About Zipcon Web Hosting
| Home | Web Hosting | Help |
Logging in and Publishing
The main page of your web site is a file named index.htm or
index.html. This file should be put in the 'web' folder. The HTML
in this file is displayed if someone goes to www.yourname.com. Without
a file with this name in the web folder, you will receive the message:
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Until you upload a file named index.htm or index.html to the server, you
will receive this error message.
To add to, modify, or delete contents of your web site, please use FTP.
When using ftp, go to ftp.yourdomain.com and use the login and password
for your web server account. If you do not have your login/password,
please contact the
Webmaster right away.
For instance, if you have the domain www.toys.com, with a login of 'toys'
and password of '12T0Yz21' you would tell your ftp program to go to
ftp.toys.com, login as 'toys' with password '12T0Yz21'.
Once you are logged in to the server, be sure to go into the web
folder before publishing your site. Many FTP programs allow you
to specify the folder or "path" to use beforehand. Please be sure to
specify web there.
Here are nice FTP programs for various platforms:
Mac fetch,
Win3.1 cuteftp and
Win95 cuteftp.
You can also use Netscape by typing the following into the URL section
ftp://YOURLOGIN@ftp.yourdomain.com
Please replace YOURLOGIN with your Zipcon account's web server login
name. Once you are logged in, click on the web folder. You can
then drag and drop files to the server.
To do this with Internet Explorer, you must include the password also,
like this: ftp://YOURLOGIN:PASSWORD@ftp.yourdomain.com.
FTP logins to the web server must not be done anonymously. You will
have to specify the login name and password for your web account.
If you are using Frontpage, you will not have to specify the web
folder. Frontpage will automatically start within the web folder.
If you have a dial-up account at Zipcon, please do not confuse
this account with your web server account, they are separate. The
public_html directory in your dial-up account's home directory is
an entirely separate web site accessible by using
http://www.zipcon.net/~dial-up_account_login_name
Using CuteFTP
If you are using CuteFTP,
please follow these instructions:
Site Lable: your_domain.com
Host Address: your_domain.com
(be sure to use your own domain name, NOT ftp.zipcon.net)
User ID: your_login
Password: your_password
Initial Remote Directory: /web
Login type: Normal
Transfer type: Auto-Detect
The entry you created should now show up on the right side of the CuteFTP
FTP Site Manager window. Double click on the entry to connect.
You may not navigate around your hard drive on the left side of
the screen. Once you find your files, you can drag them from
the left side of the window to the right side and they will be uploaded.
If the files are uploaded and are in upper case, your HTML code
must also reference them in uppercase. We recommend using lowercase
for all filenames and their references within your HTML files.
Paying for Your Account
You can pay by check or money order, or by credit card. Please
send check or money order to:
Zipcon
PMB 122
6910 Roosevelt Way NE
Seattle, WA 98115
or pay online with a credit card at
http://www.zipcon.net/pay/.
Zipcon Web Servers
The Zipcon web servers are UNIX and Windows server based machines. This choice
has been made for security, flexibility, and performance. The web
server software is Apache on
UNIX servers and IIS on Windows servers.
Frontpage Support
Frontpage support is available upon request. The Frontpage servers
also have access to secure services. If you are using Frontpage to
publish your web site, you do not need to publish your files into a
web folder, that is only if you are using FTP to login to the
site.
Frontpage Secure Forms
Frontpage does not properly handle froms when called from the
Zipcon secure servers. Here are the steps to make forms work.
Right mouse click in the form area and select Form properties.
Select Send to others and in the pull-down box, then choose
Custom ISAPI, NSAPI, CGI, or ASP Script.
Click the Options... button.
Action: /cgi-bin/zipform.pl
Method: POST
Click OK
Click the Advanced... button.
Click OK
We will add some entries to the "Hidden fields" box.
Click OK
Click Add... button.
Name: recipient
Click Add... button.
Value: orders@YOUR-DOMAIN-NAME.com
Click OK
Name: redirect
Click Add... button.
Value: /~YOUR-ACCOUNT-NAME/some-web-page.htm
Click OK
Name: subject
Value: Web Form Submission
Click OK
Streaming Audio and Video
You can easily set up streaming audio and video to your site by doing
the following.
rtsp://www.yourcompany.com/soundfile.ra
<A HREF="http://www.yourcompany.com/sound.ram">
Play Sound
</a>
Secure Services
Secure services are available upon request, at no additional cost.
All secure services are done though a Zipcon certified secure
server. Zipcon offers all business web customers free access to our
existing secure web servers.
If you wish to purchase your own certificate, we will help with the
process (request the certificate) and install it. Certificates are
usually purchased from
Thawte or Verisign. By
purchasing your own certificate you can use your full domain name as
the secure server rather than using secure.zipcon.net.
If you purchase and we install your own certificate, you will be
able to access all files at your domain by using your normal domain
name, but you must use the 'https://' prefix, rather than just
'http://'
If you request secure services using the Zipcon secure servers, you
will find a 'secure' directory (this name may be different if you
are using the shopping cart) on the web server and will be given the
name of the appropriate secure server to use. Please put any
documents you wish to be accessed via the secure server into this
directory. You may also create a cgi-bin subdirectory within the
'secure' directory to run CGI. To call secure services, please use
the following format:
https://secure.zipcon.net/~YOURLOGIN/filename.html or
https://secure.zipcon.net/~YOURLOGIN/cgi-bin/scriptname.pl
Or if your secure server is named 'secure3.zipcon.net':
https://secure3.zipcon.net/~YOURLOGIN/filename.html or
https://secure3.zipcon.net/~YOURLOGIN/cgi-bin/scriptname.pl
Please replace YOURLOGIN with your web server login name. Note that
you use https://, not just http:// to invoke secure services.
Here is information on retrieving your email over
an encrypted connection.
Commerce Solutions
Zipcon uses
Verisign for
online real-time ecommerce. Verisign has a process customers that wish
to use them must go though to set up the automatic credit card processing.
First, your company should have its own merchant account through a financial
institution that will work with Verisign. Verisign will then use this
financial institution for clearing the credit card orders.
Verisign fees to add its services to a web site.
Verisign approved financial institutions.
Contact Verisign with questions
about their services.
Verisign does not have to be used for online sales. Our
free shopping cart can be used, where orders are processed on our secure
server and delivered to a mailbox. Orders can then be retrieved from our
server over SSL. The entire transaction is encrypted for security. Then
finish the financial transaction manually by entering the credit
card information into your merchant account software. The advantage of
doing it this way is you don't incur extra fees from Verisign.
Plain HTML forms can also be used instead of a shopping cart. Web site
visitors will then fill out an online form that emails the details to a
mailbox. If the form is to include credit card data, be sure to use
our secure server, available free with all business hosting accounts.
Please contact Zipcon for further
information.
Shopping Cart Setup
Selecting and configuring a shopping cart can be a difficult process.
Zipcon offers a simple shopping cart that allows you to design your
web site, then add the cart functionality to it afterwards. Adding the
cart to your site is fairly easy. First design the site with the layout
you'd like to have. In the design leave space near each item you'd like
visitors to view for a quantity box and a "Add to cart" button. The
box and button will look like this:
If you click the button, an error will come up.
Because the shopping cart requires a little HTML editing, it does not
automatically integrate with Frontpage. It can still be used if you
are using Frontpage to design your site, but will require some manual
HTML tinkering. Zipcon can sent you instructions on how to use the
cart with Frontpage.
For further information, please contact
Zipcon support.
About CGI
There is subdirectory (sometimes referred to as a folder) named cgi-bin
in your main web site directory on the web server. Please put your CGI
scripts into this directory. If you want to use CGI outside of this
directory, please use a .cgi filename extension. The server is UNIX based
and supports perl5.
The filesystem path to your web site files is /home/FIRSTLETTER/YOURLOGIN/web.
Where FIRSTLETTER is the first letter of your login name. For instance if
your login name was test, it would be /home/t/test/web. If you login name was
foobar, it would be /home/f/foobar/web. You may need to specify this in some
perl scripts that open and change files.
CGI scripts should be edited and saved without carriage returns (only
line feeds) at the end of each line. Scripts with a carriage return and
line feed (the default for MS-DOS), will not work properly. Notepad, by
default will not save scripts correctly, please use something like Write
or Wordpad and save as a text document (not in MSDOS format).
Permission settings on CGI scripts is also important. Please be sure to
change the mode of your script files so that they are executable. The
correct UNIX permissions are '755' for CGI scripts. If you don't change
the mode to make CGI executable, they will not run. All CGI scripts
will run with your web server login id, you do not have to make files
world writable.
Password Protecting Files
The web server software has built in support for password
protection of files and directories. Here is the Apache web server
documentation.
For the simplest protection all you have to do is put a file named
.htaccess in the directory of the file you wish to protect. Then the
contents of that file would be something like:
<files filename-to-protect.ext>
AuthUserFile /home/FIRSTLETTER/YOURLOGIN/web/.htpasswd
AuthName access
AuthType Basic
require valid-user
</files>
(Replace FIRSTLETTER with the first letter of you login name, replace
YOURLOGIN with your login name, for instance /home/j/john).
Now you create a file named '.htpasswd' on the web server. You can create
this file by telneting into your domain name (www.YOURDOMAIN.com), then
dropping to the UNIX shell and typing:
htpasswd -c .htpasswd USERNAME
Adding password for protect.
New password:
Re-type new password:
This will create a '.htpasswd' file with the login name LOGIN-NAME and
whatever password you enter at the password prompts. Replace the word
USERNAME with whatever you wish to be the requested username.
Now to add more usernames and passwords, so just run:
htpasswd .htpasswd USERNAME
Adding password for protect.
New password:
Re-type new password:
Notice the difference, the -c option is not used if the .htpasswd
file already exists.
To protect an entire directory (folder), just remove the <files ...>
lines in the .htaccess file. For instance if you had a directory
named protected, you would put this .htaccess file in that
directory:
AuthUserFile /home/FIRSTLETTER/YOURLOGIN/web/protected/.htpasswd
AuthName access
AuthType Basic
require valid-user
Then put the .htpasswd file in the protected directory.
Changing Your Web Account Password
To change your account's password, please telnet to your domain name.
Login with your FTP login and password and you will be presented with a
menu. One of the menu items is to change your password. Please note that
changing this password may not affect your POP email account password.
They are not the same login and password. It also does not have an
affect on any Frontpage login/password or any dial-up account you may have
with Zipcon.
If you have a dial-up account with Zipcon, that password
can be changed here.
Frontpage passwords can only be changed from within Frontpage.
Fix Email Problems
Please be sure to use your domain name for your incoming POP and
outgoing SMTP servers in your email software. If you email address
is abc@mycompany.com, then your domain names mycompany.com and mail
servers are mail.mycompany.com .
When setting up the email account name/username, please be sure it
is all lowercase.
Here is a step-by-step guide to setting
up several email programs. Please be sure to replace
your-domain-name.com with your real domain name in this document.
If you are using another company to connect to the Internet, you may
have trouble sending email. It is usually best to use the SMTP server
of the company you connect through. Please consult your Internet Service
Provider for their SMTP server setting.
Popular SMTP Servers:
Comcast Cable: smtp.comcast.net
Earthlink: smtp.earthlink.net
Some providers will not allow you to send email using your domain name,
or will block all SMTP servers but their own. For instance MSN does
not allow using any SMTP server except their own. They also will not
allow you to use a non @msn.com email address.
When sending mail, if you get an error message:
sorry, that domain isn't in my list of allowed rcpthosts
OR
sorry, that domain isn't allowed to be relayed thru this MTA
please try closing the error and sending your message again.
The reason for the error message when sending email is that you are
using a Zipcon mail server from a connection outside of the Zipcon network.
The Zipcon mail servers are set up so that people from outside our
networks cannot send email unless they first check their email.
Sometimes Outlook, Thunderbird or other email clients will
try to send email first, before checking for new email. When this happens
the Zipcon mail servers don't know who you are, and will reject the
connection with the sorry, that domain isn't in my list of allowed
rcpthosts or sorry, that domain isn't allowed to be relayed thru
this MTA. By closing the error message and trying to re-send your
message, your email software will check your mailbox and let the Zipcon
servers know it okay to allow your connection.
This precaution is necessary to stop spammers from abusing the
Zipcon mail servers.
The best fix is usually to set your outgoing SMTP server to that of the
ISP you connect through. Some ISPs will completely block all other
SMTP mail servers. In those cases, you must use your ISP's outgoing
SMTP server or you cannot send email. If you do not know the correct
outgoing SMTP mail server setting, please contact your ISP.
Popular SMTP Servers:
Comcast Cable: smtp.comcast.net
Earthlink: smtp.earthlink.net
Webpage Design
Affordable webpage design is available. If you want stunning original
graphics, advanced CGI, Java, and a professionally laid out page, please
contact the Webmasters or
call 206-524-0612.
Web Site Statistics
Daily stats are available in the file 'daystats.html' on your site.
Your weekly site statistics are available every Sunday. Simply go to
your URL followed by /webstats.html (http://www.yourcompany.com/webstats.html)
Custom Missing URL Page
Your web site is set up to show the file 404.shtml as a custom message
for any missing URL (for instance, if someone typed in
http://www.yourdomain.com/asdf.html). Just create a custom 404.shtml file
and it will show up whenever someone tries to retrieve a page on your
web site that does not exist.
Email Features
Your web based interface to email is at
http://www.YOUR-DOMAIN-NAME.com/zipmail/ .
All mail to your domain can be
delivered to the real email accounts of your choice. This means
that you will never miss an email message that someone sends to your
domain name. Zipcon offers email addresses and aliases,
so you can specify exactly what names will go to what mailboxes at
your domain name or on the Internet. It can look something like this:
List of Aliases
techsup
forwards to
mark
sales
forwards to
12345.1234@compuserve.com
support
forwards to
mary
webmaster
forwards to
johnr
*
forwards to
jimz@zipcon.net
List of Mailboxes
mark
mary
johnr
When an incoming message arrives for your domain name, the mail software
will start at the top of the list and move down. With aliases, if it
finds a match on the left side, it goes to the mailbox on the right side.
With mailboxes, if it finds a match, it goes directly into that mailbox
on the server. If it doesn't find a match at all, it goes to *
alias, which is the last line in the alias list. Aliases forward mail
to other mailboxes that can be on the server or somewhere else on the
Internet. The List of mailboxes is a list of actual mailboxes on the
server, mailbox johnr would be email address johnr@yourdomain.com.
This means that any mail for techsup, sales, support and webmaster will go
to the mailbox on the right side of the alias list for that listing. Any
mail for john, mary, or johnr will go into the mailbox stored on the
server. Any other mail will get caught by the * alias, and go to
jimz@zipcon.net.
You never miss any message to any address at your domain name! You can
also set up automatic replies to messages, if you want info@yourdomain.com
to email reply a message immediately. If you remove the * alias, mail
that does not match one of your aliases or mailboxes will bounce.
Please read the section on
Modifying Mailboxes and Aliases.
Email Security
You may POP your email off the web server using an encrypted connection.
Just point your incoming/POP3 server to the secure server used for your
web site. Then turn on the MS Outlook Express setting under
Tools / Accounts / (double click the account) / Advanced:
This server requires a secure connection (SSL)
If you don't know which secure server you are using, please
email us and we will return the
information.
When using the secure server as your incoming POP3 mail server, please
be sure you to use your domain name as part of the incoming mail server
account name (also called POP username). For instance, if you used
mary as the account name or POP username and your domain is
abc.com, you would now use mary@abc.com as the account
name or POP username.
Please do not use the secure (SSL) setting for your outgoing SMTP server.
It will not work. Your outgoing SMTP server should be the mail server
assigned to you by your ISP. If you are using Zipcon for your dial-up
connection, it is mail.zipcon.net.
Using SSL is highly recommended if you are retrieving private information
like credit card numbers and having them deposited into your local mailbox.
Since the local mailbox is actually on the web server, the information
never has to leave the server in an unencrypted format.
Adding Real Email Accounts (mailboxes)
Real email accounts that can be popped from the server can be set up
by going to http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/zipmail/ and adding the account.
.
Requesting a new Web Hosting Account
Please fill out this form.
We will then contact you and do the preliminary set up, including
registration of your domain name. The domain and web hosting account will
generally be up and running in 24 hours. Before the domain is registered,
you may be able to access the page by using the IP address
(http://209.221.136.xx), this will not work correctly with Frontpage hosted
domains. Once the domain has completed registration, the process is complete.
Transfering an Existing Domain to Zipcon
Transferring a domain from another server to Zipcon is very easy.
First, please fill out this form.
We will then contact you and set up your web site. Once the site is set
up, you can transfer the contents of the current site to the Zipcon
web server. At that point we will have two duplicate copies of the
webpage, and can go ahead with the domain name transfer.
The domain transfer requires that one of the current contacts, as seen
at the whois server, respond to a
message from the Network Solutions with an
acknowledgement.
When we send off a message to the Network Solutions that your
domain will now be hosted at Zipcon, Network Solutions will send mail to the
administrative and technical contacts and wait for a response. Please
be sure that a positive response will be made from at least one of the
contacts for your domain name.
If your domain is registered with another registrar, such as Register.com
or Dotster.com, you should have a username and password that can be used
to change the DNS servers to Zipcon.
If you have any difficulties transfering the domain, it may be
necessary to directly contact the Network Solutions. To do so, please go
to
this link and fill out the necessary form. Please
contact us if you have any other
questions or problems.
Once the domain is transferred to our DNS servers, we are done!
The Zipcon Domain Name Servers for Your Domain Name (DNS)
The correct Zipcon DNS servers to use, if you are updating your
domain name yourself, are as follows:
Name: ns1.zipcon.net
IP Address: 209.221.136.14
Name: ns2.zipcon.net
IP Address: 209.221.136.15
Contacting Zipcon for technical support
To contact Zipcon for technical support please email
support@zipcon.net
or leave a secure online message at
https://secure.zipcon.net/message.html.