Shared Unix Server Info for Developers

About the server:

  • Clustered/load-balanced servers
  • Linux OS
  • Name-based Apache 2.2.25
  • CGI-BIN
  • JSP Support
  • MySQL (4.0.27, 5.6)
  • Perl 5.8
  • PHP (5.3.28, 4.4.1)
  • phpMyAdmin
  • RealAudio/RealVideo
  • Web Statistics

Our server environment uses Apache Web Server. For more information about Apache, please refer to Apache’s web site http://www.apache.org/. For more detail on our specific Apache environment, see the PHP info page at:

http://demo.easystreet.com/phpinfo.php

Name-Based Virtual Host

Our web site hosting service is implemented using name-based virtual hosts. Name-based virtual hosts distinguish virtual domains by web site address, instead of by an IP address. This means that instead of being recognized as a number — 192.168.1.79, for example — your site is only recognized by its web site address, e.g.www.domain.com.

Using name-based hosts allows EasyStreet to maintain a more efficient web server environment. However, it has some implications you should be aware of:

  • You cannot refer to your site by IP address when accessing your site in a browser.
  • Versions of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer prior to version 3.0 do not support name-based virtual hosts. Internet users who have these older browsers will not be able to access your site.

More information on name-based virtual hosts is available on the Apache Web site.

Be advised that secure Web sites are IP-based by definition because the SSL protocol on which secure HTTP connections rely does not support name-based addressing.

Default Document Order:

  • index.html
  • index.htm
  • index.shtml
  • index.phtml
  • index.php
  • index.wml
  • index.asp
  • index.cfm
  • index.php3

If you want your home page to be titled differently from the above names, we recommend that you use the DirectoryIndex command in an .htaccess file.

Every directory (folder) of your web site should have one file with one of the above names. Having multiple files with the above index names in a single directory is not recommended. If you have more than one index file in a directory, only one of them will work, and it is difficult to tell in advance which one will work.

File System Structure

When a Unix hosting account is created, all users get the following directories/folders created within at the top level of their new site. You’ll see these folders when you log in to your site via FTP:

public This is the directory which holds all your web content. Anything you put in this folder will be available on the World Wide Web. These pages can be regular .html, as well as .php files.
cgi-bin This directory is automatically created for all new hosting accounts. Any.cgi or .pl scripts would go here.
logs This directory contains logs for your domain. Logs count toward your total file usage, and if you do not need them, there is a way to disable the logs.
private This directory is automatically created for every new hosting account. Files placed in here are private and not visible on the World Wide Web.

Depending upon what other services your account has enabled, there are some other directories that might also appear:

announcer If you have previously used the announcer application to send out announcement emails, then you will have an announcer directory.
anonftp If your account package comes with anonymous ftp, enabling anonymous ftp will create an anonftp directory. If you had previously enabled then disabled anonymous ftp, you’ll see an anonftp.some number directory name instead.
databases If your account comes with MySQL, adding a database using the Database Manager will create this directory.
secure If you have added SSL to your site, you will get a secure directory automatically created for you. It will actually be a symbolic link that points to the same content as your public directory.
secure-cgi-bin If you have added SSL to your site, you will get a secure-cgi-bin directory automatically created for you. It will actually be a symbolic link that points to the same content as your regular cgi-bin directory.

Secure Server (SSL)

Please contact one of our sales staff for assistance setting up a secure connection (SSL) for your web site.

 

Available Development Tools

Development Tool Location
CGI .cgi and .pl files should be placed in the cgi-bin directory to be executed as CGI programs.  If you need to override this to allow execution in your public directory, you can do so with an .htaccess file.
Perl 5 /usr/bin/perl
.cgi and .pl files should be placed in the /cgi-bin directory.  If you need to override this to allow execution in your public directory, you can do so with an .htaccess file.
PHP We generally have installed the latest stable version of PHP.  See exact details in our PHP Info file: http://demo.easystreet.com/phpinfo.php
Sendmail /usr/sbin/sendmail
FrontPage not supported FrontPage Extensions are not supported in our Unix environment.  We have Windows Hosting in which FrontPage is supported.

Absolute path

Some programs requre an absolute path from the server root to to a file in your web space; this is a calculated value that looks like the example below.

/services/webpages/[first_letter_of_domain]/[second_letter_of_domain]/[yourdomain.com]/[pathtofile]

With the domain hahnmeyerphotos.org, for example, the absolute path to the index.html page that is in the public folder would be:

/services/webpages/h/a/hahnmeyerphotos.org/public/index.html

You would adjust everything after /services/webpages/ based on your domain and actual location of your file.

Dynamic Configuration (.htaccess) Files

A dynamic configuration file is an web server configuration file that allows certain aspects of the server’s configuration to be modified when people view your web site in their browser. Dynamic configuration files are named .htaccess and may appear in any subdirectory of the web directory. These files can be used to restrict access to portions of your web site and to add MIME type mappings. You can also control which Server-Parsed HTML options are used on your site via the .htaccess file.

The Apache HTTP server documentation at http://www.apache.org/docs/ discusses Apache’s configuration directives and indicates whether or not the directive can appear in a dynamic configuration file.

Not available, not supported

  • Cron

Those needing to automate a process can use a script like Pseudo-Cron instead (note: we haven’t tested this script yet, but something like this would allow you to automate/schedule a process). Log file rotation is already automated.

MIME Type Configuration

The web server is preconfigured with a large set of MIME type mappings. MIME, or Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, is an extension of Internet email that provides the ability to transfer non-text data, such as graphics, audio and fax. Web servers use MIME types to tell Internet browsers what type of content they are receiving.

Most of our web hosting customers find the preconfigured MIME type mappings adequate for their purposes. If necessary, you may specify additional MIME types in your Dynamic Configuration File.

Server Side Includes

Server-parsed HTML, also known as server-side includes, is a feature of our web servers that allows “behind the scenes” actions to be performed on an HTML document before it is displayed to the user.

A common example of a server-side include is inserting a section of text into an HTML document just before it is displayed to the user. The inserted text is not part of the original HTML document; it is added when the HTTP server processes the server-parsed HTML file. Web site developers often use this technique to allow several pages to share a common piece of text without having to maintain that text in multiple places.

mod_rewrite Support

mod_rewrite is fully supported, but there are some configuration issues you need to take into account. Normally you would use a relative path in your RewriteRule such as this:

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]

This is highly useful when working with clean URLs.

There are some restrictions on mod_rewrite that require the full URL path to be used. This is due to security implementations on our Apache installation involving the shared nature of our platforms.
So you would write that directive as:

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /FOLDERNAME/index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]

MySQL

Users with Plus and higher web hosting accounts can have access to a shared MySQL server.

EasyStreet Support can help you with adding the two database that your account allows and giving you the settings to use in your Perl, CGI or PHP script to connect to the database. We cannot help troubleshoot database issues beyond that. For more complex issues, we recommend you get a developer familiar with MySQL.

Log Files

Customers on our servers have full access to the raw access log file. Your domain’s log file updates within a few minutes of someone browsing your site.

Tracking Your Site Traffic

Every web site is unique, and every web site owner is interested in different information about their web site traffic. For this reason, EasyStreet encourages each web site owner to perform their own log analysis.

Your WebSiteOS control panel comes with Webalizer log analysis, but it is not enabled by default.

© 2009 EasyStreet Online Services, Inc. All rights reserved.
EasyStreet and the EasyStreet logo are registered trademarks of EasyStreet Online Services. Certain other names, logos, designs, titles, words or phrases on this site may constitute trademarks, servicemarks or tradenames of EasyStreet or other entities, which may be registered in certain jurisdictions.