Technical Aspects

Email Setup

• How do I set mail forwarding options?
• How do I set up and access POP mailboxes?
• How do I set up Group email?
• How do I set up autoresponders?
• How do I set up email forms?
• How do I set up Catch-All email?

Cgi programs/scripts

• How do I implement custom scripts?
• Where can I find documentation for preinstalled scripts?
• How do I install Access Counter?
• How do I display time on my web page?
• How do I install free shopping cart program?
• How do I install a Search Engine on my website?
• How do I install Matt's Free For All Link script in my web site?
• How do I install Matt's Random Link Generator script in my web site?
• How do I install Matt's Simple Search script in my web site?
• How do I set different permissions to files and directories?
• How do I implement client-side imagemaps?
• How do I implement server side includes (SSI)?

FTP Access

• How do I manage anonymous FTP access?
• How do I setup additional FTP user(s) and limit their access to certain folders?

Web Server Setup

• How do I password protect directories?
• How do I specify my own "File not found", "Access forbidden", and "Internal error" page?

Multimedia

• How do I include RealAudio/Video® in my home page?
• How can I include MIDI audio files in my home page?

Secure Server Access and online transaction

• How do I implement Secure Server Access?
• How do I obtain my own SSL certificate?
• How do I implement CyberCash?

   cgiemail    forms-to-email
   newcount    "hit" counters

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1. Upload to your cgi-local directory to ensure proper file permission settings
2. Upload in ASCII transfer mode (and NOT BINARY mode)
3. The first line of each script must read:   #!/usr/local/bin/perl
4. Reference the script using /cgi-local (and NOT /cgi-bin)
5. Our sendmail path is: /usr/lib/sendmail

If a script calls another file within your account, but the script does NOT require a URL, you need to use the system path:

eg:
/sites/<domain>/htdocs/... <- if file resides in root

/sites/<domain>/cgi-local/... <- if file resides in cgi-local

Substitute the path to the file with your domain name. Your domain name is for example: yourdomain.com (be sure NOT to included www).
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Additional POP mailboxes are available at a rate of $1 per mailbox per month.

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By default, ALL mail is set up to automatically forward to the email address that was provided when your account was set up. This email address is called the "catch all" mail forwarding address. This address can be changed in Email Settings -- Advance within your Control Panel. As such, you do not need to set specific forwarding options for addresses associated with your domain name. (eg. webmaster@yourname.com, sales@yourname.com, etc.)

You can also set up specific mail forwarding options for email addresses which are to forward to an address other than the default.

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Client-side imagemaps do not require the presence of a server-side script in order to interpret the coordinates of the "hot" regions of your multi-clickable image. The client-side imagemap is more efficient than the server-side imagemap and it allows the visitor to see the actual URL associated with the mapped regions in the status bar of their web browser.

1.Download a mapping program to create a map file based on the desired image. The map file will contain the coordinates of each clickable region. We recommend MapEdit (PC), but other imagemapping tools may also be available.

2.Map out the hotspots using one of these programs and select the map file format "Client-side imagemap" as opposed to NCSA or CERN (for server-side maps) prior to saving the file. Here is sample client-side map file created using MapEdit:

<map name="sample">
<area shape="rect" coords="20,27,82,111" href="hotspot1.html">
<area shape="circle" coords="129,113,29" href="hotspot2.html">
<area shape="rect" coords="21,158,170,211" href="mailto:support@webxess.com">
<area shape="default" nohref>
</map>

3.Include the map file code within the desired HTML document and reference it like so:

<img src="image.gif" usemap="#sample">

Substitute the name of the desired image above and note the relationship between the HTML tag, <map name="sample"> and the usemap="#sample" attribute above. You can test your new client-side imagemap offline if the links refer to files on your local PC.

More information is available.

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Our Professional or higher domain accounts also have the ability to use the more popular RealAudio® server. Once you have created an RA file, follow these instructions to incorporate realaudio files into your home page:

You need to create a text file with a ".ram" extension. This text file contains a URL to the realaudio file in the following format:

• pnm://www.webxess.net:7070/<userid>/audiofilename.ra

Note the "pnm:" prefix. Substitute your userid above.  This file can reside in the root directory of your account. The audio file name must have a ".ra" extension.

The HTML file must reference this text file; for example:

• <a href="http://<your_domain>/<textfile.ram>">Listen to Audio</a>

More Information is available.

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You can add sound or music to spice up your web site by embedding a MIDI file in your page. MIDI files are typically only about 15k to 25k in size, so they do not take very long to load. You can use MIDI files as background music on your page by adding the following code to the section of your html file:

<embed src="yoursong.mid" hidden=true> <bgsound src="yoursong.mid">

Replace "yoursong" with the name of the MIDI file that you are using. This code excerpt will support people using Netscape or Internet Explorer.

To make a MIDI file play "on request" in the foreground, you link to directly to the MIDI file using a hyperlink.

<a href="melody.mid">Click to hear my MIDI tune!</a>

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An autoreponder is an automatic program that will respond to an email message sent to a predefined address in your domain. This is useful for automatically sending out information via email based on a user's emailed request. More information on setting up autoresponders is available.

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Our Pro., Corp., Commercial, and Enterprise plans support SSL (Secure socket layer) secure transactions. This method allows for secure, encrypted communication between the user's web browser and your web site. SSL requires that a secure host have a "certificate" signed by a company called Verisign. You can use our server's certificate or obtain your own secure host from them.

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Account users can allow anonymous FTP access to visitors wishing to download or upload files to your web site as if you were running your own FTP server.

By default, all files and directories within your account folder ftp/ are set to public read access ON. As such, enabling ANON FTP will allow access to ALL files within your account folder ftp/. In general, you can inhibit access to specific files and directories by changing permission of the files or directories.

Once you enable ANON FTP in Account Settings within your Control Panel, files can be accessed anonymously via FTP client or by using the following URL format:

• ftp://ftp.your_domain.com/<FILENAME>

Anonymous visitors wishing to access your site via FTP client (eg. wsftp) must use your domain name as the FTP hostname, userid of anonymous and password of guest or visitor's email address..

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Counters and Clock

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Introduction
You can place an odometer style counter on one or more of your web pages. Although many vital statistics can be reviewed via the stats program in your Control Panel, sometimes you may want to advertise the number of "hits" to a specific web page.

How to use
Add the following line of code to an HTML document to display a counter:

<img src="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=userid" align=absmiddle>

Substitute your userid above. If you would like to add a counter to more than one page, start with key "userid1" and increment by one each time you add a new counter to another page. (ie. userid1, userid2, etc.)

This page only shows a couple of simple examples of coding a counter or clock in your HTML document. The only feature used in the preceeding example is the "df" option which let's you name the file used to hold the count. Every page which contains a reference to the "Count.cgi" script with the same filename on the "df=XXX" tag will update the same number. So you can share counters among a number of pages, or have independent counters.

For more information on the counter program, please refer to the author's extensive notes on the subject. The URL for his homepage is http://www.fccc.edu/users/muquit/Count.html

Here's another example, using the Count.cgi script to print a digital clock instead of a page counter. The current time here on the East Coast is , To change time zones you only need to add the timezone=GMT-0100 for any difference from GMT.

And again the code is very simple,

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?display=clock">

Here are some examples of the (very extensive) options available for controlling the look and feel of the counter program. Please refer to the author's homepage for complete documentation. You can cut-n-paste any of the following and experiment if you like. The HTML required to produce each of them is listed to the right of the graphic.

The "dd=" options controls the digit style.

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=sample.dat|dd=A">

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=sample.dat|dd=B">

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=sample.dat|dd=C">

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=sample.dat|dd=D">

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=sample.dat|dd=E">

The following samples use the "dd=" option with clocks.

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?display=clock|chcolor=T">

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?display=clock|dd=B">

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?display=clock|dd=C">

The "ft=" option controls the width of the frame border.

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=sample.dat|dd=B|ft=0">

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=sample.dat|dd=B|ft=5">

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=sample.dat|dd=B|ft=10">

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=sample.dat|ft=12|frgb=25;80;8">

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=sample.dat|dd=B|ft=10|frgb=180;30;12">

You can make the counter images opaque with the "tr=1" (transparency) option.

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=sample.dat|ft=0|tr=1">

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=sample.dat|ft=12|tr=1|frgb=25;80;8">

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=sample.dat|dd=C|ft=10|tr=1|frgb=180;130;2">

For the default counter, changing the color of the numbers is easy with the "prgb=" option.

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=sample.dat|ft=0|prgb=200;20;180">

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=sample.dat|ft=0|tr=1|prgb=200;20;180">

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=sample.dat|ft=0|tr=1|prgb=20;10;60">

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=sample.dat|ft=0|tr=1|prgb=100;90;8">

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=sample.dat|ft=0|tr=1|prgb=20;30;160">

Where

• base is the complete path to the directory you want to search relative to the web server. Note: /sites/yourdomain.com/htdocs (your domain should NOT included www. prefix)
• rbase is the URL of the directory you want to search.
  ie:  http://www.webxess.net
• sv is the list of search values
• type describes the type of search it is either "all" or "any" terms.

You can also include the following fields:

• background sets the background image
  i.e. <INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="background" VALUE="/inline/hotelb.gif">
• bgcolor sets the background colour
• text sets the text color
• link sets the color of unvisited links
• alink sets the color of the active link
• vlink sets the color of visited links

If you want to restrict searches to specific directories you can include:

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="dirs" VALUE="/dir1;/dir2;/dir3">

This will only search the directories that are listed in value.

Please note:
*.Each directory needs to start with /
*.Each directory is seperated by ;

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Yes, you can password protect specific directories within your website. You can begin assigning unique ids and passwords by selecting Password Protect Documents in your Control Panel. As such, visitors will be prompted for id and password to gain access to any web page within such a directory. This does NOT affect FTP access.

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