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Billing - Answers

How long I need to wait after signup to receive account info?
Your account will be set up within 4 hours.

Is there minimum contract period?
Minimum period is 1 month! You can also cancel your account at any time after that (or before). You can choose to pay monthly, quarterly or yearly.

In which currency are your prices?
All prices are in US$.

What payment options do you support?
Secure online credit card payments. Alphawebhosting.net uses Secure Pay for automatic payment processing and and Online Credit Card Payment (Paypal). This systems are used by over a million online merchants and stands for the internet's most secure credit card processing facilities. It's a very simple and straight forward procedure. It also offers a 29 day money back guarantee for all hosting accounts purchased online. Other available payment options are Western Union, Check, Money Order and bank (wire) transfer.

Payment frequency/ term?
You can choose to pay monthly, quarterly (every 3 months) or yearly. Some payment options do not allow for monthly payments, but require the minimum 3 months to be paid (i.e.. bank transfer and check).
Automatic Payment and Online Credit Card Payment (Paypal) enable you to set the payments on autopilot so that the money is automatically transferred on the specified date each month without you having to remember anything.

If at some point you decide that you don't need our services any more, simply inform us and the payments for the following month will be suspended (if you paid via automatic payment or online.

Do you accept international orders?
Absolutely, we welcome potential clients from all over the world. We can even host your non-US domain name extension.

Servers - Answers

Which platform of operating system does Alphawebhosting.net servers use?
Our servers use RedHat Linux and Apache Web Server, the best and the most reliable Internet server solution.

What kind of Internet connection do Alphawebhosting.net servers have?
Our servers are located on 1000 mbit/s BGP4 multi-homed OC3 fiber optic link and they are directly connected onto four the most important American backbone providers - Verio.net, Gblx.net, cw.net, and ev1.net. This offers you security that your site will be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all 365 days a year.

What is the most typical configuration for an Alphawebhosting.net web server?
Minimum configuration for an Alphawebhosting.net web server is a Pentium IV on 2.4 GHZ with Ultra wide SCSI hard disks with minimum 1.5 GB RAM memory.

Is there a size limit of a file that I can transfer/post onto Alphawebhosting.net web server?
Generally no. Only if the size of a file is bigger than the quota that you have for your web package (for example 500 Mb for regular web package).

What are your Domain Name Servers (DNS)?
primary: ns1.astrahosting.com / 207.44.202.57
secondary: ns2.astrahosting.com / 216.127.66.108

Where are your servers located?
Our main servers are located at 4x backbone in US. Physical location of servers is Houston, Texas.

What domain extensions can I host with you?
We can host any domains, all around the world. Of course we can host the popular COM, NET, ORG and EDU domains, but we also support all new domains such as .INFO , .WS and .BIZ. In addition to that, you can host any other country domain name such as .CO.UK.

Domain - Answers

What do I need to do in order to transfer my web site from my current hosting provider to you?
All you will need to do is update your DNS records into the following.
Primary DNS : ns1.astrahosting.com 207.44.202.57
Secondary DNS: ns2.astrahosting.com 216.127.66.108

How do I update (change) my DNS records?
Simply go to the place where you registered your domain name. Log in to your account and change the details where it says primary & secondary DNS. Instead of the details that are there at the moment (your current hosting provider or the domain register' servers) type the following: (Alphawebhosting.net's servers):

Primary DNS : ns1.astrahosting.com 207.44.202.57
Secondary DNS: ns2.astrahosting.com 216.127.66.108

If someone else registered your domain name on your behalf you will need to contact them and ask them to update your DNS into the above.

On the other hand, you can let us do all this for you. It is a complimentary service and will not cost you anything. You will need to give us the login name and password of the site where you brought the domain and we will do the rest for you!

How long does a registration of a new domain take?
New domain will be registered couple of hours upon the receipt of your request.
Your registered domain name will be functional 24-48 hours from when you register it.
This is because the DNS databases need some time to synchronize and refresh the information for your domain.

I want to transfer my hosting from my existing provider to you. To do this will I need to transfer my domain name too?
No you will not need to transfer your domain name. What you will need to do is update the DNS records so that they are now pointing to our servers. It's free to do this. See Above question for "how to" instructions.

What are your Domain Name Servers (DNS)?
Primary DNS : ns1.astrahosting.com 207.44.202.57
Secondary DNS: ns2.astrahosting.com 216.127.66.108

Can Alphawebhosting.net register a domain name for me?
Yes we can register .com .biz .org .net .ws .info .us domain names at the cost of $18 per year.

Am I the owner of the domain that Alphawebhosting.net registers for me?
Yes. We register domains on your behalf. That domain is completely your property; we only do administrative work and give technical support.

Do I need to have a registered domain name to have a web site online?
You don't necessarily have to have a registered domain in order for us to host your web site. You can have an address such as www.YOURSITE.Alphawebhosting.net. However, by registering your own domain you secure your or your company's existence on the Internet. Even if you do not plan to upload a website at this moment, by registering your own domain you save www.mycompany.com from being registered by somebody else.

What domain extensions can you host?
Yes we can host ANY domain name extensions.

Can you host international (country specific) domain names?
Yes we can host ANY international domain name, from ANY country.

Emails - Answers

Will I be able to check my emails when I am away from my home/office computer?
Yes, We have web mail option. What this means is that you can log on to the internet (to the address we will give you once you sign up) and check your mail from any computer that has internet access.

How to configure my Outlook Express for receiving e-mail messages?
1. Choose Accounts from Tools pull-down menu.
2. You will see all the accounts that you have in Outlook Express. Click Add.
3. Outlook Wizard will take over. Be careful about few details: For Mail Server Type choose POP3. For Incoming Mail type pop3.yourdomain.com For Outgoing Mail type smtp.yourprovider.com Yourprovider.com determines ISP of your Internet access. POP Account Name: username@yourdomain.com *username is a user name chosen at the time of registration. If you configure your Outlook Express in this way, you will be able to receive and send e-mail messages with your own domain address.

How much space do I have for every email account?
The size limit for your email account is determined by the space of the disc of your web package (for example, if you have a regular web package, the size is 500 MB together with other information's and setup files).

I cannot login to the POP or SMTP servers to send/retrieve my email?
Make sure you specified the correct POP and SMTP servers in your email settings, and that your user ID (or alias) and password are correct. Your POP and SMTP servers should be set to pop3.yourdomain.com and smtp.yourdomain.com. Also for e-mail you must use username@yourdomain.com or username#yourdomain.com for login and your password for password.

What are POP3 Accounts?
POP3 accounts are email accounts that you can receive email from your visitors on the Internet. They allow you to receive email only. (We recommend that you send your email through your SMTP of your Internet Service provider.) POP3 accounts come with their own username and password to access them. With POP3 email, you can create a very well organized site with different POP3 accounts for different areas of your web pages.

What are Email auto responders?
Email auto responders allow you to setup an email account with the ability to auto-reply with a given message when someone sends email to it. It looks like a pop account. You have probably seen one when you send email to somewhere and it comes right back with We got your email or something to that effect. That was most likely an auto responder.

Website - Answers

What I need to know to upload my web site via Frontpage?
In Frontpage click on first on File than on Publish Web. For publish destination use http://yourdomain.com and after than you will be asked for username and password. After you submit this information Frontpage will upload your web content to the server.

How can I change FrontPage password for my site admin user?
All FrontPage related management is done from within the FrontPage client software itself.
Open Microsoft FrontPage, then open the FrontPage Web you wish to work on. Understand that you must be opening the Web directly from the web server, and not your hard drive. In other words, make sure you are opening the site from http://www.whatever.com, not c:\whatever.
Once the web is open, click on "Tools" at the top menu, select "Server", then slide your mouse over and then choose one of the following three that pertains to what you want to manage:
Administration Home...
Permissions...
Change Password...
All three of the selections relate to the administration of users and passwords within your FrontPage Web (s).
Note: The above directions are for the Microsoft FrontPage 2002 version of the software. If you are using an older version, the directions will be similar, but not exactly the same.

How can I upload my website to Alphawebhosting.net servers?
Uploading of your site to Alphawebhosting.net web servers is done by FTP protocol ( File Transfer Protocol) or with Frontpage Publish Web Tool. FTP is a protocol which computers use to transfer data from one computer in a net to another. For using FTP protocol you need FTP software. Every Windows has DOS-based FTP software. If you need a better and more advanced version of FTP program, you can download it from www.download.com. The most popular FTP clients are WS_FTP and CuteFTP. After the installation of FTP client, you need to enter the information about the address of the server, username and password that we have sent to you by e-mail at the time of setting up your account.

What are basic FTP parameters?
For uploading a site you use your FTP client. FTP client needs this information in order to connect to your site:
FTP HOST: ftp.yourdomain.com
USER ID: username@yourdomain.com
Password: your password

You will see some directories when you link to the root of your site

Do not delete or rename any of your initial directories.

You will upload your files in mainwebsite_html dir, otherwise you will not be able to see your site
.

How can I use and create subdomains inside my account (only for on control panel on ns1, ns3, ns4 and ns5 servers)?
All customers has to do is create a new sub-directory in their mainwebsite_html dir with the name of the sub-domain. For example, if you want two new subdomains sales.domain.com and info.domain.com, create these directories:

mainwebsite_html/sales.domain.com/
mainwebsite_html/info.domain.com/

Upload the contents for those web sites into their respective sub-directories
.

What I need to do so that my CGI scripts can work at Alphawebhosting.net servers?
First of all you need to create .htaccess file in dir from which you want to use your CGI scripts (If you want that dir be mainwebsite_html you just need to add rules into file because it is already created. Do not erase your .htaccess file in your mainwebsite_html dir because that will brake your Frontpage Extensions configuration):

Options +FollowSymlinks
Options +ExecCGI
AddHandler cgi-script cgi pl

After that in editor create a simple test program:

#!/usr/bin/perl

print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "Alphawebhosting.net Rules";

After that save it under the name test.cgi change the attribute of that file to 755 that is, do a command chmod 755 test.cgi. Than go to http://www.yourdomain.com/test.cgi and check does your CGI script works
.

Can I administrate my MySQL database via web?
Yes you can do that with phpMyAdmin tool. Go to http://www.yourdomain.com/admin URL and login into your Control Panel Site Administrator. After that click first on link Configure My MySQL Database/phpMyAdmin and on link MySQL Administration Tool. You will be asked for username and password for your database (we sent you that information in our activation account e-mail). After you enter this information's you will be logged into your phpMyAdmin.

JSP/J2EE/Servlets/Struts/Tomcat - Answers

On which plan are jsp/servlets supported?
They are supported in java package only.

What version of Tomcat are you running?
We're running Tomcat 4.1.31 and Tomcat 5.0

Can I deploy my application using a war file?
Yes, create a war file and name it file.war and place in the root directory of your web space (mainwebsite_html or /var/www/html/ ) The contents will automatically be deployed when the JVM is restarted.

Do I get my own WEB-INF directory?
Yes, you have your own WEB-INF directory

Can I restart the Tomcat service at any time?
No, you can't restart the Tomcat. Tomcat is automatically restarting every 60 minutes, but if you need to restart it, email us and we'll do it for you.

Can I use third-party Java packages?
Yes, of course! You can install any Java packages of any version you want. All web hosting accounts come with JDBC preinstalled. We can also assist in installing popular Java packages. In general, all you need to do is include the JAR file in your lib directory.

My applications were developed with Tomcat 3.3. Will they work on your system?
Yes, while Tomcat 4.1.31 implements the Servlet 2.3 and jsp 1.2 specifications, it is fully compatible with earlier specifications.

Do you support Struts?
Yes but you will need to email us and we will add support for struts to your account.

How to setup servlets?

Servlet Set Up - READ CAREFULLY

To setup servlet, you need to configure servlet into the file web.xml which needs to be placed in /var/www/html/WEB-INF directory.

www root directory or webapps:/var/www/html
Classes directory located in: /var/www/html/WEB-INF/Classes/
There you will need to upload your Java class file.

Our default url-mapping for servlet is: /servlet/*
To check servlet in your browser:
www.mydomain.net/servlet/HelloWorld
Jsp Files - Upload anywhere in /var/www/html

DOUBLE CHECK:
Double Check that that url-mapping for servlers is entered correctly in web.xml
Double Check that Java class file is uploaded in the correct place.
Without these two things your servlet will not work.

Viewing Tomcat Logs
By default all the logging activity will be placed within the /var/log/ directory of your application.
If a telnet shell is enabled on your account then 'tailing' the logs can provide a powerful tool in debugging your web application.
Viewing the logs is recommended when you suspect that errors are occurring during the loading/reloading of your web application.
To get telnet access you'll need to request it, it is not enabled by default on all accounts.

Connect jsp <> mysql
Example

Please make sure that you have created database through the control panel and that you have setup password for db.
Write down your database name - this is very important!
Instructions for database set up available in your initial account activation email titled " MySQL Set Up Instructions"
After this steps, edit dbtest.jsp and enter correct information's, upload this two files and test them.
This is an example with org.gjt.mm.mysql.Driver MySQL driver.
We also support com.mysql.jdbc.Driver

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- File 1: dbtest.jsp

<%
String dbhost1 = request.getParameter("dbhost");
String dbname1 = request.getParameter("dbname");
String user1 = request.getParameter("user");
String pass1 = request.getParameter("pass");

if( dbhost1==null )
dbhost1="localhost";
if( dbname1==null )
dbname1="ENTER=HERE-YOUR-DB-NAME";
if( user1==null)
user1="YOUR-USER-NAME";
if( pass1==null )
pass1="MYSQL-PASSWORD";
%>

<form action="dbsubmit.jsp" method=get>
<table>
<tr>
<td>dbhost
<td><input size=60 name="dbhost" type=text value="<%=dbhost1%>">
<tr>
<td>dbname
<td><input size=60 name="dbname" type=text value="<%=dbname1%>">
<tr>
<td>user
<td><input name="user" type=text value="<%=user1%>">
<tr>
<td>password
<td><input name="pass" type=text value="<%=pass1%>">
<tr>
<td colspan="2">
<input type=submit>
</table>

</form>

------------------------------------End of dbtest.jsp

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

File 2 - dbsubmit.jsp

<%
String dbhost = request.getParameter("dbhost");
String dbname = request.getParameter("dbname");
String user = request.getParameter("user");
String pass = request.getParameter("pass");
String connURL =
"jdbc:mysql://"+dbhost+"/"+dbname+"?user="+user+"&password="+pass;

try
{
Class.forName("org.gjt.mm.mysql.Driver").newInstance();
java.sql.Connection conn = java.sql.DriverManager.getConnection(connURL);
response.getWriter().println("<font color=green><b>");
response.getWriter().println("Connection success!!!");
response.getWriter().println("</b></font>");
}
catch(Exception e)
{
response.getWriter().println("<font color=red><b>[");
response.getWriter().println(e.getMessage());
response.getWriter().println("]<br>");
response.getWriter().println("Connection URL:["+connURL+"]");
response.getWriter().println("</b></font>");
}
%>

<%@include file="dbtest.jsp"%>

--------------------------------End of dbsubmit.jsp

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JSP/J2EE/Servlets/Struts/Tomcat