ATLAS-HOST.COM - Support: Manual

Website Basics

FTP and Telnet

CGI

Imagemaps

SSI Server Side Includes

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This online documentation describes the features offered in our hosting packages and explains how to use them. If you have questions, chances are you can find your answers here. This documentation was designed with the newbie in mind and addresses many questions and concerns that are common when getting started. If you still need assistance, you can contact our technical support team at support@atlas-host.com

The Basics of Your Website

You, as a domain and website owner, gain access to the server and your web storage space with your userid and password. Every userid "owns" a structure of disk subdirectories in the file system. The "root" of this structure is the "home" directory, found at path "/home/userid". Note that this is somewhat similar to the MS-DOS directory structure, except that there is no drive letter and forward slashes are used instead of backward slashes.
Inside the home directory is a subdirectory named "www". Files placed in "www" are visible to remote browsers over the Internet. (When you FTP or Telnet to your account, you are "logged in" to your www subdirectory.)
Now that we know where the files have to be located in order to be visible on the Internet, just how do we put the files there? Although there are several ways, the most common are FTP and Telnet.
The filename of your home page should be index.html (or index.htm or index.cgi). The web server will automatically send the file at path /home/userid/www/index.html when a browser specifies http://www.yourdomain.com. This means, when people go to your domain name, the first thing they'll see is your index.html page.

FTP & Telnet

Here you will find information about FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and Telnet which are two essential client programs which you may use to access and manage your website. FTP allows you to upload/download files to/from your website, while Telnet allows you to access your website at the command line.
Please note: There is a utility available to you in your Control Panel called the "Online FileManager". This will allow you to upload files to your web site quite easily. You may either use the Online FileManager or an FTP client.

CGI Programming and Perl

CGI stand for Common Gateway Interface. Perl is a programming language which can allow communication between your server and your web pages. Here you will find necessary details about using Perl and CGI related items.

Using Imagemaps

If you would like to have multiple clickable areas on a picture, a good way to do it is through imagemaps.

Email

Here you will find details about your email, POP server, and a tutorial of how to setup your email client (MS Outlook Express).

SSI - Server Side Includes

By using the SSI features of your server, you can pre-process your HTML web pages before they are sent to a browser. Here you will find details and examples of how SSI can be used effectively.

MySQL

The MySQL database server is the world's most widely used open source database.
By accessing the MySQL option in your Control Panel, you can define a MySQL Database for use with your website.
For complete documentation, as well as much additional information, you can access the Complete Documentation at the MySQL Website. MySQL is made available to all our hosting packages.

PHP

PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. PHP-enabled web pages let you create dynamic html and are treated just like regular HTML pages. You can create and edit them the same way you normally create regular HTML pages.
For a very quick and easy 1 page explanation and tutorial of what PHP can do, check out the Tutorial at PHP.net's Website..
The Complete Documentation for PHP is also available at the PHP website.
PHP is made available to all our hosting packages.

SSL - Secure Server

A secure connection allows you to accept private and confidential information from your customers, such as credit card information. Because it is a "secure" connection, it is encrypted so that it can only be decoded by both you and the server.
There are basically two methods for you to use secure connections. One, you can use the secure.atlas-host.com secure server; or two, we can set you up with your own secure server. Many web hosting companies charge fees for both options, we do not.
Here you will find information and examples for using both methods.

Managing Your Server with .htaccess

.htaccess files provide a clean and simple way for you to manage certain features of your server.

Majordomo Mailing Lists

Majordomo is a program which automates the management of Internet mailing lists. Commands are sent to Majordomo via electronic mail to handle all aspects of list maintenance. Once a list is set up, virtually all operations can be performed remotely, requiring no intervention upon the postmaster of the list site.

Real Audio/Video

Detailed instructions on how to setup your Real Audio server for streaming data.

WAP (Wireless Application Protocol)

Configuring your site to be capable of using "WML" is very easy. Here you will find details of how to do this.

Basic Unix Commands and Cron

You will find a listing of some of the most commonly used Unix commands, as well as complete documentation for all Unix commands.
Cron is a Unix feature that allows you to schedule the execution of processes automatically.