Servers for the Information Age

The never-ending need for File Servers in the modern world

Handling the ‘Data on Demand’ needs of a New Generation!
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You might be trying to decide whether you want to host your website yourself rather than pay a hosting company. Maybe you just want to learn how it is done, or you want to save some money by doing it yourself. In this article I’ll discuss the most important part of hosting your website from home, the web server.

The word “server” sounds scary and because of this many people think only a professional hosting company can host a website. This is not true. A server is nothing more than software that runs in the background listening to requests from “clients.” The client in our case is an internet browser, like Internet Explorer.

How do you get a web server? Most Windows operating sytems come with a web server that just needs to be installed. There are also web servers than can be downloaded for free, like Apache. I’m not going to go over how to do this. In this article I’ll discuss the concepts and what’s needed to get your web server up and running and serving your site to the public after it’s been installed. Every web server is different but the concepts are the same. By going over the general concepts that are true for any web server, you’ll know what to look for regardless of the software you are using.

Like I mentioned before, a server is just software that runs in the background. A web server is a server that listens to requests from internet browsers for a specific page, finds that page in the computer it is running on and then sends it to the browser that requested it. Keeping this in mind, can you believe there are actually just two things you need to do to have your web server configured?

1) Tell your web server where to find your web site. Your website probably consists of multiple pages. You need to tell the web server the path of the folder where you keep your pages. For example, when someone types www.yourdomain.com/main.html, the server will look in the folder where all your pages live, and look for file main.html.

2) Tell your web server about your default page. This is the page that is displayed when someone types www.yourdomain.com in their browser without specifying a page. The web server already has some default page names like “index.html” so if you have a page with this name it will be displayed by default when no document is specified in the request. You may also add some more default file names to your web server. If you don’t want to name your file “index.html” you can tell your web server that your default page’s name is “mainpage.htm.”

This is basically all there is to configuring your web server. Although web servers have a lot of other features and settings, these are the two basic steps that will allow your web server to start serving your website. Of course, there is more to hosting your website from home, like getting a domain name, dealing with your router, but these topics are beyond the scope of this article.

I hope I’ve convinced you of how easy it is to set up a web server, which happens to be the most important step to hosting your website from home.

About the Author: For more information on setting up a web server and hosting your website from home please visit http://www.webhostingsteps.com

Source: www.isnare.com

The never-ending need for File Servers in the modern world

Handling the ‘Data on Demand’ needs of a New Generation!
-

Without a doubt, being able to market through email plays a critical role in how successful you will be on the internet. So, choosing the right listserver to power it will be one of your most important decisions.

So, which one to choose?

There are many worth consideration, so here is a list of ‘filter’ questions that will help you make your decision. Remember, no listserver has ALL of these features - prioritize their importance based on your business:

*Do You Want Your Listserver Located In Your Desktop, Or Hosted By A Third Party?

A Desktop Listserver (as the name implies) is installed in your own desktop computer. ASP (Application Service Provider) programs are hosted on a separate server.

ASP enables a quicker distribution of email, since outside servers typically have access to faster internet connections. However, if you choose to use a desktop listserver, ask whether it distributes emails using multi-threaded internet connections (instead of sending out emails sequentially, one by one, does it search out different ‘threads’ and distribute multiple emails simultaneously, through your internet connection)?

*Does the Listserver Support Both Text and HTML Messages?

Most emails are sent in simple ‘text’ format, though sending graphics, banners, etc., through HTML, is becoming more popular. Consider your current and future needs; many listservers offer both options.

*Does The System Support Multiple Languages?

Group Mail, for example, currently supports 30 international character sets. Remember, the internet is a GLOBAL medium.

*Does It Have An Autoresponder Function For Automated Follow-up?

*Does The Listserver Offer An Automated Subscription and Removal Support for Newsletters?

At the bottom of newsletter messages, there MUST be a way for the recipient to unsubscribe, if they wish.

*Can Your Listserver Process and Remove ‘Bounces’ (Returned Emails)?

*Can New Prospects Be Added To An Opt-in List Automatically?

[NOTE: Make sure these last three functions can be applied to multiple mailing lists, email accounts and newsletters, if you have more than one site. ]

*Does The Listserver Protect The Privacy Of Your Customer Data?

Unfortunately, there are some programs out there that expose client details. Make sure yours keeps your list detail confidential.

*Does The Listserver Limit the Size of Your List?

Some ASP services have a built-in ceiling of around 10,000 names/email addresses per account (if you have multiple lists, all names are included in this total). Many offer expansion options, at additional cost. Again, ask.

*Does Your Listserver Allow You To Do A Personalized/Customized Email Merge?

Some allow you to isolate the first name for salutations, others personalize using both first and last.

*Does The Listserver Offer Ways To Filter Your Mailings?

Can you filter your list to send messages, for example, to only those in a certain state or region?

*Can You Easily Import And Export Your Database?

Does the listserver have restrictions in the way an exterior database can be imported? This is important especially for an offline business coming online, that may have an existing, computerized customer list. Some are more flexible than others.

*Can You Easily Monitor The Status Of Your List?

Can you monitor list size? Daily sign-ups? Determine the number of recently unsubscribed? Determine the status of an email broadcast?

Here are a few services to start your research - click on the provided links to go to their sites and learn more:

Desktop’s:

Corey Rudl’s Mailloop
http://www.marketingtips.com/mailloop .x/655541/

Infacta’s GroupMail Plus
http://www.shareasale.com/r.cfm?B=3937&U=50182&M=1465

MessageMedia MailKing
http://www.mailking.com

Gammadyne Mailer
http://www.gammadyne.com/mmail

ASP’s:

AWeber (also has an autoresponder system)
http://www.aweber.com/?67609

Autopilot Riches (also has an autoresponder system)
http://www.autopilotriches.com/app/default.asp?pr=7&id=27041

SparkList’s adaption of Lyris
http://www.sparklist.com

MessageMedia’s UnityMail
http://www.unitymail.com

Email Factory
http://www.emailfactory.com

About the Author

Paula Morrow is president of http://www.idealmarketingcorp.com. She specializes in public relations, information marketing and creating cashflow systems, plus coaches new webpreneurs on innovative ways to promote online. Her newsletter, IDEALProfits, is read in over 12 countries. Subscribe, and receive the co-brandable ‘How To Start Your Own Traffic Virus’ and 4 other ebooks FREE. http://www.idealmarketingcorp.com/subscribe.html

The never-ending need for File Servers in the modern world

Handling the ‘Data on Demand’ needs of a New Generation!
-
Well this “guide” if you like, doesn’t really have a purpose, it both shows you how to setup a basic irc box (just installing

oidentd), its mainly targeted towards installing cPanel on freeBSD.

I used freeBSD 5.4-RELEASE so you might not encounter problems I did.

firstly login to your server and we will just install cpanel straight away.

——————————————————————————–
mkdir /home/cpins
cd /home/cpins
wget http://layer1.cpanel.net/latest
sh latest
——————————————————————————–

This will take awhile so go grab a coffee. This will install everything for cPanel.

Once this is complete, go to WHM

http://yourip/whm

and login with username root and your root password. Now you will be prompted with the WHM setup screen. This is really

simple, just follow the onscreen instructions to setup whm. This will setup your server hostname,resolvers,nameservers and

so on.

Once this is done, you have done it. You have installed cPanel, but don’t get your hopes up just yet. No doubt there will

be bugs, you are best to search google but I will go over what ones I encounter. If I do that is.

So straight off I am going to go test the account creation, go to Create A New Account in WHM, and input any domain you

want, for my example I just put google.com. After I hit created it created the account but returned a bind error. So we

have to fix this first.

I ran

——————————————————————————–/scripts/fixnamed
/scripts/fixndc
——————————————————————————–

Which returned

——————————————————————————–Found key in named.conf ..
Found controls in named.conf ..
Found key in named.conf ..
Adding key…
Adding controls…
Restarting bind…..Waiting for named to restart…………..finished.

named has failed, please contact the sysadmin (result was “named is not running”).
Jun 7 14:03:26 serv named[52645]: starting BIND 9.3.1 -u bind -c /etc/namedb/named.conf
Jun 7 14:03:26 serv named[52645]: could not configure root hints from ‘/var/named/named.root’: file not

found
Jun 7 14:03:26 serv named[52645]: loading configuration: file not found
Jun 7 14:03:26 serv named[52645]: exiting (due to fatal error)
Done
All fixed
——————————————————————————–

So I just created the /var/named/named.root file manually by using the touch command then I re-ran /scripts/fixndc this done

the job.

——————————————————————————–serv# touch /var/named/named.root
serv# /scripts/fixndc
Found key in named.conf ..
Found controls in named.conf ..
Found key in named.conf ..
Adding key…
Adding controls…
Restarting bind…..Waiting for named to restart…………..finished.

bind 53378 0.0 0.7 5240 3744 ?? Ss 2:09PM 0:00.04 /usr/sbin/named -u bind -c /etc/namedb/named.conf

named started ok
Jun 7 14:09:18 serv named[53378]: starting BIND 9.3.1 -u bind -c /etc/namedb/named.conf
Jun 7 14:09:18 serv named[53378]: command channel listening on 127.0.0.1#953
Jun 7 14:09:18 serv named[53378]: zone 0.0.127.IN-ADDR.ARPA/IN: loading master file

/var/named/localhost.rev: file not found
Jun 7 14:09:18 serv named[53378]: zone

1.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.IP6.ARPA/IN: loading master file

/var/named/localhost-v6.rev: file not found
Jun 7 14:09:18 serv named[53378]: zone

1.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.IP6.INT/IN: loading master file

/var/named/localhost-v6.rev: file not found
Jun 7 14:09:18 serv named[53378]: running
Done
All fixed
——————————————————————————–

—

Now go back and terminate the test account and recreate it.

This time it created successfully.

——————————————————————————–Keeping Shell Access (y)
Copying skel files from /root/cpanel3-skel/ to /usr/home/google/
Using Freebsd Copy
/root/cpanel3-skel/public_html -> /usr/home/google/public_html
/root/cpanel3-skel/public_ftp -> /usr/home/google/public_ftp
Using redhat 6.x/freebsd support
Name Virtual Host already exists
Added Entries to httpd.conf (noip)
Bind reconfiguring on serv using rndc
Added Named File
Using Frontpage 5.x!

Starting install, port: 80.

Creating web http://www.google.com.
Chowning Content in service /.
Install completed.

Starting chown, port: 80, web: “/”.

DocumentRoot: “/usr/home/google/public_html”
Setting Password
Frontpage passthough auth enabled!
Restarting apache
Ftp Password Files synced
Vhost Passwords synced
wwwacct creation finished
Account Creation Complete!!!
——————————————————————————–

Now we know account creation works, we can go on with setting up the server.

Well what I done was first configure SSHD. Please remember this is just how to setup the server as a basic server on freeBSD,

to really secure it you should read a freeBSD security guide.

Since im more of a pico guy, dont ask I have to install that first.

/>

Lets install it with

——————————————————————————–
cd /usr/ports/editors/pico && make && make install
——————————————————————————–

even when i typed pico i got command not found so you have to type rehash

anyway lets continue, edit sshd config and add the following

——————————————————————————–
pico /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Port 22
Protocol 2
SyslogFacility AUTH
LogLevel INFO
——————————————————————————–

–

Of course that is not all, but you get the idea, disable direct root login, forwarding, and so on.

Now its time to install oidentd, this is to use an ident on irc servers.

——————————————————————————–
mkdir /root/scott
cd /root/scott
wget

target=”_blank”>http://umn.dl.sourceforge.net/sourc…td-2.0.7.tar.gz
tar -zxvf oidentd-2.0.7.tar.gz
rm -rf oidentd-2.0.7.tar.gz
cd oidentd-2.0.7
./configure
make
make install
——————————————————————————–

Now create a user for oidentd and disable shell access.

adduser

then go threw the settings.

for shell make sure you set nologin

Shell (sh csh tcsh bash bash jailshell noshell ftpsh nologin) [sh]: nologin

Make sure you set a secure password, ie zUaxe^xXalvYtBPlTo]ZP]iayFIsq

–

Now create the config

——————————————————————————–pico /etc/oidentd.conf——————————————————————————–

/>

and put

——————————————————————————–# Configuration for oidentd
# see oidentd.conf(5)
#
default {
default {
allow spoof
allow spoof_all
allow spoof_privport
allow random
allow random_numeric
allow numeric
allow hide
}
}
——————————————————————————–

in it.

Now just start oidentd, please note you will have to change the config to sure yourself, such as spoofing.

——————————————————————————–
/usr/local/sbin/oidentd -u oidentd -g oidentd
——————————————————————————–

Oidentd should now be installed. All you have to do now is add users and set what shell access they have. I personally set

bash for each but I set permissions so they cannot access things they should not.

IE

chmod -R 770 /home/*

Then set permissions on binaries, and so on. Personally, I made a quick wget script, so maybe you can impliment it too.

First lets move the old binary to a random name, i choose ekigrowbwo

——————————————————————————–cd /usr/local/bin
mv wget ekigrowbwo
pico /usr/local/bin/wget
——————————————————————————–

and put this in it.

——————————————————————————–
#!/bin/bash
ME=`whoami`
TIME=`date`
DIR=`pwd`
echo “$TIME - $ME - $1 - >> $DIR” >> /usr/local/bin/wget.log
/usr/local/bin/ekigrowbwo $1
——————————————————————————–

you better create the wget.log

——————————————————————————–
touch /usr/local/bin/wget.log
——————————————————————————–

It will then log in the format,

time - user - what they downloaded - >> where it was saved.

Just repeat that process for fetch and so on, so it logs them all.

Well that is pretty much the server setup. This isn’t really a main guide, it shows you how to setup cpanel on freebsd,

setup a basic irc server, although you still have a bit to do. It should get you on your way though.

————————————–

UPDATE

I had problems with mysql, mainly the mysql server, I fixed this by using.

——————————————————————————–
cd /usr/ports/databases/mysql40-server && make && make install
/scripts/fixmysql
——————————————————————————–

Any other bugs feel free to reply, I will post as I find them. other than that, so far cPanel seems to be working well, even

though I dont recommend using it for an irc server.

About the Author

www.HostGeekZ.com - cPanel Tutorials , security guides, webhosting made easy. Latest WebHosting News, webhosting forums.