| Site Management
This chapter describes
the functions that the Site Administrator normally performs. The
Site Administrator accesses these functions from the Site Management
screen on the web server. The Site Management screen has
a green strip on the left side.
A Site Administrator
can add or remove a site user, create a mailing list, manage disk
space, back up and restore files and perform other virtual-site-related
administrative tasks. A Site Administrator can manage a virtual
site using any standard Web browser. To access the Site Management
screen for your site, type the URL http://<sitename>/admin/
into your browser. The user interface (UI) prompts you for your
site administrator username and password.
Note: The
Site Management screen can only be accessed using the fully
qualified site name in the Web browser. The Site Management screen
is not accessible if an incomplete or aliased site host name is
specified. The Site Management screen appears. From this
screen, you can access the Site Administrator functions. The User
Management section appears when you first access the Site Management
screen. The User List displays the site users by user name in
ascending order.
ADDING A USER
After you have created
your site, you may now proceed to add users to your site. Adding
a user to a site can essentially create an email address for the
user, create an FTP login for the user, and also create a SSH login
for the user depending on which options you grant to the user. In
order to add a user to a site, click on the sitename that is listed
under the "View All" link in the "WebSites" section. Clicking this
link will bring you to a page where you can edit the settings for
that specific site. On the bottom of the page will be an "Add User"
section which will list already created users. Clicking the "Add
User" link will take you to a page where you may enter the parameters
for this new user.
- Full Name - Full name
of user.
- Username - The username
that you would like to set for this user.
- Password - The password
that will be used for this user. This password is a general password
that will apply to all services such as email (POP3/IMAP), FTP,
and Shell/SSH access.
- Disk Quota - The amount
of space this user can use on the underlying filesystem of the
server. This will prevent the user from capitalizing all the disk
space on the server.
- Remote Access - There
are 3 options available, Email Only, FTP Access, and SSH/Shell/FTP
Access. Email Only will setup a user whose services are limited
to email only (no FTP, no SSH, no Shell). For email users only,
the POP3/IMAP login will be of the format of username@hostname.domainname.
Creating an FTP user will create a system user who will have FTP
services in addition to email services. Creating an FTP/SSH user
will create a user who will have access to email, FTP, and Shell
services. FTP users and FTP/SSH users will login using the format
of "username" (without the @hostname.domainname appended to it)
for all services, including POP3/IMAP email services.
- Site Administrator
- Enabling this option changes the ownership of all the files
in the website's content to this user. This allows the user to
login via SSH or FTP and make modifications or overwrite the website's
content files.
- Sub-Web Folder - This
form is used to change the ownership of the specified directory
(located under the website's main "web/" directory) to this user.
This essentially allows you to delegate the administration of
a folder under your main website directory to this specific user.
For example, if there is a directory under the main website called
"images/", entering "images" into the Sub-Web form will change
the ownership of that directory to that user. This user can then
make modifications to any file under that directory although there
may be a different user specified as the general site administrator.
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EDITING EMAIL
SETTINGS
An email alias is a setting
which will allow an account to accept emails for additional email
addresses. For example, creating an alias called "useralias" will
make sure that emails sent to "useralias@domain.com" will be forwarded
to that specific user. Alternatively, a catchall is a type of setting
that will configure an account to accept emails for all non-valid
users in that domain. For example abcdefgh@domain.com will normally
not be a valid email address unless there is a user in that domain
named "abcdefgh" (or if there is an alias created for "abcdefgh".
However, enabling an account as a catchall email address will make
sure that that message sent to that invalid email address will end
up in this users mailbox./font>
In order to edit a users
email settings, click on the site that the user belongs to. At the
bottom of the page is a listing of all the currently added users.
Next to each user are 3 links, "Edit", "Mail", and "Delete". Click
on the "Mail" next to the user account you would like to configure
the email settings for.
- Email aliases - This
configures the email aliases for this account. Please enter one
email alias per line without the "@domainname" appended to it.
- Forward email to -
This is used to forward all emails received by this account (including
aliases and catchalls) to an alternate email address.
- Catch-all - Enabling
this option will activate this account as a catchall account for
this domain as mentioned above.
- Autoresponder - An
autoresponder will auto-reply to any received email message with
a prepared message of your choice. Enabling this option will activate
this account as an autoresponder and will reply with the message
that you enter in the text box underneath.
- Spamfilter - Enabling
this option will filter all incoming mail through a spamfilter
before delivering locally to the user. Please note, that this
option is only available, if the server administrator enabled
the "spam filter" option for this domain. For the configuration
of the filter, click on the item labeled "Email Filtering" in
the menu to the left.
Note on aliases:
There is nothing difficult about understanding aliases once you understand
one important thing. An alias is not an actual user on the system.
An alias just "forwards" e-mail to the real user or to another alias
which points to the real user. For instance, if we add the alias "aliastest"
to the alias list for our user "test", the e-mail address aliastest@mydomain.com
will actually be sent to test@mydomain.com. Pretty simple? Here a
few other rules. Each alias has to be unique to that domain. For example,
you can not create an alias "aliastest" under mydomain.com for more
than one user. Only one user in that domain can have that alias. The
same also applies for catch-all accounts.
Note on Spam Filter: When enabling the spam filter,
it uses defaults that are in most cases, acceptable for everyday filtering.
The filtering, though not garunteed, will filter anywhere from 90-98%
of all unwanted emails. The rate of false positives are much lower.
It's roughly 0-1%.
--------------------------------
DELETING A
USER
Click on the site you
would like to delete a user to from the View Sites Area. Click "Delete"
next to the user you would like to delete. This will delete the
user from the system (including all email, FTP, and shell settings).
Adding/Editing a mailing
list
This will create a mailing list on your server using the ezmlm
(http://www.ezmlm.org) mailing list software. For complete documentation
for administering a mailing list you should consult their documentation.
Name - Name
of the mailing list (name@domain.com). Do not include the @domain.com.
Owner - This is the
e-mail address that will be the list owner.
Password - Password
for remote administration.
List Options
- Archived - Keeps old
messages archived
- Digest - Sets up listname-digest.
Defaults for digest: 30 messages, 48 hours, or 64 kbytes of message
body text have accumulated since the last digest.
- Prefix - Adds text
before the subject of every email with the specified text.
- Guard - Archive access
requests from unrecognized SENDERs will be rejected. This restriction
is safe, since replies are sent to the SENDER address.
- Indexed - Maintain
a message index of incoming messages.
- Moderated - Postings
must first be approved by by moderator.
- Others rejected -
Allow only moderators to post to a list (aka. read-only for subscribers).
- Public - Allows administrative
requests and archive retrieval.
- Private - Will allow
only digest creation, remote administration, and archive retrieval
by remote administrators.
- Remote Admin - Moderator(s)
can unsubscribe and subscribe any address.
- Moderated Subscription
- Moderators must approve subscriptions.
- Trailer - Adds a footer
to the end of every email.
- Subscriber-only Posting
- Only allow postings from subscribers of the list, digest, or
added manually to the address database.
- Extra - Strip annoying
mime parts such as excel, rtf text, html text from messages. Messages
consisting solely of this content-type will be rejected.
Add / Remove subscribers
(edit only)
Here you can add and
delete users from the list. You can perform both operations with
one update. When adding users you need to enter in a list of addresses,
one per line. When removing users you can enter in an address manually
and also select from the list. Hold down the shift key to select
multiple addresses to remove.
Template Editor
This will let you edit
the template messages sent out by the list. Please consult the ezmlm
documentation for the purpose of each template.
FTP FAQ
Question:
I used to be able to log into my machine, but now I get a username/password
pair invalid message. How do I solve this?
Answer:
This is normally a bad sign. If you have no recollection of changing
your passwords and are now getting messages that your username/password
pair is invalid, please make sure that you are typing in the username
and password correctly. If you are sure that the passwords have
been entered correctly, please contact Host-Island.com support to
have a technician investigate into the issue. The problem can be
caused by various different elements ranging from a security compromise
of your server to disk usage problems.
----------------------------------
Question:
I can log in but I can not create/delete/modify my files. What can
be causing the problem?
Answer:
Usually this means that you may have incorrect ownership/permission
settings on the files you want to edit or the directories you want
to edit them in. To check whether your settings are correct, please
login through ssh and run the command:
ls -l yourfile
or
ls -ld yourdirectory
the out put should look something like this:
drwxr-xr-x 2 username site1 4096 Apr 19 15:15 images
drwxr-xr-x 2 username site1 4096 Apr 19 15:15 includes
-rw-r--r-- 1 username site1 647 Apr 19 15:15 index.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 username site1 2003 Apr 19 15:15 introduction.php
The first 10 characters
listed on the left hand site (such as "drwxr-xr-x") denotes the permissions
on the directory or file. The first character (such as "d" or "-")
indicate what type of entry it is. A "d" indicates that the entry
is a directory while the "-" indicates that the entry is a regular
file. The next nine characters indicate the permissions on the file
or directory which the nine characters grouped into 3 subgroups which
3 characters each. The first group (characters 2-4) denote the permissions
for the owner (username). The next group (characters 5-7) indicate
the group permissions (site1). The last group (characters 8-10) denote
the permissions for the rest of the world (any user other than "username"
who does not belong to the group called "site1"). Looking at the entry
for the file called index.php shows that the file is readable and
writable by the "username" user, is readable only for anyuser that
belongs to a group called "site1", and is also readable only by everyone
else.
If you find that the permissions of a file are incorrect, you may
change them by using the chown and chmod commands. More information
on these command are available in the online manpages on your system.
Please issue "man chown" and "man chmod" to look at the manual pages.
Please feel free to contact Host-Island.com support anytime if you
would like us to take a look at the problem or if you are unfamiliar
with using the chown and chmod commands.
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WEB SERVER FAQ
Question:
I tried going to my web site, and I got an error stating, "Directory
Index Forbidden". What does this mean?
Answer:
This error usually occurs when you do not have an index.html file
placed in your document root directory. Placing a index.htm, index.html,
or index.php file in your document root will eliminate this error.
If you place a file in your document root, and you are continuing
to get this error, it usually means that you are placing the file
in the wrong place. Please verify that you are indeed uploading
your files to the correct directory on the server.
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Question:
I get someone elses sites when I try going to my web site. What's
wrong with my server?
Answer:
Please make sure your IP address is correct. In order for a website
to work properly, both the DNS and Apache webserver need to be configured
correctly to the same IP address. Please make sure that the IP address
entered for the website in your webserver configuration matches the
IP address configured for that domain in DNS. If Host-Island.com's
nameservers are providing DNS service for your domains, please send
a support ticket to support@host-island.com
to have them fix the mistake. Otherwise, contact the administrators
of the nameservers listed for you domain and have them make the change.
----------------------------------
Question:
I want to protect one of my website directories so that it would require
a username/password pair. How do I accomplish this?
Answer:
To create the username/password pair, you must create what is called
an ".htaccess" file. This file must be placed into the directory in
which you want to be protected. Please keep in mind the following
two things, as they could hinder you machine:
- Do not change ".htaccess"
files that belong to the Frontpage Server Extensions. You
can verify if a file is a Frontpage ".htaccess" file by opening
it, and looking for any occurrence of Frontpage that is not your
own.
- Password protecting
a directory, will also password protect any sub-directories. If
this is something that needs to be avoided, please move your sub-directories
out of the password protected directory as needed.
Now that you have a place
for your ".htaccess" file, let's begin talking about the kind of protection
you want. Protection comes in three flavors. There is "system-user",
"system-group", and "virtual-user". "System-user" takes the username
and password that has been entered into the screen and verifies that
entry against the systems username and password database. If you want
to allow every user on your site to access this directory, choose
this setting and proceed to step 1. The "system-group" method takes
the username and password that you entered at the prompt, first verifies
your password against the system password file, then gets your group
number from that system file. If that group number is allowed to access
the directory, then the directory is served to the client. Use this
setting if you want to allow limited access to the directory based
on the system group a user belongs to and proceed to step 2. The "virt_user"
setting allows you to create your own users, along with their own
passwords, so that you don't need real user accounts on the system.
Instead, you can make up virtual usernames and passwords contained
in a file separate from the system password files. If you would like
to use this method, proceed to step 3.
- "System-user"
This is probably the easiest to implement. Just insert the following
into the ".htaccess" file.
| AuthName
"My Authentication" |
| AuthType
Basic |
| require
valid-users |
- "System-group"
This scheme implements authentication by requiring the username
to be a part of a certain group (e.g. site1).
| AuthName
"My Authentication" |
| AuthType
Basic |
| require
group site1 |
- "Virt-user"
This is perhaps the most defficult of the 3. This requires you
to set up each individual user in a separate password file from
the system password files. This separate password file can be
created using the "htpasswd" command native to the Apache distribution.
| AuthName
"My Authentication" |
| AuthType
Basic |
| AuthUserFile
/path/to/a/file/called/.htpasswd |
| require
valid-user |
Now that you have your .htaccess file all set up, you now need
to create the .htpasswd file. Log into your machine with ssh,
and cd into the directory that you want to protect. Once in that
directory, you must type the following command.
| htaccess
-c .htpasswd user1 |
Please note, you should only use the "-c" flag if you are first
creating a file. If the file already exists and you are just adding
addition users to the file, the "-c" option can be omitted. Also,
please be sure to substitute "user1" with the username that you
would like to set. Once you type this in, you will be prompted
for a passwd. If all goes well, return back to your web browser
and reload the page. You should be greeted with an authentication
prompt. Type in your username and password that you just set to
gain access to the directory.
----------------------------------
Question:
My frontpage extensions have stopped working? What can I do to fix
this problem?
Answer:
Try re-installing the Frontpage Server Extensions for that domain.
Frontpage Server Extensions can get corrupted occasionally as they
require a specific set of permissions and ownerships to function properly.
Manual changes to the documents managed by Frontpage can easily corrupt
the extensions. Follow the following procedure to re-install the frontpage
extensions:
- Contact Host-Island.com
Support Team..
Re-test your frontpage extensions.
If all went well, they should be working. If they are still not working,
please feel free to contact Host-Island.com Support as the problem
may be server-related.
----------------------------------
Question: I
tried logging into FrontPage to publish my web, but I'm getting the
error message 'Root Web Busy'. How do I fix this?
Answer:
If you are trying to log in, or publish your web site, and you get
the error message 'Root Web Busy' you will need to remove a lock file
from your site. Log into the site using FTP, go to /web/www.domain.com/_vti_pvt/,
and remove the file service.lck. This usually happens when a FrontPage
session is interrupted before completion. |
