Questions about
the features of our Web hosting services, and how those services can
be used.
Q: Can I use
Microsoft FrontPage, Dreamweaver, or other HTML authoring tools?
A: Yes, with almost no exceptions. Please note that although we do not
provide FrontPage extensions, FrontPage can be configured to upload
your website directly through a standard FTP connection rather then
through the extensions themselves.
Q: Can I upload and download files using my web browser?
A: Yes, you can, although we recommend you obtain a FTP client program
instead, for improved reliability and functionality. To access your
account through a Web browser, use a URL like "ftp://username@ftp.username.belfasthosting.com/".
Q: Can I host multimedia streams?
A: Some media types can be "byte-streamed" from any account
with the proper MIME types configured.
Q: Do you support ColdFusion or Active Server Pages?
A: No. We use the Linux operating system and alternatives to these technologies,
such as PHP4, Perl5, and MySQL.
Q: What databases are supported for use with my Web site?
A: The SQL implementation we support is the powerful MySQL, which runs
on specially configured database servers. These can be accessed via
Perl, or PHP for Web integration. We do not support Microsoft Access
or Microsoft SQL Server, as those are Windows-specific programs
Q: Can I use Custom CGI scripts?
A: Yes. All of our account types come with the ability to upload your
own custom CGI scripts. Since we use the suexec wrapper to run all of
your scripts under your own unix user ID for security, you must remember
to set all of your CGI scripts to mode 700, and directories inside your
cgi-bin to mode 705.
Q: Why don't you offer "unlimited bandwidth"?
A: The simplest answer is that there is no such thing. Any provider
who claims to offer "unlimited bandwidth" either has no concern
for the performance of their network and servers, or is lying to their
customers about how much transfer they'll really allow a site to use
per day.
If
you read the fine print on hosts who claim to provide this service,
you'll realize that they've included lots of convenient ways to get
out of providing you unlimited bandwidth if you're using more than their
comfortable with.
Q: Can I prepurchase a larger disk or transfer allowance?
A: There is no need to prepurchase such services unless you've unchecked
the automatically purchase services feature in the Control Panel's Billing
Area. Our billing system automatically notices when you need additional
bandwidth or storage and generates a charge to your prepaid balance
or credit card and mails you an e-mail receipt.
Q: Which versions of PHP, Perl, and MySQL are you using?
A: We are currently using Perl 5.6.0, PHP 4.1.2, and MySQL 3.23.49 at
the time of this writing.
Q: How do I set up a secure web site
(SSL)?
A: You will want a secure web site to collect private information, such
as credit card numbers. You need to have our company generate a CSR
(Certificate Signing Request), go to another company with this CSR to
generate a certificate, and come back to us to install the certificate.
1)
Make sure you have the domain set up and registered. If you create a
new domain, it may take up to 72 hours after you make it for DNS information
to be propagated so that others can see your web site and send email
to your domain.
2)
Have us generate a CSR. Our support team can provide you with a link
to a web page that does this.
3)
Take the CSR to a certificate signing authority, such as FreeSSL, Verisign,
Thawte, or Comodo. They will ask you for the CSR and for the type of
webserver, which will be Apache with MOD-SSL. They will also ask for
your organization details, including an email address at your domain
for certificate approval. (Be sure the approval email address is working
before doing this step.)
4)
The certificate signing authority will send you a certificate, which
you need to give to us. The link provided in step 1) allows you to submit
the certifcate to us.
5)
Contact our support through email or Live Person and ask us to activate
the certificate.
Once
we activate it, you can build web pages for the secure address. Since
SSL involves encryption and decryption between the web server and the
person viewing it, you should only have the pages you need under the
secure address (https://), and have the rest of your pages under your
normal web site address (http://).
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