F.A.Q.'s
Server Administration
Q: Can
other Virtual Private Server clients view my server's files?
A: Absolutely not! The only one who can
access and view the files on your Virtual Private Server is you. Virtual Private
Servers that
reside on the same physical server are unable to view their virtual neighbors'
files.
Q: Can
I have multiple SSH accounts for the same Virtual Private Server?
A:
There is only one SSH (secure telnet) account per Virtual Private Server, which is to be
used by the Administrative user only.
Q: Do
I need to reboot my Virtual Private Server when changes are made to the
configuration files?
A: You should reboot your Virtual
Private Server
after you make changes to the configuration files.
The Apache Web server recognizes some changes to the configuration files.
After making changes run the command:
"apachectl restart"
from the SSH (secure telnet) prompt.
Q: How
do I change my SSH / Administrative FTP password?
A: To change your SSH and Administrative
FTP password, SSH to your server and type the following at the command prompt:
% vpasswd
You are prompted for a new password, which you must confirm by typing a second
time. For security purposes, the password will not display on the screen.
Q: How
can I delete my Virtual Private Server's log files?
A: To delete your log files, SSH to your
Virtual Private Server and enter the following command at the prompt:
% vnukelog -a
The vnukelog command erases your access, agent, referrer, error, and messages
logs from your server.
Be sure to use this command to erase your log files rather than simply deleting
the files, as deleting them may not completely remove all the log files from
your server.
Q: How
can I perform a tracer route from my Virtual Private Server?
A: To run a traceroute from your
Virtual Private Server, SSH to your Virtual Private Server and type the traceroute command, followed by
a domain name or IP address.
Example: Run a traceroute from your Virtual Private Server to netscape.com:
% traceroute www.netscape.com
Q: How
can I add a new MIME.TYPE to my Virtual Private Server?
A: You have full access to your mime.types
file, which is located in your www/conf directory.
To add a new MIME.TYPE to your Virtual Private Server, you must add a line to your
~/www/conf/mime.types file in the following format, where appname is the name of
the application and ext is the extension associated with that application:
application/appname ext
Example: Suppose you wish to serve Future Splash files, which have a .spl
extension, on your Virtual Private Server.
You would need to add the following line to your
~/www/conf/mime.types file:
application/futuresplash spl
To test whether your Virtual Private Server properly serves .spl files, you would need
to open your Web browser and try to load the FutureSplash applet. If you receive
garbled text in your browser, the MIME.TYPE is not configured correctly.
Q: How
can I add users to my Virtual Private Server?
A: To create additional users, SSH to your
Virtual Private Server and enter the following command at the prompt:
% vadduser
The vadduser command allows you to create the following for your users:
1) Email POP accounts
2) Email quotas
3) An FTP directory with username and password administrative rights
4) A Web directory off of your htdocs directory with username and password
administrative rights
Q: How
do I edit a user's settings?
A: To edit a user's settings after you have
added them to your Virtual Private Server with vadduser, Telnet to your Virtual
Private Server
and enter the following command at the prompt, where username is an actual user
on your Virtual Private Server:
% vedituser username
The vedituser command allows you to change all of the settings of any user.
If you wish to change a user's password, enter the following command at the
prompt, where username is an actual user on your Virtual Private Server:
% vpasswd username
Q: When
I attempt to connect with SSH, it connects and appears to login, then
immediately disconnects.
A: You may be attempting to login using
SSH2. While this is a more recent version of SSH, it is a proprietary
development on the previous protocol, which still works without problem.
Currently we do not support SSH2 and have not found any problems with SSH. If
you are attempting to connect with SSH2, you will need to instead download an
SSH client in order to make a secure login to your Virtual Private Server.
Q: Can
I use SSH to connect to my Virtual Private Server?
A: When connecting to your Virtual
Private Server,
for security reasons, we recommend that you use SSH. SSH operates in a manner
similar to Telnet, except your connection is encrypted to prevent the
possibility of having any passwords or other sensitive information from being
intercepted, or 'sniffed.'
To use SSH, you must download SSH software; however, there are certain
restrictions that you must consider before using SSH:
Because strong encryption products are considered by law to be munitions, SSH
cannot be exported from the United States to most other countries. Likewise,
there are strict patent laws regarding SSH clients developed in other countries
that prohibit them from being imported into the U.S. Therefore, you will not
only want to download a program appropriate to your operating system, but also
from an appropriate country.
To help you determine the proper SSH client for your country and operating
system, we have compiled the following list of URLs:
If you are using Windows within the U.S., we recommend SecureCRT from Van Dyke
Technologies, at:
http://www.vandyke.com/products/
If you are using Windows outside of the U.S., you should be able to use any of
the clients at one of the following URLs:
http://www.zip.com.au/~roca/ttssh.html
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty.html
If you are using MacOS within the U.S., we recommend F-Secure SSH from
DataFellows, at:
http://www.f-secure.com/products/ssh/client/
If you are using MacOS outside of the U.S., you should be able to use the client
at:
http://www.lysator.liu.se/~jonasw/freeware/niftyssh/
If you are using Linux, the native SSH client should come with your
distribution, but if it does not, you can download it from the appropriate
mirror site at:
http://www.ssh.org/download.html
Q: My
SSH session says "auto-logout" then disconnects me.
A: This is a feature of your account,
designed so that SSH connections to your Virtual Private Server are automatically
disconnected after 60 minutes of non-activity.
If you need to temporarily disable this feature, enter the unset autologout
command at your Virtual Private Server's command prompt.
You can then use the set autologout command to re-enable the auto-logout
feature.
Q: I
would like to use a file other than index.htm or index.html as the default
on my website. How can I specify a different file name?
A: There is a statement within Apache
called DirectoryIndex, which tells the web server which files to load if one is
not specified. This modification can be made for your entire Virtual Private
Server or
for a single directory.
If you wish to have your entire Virtual Private Server use a file such as pageone.html,
pageone.htm, and pageone.php instead of index.html and index.htm, you will need
to edit the srm.conf file which is located in the ~/www/conf directory. Near the
top of the file is the line:
DirectoryIndex index.html index.htm
You will need to modify this line so that it reads
DirectoryIndex pageone.html pageone.htm
The web server will now look for the above file names, first .html and then
.htm, if no file was specified.
If you wish to have a single directory utilize a different filename such as
index.phtml or index.php, then you will need to create a .htaccess file in the
directory with the line:
DirectoryIndex index.phtml index.php
Q: When
I go to install a certain software package many, if not all, of my domains
are listed under the same item. How can I change that?
A: When you use vaddvhost to create a new
Virtual Host entry, you have the option to combine, or keep your log files
separate for that addition. The vinstall package installation script views the
vhosts.conf file for your log file structure on each domain. If domains have the
same structure, then it assumes you wish to keep everything in the main domain
log files, and uses that as its basis for installations.
If you do not wish to install packages on all of the same virtual hosts, you
will have to sacrifice the ability to log within the same log files.
To redirect the log files for a specific domain, you will need to modify your
~/www/conf/vhosts.conf file by following these instructions:
Go to the conf directory on your Virtual Private Server: cd ~/www/conf
Open the vhosts.conf file in your pico editor:
pico vhosts.conf
Find the <Virtual Host> directive entry for the domain.
HINT: The easiest way to do this is to use the search function within pico. Hold
CTRL and press W. A prompt should now be in the lower left hand corner of your
screen. Enter the domain name. If it does not find the <VirtualHost domain.com>,
hold CTRL again, press W and hit enter. It will find the next instance of that
domain name.
The virtual host entry should look something like this:
# VirtualHost domain.com Added by vaddvhost
<VirtualHost domain.com>
ServerName domain.com
ServerAlias www.domain.com
ServerAdmin webmaster@domain.com
DocumentRoot /usr/local/etc/httpd/vhosts/domain.com/htdocs
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/local/etc/httpd/vhosts/domain.com/cgi-bin/
TransferLog logs/access_log
RefererLog logs/referer_log
AgentLog logs/agent_log
ErrorLog logs/error_log
ErrorDocument 500 /errordocs/internalerror.html
ErrorDocument 404 /errordocs/filenotfound.html
ErrorDocument 403 /errordocs/accessdenied.html
Alias /postoffice /usr/local/etc/httpd/common/postoffice
Alias /common /usr/local/etc/httpd/common
</VirtualHost>
Modify the log files to point where you want.
In this example, they point to the primary domain log files, which reside in
~/www/logs. You will want to modify them to point where you want. However,
make sure you create both the directory and the files.
Q: How
can I keep someone from a given domain or IP address from browsing my site?
A: To prohibit a specific domain or IP
address from browsing your site, follow the steps below:
Go to the directory that you wish to restrict access to (for example, ~/www/htdocs).
Once you are in the directory you wish to restrict access to, enter the
following command at your Virtual Private Server's command prompt:
pico .htaccess
Add lines similar to the following for all domains/IP addresses you wish to deny
access:
<Limit GET>
order allow, deny
allow from all
deny from .domain.com 219.XX.44. 219.XX.76.4
</Limit>
In this example, we are blocking not only 'domain.com' but also any subdomains
and canonical names for this domain, by placing a period before the domain name.
If you only want to block a specific domain name, type in the domain without a
period at the beginning.
We are also blocking the IP subnet 219.39.44.* -- that is, the IP addresses from
219.39.44.1 to 219.39.44.255. Note that the subnet ends with a period.
Finally, as in the above example, be sure to separate each entry by a space.
Q: My
redirection URL works when I include a trailing '/' but not when I omit it.
A: This FAQ explains why, when you include
the trailing '/' in your redirection URL (e.g., http://foo.domain.com/~user/) it
will work, but not when you omit it (e.g., http://foo.domain.com/~user).
When you access a directory without a trailing '/' in redirection URLs, Apache
sends what is called a redirect to the client. This tells the browser to add the
trailing slash. If it did not do so, relative URLs would not work properly. When
it sends the redirect, it needs to know the name of the server, so that it can
include this information in the redirect. There are two ways for Apache to
figure this out:
It will attempt to deduce this information from the IP information
OR
You can tell it what information to use
If your DNS is configured correctly, it can normally complete this without any
problems. If it is not, or you don't want the information returned to show that
of your main domain, then it will not work.
Adding a ServerName directive to your Apache configuration files can accomplish
this task. The syntax for this directive is:
ServerName {fully qualified domain name}
This is assuming that {fully qualified domain name} is the name of your domain.
Please
Contact Us if you have any questions
concerning RSH Web Services products or services.
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