If you want to have a website, then yes, you need hosting.

Hosting is simply

Yes. Please note however, that all extra services you add will be for a minimum of 12 months with the exception of disk space and bandwidth which can be calculated on a pro-rata basis.

What this means is, for example, if you order Standard Hosting and then, four months later decide to add email virus scanning, your hosting contract will expire four months before the virus scanning service does.

Disk space and bandwidth can be calculated pro-rata so that if you upgrade your hosting package after 6 months, we will only charge you 50% of the normal rate to take you to the end of the contract year.

We don't currently have the facility to perform these upgrades online (we're working on it though), so if you'd like to upgrade your hosting, contact us and we'll call you straight back.

Disk Space: Just like on your PC, our servers have hard disks to store permanent data, - the websites belonging to our users. To make sure the servers are properly managed, we limit the disk space each user can use so that they, you, and us, all know there's enough space on the server.

The bigger your website, the more disk space you'll need. If your site is heavy on graphics, you'll need more space than a site which uses them sparsely (like this site). You can see how much space you're likely to need by looking at your site on the PC where it's being written (right click on the folder in Windows Explorer and click Properties), or, if someone else is designing your site, ask them how much disk space you'll need.

Bandwidth: Every time your web site is visited, the text and pictures which make up the site have to be sent from our web server to the viewers PC. That process can be measured as bandwidth.

If the page is small, say 10 kilobytes (pretty small), then the server has uses 10kb of bandwidth to send the page to the viewer. If the site attracts a thousand visitors who all ask for the same page, the server will have to send out 10,000 kilobytes (10kb x 1000 visitors) of information. The more times the site get viewed by users, the more bandwidth the server uses.

Calculating how much bandwidth you think you'll need depends on the size of your site (in disk space) and how many visitors you expect to get each month - in the early days that's more down to guesswork than science. However, with engberg.co.uk, you can start with a modest amount of both disk space and bandwidth and increase them at a later date if you need to.

To help you calculate these figures, you should know that:
1,024kb = 1Mb (a Megabyte).
1,024Mb = 1Gb (a Gigabyte).

PHP 4.06 (most PHP features are enabled, including XSLT support via Sablotron, and working TTF support via freetype/gd).

FrontPage 2002.

Sendmail.

C/C++ CGIs.

PERL 5.6.1. The following modules are installed:

perl-DBI
perl-DBD-MySQL
perl-DBD-Pg
perl-HTML-Tagset
perl-HTML-Parse
perl-libnet
perl-Parse-Yapp
perl-URI
perl-XML-Encoding
perl-XML-Parser
perl-XML-Grove
perl-libxml-perl
perl-libxml-enno
perl-XML-Dumper
postgresql-perl
perl-SGMLSpm
perl-XML-Twig
openssl-perl
perl-DateManip
perl-Digest-MD5
perl-MIME-Base64
perl-Storable
perl-libwww-perl

Use an FTP program to logon to your virtual server, select the files to upload and click send.

You will need your account information to logon, the required information being:
Your FTP account name (eg. ftp.yourdomain.co.uk)
Your FTP userid (as supplied)
Your FTP password (as supplied)

If you've mislaid or forgotten any of this information, contact us and leave a telephone number for us to call you. We'll ask you some questions to confirm your identity before we reset your FTP password details.

There are three directories on your domain by us which have specific uses. These are:

/htdocs
This is your web root directory, this is where you need to put your HTML pages, including your index page.

/htdocs/cgi-bin
This is your scripting directory - all files which you need the server to execute should be here.

/logfiles
Your Apache web & error logs are compiled and stored in this folder. If you don't use Matrix Stats, you can download the raw log files from here into your own log analysis software for processing and viewing.

/private
This is a folder outside the publicly accessible htdocs folder. Scripts running on your site have access to this folder but the folder is not directly accessible from the Internet. You should use it to hold any information which is necessary for the running of the site, but which is not actually displayed (e.g. the files and databases containing the names of users and passwords.

There are many excellent FTP programs out there, some Freeware and some commercial.

Our favourite commercial FTP programs are CuteFTP and WS_FTP Pro, both can be downloaded on a try-before-you-buy trial.

To find and download a freeware or shareware FTP client, try here or here.

You can't - CHMOD commands will only be accepted over a secure SSH Telnet connection. In most cases you won't need to manually set permissions anyway as files uploaded to the cgi-bin get their permissions set correctly automatically.

If you need to issue a CHMOD command for any reason, instructions are here.

There is a comprehensive user guide in different formats here and it's worthwhile familiarising yourself with the general concept and layout of PuTTY with this guide.

For our purposes, we're simply logging into the server securely in order to get the command prompt. In short, you'll need to:

1. Start PuTTY.

2. Type in your shell account (as supplied) and click SSH (highlighted in blue below)

3. Click Connect. You will now be presented with a text screen inviting you to enter your password, this was supplied to you when you signed up for hosting.

4. You are now in the root directory of your server - BE VERY CAREFUL!

1. Login to your shell account using PuTTY.
2. Type in the following commands:

cd user
cd htdocs

You are now in the HTDOCS directory. You will need to issue another LS command to get to your scripts directory. We'll assume your script is in the CGI-BIN and is called EXAMPLE.PL. Now enter the commands:

cd <directory name>

If you now type:
ls -l
(That command is LS -L not IS-I)

You'll see the files in the directory along with their current permissions. To change the file 'example.pl', you will do the following:

chmod 755 example.pl

Type in ls-l again, and you'll see the permissions have changed.

You've now changed the permissions of example.pl to 755, the required setting for all executable scripts.

Anything you want. And we mean anything - one wrong command could wipe out your website so use it with caution.

To get help with commands, just type help or help command (where "command" is a command you want details on).

We recommend that, unless you're familiar with UNIX or Linux, you simply use this facility as and when you need to issue CHMOD commands.

If you'd like to explore Linux, there's a great tutorial here which can help you find your feet.
Tip - in lesson 1 when they tell you to Telnet into your account, follow the PuTTY instructions above instead (otherwise your lesson ends right there!)

Useful commands include the following:

bunzip2
bzip2
cat
chmod
cp
cpio
doscvt
grep
gzip
hostname
ln
login
ls
mkdir
more
mv
od
rm
sh
tar
touch
unzip
vi
zcat

Just type:

logout

At the top of every screen is a question mark icon, clicking this will give you context sensitive help regarding the page you're viewing.

If you have any questions which aren't answered

Login to your control panel and click "Email" on the main menu. You're now presented with a list of all the mailboxes which already exist on your domain.

Click "Add New Mailbox" and fill in the blanks.

Login to your control panel and click "Email" on the main menu. You're now presented with a list of all the mailboxes which already exist on your domain.

Click on the mailbox which you want to edit.

The screen which is now displayed allows you to overtype the password with a new one.

Click "Commit Changes".

Login to your control panel and click "Email" on the main menu. You're now presented with a list of all the mailboxes which already exist on your domain.

Click on the mailbox which you want to give an autoresponder.

You can now type in an autoresponse message and, optionally, forward the message to a different email address.

Click "Commit Changes".

Warning: Autoresponders, by their nature, can become embroiled in email forwarding loops (ie. Someone sends you a message, your autoresponder replies, their email has an autoresponder too, it replies, your autoresponder replies....etc). If your autoresponder falls into a loop and starts to cause problems on our servers, we reserve the right to deactivate your autoresponder.

Login to your control panel and click "Email" on the main menu. You're now presented with a list of all the mailboxes which already exist on your domain.

Click on the mailbox which you want to delete.

Scroll to the bottom of the page and you'll see a button "Delete e-mail". Click this and confirm you want to delete the mailbox.

Scripts allow you to make your pages more dynamic and to process data more effectively. The most common use for a script is to handle what happens when a user fills in a for - in most cases, check the data is valid and if so, send it to the webmaster.

Scripts also let you access MySQL databases, construct web pages dynamically and react in different ways to different user inputs.

Your scripts should receive the correct permissions upon upload to the cgi-bin, but if for some reason they don't, you must issue a "CHMOD 755" command to your scripts to allow users to run them.

If your script then links to another page (eg. a "Thank You" page), make sure that the linked file is *not* in the cgi-bin directory.

Instructions are here.

Here is a checklist of common problems:

1) The script needs to be executed and is not in the "cgi-bin" directory under "htdocs".

2) The script doesn't have the correct permissions - click here for more info.

3) CGIs are run on behalf of your domain user by Apache's suEXEC[1] wrapper. This makes several checks before running a script, but the two most important are that the script, and the directory in which it is located, should not be writeable by anyone other than the script's owner.

4) Your PERL or CGI has not been created with an editor that writes UNIX linefeed characters, or it has not been uploaded in ASCII FTP mode. Click here for more info.

5) You are using a mail script in which neither the 'to' nor 'from' address relates to your domain, or the 'from' address is blank.

6) You're developing a script using the wrong version of PHP or Perl, or you're trying to use a module which isn't available. Click here for more info.

7) You're not specifying the full path to your site on our servers. The full path is:

/home/domains/<mydomain.com>/user/htdocs

(where <mydomain.com> is your domain url).

8) Your script is timing out. Our servers are configured to time out scripts after 10 seconds to prevent poorly written / secured scripts being abused remotely.

9) A syntax error within your script.

You need to use PHP in your web pages to send and receive MySQL commands to the database. There's an excellent and easy to follow tutorial here.

An example PHP script to open a MySQL connection:

<?php
mysql_connect("server_IP_address", "mysql_user", "mysql_password") or
die("could not connect");
mysql_select_db("mydb");

$result = mysql_query("SELECT id, name FROM mytable");

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_NUM)) {
printf ("ID: %s Name: %s", $row[0], $row[1]);
}

mysql_free_result($result);
mysql_close;
?>

You would need to replace "server_IP_address", "mysql_user" and "mysql_password" in the above example, with the relevant details from your Control Panel database settings, e.g. with the "Server IP Address", "Database Username" and "Database Password".

Further information can be found here, or if you want to connect via Perl DBI, click here.

FrontPage designed sites need to be uploaded using the "Publish Site" feature from within FrontPage.

FrontPage will ask you for your password and userid - these have been supplied to you under the heading "FrontPage 2000" in your documentation when you joined engberg.co.uk.

On machines running Windows NT Server version 4.0 or earlier (and sometimes on machines running Windows 2000 server), if you have Anonymous logon set under Internet Zone - via Tools, Internet Options, Security, Internet Zone, Custom Level, User Authentication and then Anonymous logon - and the server to which you are publishing requires NTLM authentication, FrontPage may not be able to successfully authenticate your logon.

You can resolve the problem in Windows NT/2000 by either:

Switching to the default security settings for the Internet zone - via Tools, Internet Options, Security, Internet Zone, and then Default Level.

Or:

Changing the user logon to prompt for the username and password - via Tools, Internet Options, Security, Internet Zone, Custom Level, User Authentication, and then Prompt for user name and password.
You can resolve the problem in Windows 98/ME by taking the following steps:

Open Dialup Networking.
Right click the relevant dialup connection and select Properties.
Click the Security tab and ensure that Log on to network is checked.
Open Network in the Control Panel.
Ensure that Client for Microsoft Networks is installed (you may be asked to reinsert the Windows 98/ME disk).

Logon to your control panel and click Password Protection on the main menu.

Click "Add New Secured URL".

Type in the directory name to be secured - note, this directory must already exist.

Type in a user name and password.

You can add as many user names to this list as you like to allow others permission for this directory.

You're going to have to get PHP scripting literate!

There's an introduction to the subject here, the Apache documentation here and an advanced discussion here.

No, only 99.999%.

It's possible (although under normal circumstances, highly unlikely) that you get sent a virus before the anti-virus companies have created a signature file for it. If that happens, then it's possible for a virus to get through undetected.

You should always practice caution when dealing with emails and as a general guideline, follow these practices:

* Don't open attachments within an email if your not expecting it - even if the email's from someone you trust. Most email viruses now spread by exploiting that trust and send themselves to all address book entries of an infected PC.

* NEVER open an attachment in an email from someone you don't know.

* Make sure your operating system is patched for critical security updates. In Windows 98, click the Start button and Windows Update to check your system.

* Ensure you have a current, up to date, virus scanner on your PC and network server.

* Make use of firewalls. *Every* PC should have a good software firewall (such as the excellent and free ZoneAlarm). If you operate a LAN, then you should have additional hardware firewalls too.

* Make use of good, trusted tools designed to help you keep secure, such as GRC's 'Shield's Up!' which tests your computer remotely for common weaknesses.

* Don't fall prey to the thousands of hoax email "viruses" which instruct you to delete a file from your PC. If you receive an email telling you that "this is the most dangerous virus ever", "it's been confirmed by CNN" or "send this to everyone in your address book", it's probably a hoax. Double check by searching Symantec or About.com (lots of pop-up windows on the second one, but a useful resource).

If you *ever* suspect your PC has a virus and you need help, contact us.

Yes, each individual POP3 account is restricted as follows:

20Mb of emails, or
500 individual emails, or
Individual emails of 10Mb or more.

Under normal circumstances, it's unlikely that you would reach these limits. If your account regularly tops 500 (or 20Mb) of emails before you download them, you should consider setting up another email address and splitting the traffic.

If you stop receiving emails, it's likely that one of these limits has been breached. Check your email client is deleting mail from the server after downloading.

We don't support webmail directly, however you can use a service such as Mail2Web or EmailAnywhere to access your email from remote PC's.

Please note that we don't provide support for either of these services, so technical questions about them should be directed to the support services of those organisations.

1) Start Outlook.

2) Click on Tools, then click Accounts.

3) Click on Add, then Mail.

4) Enter your name as you wish others to see it. Click Next.

5) Enter your email address. Click Next.

6) Make sure "My Incoming mail server is a" dialogue is set to "POP3".

7) In the space to enter your Incoming Mail Server, type in:
mail.mydomain.co.uk
where "mydomain.co.uk" is your domain name.

8) The Outgoing SMTP email server should be the SMTP server of your current ISP - in other words, if you use Freeserve to connect to the Internet, you will use their SMTP server to send mail. If you don't have a dialup account with SMTP services, you can use ours - contact us for details. Click Next.

9) Under Account Name, enter the email address which you are going to retrieve the email from. In the Password box, type in your password (both can be found in your Control Panel). If you want Outlook to remember your password, tick the box (not recommended on shared PC's). Click Next.

10) Click Finish.