Parallels H-Sphere - 3.6 User Guide
Parallels H-Sphere 3.6.0 User Guide
Revision 1.0
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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 ........................................................................................................ 12
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................................................................................................................... 19
Configuring Control Panel Skins .................................................................................................. 20
Changing Control Panel Language ............................................................................................. 21
Domain Registration 22
Registering Standard (Second Level) Domains .......................................................................... 22
Transfering Domains ................................................................................................................... 24
Hosting Existing Domains ............................................................................................................ 25
Creating Third Level Domains ..................................................................................................... 25
Hosting Sites Without Domain Names ........................................................................................ 26
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 39
Removing And Restoring Built-in DNS Records ......................................................................... 40
Creating Custom DNS Records ................................................................................................... 41
Preface 4
Web Site Creation and Publishing 44
Parallels SiteStudio...................................................................................................................... 44
Parallels Plesk Sitebuilder ........................................................................................................... 45
Web Site Navigation 47
Redirect URL ............................................................................................................................... 48
Directory Indexes ......................................................................................................................... 51
Error Pages .................................................................................................................................. 52
Server Side Image Map ............................................................................................................... 54
MIME Types ................................................................................................................................. 54
WAP Support ............................................................................................................................... 55
Reverse Traceroute ..................................................................................................................... 55
FTP Management 57
WebShell File Manager and htProtect ......................................................................................... 59
FTP Subaccounts ........................................................................................................................ 59
Virtual FTP ................................................................................................................................... 60
Anonymous FTP .......................................................................................................................... 63
Anonymous FTP Upload Facilities .............................................................................................. 65
SSH Access to Server 66
Accessing Your SSH Account ..................................................................................................... 67
Running Shell Scripts With Crontab ............................................................................................ 68
Dynamic Web Content 69
CGI Scripts .................................................................................................................................. 69
PHP.............................................................................................................................................. 70
ColdFusion ................................................................................................................................... 71
Ruby on Rails .............................................................................................................................. 71
ASP .............................................................................................................................................. 72
ASP.NET ..................................................................................................................................... 72
Server Side Includes.................................................................................................................... 73
PHP/MySQL Applications ............................................................................................................ 74
Preinstalled CGI Scripts: phpBB and mnoGoSearch .................................................................. 75
phpBB Forum .................................................................................................................... 75
mnoGoSearch ................................................................................................................... 76
Fixing Broken Scripts ........................................................................................................ 77
Mail Resources 78
Mailboxes ..................................................................................................................................... 81
Mailbox Storage Quota ...................................................................................................... 82
Signing into a Mailbox ....................................................................................................... 83
Postmaster and Webmaster .............................................................................................. 83
Mail Forwards .............................................................................................................................. 84
Autoresponders ........................................................................................................................... 85
Removing Autoresponder .................................................................................................. 87
Mailing Lists ................................................................................................................................. 87
Managing Your Mail List Subscribers ................................................................................ 89
Sending Messages to Mailing List Subscribers ................................................................. 90
Managing Your Mailing List Moderators ............................................................................ 90
Preface 5
Adding Mailing List Trailer ................................................................................................. 91
Configuring Mailing Lists ................................................................................................... 93
Maildomain Aliases ...................................................................................................................... 96
Removing Mail Domain Aliases ......................................................................................... 98
Mailbox Aliases ............................................................................................................................ 99
Creating Mail Aliases ......................................................................................................... 99
Unassigning Mailbox Alias from Mailbox ......................................................................... 100
Removing Mailbox Aliases .............................................................................................. 100
Mail SMS ................................................................................................................................... 101
Mail Under Service Domain For Third-Level Hosting ................................................................ 103
Managing Mail Under Account With Third-Level Domain ............................................... 104
Managing Mail Under Service Account ........................................................................... 105
AntiSpam Protection .................................................................................................................. 106
Managing Antispam for the Entire Account ..................................................................... 106
Managing Antispam on the Mail Domain Level ............................................................... 107
Managing Greylisting Settings ......................................................................................... 108
Managing Mail Domain Keys ........................................................................................... 109
Configuring Antispam Protection for Mail Resource ....................................................... 109
AntiVirus Protection ................................................................................................................... 112
Managing Antivirus for the Entire Account ...................................................................... 112
Managing Antivirus on the Mail Domain Level ................................................................ 113
Configuring Antivirus Protection for a Mail Resource...................................................... 113
E-Mail Forgery SPF ................................................................................................................... 115
Enabling SPF................................................................................................................... 116
Disabling SPF .................................................................................................................. 117
Outlook Express Mail ................................................................................................................. 117
Configuring Outlook Express With POP Before SMTP ................................................... 118
Configuring Outlook Express With SMTP Auth Relay..................................................... 124
Eudora Mail Client ..................................................................................................................... 126
Web Site Statistics 131
Enabling Stats Logging .............................................................................................................. 132
Viewing Raw Logs ..................................................................................................................... 133
Running Third-Party Log Analyzers ........................................................................................... 133
Urchin .............................................................................................................................. 133
AWStats ........................................................................................................................... 134
Webalizer ......................................................................................................................... 134
ModLogAn ....................................................................................................................... 134
Protecting Statistics ................................................................................................................... 135
Promoting Your Site With Kanoodle .......................................................................................... 136
Traffic 137
Summary Traffic ........................................................................................................................ 137
Traffic Cycle ............................................................................................................................... 138
Traffic Limit ................................................................................................................................ 138
Disk Space 140
Summary Disk Usage ................................................................................................................ 140
Disk Space Billing ...................................................................................................................... 141
Individual Resource Quotas ...................................................................................................... 142
User Billing 143
Types of Payment ...................................................................................................................... 143
Billing Profile .............................................................................................................................. 144
Preface 6
Becoming a Payable User ......................................................................................................... 145
Paying With Web Based Payment Systems .............................................................................. 146
PayPal Subscription ........................................................................................................ 147
Automatic E-mail Invoicing ........................................................................................................ 148
Billing Period and Billing Month ................................................................................................. 149
Online Prices ............................................................................................................................. 150
Plan Fees ........................................................................................................................ 150
Resource Prices .............................................................................................................. 150
Refunds ..................................................................................................................................... 151
Refunds on Deleting Prepaid Billing Period Resources .................................................. 153
Refunds on Changing Hosting Plan ................................................................................ 153
Refunds on Changing Account's Billing Period ............................................................... 153
Refunds on Reducing Quotas and Limits ........................................................................ 154
Getting Money Back ........................................................................................................ 154
Billing History ............................................................................................................................. 155
Extra Packages .......................................................................................................................... 157
Online Store 160
Miva Merchant and osCommerce .............................................................................................. 161
Setting Up Miva Merchant ......................................................................................................... 163
Setting Up osCommerce ........................................................................................................... 163
Updating osCommerce to 2.2-MS2 ........................................................................................... 165
Data Transfer Security 166
Using Existing Key and Certificate ............................................................................................ 167
Creating Temporary Certificate ................................................................................................. 168
Acquiring a Permanent Certificate ............................................................................................. 170
Using Shared SSL ..................................................................................................................... 171
Renewing Permanent Certificates ............................................................................................. 172
Managing Comodo SSL Certificates ......................................................................................... 173
Database Hosting 177
MySQL Databases ..................................................................................................................... 177
Creating MySQL Database and Its Users ....................................................................... 178
Choosing Password Hash Length ................................................................................... 179
Editing MySQL Databases with phpMyAdmin ................................................................. 181
Changing MySQL Disk Quota ......................................................................................... 182
Adding MySQL Users And Granting Them Privileges..................................................... 183
Changing User Passwords .............................................................................................. 184
PostgreSQL Databases ............................................................................................................. 185
Creating PostgreSQL Users ............................................................................................ 186
Deleting Users And Changing Their Passwords ............................................................. 187
Creating PostgreSQL Databases .................................................................................... 188
Editing PostgreSQL Databases and User Privileges with phpPgAdmin ......................... 189
Changing PostgreSQL Disk Quota.................................................................................. 190
Microsoft SQL Databases .......................................................................................................... 191
Creating Microsoft SQL Logins ....................................................................................... 191
Creating Microsoft SQL Databases ................................................................................. 192
Adding New Microsoft SQL Database Users .................................................................. 193
Changing Microsoft SQL Database Quota ...................................................................... 194
Managing Microsoft SQL Databases............................................................................... 195
ODBC DSN Records ................................................................................................................. 195
Creating New DSN Record ............................................................................................. 196
Editing DSN Records ...................................................................................................... 197
Preface 7
Virtual Private Servers 198
Checking VPS Status ................................................................................................................ 198
Adding Custom DNS Records for VPS ...................................................................................... 199
Changing VPS Root Password .................................................................................................. 199
Adding VPS IP ........................................................................................................................... 200
Changing VPS Limits ................................................................................................................. 200
Looking Up VPS System Information ........................................................................................ 201
Adding VPS Templates ............................................................................................................. 202
Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 204
Starting and Stopping Your Virtuozzo Container ....................................................................... 205
Changing Virtuozzo Container Administrative Password .......................................................... 205
Adding New IPs Allocated for Virtuozzo Container ................................................................... 206
Viewing Available Application Templates to Virtuozzo Container ............................................. 206
Changing Virtuozzo Plans ......................................................................................................... 206
Dedicated Servers 208
Adding Dedicated Servers ......................................................................................................... 209
Managing Dedicated Servers .................................................................................................... 209
Viewing Dedicated Server Info ........................................................................................ 210
Requesting Dedicated Server Upgrade .......................................................................... 210
Adding Extra IPs to a Dedicated Server .......................................................................... 210
Creating Reverse DNS Records for Dedicated Server IPs ............................................. 211
Setting Up Dedicated Server Backup Service ................................................................. 211
Requesting Dedicated Server Remote Reboot ............................................................... 212
Cancelling Dedicated Servers ......................................................................................... 212
Microsoft Exchange Hosting 213
Managing Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes ................................................................................. 214
Managing Microsoft Exchange SMTP domains ........................................................................ 215
Adding MX DNS Records for Microsoft Exchange SMTP Domains .......................................... 216
Managing Microsoft Exchange Distribution lists ........................................................................ 216
Microsoft SharePoint Hosting 218
Enabling Microsoft SharePoint Services on a Domain .............................................................. 218
Editing Microsoft SharePoint Settings ....................................................................................... 220
Managing Microsoft SharePoint Users ...................................................................................... 221
Creating New Microsoft SharePoint Users from Scratch ................................................ 221
Enabling Microsoft SharePoint Access for an Existing FTP Subuser ............................. 223
Deleting Microsoft SharePoint Users .............................................................................. 223
Application Pools 224
Adding Dedicated Application Pools .......................................................................................... 225
Assigning Web Applications ...................................................................................................... 225
Adding Web Directories ............................................................................................................. 227
Technical Support 228
Sending Trouble Tickets ............................................................................................................ 229
Preface 8
Following Up Trouble Tickets .................................................................................................... 231
Closing Trouble Tickets ............................................................................................................. 232
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 .............................................................................. 12
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 59), 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.
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 60).
User Account 13
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 ........................................................................................ 19
Configuring Control Panel Skins ....................................................................... 20
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 149).
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 137).
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.
20 Control Panel Basics
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 140).
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.
Control Panel Basics 21
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 .................................................................................. 25
Creating Third Level Domains ........................................................................... 25
Hosting Sites Without Domain Names ............................................................... 26
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 field 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.
Domain Registration 25
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.
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.
26 Domain Registration
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:
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:
30 Domain Configuration
4. If prompted, confirm the change by clicking "Yes, I agree with the
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
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.
Configuring Domain Aliasing
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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