Parallels H-Sphere - 3.5.1 User Guide

Parallels® H-Sphere
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Contents
Preface 9
Typographical Conventions ........................................................................................................... 9
About This Guide ......................................................................................................................... 10
Feedback ..................................................................................................................................... 10
User Account 11
Temporary Index Page ................................................................................................................ 11
Uploading a Web Site .................................................................................................................. 12
Contents of Home Directory ........................................................................................................ 13
Control Panel Basics 14
Changing Hosting Plan ................................................................................................................ 15
Changing Hosting Platform ............................................................................................... 16
Changing Billing Period ............................................................................................................... 17
Changing Control Panel Password .............................................................................................. 17
Changing FTP Password ............................................................................................................. 18
Changing Traffic Limit .................................................................................................................. 19
Changing Disk Quota................................................................................................................... 20
Configuring Control Panel Skins .................................................................................................. 21
Changing Control Panel Language ............................................................................................. 21
Domain Registration 22
Registering Standard (Second Level) Domains .......................................................................... 22
Transfering Domains ................................................................................................................... 24
Hosting Existing Domains ............................................................................................................ 24
Creating Third Level Domains ..................................................................................................... 25
Hosting Sites Without Domain Names ........................................................................................ 25
Parking External Domains ........................................................................................................... 26
Domain Configuration 27
Removing Domains ..................................................................................................................... 27
Enabling Instant Domain Aliases ................................................................................................. 28
Creating Subdomains .................................................................................................................. 28
Configuring Shared or Dedicated IP Hosting .............................................................................. 29
Configuring Domain Aliasing ....................................................................................................... 30
Adding Server Aliases ................................................................................................................. 34
Configuring Domain Renewal ...................................................................................................... 35
Changing Domain Contact and Billing Information ...................................................................... 37
Adding Web Access Control ........................................................................................................ 37
DNS Settings 40
Removing And Restoring Built-in DNS Records ......................................................................... 41
Creating Custom DNS Records ................................................................................................... 42
Preface 4
Web Site Creation and Publishing 45
Parallels SiteStudio...................................................................................................................... 45
Parallels Plesk Sitebuilder ........................................................................................................... 46
Web Site Navigation 48
Redirect URL ............................................................................................................................... 49
Directory Indexes ......................................................................................................................... 52
Error Pages .................................................................................................................................. 53
Server Side Image Map ............................................................................................................... 55
MIME Types ................................................................................................................................. 55
WAP Support ............................................................................................................................... 56
Reverse Traceroute ..................................................................................................................... 56
FTP Management 58
WebShell File Manager and htProtect ......................................................................................... 60
FTP Subaccounts ........................................................................................................................ 61
Virtual FTP ................................................................................................................................... 62
Anonymous FTP .......................................................................................................................... 65
Anonymous FTP Upload Facilities .............................................................................................. 67
SSH Access to Server 68
Accessing Your SSH Account ..................................................................................................... 69
Running Shell Scripts With Crontab ............................................................................................ 70
Dynamic Web Content 71
CGI Scripts .................................................................................................................................. 71
PHP.............................................................................................................................................. 72
ColdFusion ................................................................................................................................... 73
Ruby on Rails .............................................................................................................................. 73
ASP .............................................................................................................................................. 74
ASP.NET ..................................................................................................................................... 74
Server Side Includes.................................................................................................................... 75
PHP/MySQL Applications ............................................................................................................ 76
Preinstalled CGI Scripts: phpBB and mnoGoSearch .................................................................. 77
phpBB Forum .................................................................................................................... 77
mnoGoSearch ................................................................................................................... 78
Fixing Broken Scripts ........................................................................................................ 79
Mail Resources 80
Mailboxes ..................................................................................................................................... 83
Mailbox Storage Quota ...................................................................................................... 85
Signing into a Mailbox ....................................................................................................... 85
Postmaster and Webmaster .............................................................................................. 86
Mail Forwards .............................................................................................................................. 86
Autoresponders ........................................................................................................................... 87
Removing Autoresponder .................................................................................................. 89
Mailing Lists ................................................................................................................................. 90
Managing Your Mail List Subscribers ................................................................................ 91
Sending Messages to Mailing List Subscribers ................................................................. 92
Managing Your Mailing List Moderators ............................................................................ 92
Preface 5
Adding Mailing List Trailer ................................................................................................. 93
Configuring Mailing Lists ................................................................................................... 95
Maildomain Aliases ...................................................................................................................... 99
Removing Mail Domain Aliases ....................................................................................... 100
Mailbox Aliases .......................................................................................................................... 101
Creating Mail Aliases ....................................................................................................... 101
Unassigning Mailbox Alias from Mailbox ......................................................................... 102
Removing Mailbox Aliases .............................................................................................. 102
Mail SMS ................................................................................................................................... 103
Mail Under Service Domain For Third-Level Hosting ................................................................ 106
Managing Mail Under Account With Third-Level Domain ............................................... 107
Managing Mail Under Service Account ........................................................................... 108
AntiSpam Protection .................................................................................................................. 109
Managing Antispam for the Entire Account ..................................................................... 109
Managing Antispam on the Mail Domain Level ............................................................... 110
Managing Greylisting Settings ......................................................................................... 111
Managing Mail Domain Keys ........................................................................................... 112
Configuring Antispam Protection for Mail Resource ....................................................... 112
AntiVirus Protection ................................................................................................................... 115
Managing Antivirus for the Entire Account ...................................................................... 115
Managing Antivirus on the Mail Domain Level ................................................................ 116
Configuring Antivirus Protection for a Mail Resource...................................................... 116
E-Mail Forgery SPF ................................................................................................................... 118
Enabling SPF................................................................................................................... 119
Disabling SPF .................................................................................................................. 120
Outlook Express Mail ................................................................................................................. 120
Configuring Outlook Express With POP Before SMTP ................................................... 121
Configuring Outlook Express With SMTP Auth Relay..................................................... 127
Eudora Mail Client ..................................................................................................................... 130
Web Site Statistics 135
Enabling Stats Logging .............................................................................................................. 136
Viewing Raw Logs ..................................................................................................................... 136
Running Third-Party Log Analyzers ........................................................................................... 137
Urchin .............................................................................................................................. 137
AWStats ........................................................................................................................... 137
Webalizer ......................................................................................................................... 138
ModLogAn ....................................................................................................................... 138
Protecting Statistics ................................................................................................................... 139
Promoting Your Site With Kanoodle .......................................................................................... 140
Traffic 141
Summary Traffic ........................................................................................................................ 141
Traffic Cycle ............................................................................................................................... 142
Traffic Limit ................................................................................................................................ 143
Disk Space 145
Summary Disk Usage ................................................................................................................ 145
Disk Space Billing ...................................................................................................................... 146
Individual Resource Quotas ...................................................................................................... 147
User Billing 148
Types of Payment ...................................................................................................................... 148
Billing Profile .............................................................................................................................. 149
Preface 6
Becoming a Payable User ......................................................................................................... 150
Paying With Web Based Payment Systems .............................................................................. 151
PayPal Subscription ........................................................................................................ 152
Automatic E-mail Invoicing ........................................................................................................ 153
Billing Period and Billing Month ................................................................................................. 154
Online Prices ............................................................................................................................. 155
Plan Fees ........................................................................................................................ 155
Resource Prices .............................................................................................................. 155
Refunds ..................................................................................................................................... 157
Refunds on Deleting Prepaid Billing Period Resources .................................................. 158
Refunds on Changing Hosting Plan ................................................................................ 158
Refunds on Changing Account's Billing Period ............................................................... 158
Refunds on Reducing Quotas and Limits ........................................................................ 159
Getting Money Back ........................................................................................................ 159
Billing History ............................................................................................................................. 160
Extra Packages .......................................................................................................................... 164
Online Store 166
Miva Merchant and osCommerce .............................................................................................. 167
Setting Up Miva Merchant ......................................................................................................... 168
Setting Up osCommerce ........................................................................................................... 169
Updating osCommerce to 2.2-MS2 ........................................................................................... 170
Data Transfer Security 171
Using Existing Key and Certificate ............................................................................................ 172
Creating Temporary Certificate ................................................................................................. 173
Acquiring a Permanent Certificate ............................................................................................. 175
Using Shared SSL ..................................................................................................................... 176
Renewing Permanent Certificates ............................................................................................. 177
Managing Comodo SSL Certificates ......................................................................................... 178
Database Hosting 182
MySQL Databases ..................................................................................................................... 182
Creating MySQL Database and Its Users ....................................................................... 183
Editing MySQL Databases with phpMyAdmin ................................................................. 185
Changing MySQL Disk Quota ......................................................................................... 186
Adding MySQL Users And Granting Them Privileges..................................................... 186
Changing User Passwords .............................................................................................. 188
PostgreSQL Databases ............................................................................................................. 189
Creating PostgreSQL Users ............................................................................................ 189
Deleting Users And Changing Their Passwords ............................................................. 190
Creating PostgreSQL Databases .................................................................................... 191
Editing PostgreSQL Databases and User Privileges with phpPgAdmin ......................... 192
Changing PostgreSQL Disk Quota.................................................................................. 193
Microsoft SQL Databases .......................................................................................................... 193
Creating Microsoft SQL Logins ....................................................................................... 194
Creating Microsoft SQL Databases ................................................................................. 195
Adding New Microsoft SQL Database Users .................................................................. 196
Changing Microsoft SQL Database Quota ...................................................................... 197
Managing Microsoft SQL Databases............................................................................... 198
ODBC DSN Records ................................................................................................................. 198
Creating New DSN Record ............................................................................................. 199
Editing DSN Records ...................................................................................................... 200
Preface 7
Virtual Private Servers 201
Checking VPS Status ................................................................................................................ 201
Adding Custom DNS Records for VPS ...................................................................................... 202
Changing VPS Root Password .................................................................................................. 202
Adding VPS IP ........................................................................................................................... 203
Changing VPS Limits ................................................................................................................. 203
Looking Up VPS System Information ........................................................................................ 204
Adding VPS Templates ............................................................................................................. 205
Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 207
Starting and Stopping Your Virtuozzo Container ....................................................................... 207
Changing Virtuozzo Container Administrative Password .......................................................... 208
Adding New IPs Allocated for Virtuozzo Container ................................................................... 208
Viewing Available Application Templates to Virtuozzo Container ............................................. 208
Changing Virtuozzo Plans ......................................................................................................... 209
Dedicated Servers 210
Adding Dedicated Servers ......................................................................................................... 211
Managing Dedicated Servers .................................................................................................... 212
Viewing Dedicated Server Info ........................................................................................ 212
Requesting Dedicated Server Upgrade .......................................................................... 212
Adding Extra IPs to a Dedicated Server .......................................................................... 213
Creating Reverse DNS Records for Dedicated Server IPs ............................................. 213
Setting Up Dedicated Server Backup Service ................................................................. 214
Requesting Dedicated Server Remote Reboot ............................................................... 214
Cancelling Dedicated Servers ......................................................................................... 215
Microsoft Exchange Hosting 216
Managing Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes ................................................................................. 217
Managing Microsoft Exchange SMTP domains ........................................................................ 218
Adding MX DNS Records for Microsoft Exchange SMTP Domains .......................................... 218
Managing Microsoft Exchange Distribution lists ........................................................................ 219
Microsoft SharePoint Hosting 220
Enabling Microsoft SharePoint Services on a Domain .............................................................. 220
Editing Microsoft SharePoint Settings ....................................................................................... 222
Managing Microsoft SharePoint Users ...................................................................................... 223
Creating New Microsoft SharePoint Users from Scratch ................................................ 223
Enabling Microsoft SharePoint Access for an Existing FTP Subuser ............................. 225
Deleting Microsoft SharePoint Users .............................................................................. 225
Application Pools 226
Adding Dedicated Application Pools .......................................................................................... 227
Assigning Web Applications ...................................................................................................... 228
Adding Web Directories ............................................................................................................. 229
Technical Support 231
Sending Trouble Tickets ............................................................................................................ 232
Preface 8
Following Up Trouble Tickets .................................................................................................... 234
Closing Trouble Tickets ............................................................................................................. 235
In this chapter:
Typographical Conventions ............................................................................... 9
About This Guide ............................................................................................... 10
Feedback .......................................................................................................... 10
Formatting convention
Type of Information
Example
Special Bold
Items you must select, such as menu options, command buttons, or items in a list.
Go to the System tab. Titles of chapters, sections, and subsections.
Read the Basic Administration chapter.
Italics
Used to emphasize the importance of a point, to introduce a term or to designate a command line placeholder, which is to be replaced with a real name or value.
The system supports the so called wildcard character search.
Monospace
The names of commands, files, directories, and domain names.
The license file is located in the
http://docs/common/ licenses directory.
C H A P T E R 1

Preface

Typographical Conventions

Before you start using this guide, it is important to understand the documentation conventions used in it.
The following kinds of formatting in the text identify special information.
10 Preface
Preformatted
On-screen computer output in your command­line sessions; source code in XML, C++, or other programming languages.
# ls –al /files
total 14470
Preformatted Bold
What you type, contrasted with on-screen computer output.
# cd /root/rpms/php
CAPITALS
Names of keys on the keyboard.
SHIFT, CTRL, ALT
KEY+KEY
Key combinations for which the user must press and hold down one key and then press another.
CTRL+P, ALT+F4

About This Guide

Parallels H-Sphere User guide aims at Web site owners and explains how to set up and manage Web sites from the Parallels H-Sphere User control panel.

Feedback

If you have found a mistake in this guide, or if you have suggestions or ideas on how to improve this guide, please send your feedback using the online form at http://www.parallels.com/en/support/usersdoc/. Please include in your report the guide's title, chapter and section titles, and the fragment of text in which you have found an error.
This section explains how to start working with your Parallels H-Sphere user account
In this chapter:
Temporary Index Page ...................................................................................... 11
Uploading a Web Site ........................................................................................ 12
Contents of Home Directory .............................................................................. 13
C H A P T E R 2

User Account

and domains you host.

Temporary Index Page

You will be able to access your Web site right after you register your account. To do this, you will have to use an instant domain alias. Instant Domain Alias is an additional web address which lets you access your site during the first several hours after the domain name registration, the time when the site is yet unavailable at the newly registered domain. Over the next few days DNS servers all across the Internet will update themselves with your new site name. Once that happens, you will be able to access your site at the domain you have registered.
The moment your account is registered, a temporary index page is added to your site's directory.
It will be there until you upload your site and replace it with your own index page (for example, yoursite/index.html). Meanwhile, from this temporary page you can:
Administer your account. Enter your control panel login and password into Log
into your Control Panel. This login and password are e-mailed to you at the address
you specified at signup. Use the Control Panel to view your bills, change your contact/billing information, change passwords, get more disk space, report problems to the technical support staff and more.
Create a web site in a matter of minutes right from your browser. Use the option
Launch Site Builder. Initially, the password to log into the site builder is the same as that for the control panel.
12 User Account

Uploading a Web Site

Whenever possible, upload your site using the utilities that come with your web-site development software. For instance, if you made your site with Parallels SiteStudio, FrontPage or Dreamweaver, use their integrated web publishing tools. If you made your site with simple text editors, or if your site-building software does not have a publishing utility, use freestanding FTP clients, such as CuteFTP, SmartFTP, or WebShell (on page 60), a Web-based file manager built in Parallels H-Sphere.
Please note that site publishing tools don't remove your old web content from the server. For instance, if you used Parallels SiteStudio to upload a site with 15 pages and later you published an updated 7 page version of this site, your directory on the server will have all the new pages and the old pages that haven't been overwritten. If you publish many versions of the Web site, the site may become cluttered with old files.
Warning: If you have a complete Web site, be careful not to overwrite it with a publish command.
Warning: Don't upload your site to the root of your user directory! Instead, put it to the specific directory.
User Account 13

Contents of Home Directory

Your home directory contains several default subdirectories. Their number and names will differ depending on your plan, yet some of them are common for all plans. Here are some of the directories that are automatically created and may not be deleted:
Directories that contain your sites. Each of your sites is put in a separate directory. The
name of the directory is the same as your site's domain name. If you have more than one site, you will have several such directories. These are the directories where you will upload your .html files or any other files that you want to make accessible from the Internet. Each of these directories may contain their own /webalizer or /modlogan directories.
Note: Do not delete either of these directories! Your site is too valuable to lose at a touch of a button.
The Logs directory. It contains directories for every site with transfer log enabled.
Each such directory contains its own set of log files that are required to write and read the data about all visits to your sites.
Note: Deleting the Logs directory will cause the loss of the web statistics accumulated in the course of your site operation.
The Virtual FTP directory. Its name is the dedicated IP address. This directory is
created when you enable Virtual FTP Server and can be accessed by virtual FTP users to list and download its content. There are as many such directories as dedicated IP addresses. Read more on Virtual FTP (on page 62).
Note: Deleting Virtual FTP directories will cause incorrect operation of Virtual FTP. However, you may harmlessly delete individual files in these directories.
The subdomain directories. When you make a subdomain, a new directory is created
with the subdomain name as the directory name. Read more about creating subdomains (on page 28).
Note: If you delete a subdomain directory, internet visitors will get the 404 "File not found" error when attempting to access the subdomain.
The ssl.conf directory. This directory stores SSL pairs for all encrypted sites.
Note: Deleting the ssl.conf directory will result in incorrect SSL operation.
Warning: Don't delete ANY default directories in your root directory, as this will cause
malfunctions of your account. As a rule of thumb, you may delete only directories and files you have uploaded yourselves or that have been uploaded by any of your Virtual FTP and Anonymous FTP users.
This document introduces you to the basics of Parallels H-Sphere user control panel
In this chapter:
Changing Hosting Plan ..................................................................................... 15
Changing Billing Period ..................................................................................... 17
Changing Control Panel Password ................................................................... 17
Changing FTP Password .................................................................................. 18
Changing Traffic Limit ....................................................................................... 19
Changing Disk Quota ........................................................................................ 20
Configuring Control Panel Skins ....................................................................... 21
Changing Control Panel Language ................................................................... 21
C H A P T E R 3

Control Panel Basics

management.
Once logged into User control panel, go to Account > Account Settings:
Plan: the arrangement of resources and services you are subscribed to. To change
your plan, click the icon next to the plan name. To switch between plans on different hosting platforms, like Unix and Windows, you need to go to Account > Change Hosting Platform and go through the platform change wizard (on page 16).
Account manager Login: the name by which you are known to the hosting system. It's
the same as your control panel login.
FTP Login: the login name you use when you upload your site to your home directory
on the server.
FTP Password: the login name you use when you upload your site to your home
directory on the server.
Control Panel Basics 15

Changing Hosting Plan

In this section:
Changing Hosting Platform ............................................................................... 16
Your hosting plan determines the services you get with the account and the prices for these services. Big sites with high hit rates and special services require more expensive plans; cheaper plans are suitable for simpler sites.
To change to a different plan:
1. Go to Account > Account Settings
2. Click the Change icon next to your plan name.
3. Select your new plan and click Submit.
Warning: Switching plans will disable the resources that are unavailable under the plan
you are switching to.
If you don't see the plan of your choice in the list that appears, it means it is incompatible with your current plan. You can't change to an incompatible plan, but you can create a new account under this plan and then, if you want, you can delete your old account.
Plan Upgrade: If you are switching to a 'higher' plan, your disk quota doesn't increase,
but free units do. As a result, your disk quota may turn out to be lower than free units, so you can increase your disk quota without being charged. The same is true of other resources.
Plan Downgrade: If you are switching to a 'lower' plan, the system reduces your
quotas for free units. If you are using more than free units, the system reduces the quota to the amount you are using.
16 Control Panel Basics

Changing Hosting Platform

Parallels H-Sphere with the integrated hostingPlatformChanger system package adds a possibility to change a hosting platform by switching to a plan of a different nature (Windows or Unix).
The platform change process with the help of hostingPlatformChanger package involves:
Changing a user's hosting plan Changing domain IPs Removing incompatible resources (currently, all resources listed on the Web Options
page). You will be warned of it during the plan change.
Manual transfer of a user's content.
To initiate the platform change process:
1. Go to Account > Change Hosting Platform. On the page that appears, from the drop-down box choose the plan you want to switch to.
2. You will be prompted to a Billing Statement that lists the information about prices on new resources and refunds for the incompatible resources. Click Submit to continue.
Control Panel Basics 17
Upon completion of the procedure, a platform change request will be sent to your Parallels H-Sphere administrator. When it is approved, the necessary resources will be recreated, incompatible resources removed, DNS and IP changed.
3. When you receive the e-mail informing that your hosting platform is ready to be used, enable necessary resources and transfer user home directory content.

Changing Billing Period

Your billing period determines how far in advance you pay. Your hosting plan may be configured to allow you to switch between billing periods of different length, price and discount policies. To change the billing period:
To change the billing period:
1. Go to Billing > Billing Profile.
2. Click Change next to your billing period.
3. Select a different billing period and click Submit.
More about billing on changing billing periods (on page 154).

Changing Control Panel Password

You need your control panel password to log into the control panel. Initially, this password is the same as your FTP password, but you can make these two passwords different.
To change the Control Panel password:
1. Go to User > User Password menu.
2. Enter new password and apply.
18 Control Panel Basics

Changing FTP Password

You need your FTP password to upload your site to the server. Initially, this password is the same as your Control Panel password, but you can make these two passwords different.
To change the FTP password:
1. Go to Account > Account Settings.
2. Click the Change icon next to FTP Password
3. Perform changes and submit.
Control Panel Basics 19

Changing Traffic Limit

Traffic limit is the gigabytes of transferred data you pre-pay for at the beginning of the
billing period. Every month the system checks if you stay within the limit, and if you don't, it charges you for the excess. Then your traffic is reset. Control Panel navigation is not included into the total traffic.
Total traffic limit is the amount of traffic you pay for in advance. It is charged at the recurrent fee. However:
if you fail to run up all your quota resource, you are not returned the payment for the
unused megabytes;
if you exceed the quota, you are charged usage fee per each gigabyte of the
excess traffic.
You can always buy additional amount of the resource in order not to be charged the extra payment. The system e-mails you a notification once you have used 80% of the traffic limit.
Example: If your billing period is 2 months long and started on the 5th of October, the first billing month will end on the 5th of November, and your total traffic will be reset. However, if you change your total traffic limit on the 15th of November, your traffic will be reset and a new billing month will start.
If you expect to run up more traffic than comes with your plan, it's a good idea to raise your traffic limit.
To change the traffic limit:
1. Select Quick Access in the Account menu.
2. Click the Change icon next to Total traffic.
3. Enter how much traffic you expect to run up throughout your billing
period.
Read more about traffic (on page 141).
20 Control Panel Basics

Changing Disk Quota

Depending on your plan configuration, billing for disk space is based on either disk quota or disk usage.
Disk Usage
If your disk space billing is based on disk usage, the Statistics section will display a bar showing average summary disk usage since the beginning of the billing month.
In this section you will also see the summary disk usage for the last day. It is the total disk space used by files in your FTP home directory, all your mailboxes and databases at the moment of the system scan. As a rule, the scans run every night.
Disk Quota
If your disk space billing is based on disk quota, the Statistics section will display a bar showing the amount of disk space actually used out of the disk space allowed by your account quota. This bar shows disk space only on the web server.
To change your disk quota:
1. Go to Account > Account Settings menu.
2. Click the edit icon in the Quota field.
3. Enter new disk quota and submit.
Read more about disk space (on page 145).
Control Panel Basics 21

Configuring Control Panel Skins

To select a skin and configure interface design settings:
1. Select Look and Feel in the Account menu.
2. Select the skin from the Choose Design drop-down box. You will see the
skin preview. Click the Choose button.
Note: If your browser works slowly with XPressia, choose XPressia Lite which is specially designed for such situations.
3. Select an icon set in the Choose Icon Set box. You will see the preview of images from this icon set. Click the Set button.
Note: Choose the Text Links mode if your browser is slow in drawing images.
4. Set Tooltips state. This option determines whether or not to show hints at
the top of each page.

Changing Control Panel Language

This option will change all texts in the control panel, including labels, system notes, context online help, etc.
To change the language of the control panel:
1. Select Language in the User menu.
2. On the page that appears, select the preferred language from the drop -
down box and click Submit.
This chapter tells about registering domains via Parallels H-Sphere.
In this chapter:
Registering Standard (Second Level) Domains ................................................. 22
Transfering Domains ......................................................................................... 24
Hosting Existing Domains .................................................................................. 24
Creating Third Level Domains ........................................................................... 25
Hosting Sites Without Domain Names ............................................................... 25
Parking External Domains ................................................................................. 26
C H A P T E R 4

Domain Registration

You can create an account without any domain at signup. If so, your account will have FTP and disk space, but without DNS zone, Virtual and Anonymous FTP, Mail service or ODBC support. You can create a domain to this account later in the future.

Registering Standard (Second Level) Domains

To create a new standard domain (.com, .net, .org, etc.):
1. Enter your desired domain name into the f ield after the www part:
Domain Registration 23
2. Choose the top level domain from the drop-down box: .com, .org, .net, and so on, and click Submit.
3. Enter your contact and billing information. Agree to the charges if any.
Based on these data, the system generates a domain registration request and submits it to the domain registration company.
Go through subsequent steps (on page 30) that allow you to configure new domain as:
Full-featured web/mail hosting domain Web hosting/mail service alias for an existing domain Domain without web hosting/mail service to be considered later either for hosting or
for aliasing
Type of the domain being registered will depend on the options you choose:
24 Domain Registration

Transfering Domains

Transfer domain already registered from outside your control panel with any registrar to OpenSRS or to Enom. This will update domain's info and change its DNS servers in the OpenSRS or Enom databases to the Parallels H-Sphere ones.
Transferred domains are registered with OpenSRS or Enom for the period chosen at transfer plus the time remaining from registration with original registrar.
Note: You can't transfer domains that are already in use in the system. Nor can you transfer third level domains if they use a second level domain owned by another user.
Go through subsequent steps (on page 30) that allow you to configure new domain as:
Full-featured web/mail hosting domain Web hosting/mail service alias for an existing domain Domain without web hosting/mail service to be considered later either for hosting or
for aliasing.

Hosting Existing Domains

Choose this option to host a domain registered outside Parallels H-Sphere if you'd:
prefer to contact the registrar personally rather than apply changes automatically; like to register a non-standard or regional domain, which can't be registered
automatically (e.g. your_domain.de);
prefer a different registrar than the one used by your hosting provider.
In either case, you need to make sure that the domain name is valid. Enter it into the box, omitting the www part.
Following the registration you will get an e-mail notification with the information to send to your domain name registration company. They will make appropriate changes on the root DNS servers, and within a couple of days your domain will be accessible at the new IP address. Right after registering the domain in your user control panel, your site will be available by the instant domain alias.
Domain registration is a standard procedure. First, you purchase a domain name from a domain registration company. Second, you register this domain name with your web hosting provider and get your new IP address. It is only then that your site becomes available to all Internet community. This is true for both standard and nonstandard domains. In case of standard domain names, however, the registration process is automated.
Domain Registration 25

Creating Third Level Domains

Third level domains are registered on your provider's DNS server. You don't need to register a third level domain with a domain registration company. If you choose to create a third level domain, it will contain your provider's domain name. E.g. if your provider's domain name is besthosting.com, and the third level domain you are registering is mythirdlevel, the fully qualified domain name would be mythirdlevel.besthosting.com.
Third level domain registration is available only if it's allowed under the selected plan. Functionally, third level domains have same features as second level domains.
To register a third level domain name, enter the desired domain name in the Domain
name field. Choose provider's domain name to the right and click Submit.

Hosting Sites Without Domain Names

You can also host sites without domain names (the so-called stop-gap domains). When you create a stopgap domain, you get no DNS zone, and you cannot use e-mail service. However, you will be able to access and manage your site using the instant domain alias you get at signup.
Stopgap domains support web site management and FTP services. Also, you can have IP-only access if you get a dedicated IP.
To create a stopgap domain, just click the Submit button in the Stopgap domain registration form:
26 Domain Registration

Parking External Domains

This feature allows using Parallels H-Sphere DNS server to map IPs to domain names serviced and hosted on other servers (not those of Parallels H-Sphere). In this case, a DNS zone is created with a custom DNS A record for the domain name and its IP is entered in the form below:
This chapter dwells on domain and subdomain configuration, domain and server
In this chapter:
Removing Domains ........................................................................................... 27
Enabling Instant Domain Aliases ....................................................................... 28
Creating Subdomains ........................................................................................ 28
Configuring Shared or Dedicated IP Hosting ..................................................... 29
Configuring Domain Aliasing ............................................................................. 30
Adding Server Aliases ....................................................................................... 34
Configuring Domain Renewal ............................................................................ 35
Changing Domain Contact and Billing Information ............................................. 37
Adding Web Access Control .............................................................................. 37
C H A P T E R 5

Domain Configuration

aliasing, shared and dedicated hosting and so on.

Removing Domains

To remove a domain:
1. Select Domain Info link in Domain Settings menu on the left.
2. Click the Delete icon in the Domain name field at the top of the page.
3. Confirm the deletion by clicking "Yes, I agree with the above".
Choose whether you would like to preserve the content of the domain's directory.
If you choose to leave web content, all this Web site will remain on the server
and will be accessible by FTP.
If you choose to remove web content, all this Web site and its directory will be
permanently deleted from the server.
28 Domain Configuration

Enabling Instant Domain Aliases

An instant domain alias is an additional web address that gives access to your Web site when you don't have a real domain name or when your real domain name is temporarily unavailable. Instant domain aliases are generated randomly based on your provider's domain name and can't be changed.
To enable or disable access to your Web site by instant domain alias:
1. Go to Domain Settings > Web Options.
2. Select the domain if you have more than one.
3. Click Edit next to Web Service.
4. At the bottom of the Web Service page that appears, enable or disable
Instant access domain alias.

Creating Subdomains

A subdomain is a lower level domain. It is added on the left of the domain name, e.g. subdomain.example.com. You can create as many subdomains as allowed by the plan. Domains and subdomains have equal functional capabilities, including web site management, e-mail service, FTP, dedicated IPs, etc., but subdomains do not have their own DNS zones and usually cost less.
To create a subdomain:
1. Select Domain Info link in Domain Settings menu in user's Control Panel.
2. Click Add in the Sub Domains field. You will be asked to enter the
subdomain name:
3. Enter the new subdomain. It will be displayed in the Subdomain field of the Domain Settings page.
Domain Configuration 29
Configuring Shared or Dedicated IP
IP Hosting
Advantages
Disadvantages
Shared IP
can be used for virtually unlimited number
of virtual hosts;
easy to configure and use;
requires no additional hardware of
software;
can be used for free.
does not support Virtual
FTP;
does not support SSL
protection.
Dedicated IP
supports Virtual FTP  supports SSL
It is a pay service
Hosting
This is also called Virtual Hosting (Shared IP) and IP-Based Hosting (Dedicated IP).
Shared IP hosting - one IP address is assigned to several domains and access to a
domain is available only by its domain name;
Dedicated IP hosting - one IP address is assigned to one domain. To access a
domain, you can use either its IP address or its domain name.
Switching from Dedicated IP to Shared IP will delete your virtual FTP and SSL services.
To change the type of IP:
1. Select Domain Info in the Domain Settings menu.
2. If you have several domains, choose the one to enable virtual FTP for.
3. Click Change to Shared IP in the IP Address field:
4. If prompted, confirm the change by clicking "Yes, I agree with the
above".
Important:: After you switch between shared and dedicated IPs, it will take several hours before the domain becomes available at the new IP address.
Domains on dedicated IPs don't have instant access aliases.
You can use an IP-only server. To create it, choose "no domain" during signup. Following the signup, you should change IP to Dedicated.
30 Domain Configuration

Configuring Domain Aliasing

Hosting Domain Alias
Mail Service Alias
domain of Host Existing Site type Registered domain Transferred domain
domain of Host Existing Site type Registered domain Transferred domain
Domain aliasing is creating domain names that point to other domains. For example, if your domain name is example.com, you can register another domain name, e.g. example.net and have it point to the location of example.com. This means, every Internet user who goes to example.net will land in example.com.
A domain alias may have:
its own DNS zone; custom DNS records; separate mail service.
The new concept of domain aliasing is treating domain aliases as full-featured domains. It means that they can be registered/renewed via domain registrar right from your control panel. Besides, domain aliases can be easily turned to full-featured hosting domains and vice versa.
This concept provides you with more flexible approach to creating web hosting/mail service aliases. Currently, Parallels H-Sphere supports hosting/mail service alias for the following types of domains:
If you have domain aliases , they will continue to operate according to the old scheme. To make old aliases full-featured domains, remove them and then add again as described below.
To configure new domain as a web hosting/mail service alias for an
existing domain:
1. Choose Add New Domain in Domain Settings menu.
2. Enter name for your alias and click Submit:
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