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The fundamentals necessary to creating a functional Internet presence with your new Virtual Server are outlined below.

1.) Design a Website
2.) Upload Content to your Server
3.) Create E-mail Aliases and E-mail Mailboxes
4.) Build Your FTP Site

Design a Website
Having a powerful Internet presence is essential for companies that seek to compete in the future. The first step in creating a powerful Internet presence is designing an equally powerful Web site. There are basically two ways to create great Web pages.

Get a Web publisher program and do it yourself
There are numerous Web publisher programs available on the Internet today. Many of the more popular publishing programs include Netscape Composer,  Adobe Page Mill,  Allaire HomeSite, and Microsoft FrontPage. This is only a small sample of Web publisher programs. You can find additional programs in our Resources Section or by typing "HTML editor" into any good search engine.

Or Hire someone with Web know-how
There are numerous consultants, ad agencies, and web design firms who have the technical know-how to construct a Web site; however, a good Web site is much more than just HTML code. The consultants you retain should design your web site from a marketing point of view, to ensure that the proper message is being communicated to its potential and existing clients. For this reason, you should be wary about simply turning over its Web site to someone who has the technical know-how without considering the marketing and design side of your Web site.

Upload Files to your Virtual Server.
Now that your HTML and graphic file design is complete, you are ready to upload the files to your Virtual Server. There are several methods to upload content.

Uploading files via an FTP Client
In order to upload your content via FTP, you will first need to choose an FTP client. Freeware, Shareware, and Commercial FTP clients are available. You can find a good number of FTP clients by searching Yahoo, c/net or any shareware site for "FTP client".
If you are using a Macintosh, Fetch is probably the most popular FTP program available and is quite easy to use.

Uploading files via Windows 95/NT File Sharing
The Windows File-share support allows you to map your Virtual Server's home directory to your Windows 95 or NT desktop over the Internet.

Uploading files with Front Page
We suggest using the "import: file or folder" when using Front Page instead of "publish",
Be careful when you have a large site to upload "more than 1 meg".
The Front Page Server has a tendency to time out with large "uploads" leaving your site in a mess, possibly corrupting the extensions  

Create E-mail Aliases and E-mail Mailboxes
Each of the Virtual Server Systems allow you to create unlimited e-mail aliases. Each Virtual Server is configured with e-mail aliasing capability. You can test your e-mail aliasing by setting up a "webmaster" alias to forward e-mail sent to the address
webmaster@your_domain.name
to actually deliver to
your@current_isp.address

You can add the alias by opening the Virtual Adminastrator:
http://YourDomainName.com/vadmin
Go to the "Email Manage" section and add a alias.
Or
You can add the alias manually by including the following line somewhere in your etc/aliases file:
webmaster: your@current-isp.address
You can edit the etc/aliases file on the server itself by connecting to your server via SSH and using any of the many editors available such as pico, vi, or emacs. Or if you would rather, you can download the file using FTP, edit it locally on your machine, and then FTP it back up to your Server.

After the etc/aliases file has been edited, run the program "vnewaliases" to update the etc/aliases.db file.

You have the freedom to add any number of e-mail aliases that you desire. There is no limitation. After you are comfortable with the basic capability of e-mail aliasing on your Virtual Server, you may find the need to manage and maintain a "mailing list". This can be done by using a third-party software package called Majordomo. Other popular mailing list software such as listserv can also be easily supported.

Setting up an E-mail Mailbox
The Virtual Server is configured with one (1) e-mail mailbox. This single mailbox shares the same name as the login name that you selected as part of your order process.

E-mail mailboxes are different from e-mail aliasing. E-mail aliasing simply configures an e-mail address to forward to an existing (off-site or on-site) e-mail mailbox. The e-mail mailbox stores the mail until it is "popped" or removed.

Setting up additional e-mail mailboxes is extremely easy.
Open the Virtual Adminastrator:
http://YourDomainName.com/vadmin
Go to the "User Manage" section and add a user.
Or
You can add the mailbox manually by connecting to your server via SSH and running the command
% vadduser
The vadduser program will prompt you for the necessary information.
Other mailbox utilities include:
To remove e-mail mailboxes:
% vrmuser
To list all of your current e-mail mailboxes:
% vlistuser
To edit email accounts:
% vedituser

You are at liberty to create as many e-mail mailboxes as you desire. There is no extra charge for additional mailboxes with your Virtual Server.

Setting up e-mail accounts on virtually hosted "sub domain's" is slightly different.
See our Virtual Hosting section for this procedure.

Accessing your E-mail Mailbox
Any number of e-mail clients can be used to access e-mail stored at an e-mail mailbox on your Virtual Server. If you are using the Post Office Protocol (POP) to "pop" mail off of your Server e-mail mailbox (i.e. download the mail to your local computer) then you should consider Qualcomm Eudora, Netscape Communicator, Pegasus Mail, or Microsoft Outlook. If you are using the Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP) to read mail from your Virtual Server e-mail mailbox then Netscape Communicator or Qualcomm Eudora 4.0+ are good choices.
Each mail client, though different, will require essentially the same information, namely: the mailbox location, your identity, your e-mail address, and the SMTP relay host.

Build Your FTP Site
The Virtual Servers include the Virtual FTP Service or the capability of providing anonymous and non-anonymous FTP access. The non-anonymous FTP access is configured by using the "vadduser" command (as described in the previous section about creating e-mail mailboxes). This allows you to grant users access to a specific directory provided they supply the correct username and password pair.

You anonymous FTP site is used to grant indiscriminate access to your "ftp" directory of your Virtual Server (this directory is located in your Virtual Server's home directory). An anonymous FTP site is primarily used to distribute software, disseminate information, or to allow your clients and customers to upload data to your site.

In the "ftp" directory of your Virtual Server you will find two directories, "bin" and "pub". Your "bin" directory contains some executables necessary for your FTP site to function. Your "pub" directory (short for public) is ideal for you to use to store content and create additional directory structures.

You can create a "welcome message" which will be displayed to all your anonymous ftp visitors when they connect to your site.

You may want to create a special directory to allow people to upload files to your FTP site. You indicate that a directory is for upload only by creating a ".incoming" file in that directory. For example, create an "incoming" directory in your ftp root directory:
mkdir incoming
Change your current working directory to the incoming directory:
cd incoming
Then create a blank ".incoming" file:
touch .incoming
This will mark the directory as an "incoming" directory which will allow your FTP site visitors to upload files for your review.

Each subdirectory of your FTP site may contain an individual message. This message must be stored in the directory under the name of ".message".

As always, if you encounter a problem or have a question that you cannot resolve do not hesitate to contact our Support Staff.

Online Users Guide
We have created a Online Users Guide for you to review. Please become familiar with the contents of this Guide as many of your questions will likely be answered.

Frequently Asked Questions
We also have a large F.A.Q section for the Virtual Server.