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IGC
and Envirolink Frequently Asked Support Questions
FTP problems and location of your files
How do I install a form that visitors can fill
out and return?
How do I install a site search feature?
How do I get reports?
What's included with my account?
How do I use CGI scripts?
Files I just uploaded are not
showing up!
What is the path to sendmail?
What kind of a web server do
you have?
How do I create a password
protected area of my web site?
How do I create mailboxes, aliases, and autoresponders?
What can I do about viruses and spam?
How do I check my e-mail?
How do I create SQL databases?
How can I
collect donations by credit card?
I can't connect using Fetch, what am I doing wrong?
Are Server Side Includes (SSI) supported?
Is PHP installed?
How
do I use cookies?
May I display the IGC logo
and a link to your site on my site?
Do
you support QuickTime, Real Media, or Windows Media?
How can I install a discussion board on my
web site?
How can I allow members of my organization to
edit only specific areas of our web site?
I get a message that says my domain name can
not be found when I try to view my site.
How
can I get additional help?
FTP Problems and location of files
Connect
to your web site by using FTP. Configure your FTP software to use your domain name as the FTP "host". Enter your FTP username and password in the places provided in your software. After you login, you will find your web
site files located in the httpdocs directory. Your scripts will be found
in the cgi-bin directory. You must use FTP to connect. SSH and telnet
are not supported. The free open source FTP program, Filezilla, is known to work well with our server. If you are having problems with FTP, it might be helpful to download Filezilla and try it instead of the FTP client you are having a problem with. If you can connect via FTP to our server but you can't get a list of files, you might be having a problem with "PASSIVE" mode. Look for a setting in your FTP software for "PASSIVE" mode. If you find it turned on, turn it off. If you find it turned on, turn it off and then try again.
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How do I install a form that visitors can fill out and return?
Here
is a script you can install in your cgi-bin directory that will allow
you to use forms on your web site:
http://www.worldwidemart.com/scripts/formmail.shtml. There are thousands of mail form scripts available, but many of them have security holes that can be hijacked to send spam. We strongly advise you not to use any other script for a mail form.
How do I install a site search feature?
There's a great article that covers
many other search options here.
How do
I get reports?
There
are two ways to view reports on your web site activity. The first and easiest
way is to use the built-in web stats program. You may also
download your log files to your computer and run a log file analysis program to run reports.
To
use the webstat program, simply use your browser, type in the name
of your web site and then append "/webstat" For example,
if your web site was http://www.some-site.org/, you would type
the following into your web browser: http://www.some-site.org/webstat
For help understanding the webstat program, read the documentation found here. Please be aware that these reports are viewable to anyone. If you want to restrict access to these reports, see "How do I create a password protected area of my web site?" on this page.
You
may also run your own reports on web site activity using the log
files found in your /logs directory. Connect to your site using
a FTP
program
and after you login, change to the /logs directory. Use FTP to
transfer your log files to your personal computer. Archived log
files are saved for 35 days and are named access_log.processed.1.gz,
access_log.processed.2.gz, and so on. Archived log files are compressed
with gzip and must be unzipped after you download them. Popular
software
such as WinZip and Stuffit
will unzip these compressed files.
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How do I use CGI scripts?
You may install scripts into your /cgi-bin directory or anywhere
under /httpdocs. Permissions for scripts must be set to 755 or you
will get an error. You can set permissions using an FTP program such
as WS_FTP.
Right click on the file and select "chmod (unix)". To set
permissions on a file using Fetch, connect to the remote site, and navigate
to the directory with the file you want to change. Go to the Remote
menu. Choose Send FTP Commands. Type "site chmod 755" (without
the quotes) then type a space followed by the filename. You may also change permissions on files using the Control Panels's File Manager. Click on the "File Manager" icon, locate the file whose permissions you wish to change, click on the existing permissions, modify as desired, and click on the "OK" button
to save the changes.
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- What is the path to sendmail?
/usr/sbin/sendmail is the path to sendmail.
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What kind of a web server do you have?
We have a FC5 Linux server running Apache.
- How do I create a password protected area of my web site?
1. Use your web browser to open:
https://server.envirolink.org:8443/
2. Type your login and password in the boxes provided.
3. Click on the "Login" button.
4. Click on the link for your domain name if you are an IGC user, Envirolink users skip to the next step.
5. Click on "Directories"
6. Click on "Add New Directory"
7. Type the name of the directory you want to protect in the
box provided. For example, if the directory is named "documents", type "/documents" (without the quotes) in the box. If the directory is named documents and is located in /httpdocs/2006/january, then type "/2006/january/documents" (without
quotes) in the box provided.
7. Check the non-SSL box and un-check the SSL box.
8. If
desired, type the prompt you wish to display along with the login
/password boxes into the "Header Text" box.
7. Select "OK"to save the changes.
8. Click on "Add User" to create and configure an authorized user for the protected directory you previously created. Click "OK" to
save the changes.
- How do I create mailboxes, aliases, and autoresponders?
1. Use your web browser to open: https://server.envirolink.org:8443/
2. Type your login and password in the boxes provided.
3. Click on the "Login" button.
4. IGC users should click on the link for your domain name. Envirolink users proceed to the next step.
5. Click on the "Mail" button.
To create a new mail name, click "Add New Mail Name".
The Mail names area displays a list of mail names existing at the domain. Each mail name is accompanied by seven icons identifying the
types of mail services configured for that mail name. The first icon on the left
indicates the ability to access the control panel, and the other six icons indicate
the mail services: mailbox, redirect, mail group, and autoresponder.
One mail name can have any combination of mail services enabled HOWEVER,
if you set up redirect for a mail name, it is usually a bad idea to also
set up a mailbox.
To edit mail name account settings, select a mail name or click an icon
corresponding to the service you wish to configure. To delete one or several mail names, select the corresponding checkboxes, and
click "Remove Selected". Click "Show Aliases" to display all the mail aliases created for the mail names.
You can click on the mail alias name in the list to edit it, or select a
corresponding checkbox, and click "Remove Selected" to remove it. Use the "Hide
Aliases" button to (surprise!) hide mail aliases.To send an
e-mail message to a mail name, click the corresponding icon to the
right of the mail name.The list of mail names can be sorted by eight
parameters in ascending or
descending order. To sort the list, click on the respective column
heading. To search in the list, type the pattern string into the
search field and click
"Search". All matching items will be displayed in the form of a filtered list. The
button "Show All" will revert to displaying the whole list.
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How do I check my e-mail?
Once
you have created a mailbox as explained above, Use your web browser
to connect to "http://webmail." followed by your domain name. For
example, if your domain name is earthsaver.org, you would connect
to "http://webmail.earthsaver.org" (without the quotes).
Type the username and password you assigned when you created the
mail
account
in
the boxes provided and click on the Login button. You may also
use a POP or IMAP program to check e-mail. The POP or IMAP server
name should be set to your domain name. The username is the portion
of your e-mail address that appears to the left of the @ sign.
For example, if your e-mail address is "earth@earthsaver.org",
your username is "earth". Use the SMTP server provided
by your Internet Service Provider. IGC does not offer SMTP service.
What can I do about viruses and spam?
IGC blocks messages with most executable attachments and uses state of the art tools to block spam. If you become the target of spam or abusive mail from a specific e-mail address, write to us at support and we may be able to block those messages. If someone trying to send you mail reports that their mail is being blocked by our anti-spam software, send a copy of one of the blocked messages with the full message header showing and we can put it on our "allowed sender" sender list.
How do
I create SQL databases?
1. Use your web browser to open: https://server.envirolink.org:8443/
2. Type your login and password in the boxes provided.
3. Click on the "Login" button.
4. IGC users should click on the link for your domain name. Envirolink users proceed to the next step.
5. Click on the "Databases" icon.
How can we collect donations by credit card?
One low-cost service that allows you to accept credit card payments
is PayPal. You can
see an example of PayPal in use at the bottom of this page.
For a list of other providers see:
http://summitcollaborative.com/dot_org_21asps.htm
I can't connect using Fetch, what am I doing
wrong?
In the Fetch version 4.0.2 or 4.0.3 preferences
"Misc" panel, there is a list of "obscure options". Find the option
"Don't send ADAT probe command" and select it.
Can I connect using telnet or SSH?
Sorry, in order to help keep our servers secure for you and others,
telnet and SSH logins are not allowed. You must use FTP to update our
web site.
Are Server Side Includes (SSI) supported?
Yes, but you must enable them. Add "AddOutputFilter INCLUDES .html" to your .htaccess file. See
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/howto/ssi.html for more details.
Is PHP installed?
Yes.
The most recent version of PHP is installed and ready for you to
use. Create a phpinfo.php file in your httpdocs directory and point
a browser at it to learn more about the current version of PHP installed
and what features are enabled. See http://us.php.net/phpinfo to get
the code for a phpinfo.php file.
How do I use cookies?
There's a good article that discusses how to use cookies at http://willmaster.com/support/howtoinfo/cookies.shtml
Regardless
whether you decide to use cookies or not, it's a good idea to provide
a privacy statement that discloses what information your organization
gathers and how that information is used. Examples of such a privacy
statements can be found at here.
Do you support QuickTime, Real Media, or Windows
Media?
We
are not running a separate media server for multiple, simultaneous streaming
media, but our web server will serve RealMedia content:
1. FTP your encoded RealAudio or RealVideo files (files with the .ra
or .rm extensions) to your /httpdocs directory.
2. Use a text editor (such as Notepad) to create a metafile containing
a RealAudio URL. For example, the contents of your file should be in
the following form: http://yourdomain.org/file.ra or http://yourdomain.org/file.rm
where yourdomain.org is your domain name.
3. Save the metafile you have just created as a text file and give it
a .ram filename extension. FTP the metafile to your /httpdocs directory.
4. In your HTML document, reference the metafile as: <![CDATA[ <A HREF="filename.ram">]]>
5. When a
user clicks on the link, the audio file will begin to download. The
RealAudio Player begins playing after a few seconds; it does not need
to wait for the entire file to be downloaded.
How can I install a discussion board on my
web site?
vBulletin is
an excellent commercial threaded discussion. The colors and layout
can
be configured in a variety of ways. A variety of other free and commercial
discussion software products are also available. No matter what package
you pick, by installing software on IGC servers, you must sign up
to receive updates notices for that product and install any security
updates as soon as they are available. If you don't have the resources
to do that, don't install software.
Files that I just uploaded are not showing up!
1. Check to see if you have both an index.htm file and an index.html
file. If you have both, the server will display the index.html file
before it displays the index.htm file. Removing the old index.html file
will solve the problem.
2. Your browser might be displaying the old version of the file because
the browser is holding a copy of the file in its cache. Try viewing
the page on another computer and see if the new file shows up. Closing
your browser and restarting it might empty the old file from the cache.
If not, try emptying the cache. In Netscape, select Files, Preferences,
Advanced, Cache and then click the buttons to clear both the memory
and disk cache. In Internet Explorer, select Tools, Internet Options.
Click on the General Tab and then click on the Delete Files button.
3. You might have uploaded a file with a space in its name that starts
with the same characters as the file you are trying to display. For
example, you might be having a problem with "file.html" because
a file with the name:
"file something.html" exists. Delete
the file with the space in its name.
How can I allow members of my organization to edit only specific
areas of our web site?
The control panel allows you to create areas of your web site called
"web users" that can be updated by members of your organization
while preventing those members from making changes to your main site.
When you create a "web user" area named, for example, membership,
it will be accessed by typing your web site address followed by a tilde,
and then the word membership. So, if your web site address was www.earthsaver.org,
the "web user" area created in this example would be http://www.earthsaver.org/~membership
1. Use your web browser to open: https://server.envirolink.org:8443/
2. Type your login and password in the boxes provided.
3. Click on the "Login" button.
4. IGC users should click on the link for your domain name. Envirolink users proceed to the next step.
5. Click on the "Directories" icon.
I
get
a message that says my domain name can not be found when I try to
view my site
If you have just registered your domain name,
it can take
up to 72 hours before your domain name has propagated across the
Internet. If your domain name isn't new, you may have failed to
pay the fee to the domain name registrar. If you know where your
domain was registered, go to the web site of the registrar and
see if payment is due. You may renew your domain on-line or over
the phone using a credit card. If you don't know your domain name
registrar, go to the Network
Solutions web site, type your domain name in the box provided,
and click on Search. Look at the very end of the record for a line
that looks something like this:
Record
expires on 09-Apr-2008.
If the date is in the past, your
domain name fee is overdue and your domain has been disabled
until you pay the fee. Unless the record
states otherwise, the domain is registered at Network Solutions
and if so, you can pay the fee by clicking on the "Renew Services"
tab at the top of the page. If the domain is not registered with
Network Solutions, you will see a line in the record reading "Referral
URL" directing you to the web site of your registrar. Go
to that site and follow the directions to renew your domain name.
How can I get additional help?
Contact support @ igc.apc.org
Software versions as of November 1, 2010:
mod_perl: 2.0.2-5.1
mod_python: 3.2.8-3
mysql: 5.0.27-1.fc5
php: 5.1.6-1.6
ruby: 1.8.5.35-2.fc5
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