requests at any one time. The period specifies how long
data is accumulated before the counters are reset.
- Document - excluding requests for HTML page elements
such as images and style sheets, impose a limit on the number
of requests per period. When this limit is exceeded, all
further requests are refused, until the elapsed time exceeds
the period length, at which point the elapsed time and the
counters are reset. Note that the requests (hits) column
of the throttle status display does not include the requests
for page elements.
- Idle - impose a mimimum idle time between requests.
When the miminum is not reached, the request incurs a calculated
delay penalty or is refused. First, whenever the elapsed
time exceeds the period length, then the counters are reset.
Second, if the idle time between requests exceeds the minimum,
then the the request proceeds without delay. Otherwise the
request is delayed between one and ThrottleMaxDelay seconds.
If the delay would exceed ThrottleMaxDelay, then the request
is refused entirely to avoid occupying servers unnecessarily.
The delay is computed as the policy minimum less the idle
time between requests.
- Original - impose a limit on the volume (kbytes
sent) per period, which when exceeded the request incurs
a counter-based delay penalty or is refused. First, whenever
the elapsed time exceeds the period length, then the volume
and elapsed time are halved. Second, if the volume is below
the limit, then the delay counter is decreased by one second
if it is not yet zero. Otherwise, when the limit is exeeded,
the delay counter is increased by one second. The delay
can be between zero and ThrottleMaxDelay seconds, after
which the request will be refused to avoid occupying servers
unnecessarily.
- Random - randomly accept a percentage (limit) of
the requests. If the percentage is zero (0), then every
request is refused; if the percentage is 100, then all requests
are accepted. The period specifies how long data is accumulated
before the counters are reset.
- Request - impose a limit on the number of requests
per period. When this limit is exceeded all further requests
are refused until the elapsed time exceeds the period length,
at which point the elapsed time and counters are reset.
- Speed - impose a limit on the volume (kbytes sent)
per period, which when exceeded the request incurs a calculated
delay penalty or is refused. First, whenever the elapsed
time exceeds the period length, then the limit (allowance)
is deducted from the volume, which cannot be a negative
result; also the period length is deducted from the elapse
time. Second, if the volume is below the limit, in which
case the request proceeds without delay. Otherwise the request
is delayed between one and ThrottleMaxDelay seconds. If
the delay would exceed ThrottleMaxDelay, you refuse the
request entirely to avoid occupying servers unnecessarily.
The delay is computed as one plus the integer result of
the volume times 10 divided by the limit.
- Volume - impose a limit on the volume (kbytes sent)
per period. When this limit is exceeded all further requests
are refused, until the end of the period at which point
the elapsed time and counters are reset.
You can also set throttle policy to None which imposes
no restrictions on a request and used as a place holder to
allow monitoring. The limit currently serves no purpose. The
period specifies how long data is accumulated before the counters
are reset. Remember to apply the changes you have made. Press
Apply in the Web Service -> Server Configuration
row.
mnoGoSearch
(version 2.1 and higher)
If you are running a unix based account, you can take advantage
of adding mnoGoSearch (disclaimer)
to your site. This is a simple search engine to service your
site. To enable mnoGoSearch, turn the Enable button
to ON:
mnoGoSearch uses MySQL database. So when you launch mnoGoSearch
wizard, you'll be prompted to select from the existing MySQL
databases or create a new one:
The same is true of MySQL user. The script will use this
user to access and manage your mnoGoSearch MySQL DB.
WARNING: Assigning a previously created MySQL database
to be used for mnoGoSearch needs, you will remove contents
of all its tables.
The databases used by mnoGoSearch will show among your MySQL
databases marked as "(Locked By mnoGoSearch)".
When you are through with assigning MySQL DB and user, you
can immediately go to your search page by clicking the View
icon:
To make it available for the Internet users, put a link to
your mnoGoSearch page on any of your site's pages.
* Note: It will take some time for the program on the server
to index your site pages and set your search going.
You can extend your mnoGoSearch capabilities (e.g.: set local
charset) by editing file indexer.conf. To learn how
to work with indexer.conf, refer to indexer.conf-dist
which can be found in /home/'account'/mnogosearch/'domain'/
directory.
* If you mishandle anything, you can always restore mnoGoSearch
configuration to its default by clicking the Edit icon, however
in this case all your custom settings will be lost.
Forum phpBB
(version 2.1 and higher)
If you are running a unix based account, you can take advantage
of adding phpBB (distributed according to phpBB
License Agreement) to your site. It is a high powered,
fully scalable, and highly customisable bulletin board package.
phpBB has a user-friendly interface, simple and straightforward
administration panel, and helpful FAQ. phpBB is the ideal
free community solution for all web sites.
phpBB Key Features
Unlimited forums and posts
Multiple language interface
Private or public forums
Powerful search utility
Private messaging system
Complete customisation with templates
* For more info on phpBB, please refer to www.phpbb.com
To create your own phpBB forum, turn the Enable button
to ON:
phpBB in uses MySQL database. So when you launch your control
panel phpBB installation wizard, you'll be prompted to select
from the existing MySQL databases or create a new one:
The same is true of MySQL user. phpBB will use this user
to access and manage MySQL DB allocated for its system needs.
WARNING: Assigning a previously created MySQL database
to be used for phpBB needs, you will remove contents of all
its tables.
The databases used by phpBB will show among your MySQL databases
marked as "(Locked By phpBB)".
When you are through with assigning MySQL DB and user, click
the Setup icon, to create your forum:
This will take you to the phpBB admin control panel, where
you can start configuring your forum to your liking.
To go to your forum login page, click the View icon.
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