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| Directories Each domain name hosted on our system has a "home directory". Within this directory, you store all the HTML files, images, scripts, databases and any other content associated with your website. When logged into the home directory of one of your domains using FTP you will see the following folders:
Writing your own server side scripts When writing or configuring scripts, such as Perl scripts or ASP scripts for your website you may need to know the full physical path to your website's home directory. This path is as follows: e:\domains\domainname.co.uk\user where domainname.co.uk is your domain name (without the 'www') Back FTP and Uploading your files The FTP hostname is always ftp.domainname.co.uk. The FTP account username will always be the domain name and the password will be as given, but the password can be changed if you wish in your control panel. As well as each domain having it's own unique FTP account, you also have the facility to create "custom" FTP accounts. With a custom FTP account you can create an FTP login that you can specify access rights on the whole domain name, or just a sub folder of the domain name. Select FTP Set up from the menu to bring up the list of custom FTP account already set up. If you have none set up, you can choose to add a new one. If you are adding a new FTP account you will be asked to choose a username and password for the new account. This section deals with the Access Rights for the FTP account. On the left hand side are a list of Access Rights set on the account. The right hand is used to add Access Rights. To add Access Rights to a particular folder, first select the domain this FTP account applies to from the drop down list and then enter the path to add the rights to in the text box. Note that leaving the text box blank will result in the Access Rights being granted on the whole domain. If for example you only want them to access the htdocs area you would enter for example "test2222.com/htdocs" in the text box and then Add Rights. To remove rights, highlight the path and click "Remove Right". On the bottom half of the screen you can change the account password and set a Disk Quota. Leaving the Disk Quota to 0 will set it to unlimited. Be sure to click "Make Changes" at the bottom of the page when you have finished. Alternatively if you wish to delete the FTP account, click Delete Account. Configuring your FTP client To log into an FTP account, you will need to enter the following information into your FTP client to connect to the server: Host Address: ftp.domainname.co.uk Port: 21 Username: A username you have set up Password: And it's corresponding password Back What is MS SQL? Microsoft SQL Server is a high performance database which can be used in place of Access databases for your websites. MS SQL Server databases can be used in your ASP/Perl/iHTML scripts through the use of an ODBC datasource. Note: You will need a good understanding of MSSQL in order to use an MSSQL database on your website. Although Discus Group provides the service, we do not provide consultancy on setting up your database free of charge. Using Enterprise Manager You can connect to the SQL Server though SQL Server Enterprise Manager which is included with MS SQL 7. Open the Enterprise Manager on your local computer and select New SQL Server Registration. Click OK to go on to the next page Enter the IP Address of the SQL Server in the Server box as this will be the server we are going to connect to. Switch the connection method to Use SQL Server Authentication and enter the username/password you set on your SQL Server database in the control Panel. It is left optional to yourself whether or not you have Always Prompt For Login Name and Password enabled. Next click OK. If you receive an error (for example "Specified SQL Server Not Found") then you will need to switch the protocol you computer is using to connect to the SQL Server. Ensure this mode is set to TCP/IP - this can be changed using the Client Network Utility. If a successful connection is made, you should be to expand all the databases installed on the SQL Server. The only database you will be able to access is the one you set up. To add a new table to the database, expand the Console Root to display your database and right click Tables. You will then be asked to specify a name for the new table. After entering the name, you will be put into the design mode of the table. Setting up an ODBC Datasource Before you can transfer your existing Access database to MS SQL, you will need to Upsize it. This article describes how to set up an ODBC datasource on your local machine to communicate with the MS SQL Server. Open the ODBC Datasources applet in the Control Panel on your local machine. Change the tab to System DSN and click Add. Select the SQL Server driver type and click Finish. The first page of the wizard that appears after you click Finish will ask you to specify identification information about your datasource and the SQL server you wish to connect to. Choose a name and a description for your datasource. Enter the IP address of the SQL Server in the "Which SQL Server do you want to connect to?" box. Click Next. Switch the authentication method to "SQL Server Authentication" and check the box "Connect to SQL Server to obtain default settings for the additional configuration options". Enter the Login ID and password to the ones you have set-up when you added the SQL Server database in the Fasthosts Control Panel. Click Client Configuration to bring up the options for connecting to the SQL Server. Change the networking mode to TCP/IP and enter the IP address of the SQL Server in the Computer Name box. Ensure port 1433 is entered in the Port Number box. Click OK to close this window. Change the default database to your SQL Server database which should appear in the list. Click Next, and then click Finish. Finally, you can click Test Data Source to verify you can connect to the SQL Server. If all tests pass you will get a Tests Completed Successfully message. If you don't then you may of mis-configured one of the settings Upsizing and Access 2000 Database After you have designed your database in Access 2000, initiate the Upsizing Wizard by selecting it from the Tools/Database Utilities menu in Access. Select the Use Existing Database option from the wizard as we will be using a pre-defined ODBC datasource to connect to the SQL Server Switch to the Machine Data Source tab and select the ODBC datasource which you have pre-defined to connect to the SQL Server and click OK to continue. Enter the username and password you set up on your SQL Server database and click OK to continue. Now select the tables you wish to export to the SQL Server database and click Next to continue. The last few steps in the wizard can be set to your own preference although it is recommended to leave them as the default settings. Access will transfer your database to the SQL Server and finally give a status report after the operation. Upsizing has been completed. Back What is URL Security URL security provides a method of password protecting sections of a website. When the user attempts to visit a secure area they will be prompted for a username and password which they must enter in order to be granted access to this site. For example, you can create a "members only" section on your website or an area just private to yourself. URL Security comes in two flavours: Basic and Advanced. Basic URL security validates users from a text file only whereas advanced can validate users through the use of a text file or an ODBC datasource. To set up URL security contact us now. Basic security costs £50pa Advnaced £250pa Back What is SSL? SSL (Secured Sockets Layer) is a protocol which encrypts data between the web browser and server. This is especially important for sites such as online shops where customers are asked to enter their credit card details. Typically a normal website sends all these details in "clear text" (no encryption) and it is possible for a third party to "sniff" these details during transmission. SSL cures this problem by encrypting the information with a key which only only the webserver can decrypt. There are various strengths of keys available. The Discus Group SSL server uses 128 bit encryption from Thawte. Secured URLs can be determined by a padlock (  )
in the bottom left screen of the web browser. Here, visitors can click
this to view information about the URL they are viewing. For the sake of efficiency and speed, only put pages which will be used to collect sensitive information onto the SSL server (such as HTML forms). There is a 10mb quota set per SSL folder. This Discus Group SSL server is a shared server meaning that the URL used to access your secured area will always be https://vault1.secured-url.com/yourfoldername. Back Premier Servers Premier site is designed for websites that require the ultimate in speed and reliability such as e-commerce sites. Sites hosted on Premier Site technology are based on Intel Pentium IIII servers with hardware RAID facilities, dual network interfaces and a gigabyte of memory. All Premier Site websites run on Microsoft Windows 2000 server - the most reliable platform for web hosting. Premier site servers are sparsely populated, meaning less websites running on each server. Also, Premier Site servers benefit from mirrored e-mail servers, meaning that there are two different servers assigned to handle e-mail for your domain name. This offering from Discus Group adds even greater reliability to your e-mail account. The retail price for web hosting services of the caliber of Premier Site can run into thousands of pounds a year. However, because Discus Group provides hosting for thousands of new domains every day we are able to offer Premier Site at an exceptionally low cost, providing excellent value for money. Back |
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