Frequently Asked Questions

General
DNS
FTP
Control Panel
Paths
E-mail
CGI/ASP/PHP/MySQL/JSP
Software Versions
Flash® Tutorials (off-site)

General

Q. Can I pay for my site on a monthly basis?
A. Yes, you may pay month to month, without any contract beyond that of agreeing to the terms of use.

Q. How much is extra bandwidth and space?
A. If you need more bandwidth or disk space just let us know. Unless your needs are unusually excessive we can likely accomodate you without any extra charge.

Q. Do you offer telnet or shell access?
A. No due to security reasons we do not offer telnet or shell access. You may still unzip files on the server using our file manager, and set up cron jobs.

Q. Can I password protect directories?
A. Yes you can password protect directories within cPanel™. Log in to your control panel and click on:
"Password Protect Directories." Don't forget to save your changes.
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DNS

Q. How long does it take to get my domain working?
A. It usually takes 24-48 hours for domain nameserver changes to fully propagate.

Q. Can I view my site even though my domain's name servers haven't propagated yet?
A. Yes; the URI is:   http://208.64.24.34/~yourusernamehere/
Note: Don't forget the trailing / and the ~

Q. What do I set my domain's name servers to?
A. ns1.userdns.com and ns2.userdns.com
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Control Panel

Q. What control panel do you use and do you have a demo?
A. The control panel we use is called cPanel. A demo of cPanel™ can be found here. Login with the username demo, and the password demo.

Q. Do you have a manual for the control panel?
A. Go to http://www.cpanel.net/docs.htm

Q. Where do I go to login to my control panel?
A. You go to http://www.(your domain goes here)/cpanel
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FTP

Q. I can't seem to get my files to show up on the web. What's wrong?
A. Make sure you are uploading to the right web directory, which is the public_html folder. If the content isn't in that folder, no one can see it.

Q. Why doesn't my ftp password change when I change my cPanel password?
A. Please allow 24 hours for your FTP password to sync with your cPanel password.
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Paths

Q. What is the path to my users files?
A. The path is /home/username/public_html

Q. What is the local path to perl?
A. The path to perl is /usr/bin/perl

Q. What is the path to curl?
A. The path to curl is /usr/bin/curl

Q. What is the path to sendmail?
A. The path to sendmail is /usr/sbin/sendmail
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E-Mail

Q. How do I create email accounts?
A. To create an email account login to your cPanel™ control panel (point your browser to (your domain name goes here)/cpanel, enter your username and password as directed, click on Mail, and then click Add/Remove email accounts.

Q. Why won't my email address work?
A. If you are using Outlook Express®, make sure you set it up exactly as demonstrated in this tutorial. If you're a Mac user, and can't get it to work, call or mail me. Be sure to use your entire e-mail address as the username!

Q. I did the above correctly why will it still not work?
A. Please check the instructions again. They are correct.

Q. What do I put for both incoming and outgoing mail server?
A. For incoming mail server put mail.yourdomain.com, for outgoing use the SMTP server information supplied by your Internet Service Provider.  (Many ISPs block outgoing mail that doesn't use their SMTP servers, for security and anti-spam purposes.) That will usually look something like SMTP1.theirdomain.ca. (If you are mobile, then use mail.yourdomain.com for outgoing as well. If that doesn't work, and your mail client supports SSL, use that and port 465 for outgoing mail. If all else fails, log into your mail account with the excellent webmail facilities provided; point a browser to anydomain.com/webmail. You will be prompted for a user name, which will be your entire e-mail address, and a password.)

Q. Where do I go to check my emails using my browser?
A. (yourdomain name goes here)/webmail/ Don't forget to use your entire e-mail address, for example you@yourdomain.ca as the log-in user-name!
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CGI/ASP/PHP/MySQL/JSP

Q. None of my cgi scripts are working on the server. How do I get them to work?
A. First make sure that they are chmoded to 755. more

Q. How do I create databases and manage them?
A. Login to your cPanel and click MySQL Databases. After your database is created you can manage it from phpmyadmin. A link to this can be found at the very bottom of the MySQL page.
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Software Versions

Q. What version of php are you using?
A. Version 4.3.7

Q. What version of perl are you using?
A. Version 5.8.0

Q. What version of MySQL are you using?
A. Version 4.0.18

Q. What version of JSP are you using?
A. Version 5.0.19

Q. What version of cPanel are you using?
A. Our servers automatically stay up to date with the most recent stable cPanel version.
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Flash® Tutorials

This useful off-site page features Flash® tutorials in almost every facet of CPanel® specific web administration, and a section on changing nameservers at various popular registrars: http://hostgator.com/tutorials.shtml

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