Setting Up Hosting Account for a Web Site
To host a web site on the server:
- On your Home page, click
Add New Domain. - Specify the domain name just as you have registered it. Leave the www check box selected if you wish to allow users to access your site by a common and habitual URL like www.your-domain.com.
Having the www alias preceding your domain name will not cost you anything, but it will allow users to get to your site no matter what they type in their browsers: www.your-domain.com and your-domain.com will both point to your site.
- If you have previously created a domain template and predefined all hosting features and resource usage allotments (as described in the chapter "Implementing Hosting Plans"), select the required template from the Select template box.
- If you have a number of IP addresses to choose from, select the required address from the Select an IP address drop-down box.
Bear in mind that e-commerce sites need a dedicated IP address (not shared among other sites) to implement Secure Sockets Layer data encryption.
- Make sure that there is a check mark in the Proceed to hosting setup check box and click OK.
- Select the Physical hosting option to host the Web site on this machine.
Upon completion of this procedure, your control panel will set up the domain name server on this machine to serve the new domain name and prepare the web server to serve the new Web site: a new zone file with appropriate resource records will be added to the Domain Name Server's configuration files, a web space will be created inside the Web server's directory, and necessary user accounts will be created on the server.
Note: If your site is hosted on another machine, and you wish to set up your control panel's DNS server only to serve the DNS zone for that site, select either Frame forwarding or Standard forwarding option. With standard forwarding, a user is redirected to the site and the actual site's URL is shown in the user's browser, so the user always knows that he or she is redirected to another URL. With frame forwarding, a user is redirected to the site without knowing that the site actually resides at another location. For example: your customer has a free personal web site with his or her Internet Service Provider or a free Web host, and the Web site address is http://www.geocities.com/~myhomepage. The customer purchased a second level domain name www.myname.com and wants you to provide domain forwarding to his Web site. In this case you would normally choose the Frame forwarding service. See the chapter "Serving the Domain Names for Sites Hosted on Other Servers (Domain Forwarding)" for details.
- Specify the properties of a hosting account:
- SSL support. Secure Sockets Layer encryption is generally used for protecting transfer of sensitive data during online transactions on e-commerce Web sites that run on dedicated IP addresses. SSL certificates that participate in the encryption process are usually applied to a single domain name on a single IP address, therefore, each site that needs SSL protection must be hosted on a dedicated IP address. An exception to this is subdomains, which you can protect with a wildcard certificate. Installing an SSL certificate on a Web server that hosts several web sites with different domain names on a single IP address (shared or name-based hosting) is technically possible, however, it is not recommended: the encryption will be provided, but users will get warning messages on attempt to connect to the secure site. To allow SSL encryption for Web sites, select the SSL support check box.
- Use a single directory for housing SSL and non-SSL content. By default, when users publish their sites through their FTP accounts, they need to upload the web content that should be accessible via secure connections to the httpsdocs directory, and the content that should be accessible via plain HTTP, to the httpdocs directory. For the convenience of publishing all content through a single location –
httpdocs
directory, select the Use a single directory for housing SSL and non-SSL content check box. - FTP login and FTP password. Specify the user name and password that will be used for publishing the site to the server through FTP. Retype the password into the Confirm Password box.
- Hard disk quota. Specify the amount of disk space in megabytes allocated to the web space for this site. This is the so-called hard quota that will not allow writing more files to the web space when the limit is reached. At attempt to write files, users will get the "Out of disk space" error. Hard quotas should be enabled in the server's operating system, so if you see the "Hard disk quota is not supported" notice to the right of the Hard disk quota field, but would like to use the hard quotas, contact your provider or the server administrator and ask to enable the hard quotas.
- Shell access to server with FTP user's credentials. This allows a site owner to upload securely web content to the server through a Secure Socket Shell connection, however, allowing shell access also poses a potential threat to the server security, so we recommend that you do not allow shell access. Leave the Forbidden option selected.
- FrontPage support. Microsoft FrontPage is a popular web site authoring tool. To enable users to publish and modify their sites through Microsoft FrontPage, select the FrontPage support and FrontPage over SSL support check boxes, set the FrontPage authoring option to enabled, and specify the FrontPage Administrator's login and password.
- Support for programming and scripting languages widely used in development of dynamic Web sites and server-side Web applications. Specify which of the following programming and scripting languages should be interpreted, executed or otherwise processed by the web server: Active Server Pages (ASP), Server Side Includes (SSI), PHP hypertext preprocessor (PHP), Common Gateway Interface (CGI), Perl, Python, and ColdFusion.
- Web statistics. To allow domain/web site owner to view the information on the number of people visited his or her site and the pages of the site they viewed, select the Web statistics and accessible via password protected directory /plesk-stat/ check boxes. This will install the Webalizer statistical software, which will generate reports and place them into the password protected directory. The domain/web site owner will then be able to access Web statistics at the URL: https://your-domain.com/plesk-stat/ using his or her FTP account login and password.
- Custom error documents. When visitors coming to your site request pages that the web server cannot find, the web server generates and displays a standard HTML page with an error message. If you wish to create your own error pages and use them on your web server or allow your customers to do that, select the Custom error documents check box.
- Click OK.
Now your server is ready to accommodate the new web site, and the site owner can publish the site to the server. For instructions on publishing a Web site, refer to the Publishing a Site section of this guide.
Note: If you transferred this domain name from another Web host, you will need to update the host DNS address with the domain name registrar so as to point to your name servers: log in to your registrar's web site, locate the forms used to manage the domain host pointers, and replace the current DNS host settings with your name servers' hostnames. The information on new name servers will spread across the DNS system within 48 hours.
By default, new web sites that you set up without the help of domain templates, are allowed to consume unlimited amounts of bandwidth (data transfer) and disk space.
To limit the amount of resources this site can consume:
- On your Home page, click the domain name you need.
- Click the
Limits icon. - Adjust the resource usage allotments as required:
- Maximum number of subdomains. Specify the number of subdomains that can be hosted under this domain.
- Disk space. Specify the total amount of disk space allocated to a hosting account associated with the domain. This amount is measured in megabytes. It includes disk space occupied by all files related to this domain/web site: web site contents, databases, applications, mailboxes, log files and backup files. This is the so-called soft quota: when it is exceeded, domain names and web sites are not suspended automatically, only the appropriate notices are sent to your and your provider's e-mail addresses and the resource overage is indicated by a corresponding icon
shown in the control panel to the left of the domain name (see the list of domain names on your Home page). And then it is up to you to decide what to do with the web site:
- you can notify the domain owner and suspend the domain/web site after a grace period until you receive the payment (not so good for your business, but if you are going to follow that way, see the Suspending and Unsuspending Hosting Accounts section),
or
- upgrade the hosting plan for your customer (see the instructions on upgrading hosting plans in the chapter "Implementing Hosting Plans").
- Maximum amount of traffic. Specify the amount of data in megabytes that can be transferred from the web site during a month. Once the limit is reached, the appropriate notices are sent to your and your provider's e-mail addresses and the resource overage is indicated by a corresponding icon
shown in the control panel to the left of the domain name (see the list of domain names on your Home page). When a web site starts attracting more visitors and requires more bandwidth, consider upgrading a hosting plan (see the instructions on upgrading hosting plan in the chapter "Implementing Hosting Plans"). - Maximum number of web users. Specify the number of personal web pages that the domain owner can host for other users under his or her domain. This service is mostly used in educational institutions that host non-commercial personal pages of their students and staff. These pages usually have web addresses like http://your-domain.com/~username. If you wish to allow execution of scripts embedded in personal web pages, select the Allow the web users scripting check box. See the Hosting Personal Web Pages on Your Web Server section for details.
- Maximum number of databases. Specify the number of databases that can be hosted in a domain.
- Maximum number of mailboxes. Specify the number of mailboxes that can be hosted in a domain.
- Mailbox quota. Specify the amount of disk space in kilobytes that is allocated to each mailbox in a domain.
- Maximum number of mail forwarders. Specify the number of mail forwarders that can be used in a domain.
- Maximum number of mail autoresponders. Specify the number of automatic responses that can be set up in a domain.
- Maximum number of mailing lists. Specify the number of mailing lists that the domain owner can run in a domain. The mailing lists are served by the GNU Mailman software, which may or may not be installed on the server. If it is not installed and you or your customers would like to use it, ask your provider to install it.
- Maximum number of Java applications. Specify the maximum number of Java applications or applets that the domain owner can install in a domain.
- Validity period. Specify the term for a hosting account. At the end of the term, the domain/web site will be suspended, its Web, FTP and mail services will no longer be accessible to the Internet users, and domain owner will not be able to log in to the control panel. Hosting accounts cannot be automatically renewed, therefore, in order to bring the hosted domain name/web site back to operation, you will need to manually renew the hosting account: on your Home page, click the domain name your need, click the
Limits icon, specify another term in the Validity period box, click OK, then click the
Enable icon in the Domain group (Home > domain name).
- Click OK.
To allow the site owner to log in to control panel for managing his or her web site:
- On your Home page, click the domain name you need.
- Click the
Domain Administrator icon in the Domain group. - Select the Allow domain administrator's access check box.
- Type the password for access to the site owner's control panel.
For security reasons, the password should be more than 8 symbols, and it should comprise a combination of letters, numbers, and punctuation; dictionary words and proper names should be avoided.
- Specify the settings related to the appearance of user's control panel, if desired: interface language, theme (skin), the limit on number of characters that can appear on custom buttons placed into the control panel by the site owner.
- Leave the Allow multiple sessions check box selected to allow the site owner to have several simultaneous sessions in the control panel.
- Leave the Prevent users from working with the control panel until interface screens are completely loaded check box selected.
This will forbid users from submitting data or performing operations until the control panel is ready to accept them.
- Specify the operations that the site owner will be able to perform in his or her control panel:
- Physical hosting management. Allow or disallow full control of the hosting account and webspace.
- FTP password management. Allow or disallow the user to change his or her FTP account password.
- Management of shell access to the server. It is recommended that you leave the Client cannot allow or disallow shell access option selected.
- Hard disk quota assignment. Allow or disallow the site owner to adjust the hard quota on disk space allocated to his or her web space.
- Subdomains management. Allow or disallow the site owner to set up, modify and remove subdomains.
- Domain aliases. Allow or disallow the site owner to set up additional alternative domain names for his or her web site.
- Log rotation management. Allow or disallow the site owner to adjust the cleanup and recycling of processed log files.
- Anonymous FTP management. Allow or disallow the site owner to have an FTP directory where all users could upload and download files without the need to enter login and password. A web site should reside on a dedicated IP address in order to use anonymous FTP.
- Crontab management. Allow or disallow the site owner to schedule tasks with the Crontab task scheduler. Scheduled tasks can be used for running scripts or utilities on schedule.
- DNS zone management. Allow or disallow the site owner to manage the DNS zone of his or her domain. This is recommended only for experienced users.
- Java applications management. Allow or disallow the site owner to install Java applications and applets on the web site.
- Mailing lists management. Allow or disallow the site owner to use mailing lists provided by the GNU Mailman software.
- Dr.Web antivirus management. Allow or disallow the site owner to use server-side antivirus protection for filtering incoming and outgoing mail. The Dr.Web antivirus solution can filter 15 mailboxes for free. The customers who need antivirus protection for a larger number of mailboxes, can purchase a license at www.drweb.com.
- Backup and restore functions. Allow or disallow the site owner to use the control panel's facilities to backup and restore his or her site. Scheduled and on-demand backups are supported.
- User interface. Choose what type of Plesk control panel interface site owner can use - standard, desktop, or both.
- Desktop management. Allow or disallow the site owner to customize and manage their desktop interface.
- Specify the site owner's contact information.
- Click OK.
Now you can tell your customer the control panel's URL, login and password. The URL is https://<user's_domain_name>:8443, where <user's_domain_name> is the domain name without the www alias. The login name that the site owner should specify in order to log in to the control panel is his or her domain name, for example, your-domain.com.
If you have registered several domain names that you would like to point to a site hosted on this server, you should set up domain aliases. Refer to the Setting Up Additional Domain Names for a Site (Domain Aliases) section for details.
If you need to host several domains on your machine that will point to a site hosted on another server, you should set up domain forwarding. Refer to the Serving Domain Names for Sites Hosted on Other Servers (Domain Forwarding) chapter for details.