Well, if you want to get attention you do have it But it would be very nice if you would be able to describe your problem in more detail while trying to find help on a forum. It’s because you do have the attention, but with no relevant data to start with no one will be able to help you.

Include as many information as you only can when trying to find help in web hosting. People are willing to help but they need info to get started.

When searching for help try to append these information:

• your domain name so others can check if they can see your web site or the Error message
• what have you done before this problem started to show up
  • what did you install
  • what did you uninstall
  • what did you allow
  • what did you disallow
• how long do you know about the problem [to estimate a time-frame]
• what control panel you are on
• what operating system you are on
• what php version you are using
• what mysql version you are using
• other software and version you are using [only relevant...]
• what technology the web site is build on [it’s a CMS, php site, html site etc.]
• try to be descriptive and do not mix your thoughts with the supplied data to make it easy to read

I know web site problems are not the only ones, but they are common. This small guide can be used as a template for any other server service you might think of like Database server, mail Server, DNS Server etc. It is always about the information you give – more information = a higher probability someone will help you out!

[ad#Adsense360]

I tried to make this one a very easy and quick guide to help you start searching for help related to web hosting and your web site online Have a nice day and see you next time here at Icethunder.net

PS: Some reason why your web site might not show up:

• DNS is still propagating
• Your domain name does not point to the right directory
• Your database is down or has a problem
• Your home IP is blocked on the hosting server
• The port is blocked by your ISP
• and many more…

The catch here is, that as soon as you use a proxy service like hidemyass.com you are able to read your web site. It loads just perfectly and so you try it once again from home, but nothing there… Well, there are couple of possibilities here and a few more I don’t even know about Thus it is only logical I will cover some basic steps I would try if I would have this problem.

The basic steps in troubleshooting inaccesible website issues [VPS]

1. The very first thing I would do is to SSH to my server and perform an iptables -L, as root user, to see if there is no odd firewall rule blocking my access. If there is no real firewall issue, than I would move to the next point, but these can be easily interchanged
2. I would definitely try to ping my_ip_address as this will tell me if I am able to get to the server or not. If the ping dies, than something on the network just does not allow me to reach my server
   • The ISP blocked my server’s IP  [I would ask them [by mail] why  they are doing so..]
   • A firewall on a  router blocks my server’s IP [maybe I am on a campus and the campus admin just doesn't like my web site ]
   • Some DNS related problem on my ISP’s side
   • Some kind of network problem I am not able to troubleshoot and I would ask on the Internet
3. If the ping dies I could still try the tracert or traceroute my_ipaddress as this would give me some idea where is the problem located [e.g. the tracert stops at my router... something is wrong there etc. ]

If everything fails than there is really no need to wait and you should ask around on the Internet. Maybe contacting your VPS provider or your ISP to find  a solution, but do not stay silent for a long period of time as this does not help to solve the problem.

[ad#Adsense360]

Have a nice day ans see you next time here at Icethunder.net by some new kind of web hosting issue I will try to tackle.

Why is this so important? Well, there is only a limited amount of time at your disposal and you need to divide it between numerous tasks in web hosting. You need to take back-ups, set-up and control DNS records, secure your server, check your mail against spam and much more. These all tasks can be done in two basic ways:

1. You do it all by yourself
   • This is the most costly option. Not because you have to pay huge sums of money, but because it costs the most time. You need to learn lots of things and trust me, if you are not an IT profesional than this is not the way to go. Shared hosting helps you with this, but even while on a shared hosting platform it is a big advantage to move some services to a third party like e.g. moving email services to Google Apps etc. It is for redundancy purposes. Imagine your host has some technical problems and your clients can not access your web pages… Well, they could email you, but they can not as the host has problems and thus the email stays undelivered! If you would use a third party email solution in the form of Google Aps you would have a way of communicating with your clients despite the problems
     
2. You find a service [a third party] who takes care [it can be free or for money...]
   • This option does not need to cost you a lot of money. There are even some of these services provided for free. Not all services are for free, but even those paid ones have free accounts with limited options. Go and use them, sometimes it is worth the risk!
     

I think the advantages can be clearly seen. More free time for you and your e.g. blog, web site development, design, reviews and much more. You just do not need to care anymore and just check the service once in a while to see how it works and controls the whole thing

[ad#Adsense360]

What opportunities are there?

Frankly, I could say there are opportunities and services for any need. You can find a service for he majority of tasks you need to perform online. There are DNS services, back up services, video and audio streaming services, website up-time monitoring services and even services able to provide you with content for your web site. The only thing you need to do is to go out on the web and look for them. This mini series will try to introduce to you some of them and maybe I will cover some of the most important ones in more detail in  a standalone article.

The customer who buys this kind of hosting plan can use this and sell it to his own customers. It is a very simple scheme. I have lots of web space on my severs and as I really can not afford it to be empty I will sell it to someone and maybe this person will be bale to find his own customers and sell the space to them. I get the money from my customer and he [possibly] gets some money from his own customers, too. If he does not find enough customers – it does not matter. It is his business opportunity not mine. And here is where it starts to be interesting.

Reseller hosting customers…

But the catch here is at the customers side. You are searching for a quality hosting and on your way you have to know and understand the different terms and kinds of hosting providers there exist. It is not always about big or small companies with real data-centers with servers, but sometimes you even can buy from some kind of company which only re-sells the space and bandwidth of a bigger company.

The company is only a reseller and they are also only customers of a hosting company. It is not bad, but you need to understand if you run into some kind of problem, that the re-seller will need to contact the company behind the scene to get some of the bigger problems solved! And this might even take some time [depending on the support times of the hosting company you have bought the plan from and the support level of the company they bought the reseller package from].

My advisory

While there is nothing bad about buying from a reseller it is always more secure to buy from the source directly. You might pay a little bit more, but it will give you the extra layer of security. It is for the kind of people who just need to feel safe during their whole stay at a hosting company.

[ad#Adsense360]

The reseller hosting option is great too. It can give you a better price and sometimes even a better level of hosting service and experience. It just depends on the people behind the web hosting company. This offer is more for the experienced and patient ones amongst us. I would feel perfectly OK on a reseller hosting plan, but you need to know what a company can and can’t offer to you in the web hosting world.

Have a nice day and see you next time!

The Debian “core” way

I do not know why, but Debian tends to be the distro of choice for people who like stability and security at the same time. Debian is a very stable and mature Linux distro and you will not have much security problems, because the software in the repositories is pretty well tested before it is included. This is the biggest advantage of Debian, but at the same time it is its biggest disadvantage as well. Some software packages are older and they are not the most up-to-date and thus if your application or web site app needs something very new than you will most probably need to install it from source yourself or you will need to include some testing or non free repository into your repo list.

With this said i is pretty clear, that even if you need a very up to date system Debian can do the job, but you will very probably need to make your hands a little bit dirty

If you want to update your Debian system, there is nothing easier than to use the apt-get update and then apt-get upgrade command. These two commands “sync” your packages list and then in the next step update all the obsolete packages. It is pretty easy and apt solves pretty everything for you If you want to install something you have on your local server, than use dpkg –install package_name.deb .

One more thing I need to say here is that Debian packages end with .deb and thus if you find some software you want to use on a Linux forum or download site, than  look for the .deb file as .rpm is not intended for Debian A very good way to learn more about dpkg and apt commands is to use the manual pages with man apt-get or man dpkg.

The next time here I will talk about the second possibility you might be facing in the Linux world and namely the option your Linux distro is a Fedora core distribution…And there is one more distribution based on Gentoo Until then have a nice day and see you next time!

How to start your Linux VPS life?

I think you know the situation. You host has sent you the login information to your new VPS box and you need to startto work with it, but you do not really know what to do. There are two things you need to know first. It is very possible, that at first you will be only able to access your VPS trough what’s called “console”.

You put in the login name and password and then you need to change the root password. Do not panic as this one will not change the default “console” password, but in fact it will set up your real SSH root password. Then I would suggest you to update your VPS and only then use your new SSH root password to log in to the VPS box trough SSH. There is one thing you could do at this stage to make your login even safer and easier, but  will cover it at a later time.

The second thing you need to know is to find out what Linux distro the host has set up as default and decide whether you are happy with it or not. Try this command to find out the Linux type and version cat /etc/issue . This command should tell you something like “Debian 5.0.1″ wiht some weird characters around it If you do not like the distro you have been provided with as default you can go to your VPS admin panel and change it for the flavour of your choice.

The basic set up

I have mentioned you need to set up your root password you will [could] use for SSH logins, but as I will tell you in the next article we will never log in trough SSH by using a password… . The password on a Linux VPS can be changed with this command passwd your_password . I would suggest you to use a very strong password and do not use less then 16 characters!~It should be a big and silly mix of upper-case, lower-case, numbers and special characters to make it very hard for brute force attacks and impossible for dictionary attacks to crack A very good help is to use PasswordSafe. A program which can easily store your  ”high security password” and you only need to remember one password to get them all .

[ad#Adsense360]

Another good idea would be to add another user with adduser user_name, and once again I would suggest you not to use an easy and very common name. Rather make it something unique because if the attacker does not know the username he does not know anything [even if he know the password]… Remember you will be asked to input a password for the user and once again make it a very hard and long password to make the security a lot better

One more thing I will tell you is to add this user to the sudoers file and give the user some level of root privileges to perform daily tasks you would need a root password for. This is good, because you would not want to be root and perform your daily routines if you really do not know Linux from A-Z Being root all the time is a silly idea and never do it unless you are Superman!!!

Ah, how to add your newly created user to sudoers file? Well execute this command visudo and right after where it read ROOT ALL=(ALL) ALL put a line like this YOUR_USER_NAME ALL=(ALL) ALL and save and exit the file the question of saving the file: if your default program for file editing is VI than you save by hitting ESCAPE KEY and then pressing :wq or if you are using NANO it would be CONTROL+O [to save] and than CONTROL+X [to exit].

That’s enough for today. See you next time here at Icethunder.net

You need to care about things you were not used to care about while on a shared hosting platform and now they are a daily routine for you. It is more true when you are on an unmagaed VPS, because while using a managed VPS you can stop bothering about little configuration problems and leave them to your host

My advice: If you do not have the courage to learn something than always go with a managed VPS!!!

Care about the little things…

Unmanaged VPS is great – it’s cheap, it gives you tons of freedom and new opportunities to manage your online life the way you would like it to go and You can always learn new things and develop your skills. The headline of this paragraph tells the whole true story. With an unmanaged VPS and with any VPS you need to start to care about the little things as well. Setting up does not stop at uploading your web page on a shared server. With a VPS you need to set-up the server, configure your DNS server or find an alternative DNS hosting for your DNS entries, secure the whole server and much more. And among those things is the set-up of mail servers and mail forwarding.

Email the easy way…

Generally you do have two options while on a VPS server [or dedicated]. You can run your own mail server. You just set-up your server to server email as well, but you have to add the MX record on your DNS server accordingly. One more thing you need to do is to secure the server as mail server is another way your VPS can get compromised.

The other option is to use something like Google Aps and only adjusting the DNS settings to point to Google’s MX servers. This is a great way of shifting the security and catering to a third party. You do not loose your mails and they stay much more secure, than if you would set-up your own server Google is a big company and thus they know how to secure and set-up everything and this option is for those of you who do not want to make any mistakes But if ou feel like you know what you are doing than go on and run your own MAIL SERVER

In the next part of this article I will cover the process of such a set-up Have a nice day and see you next time here at icethunder.net!

Many people went trough the same journey, but only a few shared their knowledge as many regard this knowledge as their personal “know-how” and are reluctant to share it with the masses. Today I would like to share with you something I have learned over the course of time and I am using it every time I am trying to set up a running web site on  a server. If you are a newbie like me to VPS this will be of great importance to you and it will help you a lot.

Not so far ago [1year] I came across this great web site and from that moment I keep coming back to it every time I am trying to set up a web site on an unmanaged VPS. i know the majority of steps, but to stay secure I am always trying to read a little bit and then go and set it all up.

The start point for all my VPS configurations

The web site is called www.usefuljaja.com and it is the ultimate resource for anyone trying to set a web server on his own. It explains how to secure a VPS, how to install and configure LITESPEED server or APACHE and a lot more! I

[ad#Adsense360]

If you would ask me to recommend you only one web site I would most definitely point you to this address. Screenshots and great comments in the article make it the start point for most newbies. It might look as it is not up to date, but it is! If you are trying to find something more you can still move to the authors new web site and start [or continue] there

Hopefully this has been helpful for you Have a nice day and see you next time!

PS: I would like to thank the author of www.usefuljaja.com as it is a very good web page and it really makes everyone’s life easier. Thank You.

What I tried to say is the pure fact that what is good and what is bad is influenced by the experience of single individuals and these individuals all have different criteria they use for evaluating. And this is what you should keep in mind. Also the experience is influenced by the users “luck factor” as you may go from one host to another host and do not get into any kind of trouble even if you sing up with the host with the worst image in the industry. On the other side other people might never really get a satisfactory level of service even if they only sign up with great web hosts. Sometimes it is about luck.

A good solution to fight the “bad luck” would seem to be to only sign up with creditable web hosting companies. Companies with good image are a safe harbor for all the people with tons of bad luck. They are proven as good and they respond to problems well and thus there is a big chance even “unlucky” people might get a very good level of service

Is there a “best web hosting company”?

As described in the previous paragraphs you cannot show with your finger and say this one is the best and all the others are not worth it. It depends on your luck and personal experience. A very important role is played by the type of project [web site] you are trying to host there, or you hosted there. Different web sites require different things and thus you need to include this in your list while performing the search as well.

[ad#Adsense360]

There are no “best web hosting companies”, but there are very good ones and very bad ones. You just need to read trough the forums to make an image of what company fits into which group.

Hopefully this has been informative to you and gives you something to thing about Have a nice day and see you next time at icethunder.net

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

• The network could brake down
• The datacenter could encounter problems
• A hard drive might get broken
• You site might get hacked
• Your host could stop operating
• etc.

And do you know the best way to react to such problems? Well, I know a few of them, but first of all I will mention have it should not be done

The bad way of responding to hosting problems

This first part talks about “How it should not be done” and thus do not perform anything mentioned in this part as it only makes the whole “problem” worse. I think, that encountering problems with your web site hosted by a company is a hge problem as you might start loosing money immediately, but never do any of the following:

1. Never go to hosting forums and complain there about your problem before contacting your web host. The reason is, that only your web host can really help you!
2. Never call them bad names and talk badly about their service as long as you do not have valid grounds and evidance they were not willing to help you! But understand, that not every problem can be solved in the way you would most like.
3. Never in your life make threats to the stuff of the company and tell them you will give them bad reviews [etc.], because I can tell you they will not be more willing to help you You will just piss them off and they will start to be rude to you, too.

[ad#Adsense360]

The right way of responding to hosting problems

Well, we have covered the most important points of how to stay out of trouble and now let’s draw a few basic rules how to react to problems like e.g. downtime, data loss etc.

1. First thing to do is to contact your hosting company as soon as you realize there is some kind of problem! This is very essential and should never be skipped. You should try to contact your web host, but realize, that if they are experiencing a huge problem than they will probably concentrating on solving it, than answering your email.
2. Always use all possible means of contact, but never think you will get [or should get] a response within 30 seconds Leave the support stuff enough time to investigate and respond. it might take 1- 2  hour to solve and respond and thus, although you are loosing money, but they know that and writing them emails every 15 seconds does not help the situation as you just bother them with duplicit mail
3. Always describe your problem as much as it only gets and in a lot of details. If you are able to get some Screenshots they might be very helpfull
4. Always try to stay polite!!! You would be surprised how people react when you treat them in a good manner

Hopefully this article has been informative and helfull to you. See you next time and have  a nice and trouble free day!

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

hosting for your web site needs. It is not only about choosing part of choosing, but about a whole philosophy. You need to know what you need even before you make the choice itself.

The art of determining your real needs

It does not matter whether you are trying to launch a small or a huge website, but you always need to know what it will need from the point of view of the system. You should know at least raw numbers. Well, I do not say, you should know the exact number of visitors,but you should be able to come up with some approximate numbers and use these to determine what you need.

The numbers you will come up with in the preparation phase give you an image of what you need when you start your search for the right web host. And at the time of your search you will apprecitae a lot that you have some check poits to guide your search.

Do not underestimate, but also don’t overestimate!

I know it is not so easy to stay aways from over or under estimation, but your estimations should definitely stay away from science fiction. If you are starting a pottery web site and other pottery web sites on the Internet don’t get 1million visitors a day there is a good chance yours will not get them as well. The number of visitors and many more statistics can be found on the Internet [e.g. alexa.com for # of visitors and site ranking, or Google for everything else ].

The start of this article

The specific problem, that lead me to write this article can be found here [webhostingtalk.com]. The clear thing is, that the guy has a great web site project, but he started it and founded the whole project on a  free web hosting account. It is not bad as long as you are on a tight budget, but free web host can offer you only a very limited hosting experience. And thus as soon as you see your web site rise you should start to look for a paid solution.

[ad#Adsense360]

I know, that many times the budget is the limit, but if you really have a web site with a good momentum and able to pay for itself, than it is good to invest into the web site at the beginning to keep and accelerate the momentum. After a period of time you will be rewarded with revenue from the web site and maybe you will get back even more, than you initially put into the project.

Hosting companies tend to offer so many different features. They offer them in different amounts and thus it is hard to decide between two or three hosting companies. The top three things a offer should have to appeal to me are :

1. Offer SSL for my mail client connection
2. Offer SSH as an option for file uploads or a secured HTTPS web space uploader
3. Offer the option to create at least 20 MYSQL databases

Offer SSL for my mail client connection

This is a very good and very important thing I am searching for when trying to find a good web host. It is about security and in todays world it is very very important. It helps to keep your mail outside of reach of bad guys and it gives youthe feeling of added security.

Offer SSH as an option for file uploads or a secured HTTPS web space uploader

Although to many of you it may seem as unnecessary, but it is once again very important, because while you are uploading stuff to your web page you are very vulnerable. You should realize that you are not uploading “stuff,” but that you are uploading data and it can be very valuable to you. And if you are uploading valuable data should it be visible to everybody? I don’t think so

Offer the option to create at least 20 MYSQL databases

I like hosting companies not setting limits on the amount of databases I can create, but there are always limits in some areas and thus I like to have the ability tobe able to create at least 15 to 20 databases. Most of the time I am hosting multiple web sites on one account and today nearly everything runs by utilizing a database and thus you need the ability to create many of them. and you do not know how many you might need before you sign up and thus it is good to know how many you can create and you could need beforehand

This is not an exhaustive list and it could be much longer, but these are at least a basic list with some basic points Have a nice weekend and see you next time!

What’s a name server

A name server is a special kind of server telling people where to find a specific web site. We could take Icethunder.net as an example. You would not be able to come to icethunder.net if your PC would not be able to figure out a way to my web site! You would not be even able to visit any web page if your PC would not be able to find the destination at which the particular web site is located. The mechanism helping you is known as DNS. With the help of DNS servers your PC is able to figure out IP address of the web site you are trying to visit. A DNS server is like a phone book for web pages. It holds records of web site names and their corresponding IP addresses, because network communication is based on IP’s and not on word addresses like google.com!

A name server holds information of your web site which help other people find your web site. There is not only one DNS server in the world, but there is a network of them.  There are of different levels and they hold different data.

Where to get a name server?

You need to set up your name servers if you are hosting your web site at one company and your domain name is registered at another one. But do not panic as it is a very easy process. Everything is a matter of  a few keystrokes. You fill the necessary data into an online form and your web site will be available to the whole world in less than 48 hours

The required information is provided by your hosting company and you can find it:

• in their FAQ
• by sending and email to support
• by looking into your invitation email
• by searching a little bit on the Control panel

Most of the time the format should be something like ns1.your_host.com and ns2.your_host.com [the suffix depends on the suffix your host uses... e.g. ns57.1and1.com] . Two name servers are required in the event, that one is hit by some kind of a problem.

[ad#Adsense360]

There are in fact many options in your domain control panel, but most of the time it is only needed to fill out the name server part and leave anything else as it is. You can change different settings as well, but you need to know what you are doing. If you do not know what you are doing, than do not risk!!!

Hopefully this post helped you. Have a nice day and see you next time!

Image: Francesco Marino / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What should decide?

What way you will go – the free or the paid one – depends absolutely on the nature of your project. It depends on your expectations and projections. You need to have a plan in place for your online project. The plan should hold basic information about your web site and what do you want to use it for. Does it matter if you have a few days downtime per year? Does the speed matter to you? Does the features and their availability matter to you? Could you need support from the company during your stay? These are the basic questions you should ask. These questions also answer the question what is better for your case. They give you the answer what direction to take and do not get lost

One more question – it should be the one about revenue. Do you think your web site will be able to generate some revenue from ad’s? If the answer is YES, then will the web site generate enough to cover the costs of a paid hosting plan? This and the previously mentioned questions are very basic and they should help any one starting their web site and thus their online presence.

[ad#Adsense360]

You do not need to start on a paid service if the web site really does not need it. If your web site could be perfectly fine on a free web host, than do not hesitate and use it. It could be better than waisting money on a project not needing it or do not generating enough in return!

Conclusion

Do not try to run to paid web hosting every time you are starting a web site. Maybe your web site does not even need a paid web host. If you do not expect the web site to get heavy traffic, generate huge revenue, or being a linchpin [according to Seth Godin], than there is only a small need to put it on a paid hosting plan. Certainly, you can put even less important web sites on a  paid hosting plan, but always think about this move if it is smart and really necessary

Have a nice day and see you next time here at icethunder.net by a discussion about web hosting and tips and tricks

The black magic behind aka “the Intro”

As you may or may not know HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol and it’s the protocol you are using when trying to get to a web site. The web server serves HTTP requests and gives clients the proper web sites. The whole idea behind HTTP is, that it’s “plain text” and everything you send this way is not encrypted. All the data you put into a web site starting with HTTP is send “as is” and thus you could lend your password and username to anyone who would be spying on your network!

HTTPS stand for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure and as you might think it is the safer “brother” of  the plain HTTP protocol. Everything you send trough a web site starting with HTTPS is send in an encrypted form and thus it is very complicated for a “man in the middle” to figure out what is the content of the message, but I have to say, that there are ways to find it out! But you can rest assured and as long as there is no “MITM” attack with a fake web site, than you should be secure, but always check if you are o the right web site, the web site authenticated in the reight way and a few more things

What do I need to be able to use HTTPS?

To have the ability to use HTTPS instead of HTTP you need not only to get a web hosting account. You need some more things. First of all ou need to make sure your web host will allow you this feature. To use HTTPS you need to have  a static IP address assigned to your domain as you will need to buy a certificate from a  trusted certificated issuing authority like VeriSign. This certificate holds data about your web site and the IP address and more [this is why you need a static IP] and it ensures, that your visitors know who they are talking to while having a session  with your web site.

[ad#Adsense360]

A static address can be bought from your web host and it can cost you form $1 upwards and this fee is paid mostly on a monthly basis. Make sure to not get with this address on a “black list” as your host could be a little bit angry

Another option is to buy a VPS or a dedicated server where you are assigned a dedicated static address and thus do not need to pay for it, but you have to look after the server yourself.

HTTPS – the requirements:

• static IP address
• certificate from a trusted authority [from $9.99 - $XXX XXX]