cPanel is the control panel that is deployed by many web hosts to allow them to provide their clients with Linux based web hosting; cPanel has many features that allow its users to administrate many different parts of their website, including the ability to generate bandwidth statistics from many different built in programs to allow them to get a detailed view of their bandwidth use. Bandwidth is the type of traffic that you have assigned to your web hosting account, and normally the amount that you use up is based on how many visitors you have as well as how ‘bandwidth heavy’ your website is - something which is normally dependent on how many images your website is made up of; bandwidth is normally measured in gigbytes (GB) due to the number of visitors many website receive nowadays as well as how multimedia heavy websites on shared hosting are becoming. cPanel contains many different bandwidth statistic generating programs such as AwStats, Webalizer and then a built in bandwidth usage chart maker; each different solutions covers how bandwidth is used in its own different way, but all have the sole aim of generating statistics and charts to inform you of how much bandwidth your shared cPanel web hosting account has taken up. Since there are several different bandwidth usage statistic generator programs built into cPanel, identifying the use of each individual one can be hard; once you have identified the use of each one then you should be able to monitor your bandwidth with effect - you won’t just have to look how much you have used, but instead you can see where it is being use as well as where your visitors are originating from, something like that can help you with the SEO of the site as well as give you the ability to market towards a certain country.

Latest Visitors

The ‘Latest Visitors’ function built into cPanel displays the last 330 visitors that you have had to your website. It displays all the files called by each host along with which protocol was used to call the page, and the user agent string attached to that certain visitor; the HTTP code and the size of the file called is also displayed - all the files called are contained under a category titled with the user’s IP address to ensure that you don’t get each visitor muddled up when going through the statistics. The date is also contained with these statistics; this can be helpful to you since you can then know which pages of your website are being accessed and at what time of day - this kind of information is gold dust if you are aiming to advertise your website or optimize it for search engines in a better way. The latest visitors function can also aid you the detection of errors in your website since the HTTP code is included with each page call; if the message received is not the correct one then it may be dictating an error to you.

AWStats

AwStats is a visitor counter add-on built into cPanel, although it requires activation from WHM before cPanel accounts are able to use. AWStats shows you how many visitors your website receives daily, and break the numbers down into different categories to give you a better idea of how much of your audience and how much of it is just search engines crawling your website; this can help when trying to find out how successful your website is if it doesn’t contain a community space such as a forum of chat room. AWStats also displays information such as the hostnames of your visitors and even does a reverse search on the IP addresses of your visitors in order to show you which countries they come from; it then breaks this information down to show you how much bandwidth each country that your visitors originate from has used up. The different visitor categories within AWStats are signified in graphs via the use of graphical images to make each different category out clearly. AWStats is a great tool for search engine optimization since it shows you which pages your websites enter at, as well as where they exit; it also provides information on referrers where applicable. If your visitors originate from a search engine or something similar, then AWStats is also able to capture the search keyword or keyphrase that they entered in the search engine in order to reach your website. User agent strings are also broken down in AWStats to give you information on your visitors such as the operating system and browser they are using; although this information might seem pretty useless, it can help you when optimizing your website to suit different web browsers. AWStats also tells you where error messages are being received by visitors - this can help you to update links if needed, if there are out of date or incorrect ones contained within your website. The visitor history in AWStats can be broken down into a monthly history, a weekly history, a daily history as well as an hourly history.

Bandwidth

The bandwidth function that is built into cPanel displays graphical charts on how and when tha bandwidth assigned to your shared cPanel website hosting account has been used. The charts are able to show you how much bandwidth each different web hosting service attached to your shared cPanel website hosting account has used; this can help you in the event that you believe your certain FTP or mail subdomain is being attacked, as this will normally make the bandwidth of attacked service go through the roof. If you have more than one domain attached to your hosting account either via the use of add-on domains or sub domains, then the share of the final amount of bandwidth usage of each domain is generated and displayed as a pie chart in this part of cPanel; this ca be helpful if you have several different websites since you are able to tell how many visitors each different part of the site is receiving, and the amount used by each domain is displayed much more clearly than other bandwidth generating programs built into cPanel.

Webalizer

Webalizer is a bandwidth statistics generating system which works in a similar way to AWStats, by displaying the organized data into charts and graphs; the only difference is that the information that is generated by Webalizer is not as detailed as that generated by AWStats. The charts produced by Webalizer colour code each differnet category related to the generated statistics to ensure that the chart is actually readable; however, the information that is produced is only numbers and can be quite confusing for somebody who is facing Webalizer for the first time. Webalizer also has a separate FTP statistic generation program built into cPanel which can generate information about FTP usage within your shared cPanel web hosting account.

Raw Access Logs

Raw access logs are the logs which the statistics softwares that are built into cPanel base their statistics on. They can be helpful to you if you need to see who has accessed your website quickly. cPanel generates a GunZIP file which you are able to download which contains the access logs for your website as well as any add-on or sub domains that might be attached to your account as well as your main domain. You can also choose for cPanel to archive your raw access logs into your home directory to ensure that they’re backed up; you can also choose for the previous month’s archived logs to be deleted at the end of each month. Some of the data displayed in statistic generation softwares might also be changed in a certain way before it is displayed; by looking that the raw access logs you are able to ensure that the data you are seeing is the original data.

Error Log

The error log built into cPanel displays the last 300 errors that visitors to your website have been faced with. This log can be helpful if your website is giving out errors that you don’t know about; it also gives more detailed information about the error which can help when trying to solve it. This log can help keep your website running smoothly since its able to give you an indication of what links are broken, and where they should be fixed as well what files are missing but should exist. If your website experiences too many errors then the most likely scenario is that search engines will give up indexing it since all they’re indexing is errors; this log can help you make sure that there aren’t too many errors experienced on your website, and inturn ensuring that the search engines keep on indexing it.

Shared website hosting is where multiple websites are hosted on the same server; each website is contained within its own folder or location on the server to keep it separate from other websites which are hosted on the same server. Shared hosting is seen as the most economical type of website hosting since the cost of server maintenance as well as other server related costs are spread across a large amount of customers, meaning that the cost of hosting for each customer is low; generally the more customers that can be fitted onto a high performance server, the less the website hosting package or packages will cost. Shared hosting is normally where most webmasters begin, and then work their way up the chain to eventually owning a dedicated server; this is because shared hosting packages are generally every cheap, and the amount of skilled needed to begin with is very low. Shared hosting is normally only available on two different types of operating system: Linux and Windows; this is because most web applications are built to suite either one of these platforms, and hosting control panels are only mainly made for Linux and Windows. One thing to note though is that there are a few hosts who do offer shared hosting on BSD based systems, although BSD operating systems are only normally available on dedicated servers.

Types of Shared Web Hosting

There are different types of shared website hosting, which can cover different areas and services that a site may require to be able to run. The owner of a website might choose to disperse the hosting of the services which they require for their website for extra redundancy; in most cases this is done because the website is ‘mission critical’ and they want to minimize the amount of downtime as much as they possibly can - but might not be able to afford a dedicated server or a clustered website hosting package. These different types of shared hosting also allow for people to only host what they need to host; for example a customer might only require email hosting, and not actual website hosting - this means that all they have to do is choose a shared email hosting plan that matches their specifications. One thing to note is that most shared hosting plans, whatever the type, provide some sort of DNS hosting in some way or another; without the use of a DNS server or servers, any service related to your website won’t be able to run - for example, you won’t be able receive any emails without the use of DNS because the email servers for your domain won’t be findable since your MX (mail exchanger) DNS records can’t be found since you don’t have any DNS servers attached to your domain. Examples of different types of shared website hosting are the following sections.

Application Specific Web Hosting

Application specific web hosting is the term that is given to web hosting which caters for specific website applications, or categories of website. In most cases, application specific web hosting covers categories such as blogging, image and video (multimedia) hosting, and in some cases specific applications have their own web hosting packages. This type of shared hosting can be of benefit for those who are looking to host a website which makes use of one of the three categories that are hosted for; those with little technical knowledge on how to get their website running with certain applications might also find themselves interested in application specific website hosting. Application specific can also take the form of free web hosting as well as paid web hosting; for example Blogger is an online service that allows you to create and write your own blog - it allows you to do this for free, on the other hand there might be a web host that is offering a hosting plan which has Wordpress already installed on it so that the customer is able to start their blog straight away. Both the free and paid types have their advantages, but the free versions tend to have adverts plastered all over them which can spoil both the environment and look of your website.

Game Server Hosting

Game server hosting is used by players to host league table matches; most games that are played over the internet require a connection to some sort of game server. Game server hosting rarely comes as a type of shared web hosting because of the bandwidth and CPU requirements of a game server to allow it to run; in most cases a host would advise a customer to go with a dedicated server to allow them to host their online gaming community. Game servers are also referred to as ‘listen servers’ and are run of the same machine as the gaming client; the server is normally shut down when the client is since both are hosted together. The gaming server has software built into it to limit the number of players that are allowed to play on the server at one time; this is because of the bandwidth and CPU restraints that even face a game server that is hosted on a dedicated server. Game servers that are hosted within a shared environment are normally placed on a server cluster; this can help ease the strain on both the CPU and bandwidth of each server and can ensure that the game can be played effectively without any problems. Game server providers, such as eUKhost, offer many titles for their customers to choose from when ordering their dedicated gaming server; this game will then be installed for them on receipt of the server so that they can get on with the thing that matters to them most straight away - gaming.

File Hosting

File hosting is a common type of shared hosting which people use mainly to backup data either on their home PC or that which is contained within either their shared hosting account, or on their VPS or dedicated server. File hosting normally doesn’t require the user to have a domain since the file transferring is done either through a web based control or via FTP (file transfer protocol). The amount of storage that you are assigned for hosting your files in is normally measured in gigbytes (GB) because of the size of files that we wish to store of backup these days; a few years ago the amount of space allocated to you would have been measured in megabytes (MB). With backup or file storage solutions that have been designed for use by large corporations or people who need to access the files whenever without any trouble, caches are normally deployed; caches ensure that the data can still be accessed even if there are bandwidth or connection problems on the host’s network. Open file hosting services are ones which don’t require users to register before they are able to upload any type of file - instead they only have to visit one page of the website and they are able to upload any file more or less instantly, services which take this form are normally free but plastered in adverts; this kind of service is preferred by people such as shareware authors since they are able to host the files for their free products without having to pay a penny - millions of people are also able to download the files in most cases, although with some premium services may have a restriction on something like this. File hosting is sometimes referred to as ‘off-site backup’; this is because the files are being backed up from the server and then transported over to the file hosting service where they are then stored - or in other words, backed up.

E-Mail Hosting

Email hosting is standard shared hosting, but without the ability to host a website; instead it only allows you to setup and configure email accounts for the domain which you have purchased the hosting for. Email hosting is normally purchased by a user who doesn’t require a website but needs email, or if the customer wants to host their website somewhere else for more redundancy. Another reason for the uptake of separate email hosting might be to take advantage of extra mail services provided by another company which aren’t available on your current hosting plan; for example someone might take up separate email hosting so that they could use Exchange Server 2007 email services which their current host doesn’t provide - however, this scenario is highly unlikely since if a business did need to take advantage of an enterprise email system such as Exchange server then they would most likely have it installed on their own servers. If you don’t need a website at the time you purchase your domain, then email only hosting will be perfect for you since the DNS servers will be provided for you to point your domain to, and you will be provided with a control panel which you can use to setup and configure email accounts for your domain; any good host will allow you to upgrade your account to one which does have support for a website at a later stage. There are already some free separate email hosting services that are available for you to use; two of the best known ones are based on the GUIs of two of the worlds most popular webmail interfaces - GMail and Windows Live Mail. Both Microsoft and Google have developed their own systems to allow members of the public to utilize the company’s services under their own domains; this has been a blow for the email hosting market since these systems also incorporate other enterprise class features such as calendar and contact sharing, as well as document storage.

DNS Hosting

DNS stands for domain name system and is the name which generally brands the technical working of domains; each domain has its own ‘zone’ on a name server which it has been delegated to, this zone contains all the data which other computers and servers on the internet use to communicate with the servers that host the domain in question to allow people to view a website and to allow for email to be delivered. DNS hosting is a type of shared hosting only the DNS records for a domain are held, and no other services such as the hosting of a website or email are involved. A DNS zone hold the DNS records for a domain, which control the location of the website as well as where the email for the website is routed to. One may choose to you separate DNS hosting to ensure extra redundancy in the current DNS setup, or so that they are able to control their DNS zone without having to be stuck to one host if they want to have all their hosting services dispersed amongst several different companies. DNS hosting is normally provided by domain registrars to allow their customers to take control of their domain without having to purchase a hosting account with them, and to allow them to utilize hosting that they might already have with another company; there are also some free services out there which can provide you with free DNS hosting if you are not able to provide your own or are not satisfied with the DNS hosting which is provided by your hosting provider or domain registrar. Your current DNS setup may not be that reliable, so you might choose to use an external DNS hosting company to ensure that if the DNS service with your web host does pack up, you have backup to ensure that your website is still reachable. If you have your hosting and DNS with one host, then the chances of your website going down are highly likely; if the DNS service on the server fails then your website will be completely inaccessible, and since most host’s use the single point of failure, they will have no backup which your domain can use - one thing to note though is that other services such as email and web services might still be running. If you utilize another DNS provider then your website will still be accessible if it is only the DNS service that had failed on the server, other services such as email might not be affected either.

Everytime, you open a browser and type in http://www.eukhost.com, have you ever thought about the process which helped the browser display the website? Has it every crossed your mind that there is a complex system which supports this activity? Here is a brief explanation of the methodology behind this easy-to-use, but difficult-to make-it-work process.

More often than not, users access a website by typing in the domain name in their browser, or from a hyperlink that brings them to the website. Lets take eukhost.com as a case-study. You open a browser and type http://www.eukhost.com into the address bar. Your browser then initiates a connection to the webserver in which the eukhost.com files are stored. The browser does this using the internet connection you have. The request for http://eukhost.com is first converted into an IP address using the nameservers which have been assigned to eukhost.com and then locating the server which has eukhost’s files.

Once communicaton has been established between the browser and the webserver; a request for the files of eukhost.com to be displayed is made. This is done using the hyper text transfer protocol (http). All the files which the webserver sends back to the browser is then converted into human readable format by the web-browser itself. Using this very process, the server can send files to multiple client computers at the same time allowing viewers across the globe to access the website.

A webserver typically stores all the files necessary to display eukhost.com’s pages in your web browser. This includes all the text files, images, graphics, video files, audio files and any other script that enables the dynamic elements of a website to function. The number of such simultaneous requests which can be serviced depends entirely on the robustness and configuration of the webserver.

The most popular open-source webserver in use today is Apache, while windows servers generally use IIS (Internet Information Services) as their webserver application.

Like any type of web hosting, shared cPanel hosting accounts come with many features. Whether you are a novice or an expert, you might have trouble working out what these features do or what their meanings are in general. Knowing the meanings of different features is really important, especially when looking around for a new web host or website hosting package since you could end up choosing a package with features that you want but don’t have, or with features that you have or don’t particularly want. If you know about certain features, then you could benefit yourself in the future when trying to carry out a task; for example you might be having trouble installing a certain script - in that case, if you know of a script auto-installer which is available within your control panel, then you could apply your knowledge and skills to using that for installing the desired script. The names of some features are abbreviated, for example File Transfer Protocol is shortened down to FTP; knowing these different abbreviations can also help when trying to fix a certain problem or when searching around for a web hosting package since you are able to apply your knowledge without the need for a search engine. By the end of this article you will have extended your technical knowledge of hosting related features since you will be introduced to the main features of cPanel based shared website hosting and the basic features provided by most web hosts.

cPanel

cPanel is the web hosting control panel which is used by many website hosting providers, including eUKhost, to provide Linux based (Windows support coming soon) hosting to customers. cPanel also has a reseller client built called WHM (Web Host Manager) which allows reseller clients to host multiple domains which have their own dedicated client account; reseller clients are also able to allocate their specified resources amongst their clients in the form of web hosting packages. Both cPanel and WHM boast many features which helps to make them superior amongst their rivals; developers are also able to build their own extensions and plugins for both control panels to allow customization to an extent, as well as to extend the functionality of both control panels.

Add-On Domain

This is the name given to the action of attaching another domain to your existing website hosting package. By using the add-on domain feature, you are able to maximize the use of your website hosting package by attaching a number of domains to it; this also means that you can use your allocated resources effectively by spreading them across several websites. If you host several different websites on the same shared hosting package, you can cut down costs since you won’t have to buy a new hosting package every time you want to host or start another website. One thing to note with add-on domains is that you can’t create separate client accounts for each domain - they will all fall under the same account; if you want a separate client account for each domain then you should opt for a reseller hosting package.

Sub Domain

A sub domain is a domain which is created under an existing domain; an example of which would be ’sub.domain.com’ - the main domain in this case being ‘domain.com’, and the sub created being ’sub’. Sub domains are a good way of giving different sections of your website their own identity since they have their own top level address; the company or personal identity of the website is still kept however since the address created will still contain the TLD domain of the main business or personal website.

Fantastico

Fantastico is an auto-script installer which allows you to install certain scripts within your website without the need for any technical knowledge since the technical actions such as the setup and configuring of the database are taken care of by the program. It is an optional premium plugin for both cPanel and WHM which is made by a company called Netenberg. Some hosting companies provide it with their shared and reseller website hosting packages; others also provide it with their dedicated and VPS server packages for free, although some companies do charge for it.

Server Side Scripting Languages

Server side scripting languages are languages which require a certain program to be installed on the server to allow them to run; they normally carry out complex tasks such as adding, removing and updating database data as well as sending emails automatically and displaying the current time and date on a website. There are many different languages out there which can be used, although the most commonly used ones and ones which are supported by most website hosts on shared cPanel Linux web hosting include the following:

• PHP - Some hosts run PHP 4 and PHP 5 side by side on their servers, so that you can make use of both versions.
• Perl
• RoR (Ruby on Rails)

MySQL Databases

MySQL is an open source database program which is normally used in conjunction with the PHP scripting language. It is supported on nearly any shared cPanel web hosting plan since it is normally installed by default; most web hosts are currently running version 5 of the MySQL server, however there are the odd few who are still stuck using version 4 of the software. Since it is open source (free), there are quite a few PHP based applications which utilize it, meaning that you can make the most of it by choosing an open source application which is based on it. There are also quite a few free tools which you can utilize to manage your MySQL databases. One thing to note that the MySQL server is available for other operating systems as well as Linux, including Windows and BSD based systems.

POP3/SMTP Email Accounts

Email accounts are what you use to send and receive email. You are able to create email accounts within your shared hosting package such as ‘you@yourdomain.com’; you can create email accounts with any name under your domain. POP3 stands for ‘Post Office Protocol Version 3′ and is the technology which is used by most email servers and clients to retrieve email; SMTP stands for ‘Simple Mail Transfer Protocol’ and is the technology which is used by email servers and clients to send email, email servers also use it to receive email from other email servers.

Mailing List

A mailing list is used to send an email or message to a group of people, small or large, regularly without the need to enter all their email addresses into the ‘To, CC or BCC’ sections of the compose pane contained within most email clients. If you use a web page frontend mailing list such as PHPList then you can let your clients or members of the general public subscribe to your mailing list, this can be helpful if you are aiming to message a large customer base or if you want your mailing list to grow.

Spam Assassin

Spam Assassin is a spam filtering server which is built in most Linux email server installs. With cPanel installs, it has a web age frontend within the cPanel client for each email account so that clients can customize the Spam Assassin settings, for example a client might want to change the required spam score for incoming emails on a certain email account, but might want a different score than that which is used by other email accounts within their account.

Auto Responders

Within any shared cPanel hosting package you are able to setup auto responders for any email address. An auto responder is a message which you can choose to be sent on receipt of an email; the message can be whatever you want and is sent to the original sender of the email. Auto responders can be helpful, for example you might want to setup an out-of-office one which can be sent to anyone who sends you an email whilst you are on a business trip or are away from a computer meaning that you can’t check your emails.

Email Forwarder

An email forwarder (sometimes known as an alias) is an email account which doesn’t physically exist since any email messages which are sent to it’s address are always forwarded to another specified email address. Email forwarders can be helpful if you don’t want the hassle of having multiple email inboxes to check, or if you are running multiple companies within the same industry and want certain issues such as billing and support to be centralized to one or two email inboxes.

IMAP

IMAP is another technology which is used by email clients to retrieve email from email servers. IMAP stands for ‘Internet Message Access Protocol’ - the current version being IMAP 4; it is different to POP3 since the message is actually still held on the email server when being read at first, once you have read the message you can then choose to download the email or not. Unlike POP3, IMAP requires a continuous connection to the server to allow you to read your emails.

File Manager

cPanel’s web frontend comes with a file manager to allow you to manage the files in your website remotely without the need for direct FTP access. It can be useful to use if you are in an internet cafe or using a computer where you are unable to access your website for a reason such as port 21 (the port used by FTP) being blocked by the router or firewall on the connection that you are using.

FTP Access

FTP stands for ‘File Transfer Protocol’ and is the standard which is used by website designers and developers to transfer files to and from their assigned website space. In most cases you require a user name and password to be able to gain access to the space which is normally protected, however some servers allow anonymous FTP access to files. FTP servers normally run on port 21, however this can vary between servers. In shared cPanel web hosting you are able to create and managed multiple FTP accounts and restrain their access to a certain part of your web space or FTP space.

PHPMyAdmin

PHPMyAdmin is a web frontend for the management of MySQL databases which are contained within your shared cPanel website hosting account. This utility can be helpful if you travel alot and need instant or quick access to the administration of your database. Since it is a web based application, you can access it from any internet connected computer.

SSL Certificates

SSL stands for ‘Secure Socket Layer’ and are certificates which encrypt the data which is transferred between your website and the client which is browsing your website. SSL certificates are most commonly used with websites such as online shops where the data transferred is highly confidential, and should not be viewed by third parties. With shared hosting packages, SSL certificates come in two forms - shared and dedicated. Shared SSL certificates are applied to one address, which is normally the host name of the server; the full address for your shared SSL space is normally something such as ‘https://server.company.com/~accountname/’. Dedicated SSL certificates are completely different since they can be applied to your own domain, and should be used if you want to keep your corporate identity when having visitors buy products off your website, for example; a dedicated SSL certificate would allow you to keep your own domain, an example would be: ‘https://yourdomain.com/’. Notice the ‘https://’ in both examples - the ’s’ signifies that the connection being used is a secure one and has an SSL certificate applied to it.

Server Side Includes

Server Side Includes, which are better known as SSI, are pages which are included into other pages within a website; the code is processed on the server meaning that the website visitor is unaware that there might be other pages merged into the one which they are viewing. This technology can be helpful, for example if you want to use one header and footer around your whole website, all you have to do is create 2 files (one for the header, one for the footer) and then ‘include’ them in the chosen places on the main pages on your website. If you want to change the header or footer at a later date, then you can - the changes will be applied to every page on your website since they will still be getting the header and the footer from the same location.

GD Image Library

The GD image library is one which can generate images on the fly. It is best known for it’s compability with PHP, however there it can be used with Perl in some cases. The core application is written in C, and is mainly used for the generation of image thumbnails, graphs as well as other types of graphics - for example it is regularly used for the generation of images in captcha solutions.

Custom Error Pages

cPanel allows you to create your own error pages which will be shown when an error occurs with your website. Although you don’t really want there to be an error with your website, they can happen without any warning and so it is important that if there is a problem with your website, a page which still boasts your website’s graphical identity is displayed. The most common errors are numbers 404 and 500; a 404 error happens when a user tries to navigate to a page within your website which doesn’t exist, a 500 error occurs when there is a problem with either the hosting server or your scripts. cPanel can be configured to show custom error pages for most errors.

Zend Optimizer

Zend Optimizer is a program which is installed on the hosting server to decode Zend encrypted PHP files. This is required to allow some applications, most notably ones which have been bought, to run; they have been encoded so that their source code can’t be rebranded and sold on - it also ensures that items such as licensing routines aren’t cracked which would allow people to run the application without a license key. Another application which is similar to the Zend system is Ioncube which encrypts and decrypts PHP files in a similar way.

Password Protected Directories

cPanel is able to create password protected directories for you via the use of the .hta and .htpassword files; the .hta file is used to store the user names of people who are allowed you access the protected area of the website, and the .htpassword file is used to store the password of those users who are authorized to enter the protected area. This type of password protection is pretty weak when compared to other types of website protection; for example more scalable and automatic applications built using PHP are much more secure since they encrypt all data that is stored to a MySQL database.

JSP Support / Apache Tomcat

JSP stands for ‘Java Server Pages’ and is a type of server side scripting; Tomcat is the engine which most shared cPanel web hosts use to provide and process JSP pages through Apache - it can also be used within dedicated server environments. Most web hosts do not host JSP pages for the simple reason that they can be very resource intensive, and many hosts would rather loose a customer after JSP hosting than loose a whole server full because the server is too slow to load their websites; it is also for this reason that many web hosts advise people wanting to host JSP web pages or Java based applications to go with either VPS or dedicated servers, as this can benefit both them and their website since it will most certainly load their website quicker.

Multimedia Support

Most websites contain some sort of multimedia content these days - whether i be a short audio clip or an entire film; multimedia can come in many different formats so it is important when looking for hosting that you take into consideration whether any type of multimedia that you use is supported, in some cases it may not be because it could either put a strain on bandwidth or server resources. The most common type of multimedia that is used on websites is known as ‘Flash’; support of this is not normally dependent of the server specification but those of the client machine which is accessing your website; since Adobe flash player is free, and available for most operating systems, it is a good choice since it will work for most of your visitors - since it isn’t dependent on the hosting server, any web host should support it. Other websites make use of Microsoft Windows Media technology which should be supported by any web host since it is again, dependent on the client rather than the server. Other types of website media used include Real Media and Microsoft Silverlight technology.

Site Builder

Site builder is a web based application which you can use to build your website if you are unable to afford the high costs of desktop website design software or if you have little to no experience of building a website; the application comes in the form of a wizard which leads you through the difference steps of building a website from choosing a layout to entering in the text that you want to be displayed, it then takes all the collected and builds a website out of it all and leaves you with something that you can enjoy or use to market your business.  Most hosts provide some type of web based site building application for both Linux and Windows; the Linux program that is used by eUKhost and many other web hosts is called RV SiteBuilder, and its Windows variant is called SiteBuilder and is made by SWSoft.

FTP Manager

The FTP manager that is built into cPanel allows you as the web hosting customer to control all the FTP accounts that have access to your FTP / web space. This utility can be handy if you have multiple FTP accounts accessing your website space.

Shared Web Hosting is seen as the starting point when entering the web hosting world; this is because the environment in which you are hosted is shared with many other people, and in most cases the resources such as disk space and bandwidth that have been assigned to your account are normally low. Shared Hosting is normally the ideal starting point for people with little or no experience of web hosting, since they are always assigned a control panel which they can use to control their website, also within many control panels, features such as script auto-installers are available to help you get started with your website. If your website is of the utmost importance, and is mission critical for you or your business then you should never have it hosted within a shared environment; this is because shared web hosting servers can be easily bought down by outside attackers if a ‘rogue’ website or account is hosted on the server concerned - in this type of situation you should always consider purchasing a VPS or a dedicated server since dedicated resources will be assigned to you within these environments, and the dedicated environment itself is not shared with anybody else.

Where to Start

Since your shared web hosting package might be your first web hosting package completely, there are several different places that you could consider starting from. If you have bought your package to just mess around with it, then you could try out the auto-script installer that should be included in your control panel (e.g. this is called Fantastico if you are using the cPanel control panel); these types of installers install many different applications within your web environment which you can have a play about with, if you are completely new to the concept of website design and hosting then this is perfect for you since the installer will take care of setting the necessary file permissions and the setup of the database for you. You might have signed up, but not have a website ready to host yet; in this case you could try out the different email functions on your control panel and setup emails for your website domain to get you going - you could also try out other different functions of the control panel and the more technical side of things such as the setting up and the modifying of databases under your website or account. If you are completely new, and are waiting for the completion of your website and don’t know what email accounts you need to setup yet, you could simply just have a browse around the control panel itself so that you know where everything is enabling you to carry out future tasks with ease; also, if you know the whereabouts of everything within the control panel, you are able to use your knowledge to help and guide others who might face problems.

Making the Most of Your Resources

Although you might have a good amount of resources within your account, it is highly unlikely that you’ll ever use them effectively. To make the most of them you should always consider hosting multiple domains under your account, and spreading the resources evenly across each domain; this would ensure that each site is getting a fair amount of bandwidth and disk space, for example. If one site uses more bandwidth than another site, you should always consider spacing both the disk space and bandwidth in proportion to the size of the site and the amount of visitors each site receives as well the amount of disk space each site uses - a factor which is normally dependent on the website’s content and infrastructure. If you have a hosting account which has both a large amount of disk space and bandwidth, then you could consider hosting a website such as an image sharing website; this is because you could easily use up all of the disk space by hosting visitor’s images and photos, and then use up a good amount of the bandwidth assigned to your account by streaming them - in other words allowing people to link back to them so that others are allowed to view them. Something else that you could so with an account which has a large amount of resources is host website for friends and family for a cost; by doing this you are able to make an income out of your package, and if you end up hosting enough websites, could upgrade to a reseller package or even a VPS server at a later date. For a package with a small amount of resources, you could host a small HTML based site which makes minimal use of images; by doing this you are able to establish an online presence, but one which only leaves a small foot print within your hosting resources.

Choosing the Appropriate Shared Hosting Package

When choosing a shared hosting package, you should only consider packages which suit your needs as well as ones which are within your price range. You might see packages advertised around with high specifications which seem unreal, for example a host might be offering 100GB disk space and 50tb bandwidth; the truth is that they are unreal. Web hosts which offer these types of packages are known as ‘overselling hosts’; this is because the packages that they have on offer are inviable both financially and server wise. In most cases, if all of a company’s users used up all their resources then the host would most likely go bust since there just wouldn’t be the capacity on the server to cope with such a demand. If you choose a package with not enough resources, then you could end up using your resources too quickly and having your site suspended because it has no bandwidth, or if you go for a package with too many resources then you could end up paying for what you don’t really need. If you run a small site which doesn’t receive many visitors, then you can easily go with a low end shared hosting package; however, if your site doesn’t receive many visitors but is very ‘image heavy’ then you should always go with a mid-range package for the reason that images can take up both alot of bandwidth and disk space. Your site might not be image heavy, but might receive alot of users and might be based on a database; in this case you should choose a high end package because the more visitors you receive, the more bandwidth you will need - also, databases can use up alot of disk space although that is dependent on the type of data held.

The Benefits of Shared Hosting

If you are new to the concept of web hosting, then a shared hosting package is perfect for you. Most packages, such as those provided by eUKhost, are feature packed allowing beginners to become extremely knowledgeable of everything related to their hosting account. Your account is normally hosted within a secure and controlled environment which means you are able to test new things out without disrupting others which may be hosted on the same server as you. The server maintenance and support is normally taken care of by your host meaning that you can use your account safe knowing that if anything does go wrong with the server you are unlikely to have caused it, and that it will most likely be dealt with by your host at the earliest possible convenience.

Conclusion

By making the most of the resources which are assigned to your shared hosting account, you are able to maximize the possibilities open to you - and in some cases are even able to make a return on the purchase of your package. Shared hosting is perfect for you if you are new to the concept of web hosting since you are in a shared and controlled environment meaning that you are not able to cause any actions which are likely to disrupt fellow customers on the same server as you. Also, the maintenance of the server is not something which falls back to you, giving you one less thing to worry about.

As long as your host allows you to, you can use a custom php.ini file within your Linux shared hosting environment. By utilizing .htaccess you are able to create a custom fileset which you can then use to disable and enable PHP functions as per your wish within your website; this can be done site-wide or directory-wide. This can be helpful to you if your host has disabled certain modules within the server wide php.ini file, or if there are modules which are enables but you’d rather have disabled, for example if they don’t work with a PHP application which you have installed on your website. As long as you are able to within your shared hosting environment, the deployment of a custom php.ini file is relatively easy if the following steps are followed.

Deploying a Custom PHP.ini File

First off, you need to create a .htaccess file; you might already have one within your hosting environment, if so you can easily edit. In either case, you will need to add the following line to the .htaccess to enable Apache to find the custom php.ini file:

SetEnv PHPRC /path/to/custom/php.ini

You will then need to create the custom php.ini file itself within your site - the file can actually be named anything and can have any posess any extension, if you want it to. Within this file you are able to specify whether PHP modules are enabled or disabled for your website - Apache will pick the custom php.ini file up via the use of your .htaccess file and will then apply your custom settings to your virtual environment on run time. For our example we will be disabling PHP’s use of magic quotes. To disable PHP’s use of magic quotes on run time, we will need to paste the following three lines into our custom PHP.ini file:

magic_quotes_gpc = Off
magic_quotes_runtime = Off
magic_quotes_sybase = Off

Once that has been done, as long as the .htaccess file is pointed towards the correct custom php.ini file, Apache should pick the changes up on the next run and the specified modules or settings will take effect every time your site is run as long as the appropriate files are in their correct locations. By doing this, you are able to ensure that all custom settings for your website are served on the next run, meaning that they will always be applied to it. Another example of a module being changed would be the setting of the time zone for your website through the use of a custom php.ini file, to do this we need to paste the following code into the file:

date.timezone = “America/Indianapolis”

The example shown sets the date timezone to Indiana, America; if we want to set our time zone of GMT London, we need to paste in the following code:

date.timezone = “Europe/London”

Changing the time zone can be an important change, since your website might be hosted in somewhere like America, but your audience however might be Australia - that is a vast time difference. Some applications are time/date sensitive, which means that you should ensure that you change the time zone to fit in with your audience, as it could cause confusion with both the system and your visitors if a different time from what they’re use to is displayed, or if completely the wrong day is set.

Conclusion

With the use of .htaccess you are able to use a custom php.ini at either site or directory levels within yoru website, allowing you to run your website with the appropriate settings as per your wish. This is good since it allows you to achieve things which in some cases are only achievable within a dedicated environment such as a VPS server or a dedicated server. Also, some applications only work if certain PHP settings are enabled or disabled, so this allows you to customize your environment to ensure you are able to run any type of PHP application. This sort of tweaking is something that certainly allows you to make the best out of your shared or reseller website hosting.