Support - VHCS2
Virtual Hosting, or Shared Hosting is powered by Linux Servers for Mail, MySQL, Apache2, PHP5 and FTP. The heart of the system is managed via VHCS2 - Virtual Hosting Control System. VHCS2 provides complete hosting automation for Linux - Web, Mail (pop&imap), FTP, DNS , DBs, Quota, Traffic, graphic user interfaces for the administrators, resellers and users.
In summary the following features are available.
- Email POP3 and IMAP accounts
- FTP users
- MySQL user databases
- Backup and restore
- CGI, PHP,SSI configuration and management
- Custom error files - 401, 403, 404 and 500, Password protection (.htaccess files)
- Traffic and data storage accounting
How do I...
Add a domain?Add a subdomain?
Add an email address?
Add an email foward?
Add an email catch-all?
Manage my MySQL databases?
Access my VHCS control panel?
Access my site statistics?
Password protect my site? (htaccess)
Create an FTP account to upload my files?
Access my webmail?
Access my web file management?
Control my DNS?
Upload my website?
Create a website?
Other Questions
How much space do I get?Can I upgrade my hosting account?
How does the CatchAll email address work?
Can you make my website for me?
Why don't you provide a web editor for my webpage like some other companies do with CPanel?
Do you have any recommendations on how to find a good web designer ?
How do I...
Add another domain?
When you sign up for hosting with Net Solutions we will supply you with a domain name. You may purchase another domain yourself at our Domain Registration page.
Alternatively, Net Solutions can carry out the registration on your behalf at a $33 premium on top of the registration fee.
After notifying us of your new domain, this domain name will be attached to your existing account, which means it will share all the storage of your current account.
Add a subdomain?
1. Go to the Domains section
2. Click "Add Subdomain"
3. Type in the subdomain, without your domain
4. Click in the "Mount Point" section, and this should automatically fill itself out
5. Click "Add"
Add an email address?
1. Go to the "Email" section
2. Click on "Add Email"
3. Enter your desired email address
4. Enter your desired password. This must be at least 8 characters long.
5. Select "Standard email"
6. Click on "Add"
Add an email foward?
1. Go to the "Email" section
2. Click on "Add Email"
3. Enter your desired email address
4. Enter your desired password. This must be at least 8 characters long.
5. Select "Email forward"
6. Enter your desired email address to forward to
7. Click on "Add"
Add an email catch-all?
1. You must add 1 email address, either real or as a forward
2. Go to the "Email" section
3. Click on "Add Catch All"
4. Select the email address that all email will be directed to
Setup my email program?
- Quick Settings -
POP Server: mail.yourdomain.com.
SMTP Server: Please use your Internet Service Providers SMTP server.
Username: As set by you in your VHCS control panel under email
Password: As set by you in your VHCS control panel under email
For actual instructions on your specific mail client, we recommend you take a look at your local ISP's support page. Alternatively, setup information is widely available on Google for all email clients.
- Troubleshooting -
If you are having trouble checking your email, it may be that the above instructions do not apply do you. Please ensure that you are using POP and not IMAP for your incoming mail server.
Are you handling your own DNS? If so, you can use the original POP server name that was emailed to you from Net Solutions when you signed up. This will be something like mail.yourdomain.com.au. Alternatively, you can use whatever NS record you have setup to point to your website on our server.
If you are still having trouble, please email our customer service.
For SMTP problems, please contact your Internet Service Provider. The reason for this is that this is for your Outgoing Mail, and this is a service that is included in your Internet Access (in every circumstance we have seen), and it is actually faster to use them as a server.
Any settings you see that we have not mentioned should be left as they are in your email program.
Manage my MySQL databases?
Management is performed with PHPMyAdmin. You must add a PHPMyAdmin user to use this.
1. Go into "SQL Database Management"
2. Click "Add Database User"
3. Fill in the username field
4. Fill in the password field. The password must be at least 8 characters.
5. Click "Add"
Now when you go to the "SQL Database Management" section, you can go into PHPMyAdmin. Use the database user you have just created to login. More information on PHPMyAdmin usage can be found at the PHPMyAdmin documentation homepage.
Access my VHCS control panel?
Your VHCS control panel login page can be found at www.yourdomain.com/vhcs2. This implies that yourdomain.com is your domain. The username to login to VHCS2 will be yourdomain.com. If you have forgotten your password, use the "Forgotten Password" link to begin the retrieval process, or email our customer service
Make sure to replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain name.
Access my site statistics?
From the VHCS control panel, select "Site Statistics".
Password protect my site? (htaccess)
This is a two-step process. Firstly, you must add any users you wish to have access to your site. To do this:
1. Click on "Webtools" in the VHCS control panel
2. Click on "Protected Areas"
3. Click on "Manage Users And Groups"
4. Click on "Add User"
5. Enter the username and password information. Please ensure that the password is at least 8 characters long or this will not succeed properly.
6. Click on "Add User". The user is now added. You can repeat this process for as many users as you wish to add.
Next, you must protect the areas of your site that you wish. To do this:
1. Click on "Webtools" in the VHCS control panel
2. Click on "Protected Areas"
3. Click on "Manage Protected Areas". This will also show you any existing protected areas.
4. Click on "Add New Protected Area"
5. Click on "Choose Dir". This will show you the contents of your site on the hosting server. If you wish to protect the whole site, select the "htdocs" folder. Otherwise, navigate to the folder you wish to protected, and select it.
6. Give the area a name (this is optional). This will appear as the title to the popup window that asks for a username and password.
7. Select the users you wish to allow access to this area.
8. Click "Protect It". That directory will now require a valid login and password for people to be able to browse it.
Create an FTP account to upload my files?
1. Go to the "FTP" section of the VHCS control panel
2. Click on "Add FTP user"
3. Enter the username
4. Enter a password for this username. The password must be at least 8 characters.
5. Click "Add".
Access my webmail?
Your webmail can be accessed from www.yourdomain.com/vhcs2/tools/webmail.
Make sure to replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain name.
Access my web file management?
You can upload files using the web file manager. This can be accessed from www.yourdomain.com/vhcs2/tools/filemanager.
Make sure to replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain name.
Control my DNS?
DNS is managed by whoever your domain registrar lists as the NameServer. Net Solutions also offer DNS hosting, please use the following name servers:
junior.netsol.net.au
serge.netsol.net.au
And send an email to our customer service to let us know that you wish for us to handle your DNS. Net Solutions will then map a wildcard to your domain, so that any sub domains that you set up in your VHCS control panel will work immediately. Net Solutions will also assign primary and backup MX records so that your email works reliably.
Alternatively, you may have your own DNS. If you do not have your own DNS, but wish to manage your DNS yourself directly, we recommend that you sign up for a free account with EditDNS. This will provide you with the features necessary to manage your DNS for your domain and sub domains.
If you already manage your own DNS, please make sure to assign your primary MX to an A record that points to the IP address of the hosting server that you are on. This information will be in the original signup email you received, but you can always email our customer service if you are having trouble.
If you do not assign the primary MX to the Net Solutions hosting server, then any email accounts that you setup for your domain through VHCS will fail to receive email.
Upload my website?
There are 2 ways you can upload your website. The first is to use the filemanager from within the VHCS control panel.
The second is to set up an FTP username and use an FTP program to upload your files from your computer. You can use www.yourdomain.com as your FTP host. Make sure to replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain.
Create a website?
There are several facets to creating a website. Where to start depends on how much experience you have had in building websites already.
If you have not built a website before, we would recommend that you start with thinking about the content that you are going to place on your website. This means text and images. Following this, we would take a look at some websites you like the look of and as yourself: Can you see the content of your website looking like that?
Next, start looking at how to actually make a website. We recommend the following resources:
Macromedia Dreamweaver - A very good what-you-see-is-what-you-get web page editor (commercial) SmartFTP - A free FTP upload program to upload your site
Quanta - A free Linux what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor
GFTP - A free Linux GNOME FTP upload program
w3schools.com - An online reference and tutorial website for web design / development
If you have built a site before, you probably understand the technical elements that make a website: Tables, forms, images, text, colors and fonts. If these terms are familiar to you, we recommend looking further into the following techniques:
- Website design
- Content for your website
- Dynamic website technologies (Forms, PHP, Macromedia Flash...)
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
Other Questions
How much space do I get?
The amount of space you receive on your plan, as well as how much space you have used is shown when you first login to your VHCS control panel.
Please note that the space that is allocated for your domain includes all email that will be stored, as well as MySQL databases and web files.
If you wish for extra storage, you may like to upgrade your hosting account.
Can I upgrade my hosting account?
Absoultely. Please check our list of hosting plans to see what is available. Once you decide which plan you wish to upgrade to, simply send an email to support@netsol.net.au and we will set this up for you. Because you have most likely already paid for 12 months of hosting, we subtract what you have paid for, but not yet used, from what would be owing if you were on the new plan. This is also referred to as pro-rata billing. This means that the remainder of your 12 month service will be on the upgraded plan.
Hwo does the CatchAll email work?
The CatchAll email will only catch email that does not have an email address. So, if you had no email addresses other than a catch all, everything that anyone sends will go to that address (this is commonly referred to as *@yourdomain.com).
If you have a couple of mail accounts on your domain, this will still work normally. So bob@yourdomain.com will still receive it's own email if you have created that address, and everything else will be routed according to where you direct the catch all email to.
Can you make my website for me?
When we design web sites for clients, we work with them on a one-on-one basis in order to get the web site that looks like the client wants. We also need to ensure that it meets the needs behind what the client wants (e.g. generating enquiries, awareness, or actual sales). We have found the best way to do this is to be able to meet face-to-face with the client, in addition to the traditional email and phone conferences. We will gladly meet with you to discuss your needs in us creating a website for you.
Why don't you provide a web editor for my webpage like some other comanies do with CPanel?
Many of the web sites that provide What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) editors are used by people who are new to websites. While in theory this is a good idea, we are not aware of any of these editors that can produce good quality code that actually drives the web site. This means that as your website gets more advanced, it becomes harder to manipulate the site using the editor. When your site gets big enough to contract in a web designer, the code that these programs produce make it take longer to adapt this code. This will most likely end up costing you more money than it should.
If you are looking for the easiest way to get a website up and running, we recommend you go straight to a web designer rather than try to do the whole process yourself. If you give some thought to:
- How you want your website to look
- The purpose of your website on the internet
- The text that you want on your website
- The pictures you want on your website
Then you will find a web designer will be able to take this information and produce a site with much less fuss than any program you can find online.
Do you have any recommendations on how to find a good web designer ?
Many web designers are more than capable of producing a good-looking website. What you should be aware of is that there is more to creating a website than just making it look good. This is why there are some good looking websites that no one knows of, and some ugly-looking websites receive many visitors.
Because of this, we would recommend that you look for a designer you can meet face to face with, that works with a written contract, and that discusses more than just what the site looks like. Some other factors in web site design are:
- What is your driving purpose behind creating a website?
- What content are you intending to place on it?
- What information about your competitors do you have?
- What sort of advertising for the website are you intending to do?
- What sort of internet advertising could enhance your internet presence?
- Who is your target market for your website?
These questions should help stimulate information that can be placed into a contract. By doing this, you know you are getting what you pay for, and it is clear to both yourself and the web designer what is required to produce a website that meets your needs.