CHAPTER ONE - General Features
1.1) OVERVIEW
1.2) WHAT DO YOU OFFER?1.2.1) Web space
1.3) HOW DO I USE THIS PROGRAM?1.3.1) Mail related items
1.3.2) Managing the Linux Account
1.1) OVERVIEW1.1.1) Definition of termsOnce your domain name is activated, you will be able to use your-domain-name.com instead of the IP# assigned. We highly recommend that you use your-domain-name.com instead of IP#. Its possible this number can be changed. 1.1.2) Support contactFor support questions, contact support@iperweb.com . Please include the login name and/or domain name you are referring to when you write to support. We can't yet tell from your e-mail address, unless we happen to remember working with you before, and we may need to know in order to help. If appropriate, tell us exactly what file(s) you are referring to. Please use support@iperweb.com , which will be answered by the first availible, qualified representative, in favor of our individual addresses for new problems. 1.1.3) Billing contactFor billing questions, contact billing@iperweb.com. Send payments to: Iperweb by Prometeus 1.1.4) Manual feedbackSend comments on this manual to manual@iperweb.com . 1.1.5) Sales contactFor sales questions, contact sales@iperweb.com . 1.2) WHAT DO YOU OFFER?IperWeb offers storage space for web pages with global public access to those pages over the Internet. We also offer a limited form of program execution known as "cgi-bin". Our computers are Pentium-class machines running Apache over Linux. Apache responds to web page fetch requests from remote browsers while Linux is one of several variants of the Unix operating system. 1.2.1) Web spaceEvery customer gets his own password protected userid under Linux. By logging in to his userid, the customer gains access to his web storage space. Every userid "owns" a structure of disk subdirectories in the Linux 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". Every customer has his own separate "www" subdirectory. Files placed in "www" are visible to remote browsers over the Internet. For example, when a browser asks for URL http://userid.com/page.html, Apache looks for the file /home/userid/www/page.html and sends it out. Now that we know where the files have to be located in order to be visible from the Internet, just how do we put the files there? There are several ways, depending on the local computer. For the MacIntosh, a program called "Fetch" is used. Documentation on Fetch is not yet available. However, note that the binary mode referred to throughout the manual corresponds to the 'raw' mode in Fetch. For Microsoft Windows systems, use FTP (See 1.2.1.3). This is the easiest method. 1.2.1.4) The "home" page and HTMLThe filename of your home page should be index.htm. The web server will automatically send the file at path /home/userid/www/index.htm when a browser specifies http://userid.com. To learn how to write HTML, get Laura LeMay's books "Web Publishing with HTML in a Week", and "More Web Publishing with HTML in a Week" . Both are published by SAMS. Then find out about the latest Netscape extensions. To count accesses install wusage which is available at http://www.boutell.com/wusage/ . This is preinstalled for you and run weekly. Log files are stored in your home directory as Access-logs 1.2.2) FTP SpaceA anonymous ftp directory where visitors can download information from your domain is setup automatically. You will find a directory in your web space called ANONFTP which links you to this space. 1.2.3) Telnet AccountA telnet account is just another name for Unix/Linux userid. When you sign up with us, you get a userid and password. You may ask for more than one such userid. Additional setups are available for a $10.00 one time setup charge. Each telnet account has its own separate home directory but shares the same www and ftp directories. Some of the programs available at the shell prompt are mail, a primitive email program, and pine,a more powerful email program, ftp, to FTP onto other sites, telnet, telnet onto other sites, pico, an easy to use text editor, vi, a not so easy to use (but standard) text editor, and in general a pretty complete POSIX environment. At the shell prompt, type man and the name of the program to get instructions for that program online. If your problem is not knowing the name of the program, try apropos subject. (i.e. apropos mail.) 1.2.4) ListserverThe latest full release of MajorDomo is available. 1.2.5) Domain NameDomain names are being processed Usually within 5 business days: send us e-mail if your domain isn't activated within 10 days. We'll take care of the problem. If you want a domain name with a foreign extension, such as .it for Italy, we can do it! Ask for details... Note that InterNIC charges $50/year for every domain. When you first apply for a domain, InterNIC will bill $100 for the first two years. 1.2.6) Cgi-bin Access"CGI" stands for "Common Gateway Interface", a fancy name meaning computer programs running on the web server that can be invoked from a WWW page at the browser. The "bin" part alludes to the binary executables that result from compiled or assembled programs. It is a bit misleading because cgis can also be Unix shell scripts or interpreted languages like Perl. 1.2.7) Emergency AssistanceIf the web server goes down, we want to know! email emergency@iperweb.com If support@iperweb.com has not answered your e-mail within 24 hours, we also consider this to be an emergency. Send such emergencies to emergency@iperweb.com. 1.2.8) 9+ character namesA name of anywhere from 3-16 letters is legal for e-mail accounts, ftp accounts, and telnet accounts. 1.2.9) RealAudioRealAudio is a real time audio transmission/player system. A digital audio stream is transmitted from the server over the internet to the destination and played immediately, rather than being stored to disk first and then played. Each audio clip requires two files: a metafile with extension .ram, and the digital audio clip itself, with extension .ra. The .ram file holds one or more lines of ASCII text, each of which references the .ra file to be played when the .ram file is accessed by the browser. Entries in .ram files have the form: pnm://your-domain.com/realaudio/your-domain/name-of-clip.ra Place your .ram and .ra files in the realaudio subdirectory under your web directory. Contact support@iperweb.com if you have not been supplied with the realaudio subdirectory. (note this account carries a extra charge) .ram files must be uploaded in ASCII mode while .ra files must be uploaded in BINARY mode. You may then access these files at realaudio/file.ram under your www directory. 1.2.10) VocalTec Internet PhoneIperWeb has updated its mime.types file to support VocalTec Interent Phone. 1.2.11) TrueSpeech Digital AudioIperWeb has updated its mime.types file to support TrueSpeech Digital Audio. 1.2.12) Capture mail for domainAt your request, we will redirect all mail for a domain to one email address. This service is free. 1.2.13) PlusMail(tm)Only IperWeb has the sophisticated PlusMail(tm) mailing system. In addition to being able to have nearly unlimited infobots by simply adding text files to a directory, you can also redirect mail for everyone in your domain by simplying modifying a text file. INFOBOT EXAMPLEDepending on the server you are on, you may find a infobot directory.If you have this in your home directory all your text files should be placed here for your autoresponders otherwise you would just put them in the home directory Example: File in your /home/infobots directory is named help and says: We offer you help. Mail to help@yourdomain.com will return the message "We offer you help". These messages can be any size, even 100K! REDIRECTION EXAMPLEFile in your home directory named .redirect says: fred 73452.452@compuserve.com susan susan.simpson@mci.com kim goddess@afterlife.com default arthur@bob.com This would redirect mail for fred@yourdomain.com to 73452.452@compuserve.com, etc. Mail to a user that was not in this list would be sent to the default user, arthur@bob.com 1.3) HOW DO I USE THIS PROGRAM?Note that with the exception of the description of using Eudora, the commands you are told to type in this section assume you have logged on to the IperWeb server with telnet or rlogin. 1.3.1) Mail related items1.3.1.1) mailREADING Type mail to see if you have any mail. If you have any mail hit enter multiple times and all your messages will be displayed. SENDING type mail -s "juice" sample@sample.net<juice.msg to send the message juice.msg with the subject juice to sample@sample.net. Type mail -s "juice" sample@sample.net
juice is good
.
to send the message juice is good with the subject juice to sample@sample.net Type mail sample@sample.net
juice is good
.
to send the message juice is good with no subject to sample@sample.net 1.3.1.2) pineType pine to enter a more advanced mail program. Type L to select Folder List and then inbox to see what messages that you have received. The rest of this program is quite easy to use. Why use mail instead? Mail has the advantage that it is easy to send files that you composed off line plus it is easy to read many files at once into a log file that you then read off line. 1.3.1.3) Eudora is a mail program that runs under MS Windows.Eudora connects to the mail server over the Winsock. Mail may be composed and read offline, but make sure that Winsock is running before attempting to send or receive mail. After Eudora has been installed, it must be configured to point to the IperWeb mail server. To do this, start Eudora and select "Special" from the menu bar. Then select "Settings". Most of the options are self explanatory.
If you have multiple email addresses, you can install a separate copy of Eudora for each email address. Eudora "Light" is freeware offered by Qualcom and can be downloaded over the net. Eudora "Pro" must be purchased. Search for Eudora under Yahoo for details on how to obtain a copy. 1.3.2) Managing the Linux Account1.3.2.1) ln (redirecting file access)Type ln -s fred.htm index.htm to redirect all file accesses from index.htm to the file fred.htm. 1.3.2.2) passwd (changing your password)Type passwd to change your password. 1.3.2.3) zip/unzipType zip to zip files and unzip to unzip files. This program is compatible with the zip program for DOS. For example: $ zip myzip file1 file2 file3 This puts the files file1, file2, and file3 into a new zip archive called myzip.zip. On the other hand, if you had the archive myzip.zip and wanted to get back the files: $ unzip myzip Typing zip or unzip by itself will give you a usage summary, showing nearly all the options availible. 1.3.2.4) du (disk usage)The Unix command du -s directory shows how much disk space is used by a directory and everything below it. While we work on creating the complicated command needed to automatically check all the directories you are associated with, you can find out how much space is in use by the WWW files for a domain with du -s /www/htdocs/domain If you don't have anything much in your home directory or mail spool, this comes close to the total space you have in use. (You would know if you did have other things in your home directory, and could use du -s $HOME to check on that.) If you have an anonymous FTP area, also check du -s ~ftp/my.domain For example, snoopy.com might need to run some number of the following: du -s /www/htdocs/snoopy du -s ~ftp/snoopy.com du -s $HOME and add the results to find out how much space he's using. |