A remote access key can be an incredibly useful tool for anyone running a reseller web hosting site. But what exactly is a remote access key? How do you set it up, and how do you use it? This article will seek to answer these questions.
To understand the value of remote access keys, let me give you a brief refresher on what a reseller web hosting site is and how it works. In reseller web hosting, you rent either a dedicated server (a single server all to yourself for your website), or a large amount of web hosting server space, and divide it up among as many websites as you need, with lots of space left over for your website to expand as your business grows. In the meantime, however, you have lots of valuable internet real estate sitting around idle, unused, and unprofitable. On way to turn this empty space into profit is to resell it to other individuals or small businesses who want to set up their own websites. Think of yourself as a web hosting subcontractor. Some web hosting resellers even use the revenue generated from reselling their empty web space to offset their server rental costs, or even pay for it altogether. It's like buying a duplex house, living in one half, and renting out the other half to pay for the mortgage.
There are, however, some drawbacks to this. First, it requires some technical knowledge to help your renters set up their own websites. Second, depending on how much space you have available for rent, you can quickly become overwhelmed with requests from new customers to set up new websites, each of which takes away your time. This can be particularly distracting when you need to focus on your quickly-growing web-based business. The reselling of unused web space, which was just supposed to be additional small, low-maintenance, money-making enterprise run on the side, can quickly grow into a time-demanding monster that distracts you from your primary business endeavor.
This is where remote access keys can become a life (and business) saver. Remote access keys essentially allow potential renters of your unused web space to set up their own websites automatically by themselves, without any help from you.
Great, so how do you set up a remote access key? Well, if you're lucky, your web server's control panel may include the option to set one up quickly and easily. Once you create the remote access key, it will generate a long paragraph of encrypted information. This is in information you'll need to add to your scripts to automate the process of signing up for web hosting space and setting up a website. If you are not sure how to write this script, contact your web hosting company for assistance. Finally, if your server's control panel does not include the feature to automatically generate a remote access key, contact your web hosting provider. They may be able to provide you with a sample remote access key script that you can modify to use on your web server.
If your control panel does not come with this option, or you are not
Some people may be nervous about handing over the keys to the castle to unknown renters. To be honest, there is a little bit of risk involved. Since a remote access key basically permits access to your server’s control panel, the security of your site can quickly be compromised if the wrong person gets a hold of it. However, customers setting up their own web pages are only using the user interface of the remote access key, not the source code of the remote access key itself, which is what they would need to do any serious security damage. Furthermore, the remote access key is encrypted, and should not cause any real security risks if you are only using it to allow new customers to set up their own accounts.
Setting up remote access keys on your dedicated server or web hosting space allows you to save time while simultaneously getting more business on your reseller web hosting enterprise. More customers will be willing to rent web hosting space from you if they are able to set up their own website now, at their own pace and on their own time. The alternative is your customers being forced to wait for you to set up the web site for them over the course of several hours or days while, as they exchange emails and web page files with you. Although it may take a bit of time, effort, and technical know-how to set up, you’ll find the benefits of a remote access key quickly outweigh your initial time investment.
If you are considering business hosting for the many great features, then you need to know the disadvantages as well so you can make an informed decision. You want the best for your website so it is important that you look at all aspects of business hosting. Below are some of the most common disadvantages that you may run into with business hosting, so be sure to know what you are looking for before you make any commitment.
* One of the most common disadvantages people find is that that the hosting company that they have chosen to go with doesn't even support the database that they use for their business. It is very important to look into this before you make any type of commitment because if they do not support your database you will have to change your system and database to go with the business hosting preference. By simply looking for a business hosting company that works with your current network, you will save yourself both time and money in the long run. You will find that some business hosting may only support SQL databases where another company may have a larger variety of databases that they will work with.
* You want to look into the details of what the business hosting company is offering. You will need to look at the small things as well as the large things. Many people do not think about the email options until it is too late. What you will mainly see is the email set up with a limited amount of email addresses. If you have a large company that will need fifty or more emails then you will want to look for a business hosting company that will give you the capacity to do what you need or one that will give you unlimited options.
* In addition to problems with emails, some company's find that they run into problems where disc space is concerned so you have to be sure that you go with a company that can handle the amount of info you will need stored as well as space to function properly each and every day. You may also want to look into what differences there are with smaller packages verses the larger packages. Some people want to have the option for a shopping cart where for others that is not of importance. Many of these companies make their packages look good no matter what size it is but they neglect to tell you the details as to exactly what you will be giving up with a smaller package. Be sure to read the fine print so you know what you're getting into.
* Just because the price sounds right doesn't mean that it is what you need. You do not want to go with a company that only offers set packages. You want to have a business hosting company that will work with you to tailor your package to meet your specific needs. The company should have someone that will sit down with and go over all aspects so that they can provide you the best package that they can. Do not sign anything until all parties agree on the terms and conditions.
Many people just see the highlights of going with a business hosting company and they neglect to see the disadvantages. This is why it is very important for you to know what you are getting into before you make a commitment. Do not be afraid to ask questions and get to know all there is about your database. This will help you in choosing the best options to meet your company's needs. Try to go with a company that will support your database so you do not have to spend money to replace your database to a compatible system. If the Business hosting company tells you that you have to change your database, then you may want to shop around a bit. You should not have to change your database to meet their needs. The company is to be working for you and making your company run the best it can. Make sure your hosting company does all it says it will and hold them to their end of the contract.
We've all heard our email server companies and computer geeks that fix our computer dilemmas talk about POP3 and we know it has something to do with our email operations, but what is it and how does it work?
First, the acronym POP3 stands for Post Office Protocol and is utilized by port 110 on each server. The "3" only stands for the version of the program POP1 and POP2 are no longer used. When you first set up your email, you or your computer person will set up or enter your POP3 server information during the email set up procedure so you will be able to send and receive emails.
POP3 is excellent when thinking about server space because the email stays on the server only until it is downloaded so disk space is not a problem. For your POP3 account you will be asked to create a user name and password in order to access your POP3 account. Depending on your server, when you access your email, you may be asked to enter your entire email address or just a password. You web hosting company can determine this for you.
The way POP3 works is by keeping text files for each particular email account on your server and each time a new message is received, the text of that email is added onto the email file. Subsequently, after you download your email, the text file is erased.
A huge advantage of POP3 is that it is very easy to use and your web hosting company can even walk you through installing the necessary POP3 numbers to set up you email accounts over the telephone if you have trouble understanding how to do it. Microsoft Outlook®, an email provider, utilizes POP3 for all of its email purposes.
Another good advantage to using the POP3 is its ability to access, read, and respond to emails even if you are offline. Downsides are few, like trying to receive lost or deleted emails but with this being an important issue to email users, most web hosting companies are giving their clients the opportunity to pick and choose, which messages they would like to remain on their server.
Using POP3 through your web hosting company is also good for spam protection as most web hosting companies are able to sort these out and give you the option to log into their site and look at your spam emails to see if there are indeed, ones you need to read and save. Some web hosting companies even have an automatic POP3 feature that will automatically ask you from time to time if you want to archive your old emails. You can choose to do this or not, depending on the email you want to save, or move to another file or folder before archiving.
Because POP3 has the ability to allow you to save emails in certain files and folders and by doing this they are deleted, users like this so they can access emails that are in stored files or folders and choose to respond to them off or online.
Depending upon your web and email hosting company, you will be required upon install to put in a series of numbers that identify there particular hosting company which they will provide to you upon install. Not only is this series of numbers important to you in order to connect and retrieve and send emails, it is also used for the blocking of other POP3 server numbers and keeps them from interfering with your email files effectively reducing spam or unwanted emails or being overwhelmed with emails you don’t want.
The remote server for the hosting company uses POP3 over a TCP/IP connection. Almost every email hosting company supports the POP3, the TCP/IP connection. Another advantage to POP3 is that it can be used for wireless and dial-up modems making attractive for people who don't have access to wireless capabilities due to rural areas. If your web hosting companies uses either POP3 or IMAP or a combination of both they also use what is called SMTP or a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol to send messages.
Finally, POP3 supports varied levels of authentication technology to provide different levels of email protection again keeping those unwanted email out of you inbox. So, when you contact your web hosting company to set up your email, and they give you a string of numbers that looks something like this: 1896.69717.0952, those are the POP3 numbers associated with their server and explain from server to computer to Internet on how your email will be retrieved and sent.
When it comes to managing your own dedicated servers, the big two things that you need to be concerned with are your choice of name server and your IP address. These two network devices are what helps direct traffic on your site and allows people to find your site. Without a name server, a user would have to know the IP address of every site he wished to go to. And without IP addresses, there would be no way to index websites. What becomes important is that these two items are configured properly, otherwise you may experience server downtime, which can cost big.
Name servers are what direct the traffic to the appropriate site. Whenever a guest to your website types a URL into the address bar, the name server will direct their network traffic to the correct spot on your web server. It works by converting between a human readable site name, such as www.domainname.com and a machine readable 145.87.304.99.
When your domain is registered, or when you should make changes to your domain, the name server will be added. What will be needed is the IP address of the domain which will get the name server, and a web address to label the name server, such as ns1.domainname.com or some such. With this information, you can go to your domain's registrar and add the name server. Changes made here will take from mere minutes to days.
Typically, a given domain is recommended to have at least two name servers. The idea being that should a name server ever have down time, users can still make it to the website. Name servers have to handle upwards of a billion requests a day, where each user can make hundreds a day. The name servers take quite the beating when it comes to handling traffic. That is why rigor and redundancy should go into setting up your name servers.
The IP address that you are given will be yours. It is static and will not change. Domains which plan to sell web hosting may be given a pool of IP addresses, so that a number of different users can have access to their own IP address. What should be done if you have multiple IP addresses is that you should withhold one or two for your own exclusive use. That way you have a more secure way of managing your domain.
The server you are hosting should be capable of handing out your IP addresses and give your customers the subset of IP addresses that they have access to. It should also know what site is assigned to each IP, so that if you or your customers have a collection of websites, the server can manage them all.
Today, the number of remaining IP addresses is dwindling. The current standard, IPv4 is 32 bits, represented as four numbers between 0 and 255. An example would be 192.168.45.88. In order to address the dwindling number of addresses, a new standard was created known as IPv6. Version 6 features 128 bit addresses, represented as a string of 8, four digit hexadecimal numbers, ranging from 0000 to ffff. An example of an IPv6 address would be 2001:85cd:85ff:1357:2468:0000:0040:1337. The benefit to this scheme is two fold. First, there are many more addresses available (each person on the planet could be given 18 million, billion addresses. That's 18 with fifteen zeros following it). But the real benefit would be the ability to classify sections of the net via segments of the address. X:0134:X:X:X:X:X:X could be all government addresses, and so on.
Knowing about IPv6 is important as soon, your host may start utilizing IPv6 addresses. Many modern systems are capable of handling IPv6 numbers, but it is still worthwhile to check to see if your server will be able to handle it. If not, there should be simple fixes available that can handle adding the capability.
Dedicated servers extend to their owners increased control over IP and name server settings. These devices provide assurance that traffic will make it to your site and that your site will know how to direct them. This control is important when it comes to maintaining your own web space.
What exactly is a nameserver? A better question might be, why do you need to know? The answer is, you don't-unless you're running a website. If you are, you'll come up against nameservers eventually. When that day comes, understanding what they are and how they work will keep you from being caught off guard.
For example, when you set up your website with a hosting company, they may provide you with the numbers for two nameservers. But what do you do with them? When you go to register your domain name (for example, www.yourwebsite.com), the domain name registrar will ask you for the addresses of two nameservers but you may not know what they, or where to find them. This article will explain to you the basics of what nameservers are and how they work.
If you haven't guessed by now, the nameserver has something to do with the domain name for your website and the server where your website is hosted. To understand the link between the two, you first need to understand what an IP address is. How do computers find each other on the internet superhighway? The answer is the same way that we find houses on a street—by the address and house number. Each computer and server on the internet is assigned an unique IP address number consisting of four three-digit numbers separated by periods. Think of them as house numbers, but for computers.
Of course, when people want to go to your website on a server, they don't type a long string of numbers into their browser. Why could remember all those numbers for every website they like? Instead, we use domain names, which are much simpler and easier to remember. But how does a computer know which domain name is linked to which IP address? Well, that’s what the nameserver does.
When a visitor request for a particular domain name comes through, the nameserver looks up the domain name, cross-references it with the IP address of the hosting server for it, and then forwards the visitor request to that server. If you have a dedicated server an entire server all to yourself for your website the visitor request ends there, and the person is able to see your website in their browser. If you are sharing a server with several other websites, then your hosting company's DNS servers take over and redirect the visitor request to the part of the server where your account and website are located.
Some hosting companies take care of all this for you, setting up both your website and your domain name all at the same time. In such cases, the complicated linking of domain names, IP addresses, and nameservers takes place quietly behind the scenes. Other hosting providers require you to register your domain name yourself. In this case, your hosting company will provide you with the IP addresses of the two nameservers that they maintain. Then, when you go to register your domain name, the registrar will ask for your hosting company's two nameserver IP addresses, so that they can link your domain name to your hosting company's server.
Knowing about nameservers and understanding how they work becomes particularly useful when need to change your website hosting provider. You can switch which company hosts your website, and transfer all your files over, but until you update your domain name registration with the IP addresses of your new hosting company's nameservers (can take anywhere from fifteen minutes to three days), no on will be able to access your website. When someone types the address for your website into their browser, they'll be directed to your old hosting company’s server and since your website is no longer there, they'll get an error instead of your home page.
A lot of people stay with a hosting companies they're not satisfied with or are too expensive because they're not sure how to change their domain name registration to point to their new web hosting provider. Knowing how to handle domain names and nameservers gives you the ability and freedom to change to a less expensive or higher quality website hosting provider whenever you need to.
It's 2 a.m. The unthinkable is having your site or server gone down. You can't log into your dedicated server's control, and you have no way to find out what's wrong with your server. So what you do? Before you break out the alcohol and go screaming into the night? Frantically, put in a call to technical support that is closed for the day? Well, let me offer two other courses of action that you can take.
The first thing that you will want to do is contact your web hosting company if it has 24 hour technical support. If you can get to their technical support department, tell them what's happened. If you can’t get them on the line, hopefully you have a Plan B in the form of a remote restart application resident on your server. If you have a remote boot option installed, you can easily reboot your own server. While doing a remote reboot may not solve every problem that you're having, it does certainly help in a number of issues that can occur on a server.
So, what does it mean by having a remote reboot?
On the Windows and UNIX platforms, there is a capability where you can remotely reboot your server. It's dependent upon the type of reboot, your web hosting company allows, but you may be able to simply type in your IP address and perform the reboot through your browser. There may also be a control panel help interface on your computer where you can perform that same reboot locally.
If you can do the first option, which is browser-based reboot, it usually requires that you have your username and password that was supplied by the hosting company when you first setup your server. You'll also need the IP address up your remote reboot location.
All you have to do is put in your IP address, and your browser should take you to your remote reboot location. If you're using a locally based control panel, it follows the same basic principles. What you need to do is select the server that you want to reboot, enter in any required information like user name and password, and hit the execute button. Once you finish this process, you should have a server that's rebooting.
Your location should be secure, in order to prevent hackers from gaining access to your servers reboot information. If an authorized person gains access to your remote rebooting information, it would be very easy for them to destroy your server.
You may be asking yourself why your server needs to go through a rebooting process from time to time. Just like normal computer, sometimes applications can freeze up or lock causing a server crash. It can have one of the processes not complete its run as planned which can also freeze the system. All of this can usually be fixed by a server reboot. Believe it or not, this is very similar to restarting your computer when it locks up and freezes. A remote reboot is necessary because you can't reach through your computer screen, and start a server which is located geographically in another location. So, a remote reboot allows you to literally push that restart button on your server.
This option should only be used when absolutely necessary, after you've exhausted all other methods to get your server back online. Moving to the rebooting process, will cause everything to be shut down and the server to be restarted. This may take a period of time for everything to come back online. So, be forewarned.
Having a remote reboot application can be a whole lot safer, and cut down the amount of times you need to call technical support at your hosting company. In some instances, hosting companies don't offer 24-hour technical support anyway, so instead of having to wait until the next day in order to get help, through a remote reboot, you can actually fix the problem yourself.
Breaking down DNS zones is the best way to approach a relatively complicated piece of information. Effectively managing your DNS zones is important when you have a dedicated server. MX zones are another part of the DNS zone that will handling how your email is routed.
Whether you create a new DNS zone or managing an existing zone, a thorough understanding of several fields is essential to handle your DNS file.
Starting at the top you have an Address, Cname, HINFO, MX, NS, NAPTR, PTR, and SOA. When broken down and explained, these acronyms all have an important place in the server world.
Address (A) is the name that the IP address is mapped to taking it from decimal format to something that people understand.
Canonical Names or CNAME is utilized for the domain name nicknames and aliases. This is used if you have two registered domains that resolve to the same location.
Host Info or HINFO is the field that describes the hosting company, hardware and software. This includes the name, model numbers and the server's operating system.
Mail Exchanger called MX is the email address where all emails can be addressed.
Nameservers or NS is the field that is very important field in your DNS zone. It must match the nameserver that is associated to your domain name. That's the only way for your site to resolve correctly and for people to find your site.
Naming Authority Pointer called NAPTR handles the Universal Resource Identifier or URI which creates the URL as a result of the performance of a specific expression.
The Pointer or PTR is also called the reverse maping that allows you to point your DNS zone to a different domain name.
Start of Authority or SOA is the start of the zone and every DNS zone file needs at least one.
Zone Name - The field must contain the following: primary server name, secondary refresh time, email address of the zone owner, minimum time to live or TTL, serial number for the zone, secondary retry time and expire time.
Text or TXT field has to be equal or less than 256 characters per string and include the host name and other relevant data.
With these field defined, you will now be able to learn to manage your DNS zones as well as the myriad of control panels. There are auto creation of DNS zones, but with a complete comprehension of each field control, you'll know how to handle any trouble that crops up with your DNS zone.
Updating an area in your zone, for instance, the MX zone which controls your email address, you can easily change the field name to reflect the changes in the address. As well, other fields can be changed and updated, and then saved to the same DNS zone field.
You need to be completely comfortable to be able to effectively handle your DNS zones. If not, you might want to use the auto creation of the zone file in the beginning. As you gain more expertise, you can customize various parts of specific domain names. If you follow the guidelines provided for each field, creating a proper DNS zone will be quite easy.
If you are looking at a web hosting company that offers dedicated website hosting, it may not be what you think. There are disadvantages to dedicated website hosting. First, dedicated web hosting, also referred to as having a dedicated server or a managed hosting service is where you, the client, lease an entire serve that is not shared with any other company or if an individual, no other individual.
Server supports and updates are done by the company you purchased your dedicated hosting service from and remember, you do not own the server so beyond your server lease payment; you may have additional fees for updating and monitoring your server. Further, if you or your company has a strong IT department or person, a dedicated server where you rely on the company your leasing it from may not be a good idea a good IT person can tell you what your best server options are. Some dedicated hosting companies won't fix your server problems as quickly as your in-house IT team.
The costs of a dedicated server can be much higher than a shared server as well if you combine your lease payment with support plans and there can be many levels of support plans so if you choose the lowest paying support plan, when you do need help, you may have to pay additional support fees. A general rule of thumb when considering the price of a dedicated hosting service is to be prepared to pay five to ten times more for having one.
Reaction time for any problems with your dedicated server is also something to watch for. Make sure the company you are purchasing your dedicated hosting server from has 24/7 support if they don't you might not be able to do anything about your downtime if their support department is not on duty to help you or your company.
If you don't have a good IT person or servers are not your forte, you may not understand how it works or what to do if a problem arises so dedicated servers are generally leased by people who have a good working knowledge of servers and how they perform. If you are a beginner, dedicated hosting is not for you. Things like telnet or SSH can be hard to understand for the beginner.
Telnet is a text-based program that allows you to log into your system and is similar to DOS. Secure Shell or SSH is a network protocol where data can be exchanged using a secure channel. SSH was produced to replace telnet, which is not as considered as secure as SSH. Data transfers are not as safe using telnet compared to SSH and if you don't know or understand these, you could really hamper your server ability or problem areas. You should also be familiar with firewalls, server monitoring, back-ups and if you're not an IT person, you will have to call your dedicated hosting company if you need to reboot your server. All dedicated hosting servers are Unix or Linux based systems, another thing you should be knowledgeable about.
Basically, if you don't know how to perform administration tasks on your server, you will always have to rely on the dedicated hosting company's support service. Some of these problem issues can be handled if your dedicated hosting company offers a good and easy-to-use control panel so check that out before you buy.
Downtime is a big issue for anyone who needs to be up and running 24/7 and because a dedicated server is not at your place of business or home-based business, and you have no idea how to reboot the system, you have no choice but to call your dedicated hosting company and again, if they don’t offer 24/7/365 support, you must rely on them as to when your server will be back up and running. The importance of 24/7/365 support is also important so ask about it and find out if the dedicated hosting company you have chosen monitors your system constantly at their end as well as performing daily back-ups on your behalf. If they don't provide either of these services look for another company that does.
Dedicated hosting is good for some companies and bad for others. Before you buy, talk with your company team, make lists of what you need and what you don't need and do your research on dedicated hosting companies and ask the important questions we've given you here. While dedicated hosting is not a wrong choice, it can be a hard choice once it's made and you don't know what to do if something goes wrong.
IMAP is your map to messaging access! IMAP is an acronym that stands for "Internet Message Access Protocol". Several private and professional computer users actually depend on this type of technology without even realizing it. In a world where technology has advanced to a mobile level with laptops, individuals are constantly moving from one location to another in their homes as well as the workplace, IMAP is essential is being able to provide the ability to retrieve and/or send messages through the means of electronic mail and even bulletin boards online. Here, you will discover the way in which IMAP works, as well as the benefits as far as functionality.
What is IMAP?
IMAP is a system that is used to access messages from email and possibly even messages that are part of an online bulletin board. Typically, this is through a server type that is shared among many users at once. However, it does not only work on servers for shared space. There are servers that use this particular technology that are not shared. Many individuals retrieve their mail from local areas when they are on a network, or when they are traveling with a mobile computer. The range of these programs is often limited. IMAP permits a larger level of flexibility when sending and receiving messages from particular sources. Typically, many are limited to a file exchange between one or more computers in order to upload messages, but IMAP bypasses this inconvenience.
The Objectives of IMAP
There are many objectives of IMAP technology as it relates to messages that can be sent and those that can be retrieved. The following describes these objectives:
1. The first and most obvious objective is to allow individuals to access various email and bulletin space messages from several different computer systems with ease. Creators of this unique technology understand the importance of convenience to computer users everywhere and integrated this technology for the purpose and intent of access when it is needed, no matter what the location of the individual user.
2. It is designed in such a way that the individual does not need to have experience in specifying the server name that is hosting the IMAP retrieval system. They simply log in, conduct their business and acquire access to the items that they need to. This offers much more convenience than the standard POP access in which servers must be identified based on incoming and outgoing routes of message travel.
3. IMAP is extremely beneficial in offering users the ability to obtain their messages not only online, but also offline. In addition to this, if a computer is disconnected or is in type of mode that restricts access, the individual will still be able to identify, retrieve, and send messages by implementing the use of this technology.
IMAP Capabilities
IMAP offers a number of capabilities when it comes to user functionality. The following represents activities that can be engaged in by using this type of system:
1. Individuals have the ability to create and customize various mailboxes.
2. One may search through messages with ease and respond to those messages as appropriate.
3. If necessary, flagging may be engaged in.
4. The servers are automatically integrated so that individuals may create, send, and receive messages automatically and with ease.
5. Customization of messages may also be engaged in.
Disadvantages to IMAP System
Unfortunately, there are a number of disadvantages to the IMAP system. The following outlines these:
1. When users create a multitude of mailboxes on a single server, it is quite likely that it will hinder the functionality of the server therefore making it more complicated to receive messages in a timely fashion. Many have found this to be a large inconvenience.
2. Individuals who desire to save particular messages typically find that it is a complicated procedure because it must be done multiple times to "take".
3. There may be rules set up that affect incoming and outgoing messages which can result in delays, particularly if a person is traveling with a mobile computing device.
Conclusion
IMAP is a special email system that is set up to ensure that an individual may have convenience in remote locations to access messages. There are several different activities that can be performed within this type of system. Unfortunately, there are disadvantages such as server load, complicated methods when it comes to saving messages, and more. If you are in need of email access that you can access remotely, this may be an effective solution. However, it is important to ensure that is a "right" fit for your needs.
If you do not create a backup for your dedicated server, you are inviting trouble. This is an option that you will have when you start to operate the server. More than likely there will be choices listed for how often you would like to do this. The importance cannot be understated especially if your site has forums or if you sell items that require input of customer information.
The frequency with which you decide to set up your backup option is going to depend upon how busy your site is. The recommended backup for a busy site is daily. This will enable you to have all the information that has been put in your system in the last 24 hours. This will cut the incidence of losing information that can be vital to your business. The loss of any data is bad but it is much better to lose only a small amount rather than everything.
Are you in the business of reselling space to other sellers? If you do, providing backup for your customers is not only a good business practice but it will help you to keep your customers. The chance of something going wrong and one of them losing information they have input into their system is one chance they do not want to take. Often they are caused by human error but regardless of the reason, it is really frustrating to lose information that is necessary to run your business. If you do not provide backup for your customers, you should tell them of the importance of doing this for their site.
Some sites do not require daily backup because they are smaller and do not have as much activity. They can still have a backup system to safeguard their information. A weekly backup will be fine for the small business however, the frequency is basically up to them. If they feel safer with a daily backup, this would be the way to go. The one thing to remember is how often you have information entered into your system will designate how often you need to have backups performed.
When configuring your backups you will typically set them and forget them. The system will run automatically and save the information to your home directory. This will run at the time that you specify when you set the system. This means if it is a daily recovery, for example at 3 a.m. the system will backup everything on an every day basis at 3 a.m. This is usually set up to run when the computer is not in use. This way it will be finished by the time you are ready to log back in to the computer.
The typical scenario of needing a backup system is when you find a new application that you want to install on your website. If you install it and for some reason it deletes or ruins the information you have on your site, there is no need for alarm. The backup on your dedicated server will have all the information you lost and you are back in business.
If everything has been set up correctly, you will have the past weeks data saved and maybe up to the previous day so you will not lose everything you had saved. All you have to do is go to your dedicated server and start restoring the information. If the web manager that you are using is Web Host Manager, the account that is lost will be the one you choose. Find the backup file and restore the lost information and you are set.
When you find the backup information it will most likely be in a zipped file, so one thing you should do is to make sure you know how to work the restoral system and when you need to use it you will not be at a loss. When you have lost data and are trying to find your information, that is not the time to have the frustration of learning a new system. If you do a couple of practice runs, when the real thing happens, you will already know what to do and it will be simple to restore your information.
If you are launching a new internet-only business providing specialized services over the internet and you expect heavy internet traffic, a Dedicated Server is a good web hosting option for several reasons. Although much more expensive, it is more secure, and you don't have to worry about any other websites traffic slowing down your server. Most importantly, having an entire server to yourself provides you with more flexibility, letting you set up specialized software and add special features and options to your optomize your server's performance. Many of these special features and software are available as "add-ons".
Whether you have chosen a Windows or Unix dedicated server greatly affects your choice and availability of add-ons. The Unix operating system is free and open source, as well as many of the most powerful web programming languages, such as CGI, PERL, PHP, and MySQL. Any basement programmer can create a useful add-on and release it for free on the web. Small software companies developing server add-ons, freed from the additional costs of Windows licensing fees, can release add-ons for Unix servers at a much cheaper cost than add-ons for Windows servers. What this means for you is that you'll find a much wider variety of add-ons available for Unix servers, and quite a few of them are free. If you're using a Windows server, on the other hand, you'll find fewer add-ons available, and the ones you can find will be more expensive. For example, some of the add-ons we'll examine in this article are free, but only available for Unix web servers.
SECURITY
Mod_Spambot – http://spambot.sourceforge.net/
This add-on can drastically reduce the amount of spam your server receives. It is particularly effective if you are running the Apache website administration software on a Unix server, where it is able to stop spambots before they even index your website.
Clamavconnector – http://www.cpanel.net
This add-on searched for email for viruses, before it reaches your server, and blocks them. If your website gets a lot of email spam with viruses attached, you will find this add-on very useful. Although not perfect new viruses are being created every day, and it's difficult for even the best antivirus program to keep up with them all-Clamavconnector will certainly greatly reduce the number of virus that make it to your dedicated web server.
COMPATIBILITY
ModMono – http://go-mono.com
For a long time, one of the biggest selling points of Windows servers (and one of the biggest drawbacks for Unix servers) was Windows Server's seamless compatibility with Microsoft Office software, the .NET framework, and .ASP database scripting language for creating dynamic web pages. ModMono helps fix this age-old problem, leveling the playing field a bit more for Unix servers. The popular, open source, and free ModMono allows you to run .ASP and .NET applications on a Unix server. Although not yet a perfect solution, ModMono allows more flexibility and compatibility between Unix servers and Windows software than ever before.
Tomcat – http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/
This add-on serves several functions. It provides your dedicated server with the ability to run servlet applications, as well as programs ceded in the platform-independent Java language. It also allows you to monitor your server's performance in different areas, although there are other add-ons that can do this as well, with more features and customization options.
MONITORING
Bandwidth Module – http://apache.ivn.cl/
This add-on lets you allocate different amounts of bandwidth to the different domains (website addresses) on you server. If you have multiple websites running on one server, or have rented out extra space on your server to other websites to help cover the hosting costs of a dedicated server, you will find this utility very useful. With it, you can prevent one of your website renters from using more bandwidth than they paid for, and bogging down your web site traffic in the process. Unfortunately, you have to have a Unix server running Apache to use it.
StatSelect – http://www.cpanel.net
This add-on is another great server monitoring tool. It records and reports different website and traffic statistics for the different domains on your web server. Best of all, if you have rented out the extra space on your server to other websites, those renters can also access a user account in StatSelect to access this information, too. StatSelect comes with a variety of sub-programs, each for a specialized use, such as Analog, Webalizer and Awstats.
MISCELLANEOUS
AddonUpdates – http://www.cpanel.net
Although this add-on doesn't fall into any particular category, it is extremely useful. AddonUpdates allows you to update every add-on you have installed on your dedicated server from one central location, instead of updating each one individually (and possibly forgetting one). This is especially useful for anti-virus, anti-spam, anti-spyware, and anti-malware programs, which need to be updated at least once a day to provide effective protection.
If you're new to databases, you might find yourself being assaulted with a confusing variety of new terms. You'll hear about Access, MySQL, PHP and more. However, you might not know what these things really mean. If you're wondering about the jargon you've heard and read, or you want to know what databases really do, this article is for you. Here's some basic information that'll tell you more about them and help you decide whether your website is a good candidate for a database.
There are a number of different applications you might want to use a website database for. One of the most common is a shopping cart. Web shopping carts often use databases for information storage. When customers place orders, the information provided, like payment information, order details, and addresses, is transmitted and stored in the database that's part of your site. It can be retrieved later when it's useful.
Another place you might need to use a database is a product catalog. Databases make adding new products to your site's shopping cart much easier. Just put all the items and their important information in an office-type database program or a spreadsheet program, then upload the information to the database on your site. Once this information has been added, the new products will display automatically, as long as your initial formatting was correct.
Does your site need to register members? Databases can help you here, too. The database is where passwords, user names, and all the other important information is stored. When the member logs on, the information is called from the database for use. Good implementations of this database application include chat rooms and discussion forums. A database isn't the only way to do this - some JavaScript applications don't need one, for instance - but most forums and chats use PHP and store the information as part of an SQL database.
At its most basic, a database on a website acts a lot like a database on a computer. It's a place where data is stored and organized. When the information is needed by an application, the database transmits it appropriately. If, for instance, you were using a database in conjunction with a shopping cart on your site, and you needed to do an order search, a database would help. Just enter the database and query the order number. It will then be displayed, with all relevant information included.
Applications that make use of a database to create a members-only area work this way: users enter the password and login name. Once that information has been entered, the application takes it and makes a comparison to the information that's in the database. The user is only allowed to log in if the entries in the database match the entries they put into the form. When there's not a match, the database will tell the person that their user name and password haven't been found, and ask them to try again.
If it's a product catalog that's using the database, the catalog application will be programmed to include a number of different parameters. These will include things like weight, color, size, shape, and other details about your products that are relevant. When you create the database, these fields will be matched up. Then, they can be used to enter all the appropriate information for every one of your products. After you've transmitted this information to the database on your website, the application searches the information and displays the needed data when the catalog page for an item is viewed.
What about those unusual terms? What do they mean? Knowing about them can help you make important choices. SQL, for instance, is the major type of web database. It stands for Structured Query Language, and is the favorite method of database management. Things like MySQL and others are extension that add procedural programming functionality to this language. Microsoft Access is a part of Microsoft Office, and acts as a database management system. PHP is a scripting language that draws on databases and is used to create dynamic webpages.
It's clear that a database is a helpful addition to just about any e-commerce site, and to many other kinds of websites, too. If your site needs to store and transmit information, odds are that including a website database is the best bet. Don't let yourself be confused - find out more about databases and how they can help you and your site.
A database is dependent upon software to arrange the data to be stored. This software is called the database management system (DBMS). Once your database is installed, you will need to learn how to use it. The database will normally run so smoothly you will never know it is running. However, should you need to know how to modify something or back it up, the ability to do so will be made easier by following a few instructions.
How to Access Your Database
MySQL and PHP are the two databases used most frequently. When going to the PHP database, the first thing you want to do is make sure you have PHPMyAdmin. If you do not have it, you can download the application and install it on your computer. This is a simple process and the benefits of this utility are quite apparent when it comes to accessing your SQL databases.
If you have to install this application, once you have it on your computer, log in and you are ready to proceed. Make sure your user name and password are the ones provided when you originally opened your account.
Once you have logged in you should see your databases. The one you need to adjust can be chosen from the list of databases that will come up on your computer. After choosing the database that you want to modify, the program will allow you to run inquiries. Help files are a great resource for fixing anything that you want to adjust and this can also be used for making a back-up of the databases. This is a recommended operation which many people neglect to do.
One of the ways that databases work is by storing information until it is needed on certain applications. A good example of this would be shopping carts. The customer uses the shopping cart the same way you would use one in a virtual store. They choose the items they want to order from your site and fill their shopping cart. Should you need to track down one particular order by going into the database and running an inquiry for that order number, you will find the order.
Adding products to your site also requires using a database. The information is entered into your computer by either a database program or spreadsheet and uploaded to your database. This allows the new items to be automatically displayed on your site.
When you add products to your site using a catalog application, there will be parameters that the database uses for each item. They will be color or size of the item or something else depending upon the product. Once the database receives this information, it sorts it and makes sure the correct information is displayed on your site.
Since the use of database software collects the information and stores it in one location so you may access it more easily, finding one particular item is much easier. Employers use databases to keep information ranging from pay information for the employees to the amount of inventory they have on hand.
When you understand how your database works, which most of the time requires no intervention from you, the advantages you will see are:
Increased productivity
Increased customer service
Improved inventory control
Employee pay information
Vendor accountability
Understanding how to access the database is simple when you follow the instructions for the type of database that you employ. For example, when using MySQL, there are features that are enabled by this DBMS but may not be by others. One is the ability to choose from multiple storage engines - finding the one that is most effective for each table in the application.
How to Access Databases from PHP
One way to access databases from PHP is to use a data-base specific extension. A new version in PHP is the version 5 which is called SQLite. This is a smaller and more compact database connection. Replacing what was once MySQL, although you can still use this database, SQLite is already set up and ready to work as soon as you install PHP.
A Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) is a file server that manages the data for you. The information is arranged in tables. The tables have a certain number of columns, which each are named and categorized. The best example would be for keeping track of music. The music would be the title of the table and each title of the song would be recorded, a year of release, and the artist. Each table would be grouped in the database so the RDBMS has its own user system and controls who can update the database.
