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*Note from December 2015: This information has not been updated in well over 10 years and may no longer be accurate.

  • Setting up your domain
    • For your domain name (hereby be referred to as the YourDomain, which can be either www.YourDomain.com or just YourDomain.com [or .org, .net, .us, .ca, ...]), please set its name servers to ns3.deltaarc.com and ns4.deltaarc.com, or its IP addresses to 209.85.115.26 if you are using your registrar’s name servers.  The domain can take anywhere from instantly to 2 days to propagate across the internet for it to start receiving emails and website hits, but it should normally be immediate.
  • Accessing your domain
    • To access our server to edit your domain information, you can use any domain pointing to our server including YourDomain after it is hooked up, ww10.hosthq.net, or the server’s IP address, 209.85.115.26.  This will hereby be referred to as the AccessDomain.
    • To access the control panel, use AccessDomain/cPanel (i.e. https://www.YourDomain.com/cpanel). You will be forwarded from there to https://ww10.hosthq.net:#### so you can go through a valid secure SSL session.  #### is a different numbered port for each of /cpanel, /webmail, and if you have access as a reseller, /whm.
  • Main/sub/addon/parked Domains access
    • The main domain content is stored in /public_html of your account.  The symbolic link www also points to this location.
    • Extra domains
      • There are 3 types of domains you can add to accounts:
        • Subdomains (i.e. home.YourDomain.com)
        • Add-on domains, which are completely separate domain names with separate content.
        • Parked domains, which mirror the top level domain for the account or can redirect elsewhere.
    • Add-on and parked domains are also mirrored as subdomains of YourDomain at AddonDomain.YourDomain).
    • Amounts of these extra domains are usually restricted at some level until expansion is requested.
    • You will give each subdomain and add-on domain its own ‘username’, which controls where it will be stored by default, and its login name.
      • For example, if you added MyExample.com as an addon domain, and named it “example”, example.YourDomain will be created, they will be stored (by default) in /public_html/example, and can be accessed via ftp through the username example@YourDomain.  So MyExample.com domain’s content will also be accessible at YourDomain/example and example.YourDomain.
  • Login
    • Your AdminName username and password should have already been provided to you. If your account is new, the password will most likely be “temppass”.  When inside the control panel, please click the third icon “change password” to change it to whatever you want.
    • The rest of the icons link to various sections that help you manage your site in different ways.  One of the most important sections is the first icon “Mail” (x theme), or the second icon group “Mail” (x3 theme).
  • Mail
    • Inside of Mail click “Add/Manage/Remove Accounts” (x theme) or just “Email Accounts” (x3 theme) to mange physical mail accounts.  Passwords can be changed on this form or when users log into the account via webmail at AccessDomain/webmail.
    • When logging into your email address via webmail (unless it’s the admin account), use your full email address.  An account of AdminName@YourDomain should already be set up and forwarded to the AdminName account.  The login for this is just AdminName.
    • Two other important “Mail” sections are “Forwarders”, in which you can set emails to forward to either a physical email account, on or off our server (like your Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail account), or a different forward.
    • The other important section is “Default Address”.  This is where you set what happens to all non-assigned email addresses [physical or alias].  You can set this to...
      • “:fail: No such user here”, the default/recommended setting, which responds to the sender with the message “No such user here” along with some other information.
      • One of your non-admin email addresses.
      • Your AdminName (without domain), and it will forward to the admin email account.
      • “:blackhole:” to make the email just go away.
    • To set up your email for any mail application, you can choose IMAP (I prefer IMAP for all of its extra options and advantages) or POP3 (which most people use).  Wikipedia has a list of advantages and disadvantages for using IMAP, though it is not that important for the average user.
    • For POP3, if you want to leave your mail on the server, don’t forget to go to set “Leave a copy of message on Server” in your email client (“Advanced < Delivery” in Outlook Express, “Server Settings < Server Settings” in Thunderbird).
    • Set the SMTP and inbound mail servers to AccessDomain, use the email address and password as specified above for webmail, and you should be set.  For Outlook & Outlook Express, your settings can also automatically be imported via cPanel > Mail > “Add/Manage/Remove accounts”/“Email Accounts” section we visited before via the "Configure Outlook Link".
    • If your ISP blocks port 25 for SMTP, mail can also be sent from port 26.
    • If IMAP is retrieving slowly, in Outlook Express under Advanced, check “This server requires a secure connection (SSL)”. (Fix for Comcast cable modem?)
    • Outgoing email requires either authentication or an email retrieval within the last (IIRC) 10 minutes. To enable authentication in Outlook Express, under “Servers” check “My server requires authentication”.
  • Uploading Files
    • The 2 main ways you can transfer files to your account for viewing on the web is either by the “File Manager” icon on the cPanel front page, or by logging in via ftp.
      • I personally recommend the ftp client FireFTP, which is an extension for FireFox.  After installing (which will probably first request that you allow the domain to install extensions via an info bar at the top of the window), and restarting the browser, you access FireFTP via a menu item in the Tools menu.  From there create an account under “Manage Accounts”/“FTP Accounts” and connect.
      • Other well known ftp programs include CuteFTP and BulletProof FTP which are both shareware.
      • A command line console called “ftp” comes free with both XP and Linux, and IE has an ftp upload interface too, but none of them are very user friendly.
  • Account Levels
    • I do not go into account level plans and restrictions here, but you can view them in your cPanel (max bandwidth, disk space, email accounts, etc).  We are not very harsh on these limits, and can look into upgrading your numbers/quotas if we deem it necessary at any time, or higher rate plans.
    • If you go over your restrictions, actions will not be taken until after we contact you, and give enough time (a few days usually) for you to reply, unless extreme circumstances are warranted.  These numbers are usually just a guideline and to help us keep track of accounts and their general use.
  • Payment
  • Server Stats
    • Dual Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.00GHz (Hyper threaded to simulate QUAD 2GB Xeon Processors)
    • 13 gigabit throughput via multiple direct connections to major internet backbones (It’s probably a lot more now)
    • Red-hat Linux 9.0 w/o x-server
    • cPanel 11.23.4 & Webhost Manager 11.23.2 (as of July of 2008)
    • PHP, Python, Perl, MySQL, Email, FTP, SSH, FrontPage Extensions, DNS Hosting
    • Space and bandwidth are monitored. Do not abuse this service.
  • Extra Notes
    • Access to MySQL database can be done through the admin panel or through https://www.castledragmire.com/misc/phpmyadmin.
    • SSH is accessible via a normal SSH client or through cPanel.
    • For PHP to report errors to you, add “error_reporting(E_ALL);”
    • PHP settings are changeable by copying the php.ini (/usr/local/lib/php.ini) into the directory which contains the PHP file you are running, and editing it accordingly.
  • Disclaimer
    • The text of this disclaimer is warrant to change at any time.
    • The account holder will have no illegal content on the server including
      • Warez
      • Child Pornography
      • Hacking Utilities
      • The provider of this server may add to this list at any time.
    • The account holder will not abuse his or her privileges in any way.
    • The account holder will not attempt to gain root access, or any access to any other website or area on the server past their assigned home directory. There are checks and monitors in place for this.
    • The account holder will in no way insult, black mail, or threaten the web service provider or any other users on this server.
    • If any of these items are broken in any way, the web service provider will be allowed to remove your account on its own judgment and will give a backup of your site if needed.
    • Through this disclaimer, the web service providers are not responsible for what the account holders do with their web space.