Which Server OS, Linux, Unix or Windows?

Do you know what operating system on which you web host’s server runs? It is an important piece of information to know as you design your web pages because the server’s operating system, or OS, determines what scripting languages can run and what databases are supported among other things. There are three major operating systems on which web host servers can run. The Linux operating system allows scripts like Perl, PHP, Python and other languages based on Unix. The server operating on Linux also generally supports MySQL and PostgreSQL database systems.

Servers run on Unix operating systems, like Solaris or FreeBSD, have the same capabilities as servers run on the Linux operating system.

Servers that operate their systems with Windows provide ASP scripts, utilizing .NET and other Microsoft technologies. And of course the Windows operating system supports Microsoft’s SQL Server database.

If your website does not have any scripts, it will not matter what operating system your web host server uses. When the script does not make a difference, most website builders choose a server with either the Linux or Unix web hosting because they are generally less expensive.

But remember, if you want to use scripts or a database, you should choose the operating system which supports those technologies. When in doubt about which operating system to use, contact your web host to determine which choice is best for your needs and the demands your website will produce. Make sure their server can meet your needs so you can produce an effective and efficient website.

What is web hosting?

Web hosting companies are the connection between an individual or company and World Wide Web readers. To put a webpage online, one must go through a web host.
 
The webpage developer will upload his or her design to the web host according to the company's guidelines and policies, and based on the type of software the webpage designer has used. That upload submits the files to the web host, and then the webpage is published for all to see on the Internet.

Many web hosts offer a number of tools to help their clients not only to simplify the process of uploading files to a webpage, but even offer programs to help build webpages quickly and easily. Virtually anyone can build a webpage with these simple, yet effective, tools. Knowing html code is not important with aids such as "Website Builder" or software like Dreamweaver.

When choosing a web host, it's important to keep your personal or corporate goals in mind. If it's your own personal website, you might not mind if the web host puts banner ads on it. However, if it's a corporate site you're preparing, do you want your web host to advertise similar businesses on your page? Many web hosts offer free web hosting services if the company is allowed to place advertising on it or charge a small fee to keep it clear of outside sponsors.

What is monthly traffic / Data Transfer ?

Transfer refers to the amount of data you can transfer to and from your hosting account / server. In the web hosting industry, the word "bandwidth" is also used to describe transfer. Data transfer is measured anytime a file is uploaded/downloaded to/from your account.
Every time that file is downloaded/uploaded, the equivalent of the space it takes is subtracted from your remaining transfer. If a file downloaded from your website is 5 MB in size, then 5 MB of transfer will be deducted from your monthly allowance.

If you finish the monthly data transfer allow for your package, then you'll see "Bandwidth limit exceeded" message untill the beginig of next month. (Your Data Transfer reset to zero on the beginig of every month), Also you can upgrade your account to higher Data transfer package

What is an URL (Uniform Resource Locator)

This is the standard way to give the address of any resource on the internet whether or not is part of the World Wide Web (www), but as long as it can be accessed with an hyper-text transfer protocol or file transfer protocol address call, and is a part of a server listed on the canonical domain name registration tables to resolve to an IP address.
 
The term "resource" here is used to refer to any web page, graphic, sound file, or any other resource which one can call from a URL.  A URL will begin with http:// (hypertext transfer protocol) or https:// (hypertext transfer protocol secure) or ftp:// (file transfer protocol) with few or no other variants.   Note that a URL can refer directly to an Internet Protocol address (IP address) such as this:  http://192.168.1.1.

What is a SSL certificate?

It’s no secret that information transmitted via the Internet can sometimes be read by other people. We have all heard the harrowing stories about online identity theft and many of us know someone who has been affected by it. To help keep sensitive information like credit card numbers and social security number more secure, a special Internet protocol was developed.
The Secure Sockets Layer, also known as SSL, was created. You can recognize a Secure Sockets Layer by its web address prefix, “https.” The SSL makes use of cryptographic encryption of data sent to and from your website. In this way the SSL keeps malicious outsiders from decrypting the sensitive information. Your customers feel secure because they know that their information has been transmitted over the Internet with all precautions taken. 

To use “https”, you are required to have an SSL certificate. The certificate is actually special data identifying your server and informing Internet browsers how to encrypt the data that is sent to it. When you use an SSL certificate, you ensure your eCommerce customers that they are downloading data from your site only. Your SSL certificate is only valid with your website's domain name. Your SSL certificate also guarantees your Internet shoppers that the information that they send via the Internet is secure, because only your server knows how to decode it. 

Some web hosting servers include SSL certificates with their hosting packages. Some web hosts require you to buy your SSL certificate separately.

What are scripting languages?

If you are new to website design, you might think “scripts” are the curly fonts you’ve been considering to include on your webpage. 
 
However, scripts are more important than that. The sights and sounds you create on your web page are all created with script programs like PHP, Perl, ASP or CGI.

PHP, Perl and ASP are among the most popular scripts. Thanks to programmers and easy to use software, you may be using them daily and not even know it.

If you are a beginner in web design, you are probably using a software program that will save you the time of learning about scripts. Just know that your website building software is full of scripts that make the program work.

Scripts are used for a variety of applications on web pages. Scripts allow us to have guest books on our websites. Scripts allow us to post comments on blogs. If your website publishes the day or date and updates it on its own, it is able to do so with the use of a script. There are many uses for scripts in our daily work with web pages – whether you need to have a programmer’s knowledge of them or not depends on the website software you have chosen

What are frontpage extensions?

Imagine if some sort of web bot could help you build a website faster. The technology is here and already among us. When you build a website using Microsoft’s Front Page, that is exactly what happens.

Front Page is one of the most popular website builder programs for building websites. The user friendly program takes away the need to know programmer languages like HTML, PERL and other scripts.

Back to the web bots. These tools allow you to create web pages faster (and easier) than ever. The web bots keep track of changes you make to a web page on your site and make sure that all subsequent pages also reflect the changes. It is an advance that means you will spend less time on changes to your site and you can focus on other relevant business at hand instead!

Front Page extensions are a type of language used involved in building the website. You will never even really know they are there. Before using Front Page as your website builder, make sure your web hosting provider supports for Front Page extensions. If it does not, you will either need to find a web host that does or will need to change to a compatible site builder program.
 
If you are already skilled in HTML language, you can incorporate that knowledge into the Front Page extensions. If you do not know HTML, don’t sweat it

Should I choose Linux or Windows

Here is the easiest way to answer this question:


UNLESS you need to have one of the following features / technologies in order for your site to run:

1. MS SQL Server Databases
2. ASP or ASP.NET
3. MS Access Databases


Then you do NOT need a Windows hosting account. 


Linux hosting plans are optimized and more economical due to the nature of the Linux operating system. All other features offered between the Windows and Linux accounts are basically the same.


Regardless of whether you are using a Windows PC , Linux PC Or Mac PC, you can host your site on a Linux account as long as you do not need above mentioned technologies. (You don't need to know anything about Linux OS, to host your web on linux server)

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

FTP is a method for transferring data to/from web servers via a different method than the standard http (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) used to display web pages. FTP software is designed specifically for file transfer and is written to more efficiently and safely download files free of errors.  It is also used to upload files to your virtual, shared, or dedicated web server site.  


FTP can also be used for direct downloads of files and images from a web server without being served from the public html directory via a means called anonymous FTP, or via a secure login.  FTP access to a web server requires a password and username in order to gain access to the file and folder directories of a virtual domain, unless the server is set up to allow anonymous FTP - a useful protocol when allowing the public to freely download files or distributed software.

Dedicated or Shared Hosting Plan?

There are two kinds of web hosting services: shared and dedicated.

Shared web hosting is just that – several websites are located on a single server. Since it is split up among several website owners, the price is cheaper than dedicated hosting. The down side is that storage and bandwidth are limited in a shared hosting situation. However, most small to medium size businesses operate their websites on a shared host effectively and efficiently. If you anticipate a few thousand visitors per day or less, shared hosting can be a good choice for your website.

Dedicated web hosting is exactly what it sounds like. One server is used solely for the purpose of hosting one website. If you plan to have an extremely popular website, this option will allow you to host many more visitors than shared web hosting. A dedicated web host is recommended for websites that need high bandwidth requirements, greater reliability and / or need high storage capacity. Since you are not sharing it with other websites, it all belongs to you on a dedicated server. 

You can go with Virtual Private Server Hosting (VPS Hosting) or Dedicated Server Solution.

My Account Hacked or Virusses on my web space

Many hacks are caused by out of date or insecure software. Also if your webpages displaying virus, then We would advise that you do the following to prevent this in the future:

As this is an isolate incident with only your account (There isn't any possibility to hack / Virus attack to the server)  it is an issue within your account that allowed access.

1) Clean all infected files in your account and remove any unknown/un-needed files. (It is better to Remove all files if possible)

2) Change all passwords including cPanel, and FTP to STRONG Passwords  ( https://www.microsoft.com/protect/fraud/passwords/checker.aspx )

3) Scan your computer for viruses (Using uptodate Good virus guard) , some exploits are caused by a virus on your computer getting your login and uploading files. Also scan your PC for any spyware.

4) Update all applications on your account and remove any insecure plugins / widgets  (Some insecure widgets / plugins on  WP / Joomla / Forums .... )

*** We strongly advice you to check your HTML page coding for any iFrame (Normally bottom of the page) tags and if found remove those.

5) Finally you can upload your fresh files to server account. Also remember you have to use strong Passwords to All site software (Eg: open source / scripts...)

Find the strength of your password here >> https://www.microsoft.com/protect/fraud/passwords/checker.aspx

Hosting account has been compromised by a malicious intruder.

A compromised account can create problems for all users on a shared web hosting platform, so to protect our other customers, the account was suspended as soon as we found out that it had been compromised and used for malicious activities. Please understand that this suspension is not an accusation that you are a hacker, a spammer, or otherwise engaged in illegal conduct of any sort. We understand that our customers may at times be victimized by such malicious attacks and ask that you understand why we must act swiftly to protect all customers from being adversely impacted by such an event.

Technically speaking, the vast majority of hosting account compromises occur in one of three ways:

1) The account has a weak password associated with it, or with a service (like a blog or an email account) within it. This weak password can be guessed or brute-forced by a malicious intruder or even a malicious automated process.

2) The account may be running old, outdated, or insecure web content software. This can also include plugins, extensions, or themes for such software which contain exploitable vulnerabilities.

3) A computer used to access the account may have a virus or malware which either allowed a malicious intruder to steal the account's password from that computer, or to perform hostile actions using that computer.

In order to ensure that all possible holes are closed and this problem doesn't occur again once you've removed the offending material, we suggest you take the following actions to strengthen possible security holes:

1) Any and all web content software needs to be updated to the latest versions. Further, any and all web content software should be checked for unpatched exploitable bugs to ensure that there are no issues with running it.

2) Any and all modules, plugins, addons, themes, and extensions for your web content software must be checked to ensure there are no unpatched exploitable bugs, and updated to the latest version.

3) To ensure that passwords are not stolen, you'll need to run a virus/malware scan on any and all computer systems used to access the account prior to changing the passwords.

4) Your passwords, including for any affected email accounts, any web content software accounts (especially admin users on blog, forum, and other such software) will need to be changed. The affected web hosting account passwords should be changed as well. Please choose strong passwords.

5) You'll also want to check the settings of any web content software you have installed to ensure that it does not allow unauthenticated or non-administrative users to send or generate email.

6) Check all email accounts, subdomains, addon domains, and parked domains in your cpanel account to ensure there are no erroneous entries.

7) Finally, you'll want to check the content of your hosting account to verify that there are no anomalous files or directories, that your .htaccess files are as they should be, and that the content of any dynamic scripts (such as php scripts) which are not part of a web content software package are as they should be.

Does SSL need dedicated IP ?

A SSL Certificate can only be assigned to a website with a unique IP address (Dedicated IP).

Create a strong passwords

Keys to password strength: length and complexity


An ideal password is long and has letters, punctuation, symbols, and numbers.

• Whenever possible, use eight characters or more.

• Don't use the same password for everything. Cybercriminals steal passwords on websites with very little security, and then they try to use that same password and user name in more secure environments, such as banking websites.

• Change your passwords often. Set an automatic reminder for yourself to change your passwords on your email, banking, and credit card websites about every three months.

• The greater the variety of characters in your password, the better. However, password hacking software automatically checks for common letter-to-symbol conversions, such as changing "and" to "&" or "to" to "2."

• Use the entire keyboard, not just the letters and characters you use or see most often.

Common password pitfalls to avoid

Cyber criminals use sophisticated tools that can rapidly decipher passwords. Avoid creating passwords that use:

• Dictionary words in any language.

• Words spelled backwards, common misspellings, and abbreviations.

• Sequences or repeated characters. Examples: 12345678, 222222, abcdefg, or adjacent letters on your keyboard (qwerty).

• Personal information. Your name, birthday, driver's license, passport number, or similar information.

Check your Password Strenght here >> https://www.microsoft.com/security/pc-security/password-checker.aspx

Source : Microsoft.com

Password Refused When Trying To Access E-Mail

If you are trying to access your e-mail and get the error saying your password is incorrect don't worry as there is a simple solution.
 
1.Login to your CPanel
2.Click on Mail
3.Click on Add/Remove Accounts
4.Click Change Pass next to the account
5.Enter the password you wish to use (it can be the same as the original)

Your e-mail should now be working. This doesn't happen very often but for some reason passwords can get corrupt in CPanel.

Not Acceptable Error

If you receive the error Not acceptable (406) that means you're causing mod_security to block your websites request. To resolve this issue simply add the following to your .htaccess file in public_html:
 
SecFilterEngine Off

That will disable mod_security and resolve the Not acceptable errors.

Error Log?

The error log contains all HTTP errors that occur when visitors attempt to view your site, such as requested files not found, etc. The Error Log tool is a presentation of the last 300 entries in your error log. A central use of this tool is to locate suspicious server activity, such as attempted virus attacks. Please contact your hosting administrator if you have concerns about activity in your error logs.

To check your error log:
1. Click on the Error Log link in the Web/FTP Stats area.
2. Browse the results.

508 Resource Limit Is Reached

The error message "508 Resource Limit Is Reached" appears when your account is constantly exceeding the resources assigned to it - these can include CPU usage, RAM usage and/or the number of concurrent processes running under your account.


We run the CloudLinux operating system on servers to better resource manage , and this allows us to isolate accounts in their own lightweight virtual environment with exact amount of resources allocated to each account. If you have resource heavy sites on your account then it's possible you are constantly reaching these limits and your account is being temporarily throttled to maintain server stability.

A resource usage spike every now and again is nothing to worry about and will cause minimum (if any) disruption to your account, but if you are facing constant issues then you should be looking at optimizing the code on your websites to use minimum resources, or upgrading to a VPS or dedicated server. 

500 Error

If your site occurs a 500 Internal Server Error the most common are php settings in your .htaccess file. They will typically look like this:

php_value "register_globals" "1"
To fix this simply create a file named php.ini in your public_html folder, and remove the lines from the .htaccess file and paste them in your php.ini file. Afterwards modify them to something similar as this:
register_globals = On
If this still does not fix your problem, check the permissions of your files and folders. On a PHPSuExec server you cannot have any files with 777 permissions.
For security reasons you should keep all folders at 755 and files at 644.

Some applications do require that a file to have greater permissions than 644, but make sure you change the permissions on that file only

What is the mysql host name and connection?

Your MySQL host name is localhost
 
Create a Database , Database user on your cpanel. Then add database user with the MySQL database with required priviledges
You can use below format on  your database connection script

Eg : If you create a Database as myclass and DB username as cladmin, ( we use webpanel as cpanel username In the following example. you need to replace your own cpanel username)

• My SQL server (Host) : localhost
• My SQL Database name : webpanel_myclass
• My SQL Username : webpanel_cladmin
• My SQL Password : *****YourPasswordHere****