File Manager

The files in your site are stored in directories.  Directories can hold other sub-directories. The result is a directory structure that can have many sub-levels. Any of those directories can contain files.  How you organize your directory structure is up to you.

Similar to Microsoft Windows Explorer in function, the File Manager Option allows you to perform file management tasks such as creating files and directories, setting the read, write or execute permissions on the files and directories in your site, renaming or deleting files or directories, and changing the password for directories that are password-protected.

• From the Control Panel, select the File Manager icon.

• Once the File Manager window has opened, you will see a listing of directories and files located in your Current Directory, the path of which is displayed in the listing above (File Manager does not display hidden files, i.e., files whose names begin with a period such as “.htaccess”).

• Each directory and file will appear as a hypertext link. Simply click on any link to drill down into that directory or to open the file (if it can be opened by the browser).

• When in a directory that has a large number of files, the files are listed alphabetically by file name. The alphabetical sorting option is case-sensitive. File names beginning with upper-case letters come before file names beginning with lower-case letters.  The sort order is A-Z, then a-z.  This means, for example, you could have a file named "WORDS.TXT" listed before a file named "a-plus.htm".

Changing File and Directory Permissions:

Permissions can be set for your directories and files. These permissions determine who can view, write to, and/or use the directories and folders in your site.

The permission settings are each comprised of nine letters (or characters) in a row that appear to the far left of the listing for each directory or file.  Each letter represents a type of access, while the position in the nine-digit string dictates who has that type of access.

The characters displayed in these settings can be r, w, x or -.

• r stands for read access; whoever has this level of access can view the file or directory.

• w stands for write access; whoever has this level of access can overwrite existing files or write new files in the specified directory.

• x stands for execute access; whoever has this level of access can run executable files.

• - (the dash) indicates that no permission is given.

The first three positions in the nine-digit string are the permission settings for the owner.  The second three digits are for any groups (if any groups are created), while the last three digits are the permission settings for others (anyone who is not the owner, or is not a part of a previously declared group).

How To Change Permission Settings on Files and Directories:

• From within the File Manager screen, click on any of the Permission Setting links for the desired file or directory.  The Change Permission screen displays.

• The Change Permission of file or directory name message indicates which file or directory permissions you are changing.  Once a directory's permissions are set, you can access specific sub-directories and files within the directory to alter the settings on an individual basis.

• Notice in the Change Permission screen the nine-digit setting is split up into the groups that were discussed earlier: Owner, Group and Others.

• As the owner of the file or directory, typically you should have full access, so all three settings r, w, x (read, write, execute) should be selected.

• If you have set up groups (which involves the creation of a group and the addition of usernames into the group) select the appropriate permission settings.

  If this group is a collection of people to which you are giving the ability to see and use files which you are otherwise denying to other people, then select the read and execute settings.

If this group is more of a workgroup, containing members who will be working with files and directories on your site, then it would be appropriate to select the write setting also.

• The Other settings depend on how much access you want to give provide globally.

Typically, both read and execute access are given to everyone while write access is denied.  This allows people to view and use your site without being able to change it. However, there may be items that you wish to keep hidden globally, in which case you would disable the read and, depending on the file or directory, execute permissions.

Mail Manager

The Mail Manager option provides several ways of managing the mail accounts you set up on your account.  Additionally, if you have set up Mailing Lists for your account, you can manage them using this tool. 

Within your Mail Manager you are able to create new POP3 email accounts, change passwords for your email accounts, delete a POP3 account, forward email, and create autoresponders.

Getting Started
You will initially see two email accounts, one named your username and one named default, these were created by the system—DO NOT DELETE either of these or your email will cease to function and simply recreating them will not fix the problem.

Creating New POP3 Accounts
To create a new POP3 Email account simply click on the "New Address" link located under your default accounts and you will be taken to the following screen.

Forwarding Email
You can forward email coming to any of your POP3 accounts that you have created within your account to another account you have created or to an account outside of your domain by simply clicking on the email account that you want to forward. You will be taken to the the same screen where you change the password and delete the account.

Below those areas you will see a list of the email accounts that you have created. Simply click on the account where you want to forward the email to or you can move further down the screen and type in the email address located outside of your domain where you would like the email to be forwarded to.

Once you've made your choices, just be sure to scroll to the bottom of the screen and click the save button to save your changes.

Create Autoresponders
You can create an autoresponder for any POP3 email account that you have listed in your Mail Manager. Simply click the email account that you want to create an autoresponder for and you will be taken to the same screen that you Change Password, Delete, or choose Forwarding Options for that email account.

Scroll to the bottom section of that screen and you will see same screen as displayed above. Click the box to indicate you are including an autoresponse when this email address receives email and then type in your response for the autoresponder, you then click save to save your changes.

About Email Aliases
You never have to create email aliases. Your default email account is setup as a "Catch All" account, meaning that any email coming to anything@yourdomain.com is delivered to your default account.

Notes:

• Autoresponders only work for email sent to that address. If a particular address is being forwarded to any other address (either internally or externally), the autoresponder will not get sent.
• If one address is being forwarded to another internal mailbox, and that address is being forwarded elsewhere (either internally or externally), the mail will not make it thru to the final destination... it will only go to the mailbox in the middle and won't be sent from there. For example: yourname@yourdomain.com is being forwarded to yourname@aol.com. And you want your default mail set up so that anythingdefault@yourdomain.com goes to your AOL account as well, you will have to set up separate forwards for each one. If you set it up so anythingdefault@yourdomain.com goes to yourname@yourdomain.com, even though yourname@yourdomain.com points to AOL, it will not go...it will remain in yourname@yourdomain.com. So set up a separate forward and you will be all set.

Mailing Lists
The Mailing List option, once installed, allows you to create and manage your own mailing lists, which is an efficient way of communicating with many people at one time. You create and manage your mailing lists using the Mail Manager option.  But you first need to install Mailing List on your site. You do this by using the Mailing List option.

How To Manage a Mailing List Using Mail Manager:

• From the Edit Mailing List page, select the Mailing List Manager link.  A page titled X Command displays and the name of the mailing list you are editing appears near the top of the screen.
• Many of the fields on this screen are actually commands that you can perform on your mailing list.  You simply select the command you would like to use, fill in the appropriate information and then select the Execute Xcommand button to make the change occur.
• If you have not already set up the Maintainer email and password on the Edit Mailing List page, enter that information in the appropriate fields on this page.
• If you would like to have either the list of subscribers or the list log emailed to you (as the maintainer), enter the email address in the Maintainer email field and the maintainer password in the password field, then select either Show List of Subscribers or Show List Log.  If you would like to clear out the list log, complete the Maintainer email and password fields and select the Wipe List Log. Once your selections have been made, select the Execute Xcommand button to perform the action.  An email message will be sent to the email address entered in the Maintainer email field including the results of the action you selected.
• To look up a specific email address in the list of your mailing list subscribers, click on the Select list of subscribers for a near match option, enter the address for which you are searching, and select the Execute Xcommand button to perform the search.  Results will be emailed to the address in the Maintainer email field.
• If you would like to directly subscribe or unsubscribe a user from the mailing list (rather than having the user do it), select either the Subscribe or Unsubscribe option, enter the desired user’s email address in the email field, and select the Execute Xcommand button.  A confirmation message will be sent to the address listed in the Maintainer email field.

How To Administer a Mailing List Using Mail Manager:

• From the Edit Mailing List page, select the Administer mailinglist link.  A page titled Administer Mailing list – mailinglistname displays.

• Enter the Maintainer’s email address in the Maintainer/Moderator Email Address field.

• Select the option that accurately describes the purpose of your list.  The choices are: 

  • Newsletter: A Mailing List created as a Newsletter will only be usable by you as the Moderator.  Others will not be able to send mail to be distributed by the list. This is a good way to distribute one message to many of your mailing list subscribers.

  • Subscriber-Only List:  Only people who deliberately subscribe to the mailing list can send mail to or receive mail from the list.

  • Moderated List:  The mail from the list is screened and if appropriate, edited or deleted before being allowed to be sent to all subscribers to the list.

There are many more advanced options that can be configured in Mailing Lists. Click here for details.

Site Statistics:

Many statistics about the usage of your web site are available through the Site Statistics option in the Control Panel (the statistics are generated by the http-analyze program, by Rent-A-Guru).

The main statistics displayed are:

• Hits: The number of times your site is given a request for information from a web browser (note: a web page with two images would generate three “hits”, one each for the images, and one for the page itself.)

• Files: The number of times a web browser requests a file and the server on which your site resides delivers that file.

• Pageviews: The number of times a web browser requests a text or html file, which shows a truer reflection of the actual documents requested from your site.

• Sessions:  The number of unique hosts accessing the server during a given period of time.

• Kbytes Sent:  The amount of data sent during the summary period as reported by the server.

Website Builder:

The Site Creation Tool allows you to create your website quickly and easily. It is an alternative to using other applications, such as Microsoft FrontPage, Macromedia Dreamweaver, or Netscape Composer.  The tool is self-guided and self-explanatory.

This lets you: 

• Create Your Web site: This option allows you to create and/or edit the web pages on your site.

• Change Default Pages: This option allows you to set the home page which you create with the Site Creation Tool to be the default page for your site.

• View Your Site:  This option opens your site’s home page in the current browser window.

• And more...just follow the links and you'll be on your way! 

Counter:

The Counter tool allows you to set up a page-hit counter on your site, which lets you determine how many times that page has been visited.  This counter is displayed on the webpage and can be viewed in various counter styles.  Additionally, you can start the counter at any number you set, and it will count hits and add them to that number.

Protect Directories:

Using the Protect Directories tool, you can limit the amount of access users have to your site.  You can specify a username and password for the directory you are protecting.  Each protected directory can have multiple users (each with different passwords if you prefer) who have access to it.  Additionally, the Protect Directories option can be used to remove a user’s access from a protected directory.

Example: If you want to grant only select users access to a particular directory on your site, you can set up protection on that directory by using one user name and one password.  Then, if someone requests access to files in that directory, you can give that user the corresponding user name and password.

Alternately, you can set up unique user names and passwords for each user who request access to the protected directory.  Though more time consuming, this method would be more secure.

Redirect URL Tool:

The Redirect URL tool allows you to change the page that appears when a user enters a specific web address. It will let you forward visitors to another URL or to particular pages of another URL.

Example: There are a number of old URLs for your site’s home page that are no longer current, yet people still use them.  You don’t really want people going to those old URLs because either an outdated page will display or they’ll get an error. Set up Redirection for these old URLs, so that when users enter them into their web browsers, the file at your current URL displays instead.

Search Engine:

The Search Engine utility allows you to install a Search Engine on your website. This tool allows users to perform searches for content on your site.

Once the Search Engine is installed, configured and indexed, it will be available on an webpage located on your site. You will need to create links to this Search page.

When you install the Search Engine, it automatically creates an index of your site. If you make changes to your site (like adding pages), or change the configuration (as done in the above procedure) you will need to re-index the site so that all new changes are reflected in the Search index. This helps to ensure that the Search Engine returns accurate, up-to-date search results when users perform searches on your site.

Anonymous FTP:

Anonymous FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a method by which your guests can upload or download files to your site. The Anonymous FTP option allows you to install Anonymous FTP for your site (if it is not already installed) or to remove it once it has been installed.

ANONYMOUS FTP WARNINGS:

Security
Anonymous FTP will grant any and all users the ability to access your "upload" directory, or any directory on your domain that has been set for "public" read/write permissions. Anonymous users will have access to upload or download files to and from your domain. You must set the appropriate permissions for your directories to restrict anonymous FTP access. This is needed to ensure that anonymous users will not be able to access any existing files or directories. You can inhibit access to specific files and directories using the File Manager by disabling public read and/or write access to the files or folders you don't want people to see (i.e.. cgi-local).

Responsibility
As the account owner, you are responsible for any and all files that are stored on your domain. This would include files that were uploaded by you as well as by anonymous FTP users. With the use of anonymous FTP, your site is susceptible of becoming a "warez" site. Typically, these are sites that are used by "hackers" to trade (upload/download) illegally pirated copies of software programs with one another. As the account owner, the complete content of your account is your responsibility. If your site becomes a trading post for "warez" programs, you may face legal action that can be taken against you by the programmers/software companies of the copyrighted software, in addition to your account being deleted from our servers. Please refer to our User Agreement for more information.

Data Transfer
Any and all FTP download transfers, Anonymous FTP included, will be used in the calculation of the total data transfer for your account. If this total data transfer amount exceeds the limit that is set for your plan, you will be responsibility for any and all overage charges that occur. Please Note: There will be NO exceptions made for these overage charges. Once Anonymous FTP has been enabled, it will be your responsibility to monitor the anonymous FTP activity for your account. All Anonymous FTP activity is stored within the "xferlog" file. This file contains entries for each and every anonymous FTP upload/download session. This file is located within the /stats directory of your account. There is also a link provided off the "View your web usage statistics & logs" page of your account Control Panel.

Disk Space
If you are going to allow people to upload files to your site, make sure you keep track of your disk space usage via your Control Panel. Do not allow your disk space usage to get too close to your maximum disk space allocation or you may experience problems accessing your site via FrontPage and/or be unable to upload or modify files.

Your Anonymous FTP site is completely different from your website. When people FTP to your domain anonymously, they will see the following directories:

bin/
dev/
etc/
incoming/
lib/
pub/

"pub" is where you should put all your anonymously accessible files. "incoming" is for the anonymous users to upload files.

You may ignore the other directories.

To access the Anonymous FTP site via the web, use the following address: ftp://yourdomain.com/pub/. Anonymous visitors wishing to access your site via FTP client (e.g. ws_ftp) must use your domain name as the FTP hostname, userid of "anonymous" and password of "guest".

For security reasons:

- Only the incoming directory can be written to anonymously
- Sub-directories are not createable
- The incoming directory is not readable by people dropping files there

You are responsible for any "pirated" software uploaded by the anonymous users. Anonymous FTP sites are periodically monitored for any abuses.

Archive Manager:

The Archive Manager provides a method of backing up files on your site by compressing them.  It is always good practice to back up files in case damage should occur to original files.  Compressing files allows you to reduce the amount of storage space your files take up, thus freeing more space for you to work with on your site.

Mime Types:

Mime Types represent file types as presented to your web browser.  The Mime Type option in the Control Panel allows you to specify which types of files you can open with your web browser.

PGP:

PGP, which stands for Pretty Good Privacy, is a method of encryption you can apply to scripts that run on your web site along with the email you send through it. 

PGP is software that you can download or buy. Using this software, you generate your own PGP encryption “key”.  You must do this before you can make use of the PGP option in the Control Panel.

The PGP option in the Control Panel performs two functions:

• It provides you with instructions for using PGP on the web server on which your site resides

• It allows you to add or delete your PGP key from that server.

Formmail:

Formmail allows you to use an online form that will email the results to you. The Formmail option provides step-by-step instructions on how to set this up on your website.

PGPMail:

PGPMail is similar in function to Formmail except that it enables you to encrypt the results of the form. The PGPMail option provides step-by-step instructions on how to set this up on your website.

MySQL:

The MySQL option is available in select hosting plans. It allows the setup of a MySQL database on your site.  Once the database has been installed, there is documentation available within the MySQL Option for managing the database. 

Main MySQL Screen:

• The left frame displays the names of the databases available to you.

• The right frame welcomes you to phpMyAdmin, which is the name of the administrative tool you are now using to manage your MySQL database.

• The link Show MySQL runtime information displays the following table of statistics about your database.
• The link Show MySQL system variables displays the following table of statistics about your database.

Setting Up MySQL Databases:

When you initially install MySQL on your site, you essentially create a blank database.  In order to work on your database, you must add tables to it.

Working with existing tables:

After you have added tables to your database, subtle differences to the main database page will appear on subsequent visits.  More options will be available to you, all of them as a result of the fact that your database now has tables with which you can work. For instance, if you single-click on the plus sign in the left frame beside your database name, a listing of all of the tables within your database appears.

Tables can be opened from this listing of tables.  Single-click on the table name in the left frame to open the table in the right frame

Notice that the fields and key of your table are listed along with various commands (appearing as blue text in the image above). These commands allow you to change or drop any field you choose and to perform other actions.

Underneath the Documentation link are tools for working with the fields including Inserting data into the fields.

Run Query and Query by Example:

From the main database page, you can run queries against your database. When you query a database, you specify the criteria or description of that query.  Then you send that information to the database and the database returns results from its data that match the criteria you set.  This query box should only be used if you know how to write queries manually.

The Query By Example link allows you to create a request for information from your database using a form rather than typing the query from scratch.

Secure Server:

The Secure Server option provides you with instructions for setting up a Secure Server through Verisign or Thawte.  Verisign and Thawte are companies that provide digital certificates used for secure transactions. Step-by-step directions are provided within the Secure Server Manager.

Setting up a Secure Server requires that you purchase a secure digital certificate from either Verisign or Thawte.  This is a two-step process.  Follow the steps outlined in the Secure Server Manager to complete the setup.

Telnet/SSH:

Telnet/SSH allows you to manage secure telnet access to your account.  Much of the functionality of Telnet is more easily handled through the File Manager option in the Control Panel. However, there may be instances when using Telnet (outside the operation of the File Manager) is required to get the job done.

The implementation of telnet that we use is called SSH. To use telnet (SSH), we require the user to send us a fax with a copy of their photo ID requesting SSH. Users also need an RSA Key entered in the control panel in order to access it. We also require the user to use SSH software.The only way to gain Telnet access to your account is by using SSH Secure Telnet software that must be loaded on your computer.  The recommended software is Van Dyke Technologies’ Secure CRT. 

The SSH Option allows you to upload the RSA (Rivest, Shamir, Adleman) key generated on your computer by the SSH software to the server on which your site resides.  Once completed, you will have secure Telnet access to the site.

Network Trouble Shooter:

The Network Trouble Shooter provides you with access to a common network tracing utility named Traceroute.  Traceroute does exactly what its name implies, tracing the route of data from your domain to the server you specify.  The results of performing a Traceroute show you every server your packets of information are going to in order to connect to that server. 

Submit Site to Search Engines:

The Submit Site to Search Engines utility is a powerful tool that allows you to quickly submit your web site to some of the most popular web search indexes.  These include: Infoseek, Webcrawler, AltaVista, Lycos, Excite, HotBot, Infoseek, Yahoo, Netfind, Magellan, What You Seek, Infospace, and more.

This is an effective way of ensuring that the site you create gets optimal audience and web traffic. While you can submit your site to search engines without the aid of this option, it can be a very time consuming process.  The Submit Site to Search Engines option makes the process a quick and easy one.

Click here to download the complete Control Panel Manual (a 1.89 MB Word Document in a .zip file).

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