OCSN Web Hosting operates on high speed, multiprocessor Unix servers. The servers are backed up daily on connected to high standard industrial UPS Battery Backup Units with electric generators to insure constant delivery. Switched 100Mbps backbone with Cisco Routers using BGP4 protocol for  "best route" connectivity.

Our monthly web hosting fee includes:

Disk space: 5 MB
Monthly data transfer: 200MB
POP3 E-mail accounts: Unlimited
E-mail aliases: Unlimited
Auto e-mail responders: On all PO3 e-mail accounts
Microsoft FrontPage 2000 extensions: Included free!
SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Included free!
Individual Website Control Panel: Included free!
Streaming Real Audio/Video Included free!
Additional Disk space: $ 2.00/MB
Additional Monthly Data transfer: $ 0.20/MB

 

HOW TO GET STARTED?

1. First define a Domain Name and check the Domain Name availability. If you do not know how to do this, just e-mail us some names you like to consider and we will check , advise you on the availability and will give you alternative suggestions. E-mail us at webhostinghelp@ocsn.net

Here are some tips to help you define a valid domain name:

2. As soon as you have a valid and available domain name we will start the application for you.

3. You will get an e-mail informing you about the registration and the use of your web site. Some of the same information you will find also below.

 

GETTING IMMEDIATE ACCESS TO YOUR SITE.

Domain name registrations can often take several days for the Internic to process and complete. This means that you will not be able to access your web site or your mail using the domain name during this registration time. You can, however, have immediate and total access to your site to prepare it for when the name is finally registered and pointing to our server. Therefore, the only way you can access your site for the first several days after creation is by using the IP Address of your newly created site. The IP Address is listed above along with other important information for your site. Listed below are several common functions that you may want to do immediately after site creation (about 4 hours after you receive the notification e-mail). We recommend to wait until the Internic registration is active and you can call you site by your domain name.

 

1. Immediate Microsoft FrontPage Publishing.

To publish to your site within the first few days of site creation, you must publish to the following location: yourIPaddress. For Example, if your IP Address was 208.165.64.255, then you would publish to: 208.165.64.255 Don't forget to also type in your Login Name and Password as given by e-mail when trying to Publish. If you do not intend to use FrontPage, do not ask to install it. Some functions such as password controlled access works better without FrontPage extensions installed.

2. Immediate FTP Access to your site.

To FTP to your site within the first few days of site creation, you must FTP using the following hostname: yourIPaddress For Example, if your IP Address was 208.165.64.255, then you would FTP to this hostname: 208.165.64.255 Don't forget to also type in your Login Name and Password as given above when trying to FTP.

3. Immediate Control Panel Access (setting up e-mail accounts).

For detailed instructions on how to immediately access your site's Control Panel and how to use it, please check below.

 

IMPORTANT NOTE.

We use UNIX  servers and all filenames are case sensitive. This means that index.htm (the correct filename) is not the same file as INDEX.HTM. We suggest that you use all lower case file names. You must make sure that all of your html links point to the correct path and filename. When you log into our server you will be in your home directory. This directory will be /home/<username> where <username> is your log on name. For example, /home/client1 is your home directory because you log on with the username of "clients1." From within the /home/<username> directory there are subdirectories that have specific uses, such as:

virtual_html - /home/<username>/virtual_html is your web root directory.

This means that all of your files for your web site start in this directory. The URL for this directory is "http://www.yourdomain.com" The index.htm or index.html file has to be HERE along with all of the other files that are part of your web site including the images (*.jpg and *.gif files). You can create sub-directories in this directory.

 

UPLOADING YOUR WEB SITE FILES

Be careful if your doing this. It is easy to corrupt the directory. OCSN will need to charge $49.95 if your web site need to be reset.

1. Uploads can be done through FTP (File Transfer Protocol). You may use Telnet at the present time, but it can be removed at any time if it is abused.

2. We suggest that PC users use ws-ftp or cute-ftp

3. Mac users can use fetch.

4. All html, gif, and jpg type files go into the virtual_html/ directory or subdirectories that you create under that directory. The root file in the virtual_html directory must be called index.htm or index.html (Remember case sensitivity)

5. All cgi scripts must go into the virtural_html/cgi-local directory. These files usually have the extension of .pl or .cgi. All of these files must be executable (set rights permissions to 755).

6. If you are using a Web Publishing program that required you to enter ftp://yourcompany.com, you can enter your ip address after the "ftp://" or your domain name if you have been registered and propagated through the Internet when you are using this program.

 

MAIL

1. All mail for your domain is directed to your main mailbox unless you change the configuration in the control panel. Anyname@yourdomain.com or whatever@yourdomain.com will go to this mailbox by default.

2. Your SMTP server is your ISP's SMTP server. Please contact your dial-up provider for this server name. Your POP Mail server name is exactly the same as your domain name.

3. Your e-mail address is username@yourdomain.com where username is your ftp and mail username. The password is the same for mail as it is for ftp.

4. Once again, by default, any name that is entered before the "@" sign in front of your domain name will be sent to your default mailbox. For example anybody@yourdomain.com or nobody@yourdomain.com will go to your DEFAULT mailbox at yourdomain.com. There are more detail under the "Members E-mail" icon.

 

LOGS

Each user is given a log directory which includes your access.log.gz file. It is the users' responsibility to download and delete these files if they become too large. The disk space that you use for these logs are part of your disk space allotment. You can use your own program on your own machine to parse the data in this file. 

CONTROL PANEL

Our latest Control Panel Software has been improved so that it is easy-to-use and comprehensive.   Here are some of the important features included in your control panel:

 

GETTING THERE:

You can reach your control panel by entering:

http://yourdomain.com/_admin/ 
(That is an "underscore" character before the word "admin" and the final forward slash is important.)

Replace yourdomain.com with your own domain name in your browser.  You can also use your IP address instead of your domain name to access your control panel!   For example:

http://208.165.66.255/_admin/
(That is an "underscore" character before the word "admin" and the final forward slash is important.)

If you are a brand new customer (less than 4-5 days), then using the IP Address is the ONLY way to access your control panel.  This URL will continue to be displayed so that you do not see any of our servers mentioned in the URL (or anywhere else in the control panel).  


address.gif (650 bytes)

goto.gif (2895 bytes)

DISK USAGE:

A disk usage pie chart is also included.  This graph will give you an easy way to view where and how much disk space you are using.  The table breaks down the disk usage by category of files. 

HTTP:     All web site files which are kept underneath the /virtual_html directory.
LOGS:    Web site log files which are kept underneath the /logs directory.
FTP:        All web site ftp files which are kept underneath the /ftp directory.
MAIL:    Any stored email which is kept underneath the /mail directory.
OTHER: All other files and directories stored in your home directory.

All values are in Kilobytes, and simply divide the value by 1024 to get the value in Megabytes.

pie.gif (6698 bytes)

BANDWIDTH

Graphical displays of the your bandwidth usage for the past 24 hours (Daily) or the past 30 days (Monthly).

These bandwidth usage graphs are broken down into the following protocols: Total, HTTP, POP3, FTP, Telnet, and Other.

All values are in Kilobytes, and simply divide the value by 1024 to get the value in Megabytes.

band.gif (8617 bytes)

LOGS

Site logs are included in raw data form or displayed through Analog, a program that will display your hits in great detail.  24 hours worth of logs file entries are generated automatically every morning at 3:00AM EST and are appended to the existing log file for each site.  If you choose, you have the option of deleting the log file and a fresh log will be generated automatically at the next 3:00AM cycle.  

MAIL

POP3 E-Mail control allows you to enter an UNLIMITED number of aliases, and mailboxes as you need them.  This easy to use interface makes mailbox additions, deletions, and modifications a breeze.  Your new mailboxes and aliases are ready for use as soon as you enter them.

For quick instructions on how to create/modify aliases and mailboxes, read below:

To have all mail forwarded to an external email address:

1. Delete All mailboxes.
2. Delete All aliases except for the DEFAULT alias.
3. Change the DEFAULT alias to go to the full external email address.

When adding an alias, make sure that a mailbox with the same name does not exist.  If a mailbox exists with that the same name, you must delete the mailbox first.

When adding an alias or a mailbox, you only need to put the user name portion of the email address in the first field.  For example, if you wanted to add the mailbox, myuser@yourdomain.com, you only need to put in the word: myuser in the first field and then specify a password for that mailbox in the second field. 

cp_mail1.gif (855 bytes)

This also applies to aliases.  For example, if you wanted to add the alias, myuser@yourdomain.com going to auser@adomain.com, you only need to put the word: myuser in the first field and then the entire email address of where you want it forwarded to: auser@adomain.com in the second field.

cp_mail2.gif (898 bytes)

Email Client Setup: 

(Does not apply if you setup your email to be aliased to an external email account you already check.)Once you have created a mailbox using your site's control panel, then you need to configure your PC's email program to download mail from this newly created mailbox.

 

Autoresponder Setup

To Add an Autoresponder:

Select the radio button for "Add" and select the mailbox from the drop down list that you want to add an autoresponder message to.  Then hit the "Change" button

On the next screen, you can change the From: and Subject: tags to reflect the email address you want the autoresponse email to come from and the subject you want the autoresponse email to have. Make sure you only leave one space after the words "From:" and "Subject:".  Then type the body of the autoresponse message below and hit the "Change" button.

 

To Delete an Autoresponder:

Select the radio button for "Delete" and select the mailbox from the drop down list that you want to delete an autoresponder message to. Then hit the "Change" button.  

 

PASSWORD

The types of passwords related to your website are:

a. 'System Password': is used for FTP and Telnet access.

b. 'Control Panel Password': is used to access your Control Panel.

c. 'POP3 Email Passwords': are used to access your mail.

d. 'FrontPage Publish Password': is used to publish to your website via FrontPage.

e. 'Password Protected Web Directories': are used to control browser access to subdirectories on your website.


In this section of the control panel, you can reset and synchronize your 'System Password' and your 'Control Panel Password' simultaneously. 

If you want to change the other passwords listed above, follow these instructions:

a. To change your 'POP3 Email Passwords', go to the MAIL section of your control panel and you can do it there.

b. To change your 'FrontPage Publish Password', first change your System/Control Panel  Password using this section of the Control Panel and then go to the FRONTPAGE section of the Control Panel and choose to reinstall the extensions.

c. To change your 'Password Protected Web Directories', go to the WEB MANAGEMENT   section of your control panel and you can do it there.

 

WEB SECURITY

Web Site controls include the ability to create password protected directories within your Web Site with UNLIMITED usernames and passwords.  You can also read and delete files.  This information is easily viewable from within the control panel.

Do not use this control panel option if you use Frontpage to publish your web site.  Frontpage has it's own built in security (Tools Menu - Permissions) that you must use instead of using this Web Security option or risk corrupting your Frontpage extensions. 

 a) Since web access all takes place in and underneath the /virtual_html directory, please select the /virtual_html directory and hit the "Change Directory" button.

cpanel_unixws1.gif (4012 bytes)

b) Now select the subdirectory you want to password protect and hit the "Change Directory" button.  In this example, we are trying to password protect the /advanced directory inside of /virtual_html.  Always check the "Current Directory" information line to see what directory you are currently in.  

cpanel_unixws2.gif (6973 bytes)

c) Now that we are in the /advanced directory, click over on the right side and   assign a realm name (for simplicity just use the name of the directory itself), a user name, and a password.  Then, hit the "Add Protection" button.   Then, the screen will refresh and you can continue adding more user names and passwords.  After you have added your first user name, you will also be given an additional selection box that will allow you to delete an existing username that you have added previously (just select the user name on the list and hit the "Delete User" button if you wish to do so).

cpanel_unixws3.gif (6181 bytes)

FRONTPAGE

You can install or repair your site's FrontPage extensions using this option.  The one button performs both functions.  So, if your site has never had FrontPage extensions and you would like to install them or, if your site's FrontPage extensions have become corrupted, you can now perform these at any time.

When you install or repair your FrontPage extensions, your current control panel password is the one that is used.  If you have just changed your password using the PASSWORD option in the control panel, then it will use the new password you just entered.

ERROR MANAGEMENT

With this control panel option, you can set up the standard server error messages to redirect to custom error html pages on your web site.  For example, you may want the standard "404 Not Found" error to show a custom error page that you have designed, rather than the server default error message.

a) Follow the example below and replace "yourdomain.com" with your domain name and then upload your custom error html pages to your /virtual_html directory.

Notice that the 401 Error document must be specified with a relative path and you should type it in the way it is shown below.  Upload that error page to the same location as the other error pages.

 cpanel_unixerr1.gif (10200 bytes)