1) How do I upload files to my web site?
2) What is FTP?
3) Why can't I login/upload via FTP?
4) How do I add an FTP account?
5) Do you support Microsoft FrontPage for publishing my web pages?
6) How do I create an FTP account for my sub domain?


7) How do I access my email?
8) How do I add an email/POP account?
9) What is an email redirect/forwarder/alias? How do I create one? 
10) How do I setup email for my parked and/or multi-hosted domains? 
11) How many emails can I send?

11) Where do I put all my CGI scripts?
12) What are the paths to sendmail, perl etc?
13) Will you help me install software/CGI scripts?
14) Are there any scripts that are not allowed on your servers?



Q.: How do I upload files to my web site?
A.: You can upload files to your site using WinSCP. The files should be uploaded to a directory called public_html. The filename of your home page should be index.html. The web server will automatically send the file at path /home/username/public_html/index.html when a browser specifies http://www.yourdomain.com where yourdomain.com refers to the domain name that you have registered. To upload your files via FTP, use the following information in conjunction with an FTP software:

FTP Server: ftp.yourdomain.com
Username: your username
Password: your password 

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Q.: What is FTP?
A.: FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, which is a way to transfer files from one computer to another. In this case, the transfer occurs between your desktop and our server. When you move your HTML files from your computer to our server, the process is called "uploading" files. When you retrieve any files from our server to your desktop, the process is called "downloading" files. An FTP client/software is a software that helps you in uploading and downloading files. You need to install the FTP client in your desktop. Some examples of these FTP software will be WinSCP (for Windows) and Anarchie (for Mac).


Q.: Why can't I login/upload via FTP?
A.: If you encounter this problem, please make sure that you have entered the correct info such as your domain name, your username and password. If you still have problems, email us at support@computeraid.net and we will be glad to help you out.


Q.: How do I add an FTP account?
A.: View tutorial - Quality: High | Low

Q.: How do I create an FTP account for my sub domain?
A.: All you need to do is to create an FTP account which has the same username as the name of your sub domain.

For example:

If your sub domain is johndoe.yourdomain.com, you can create an FTP account with username "johndoe" so that you can access the sub domain johndoe via FTP.

Q.: Do you support Microsoft FrontPage?
A.: Yes we support Microsoft FrontPage. When opening an account you can request for Microsoft FrontPage extensions to be enabled for your account. This allows you to publish your web site using Microsoft FrontPage, and also to use dynamic FrontPage objects including FrontPage forms and scripts.




Email

Q.: How do I access my email?
A.: You can access your email via any email client software (Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird or via your web browser through the control panel.

Default Address

Your account comes pre-configured with your main account username as the default address. A default address is the place where all unrouted (unspecified) email addresses based on your domain goes to.

For instance, if your domain is domain.com, and your main account username is domain, then any email that goes to johndoe@domain.com or Sue@domain.com would end up at your main email account domain, unless they've been set up otherwise.

To access email that goes to your main email account, simply set up the following in your email software:

Email Address: youraddress@yourdomain.com
POP/Incoming Mail Server: mail.yourdomain.com
SMTP/Outgoing Mail Server: mail.yourdomain.com or your ISP's mail server(recommended)
Username: (your main account username)
Password: (your main account password)

User-Created Email Accounts

If you've created your own email accounts via the online control panel, set up the following in your email software:

Email Address*: username@yourdomain.com
POP/Incoming Mail Server: mail.yourdomain.com
SMTP/Outgoing Mail Server: mail.yourdomain.com
Username**: username@yourdomain.com
Password: user password

* where username@yourdomain.com is the email account that you've created.
** you must enter the entire email address here, rather than just the portion before "@yourdomain.com".

Q.: How do I add an email/POP account?
A.: View tutorial - Quality: High | Low


Q.: What is an email redirect/forwarder/alias? How do I create one?
A.: View tutorial -Quality: High | Low

Q.: What is an auto responder? How do I create one?
A.: View tutorial -Quality: High | Low

Q.: How do I setup email for my parked and/or multi-hosted domains?
A.: Currently all email send to a parked or pointed domain will only go to default account of the domain where the other one is parked on top. Pointed or parked domains cannot have their own mail accounts at this time!

Q.:How many emails can I send?
A.:You can send a maximum of 250 emails per domain name per hour. If you exceed that limit you will start to receive unrouteable domain name errors.
What if I have a mailing list with 2,000 emails?
If you have a large mailing list you will need to use software such as PHPList to send out your mailing list while using the Rate Limiting feature within the software.

CGI & Perl

Q.: Where do I put all my CGI scripts?
A.: You can put all your CGI scripts that you need to execute into your cgi-bin directory. Use file extension .cgi or .pl for all your cgi scripts. The directory permissions are already set to 755, so you may simply upload your scripts, assign (chmod) execute permissions (755) to them and you are good to go!


Q.: What are the paths to sendmail, perl etc?
A.: Sendmail: /usr/sbin/sendmail
Perl: /usr/bin/perl
Date: /bin/date
Whois: /usr/bin/whois
Web directory: /home/username/www
Cgi-bin: /home/username/www/cgi-bin


Q.: Will you help me install software/CGI scripts?
A.: Yes, we can help you install software/CGI scripts. Depending on the complexity of the installation and your script we might have to charge you for work that goes beyond normal support. In most cases our installation help is free.

Q.: Are there any scripts that are not allowed on your servers?
A.: The following are banned from installation onto our servers, due to the risk of abuse or the nature of the software and its negative impact upon the servers.

- UltimateBBS (all versions)
- Ikonboard (all versions)
- Greymatter (all versions)
- IRC Egg Drops, IRC related programs. (chat software)
- Proxy Servers
- nph-proxy
- The Anonymizer
- formmail.pl
- lstmrge.cgi
- Shell, SSH, Telnet Scripts and Shell, SSH, Telnet Alternatives
- Any script that uses and processes a massive number of flatfiles or large flatfile databases.

This list is by no means complete and the list will be added to from time to time.


The secrets of DNS

Change your DNS info on your domain name

You need to basically tell your domain name to "point" to the “Your Business Name” servers. This is done by changing the DNS information for that domain name.

You will need to access the site that you purchased your domain name from and there should be a member's section. This will require a Username and Password [that you received when you bought the domain name]

Then find the section that says something like "Change or Update DNS info". You then replace the information that is currently there with the name server information that came with your welcome email. You'll see 2 name servers and 2 IP addresses.

By entering this information, you are instructing that requests for your domain name are directed to the “Your Business Name” servers. It could take up to 3 days for your domain to be fully propagated and for your site to be accessible via your domain name.

If you can't find a Member's section on the site that you purchased the domain name from, email their support staff and tell them what you want to do etc.

By re-delegating your DNS info for your domain name, you are in effect hooking your domain name up with the “Your Business Name” servers and any requests for your domain name will be routed to the “Your Business Name” servers.



Access your domain before propagation

To access your sites before the domain has propagated, simply access via the server's IP address and the ~username of the account. So, that would be http://serverIP/~username.

Details of your server's main IP are in your welcome email.



Domain Propagation antics!!

A lot of support requests that we receive at the Helpdesk is about domain propagation and clients not being able to view their newly created sites. This article will go about trying to explain what is happening and why you can't view your new site whereas someone else can view your site.

You've just opened your new account here and you've gone along to your domain register and you've updated the DNS info for that domain so that it now points to your account on the “Your Business Name” server that you're on. Your site will not become visible by the domain name for probably 48 hours. Why is this taking so long, you ask? Basically all the ISPs around the net have to update their DNS cache and this takes time.

Why does it take so long? There are various reasons, but some studies have suggested that there are literally millions of DNS Servers that need to be notified of the new information!

Propagation takes two forms, changes to your DNS Zone and changes to your WHOIS information. The WHOIS is the master record that tells every DNS Server in the world which is the authoritative server for your domain. A change to your WHOIS information (done my your domain registrar) can take up to 72 hours to propagate fully. A change to your DNS Zone information typically affects only a handful of servers, and so is done much more quickly.

You can also access the site via the http://SERVERIP/~username. Check the "SERVERIP" from your welcome email.

A common question we get is that why can I access the site but my client cannot access the new site. The answer to this is that your ISP has updated its DNS information and the ISP of your client has not yet updated their DNS info. Hence you are looking at the new location of the domain name, whereas your client will still be looking at the old location.

Use this page to check the whois and other name server checks for your domains - http://www.verisign-grs.com/whois/. Just because you can see the updated information on this page, this doesn't mean that your site is viewable at its new location by everyone from around the net. True domain propagation takes up to 72 hours, maybe even longer.

So, hang in there and ride out the domain propagation waiting game.


What is Propagation?

Merriam-Webster defines propagation as:

the act or action of propagating : as a : increase (as of a kind of organism) in numbers b : the spreading of something (as a belief) abroad or into new regions c : enlargement or extension (as of a crack) in a solid body

For our purposes, definition B is most appropriate. Quite literally, propagation is the time during which your DNS Zone information is spread abroad to servers that didn't know about it before.

Why does it take so long? There are various reasons, but some studies have suggested that there are literally millions of DNS Servers that need to be notified of the new information!

Propagation takes two forms, changes to your DNS Zone and changes to your WHOIS information. The WHOIS is the master record that tells every DNS Server in the world which is the authoritative server for your domain. A change to your WHOIS information (done my your domain registrar) can take up to 72 hours to propagate fully. A change to your DNS Zone information typically affects only a handful of servers, and so is done much more quickly.