IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING THE TRANSITION

Because we are moving into a totally different server environment, some things are going to change. For most of you it's a simple matter of tweaking a few settings in your email program. We're going to run down some of the most important things to be aware of as you receive your new hosting account. Make sure to also review the "New plan/package information" page to see what resources and tools you will be getting (you'll be pleasantly surprised!).

EMAIL
The way in which your email program needs to be set up is slightly changed in the new environment. Here are the basic things you need to know, and how they differ from the old way:

The email system no longer works using a "POP - before - SMTP" protocol. You can send whenever you like, regardless of whether you have recently POPped your mail. To do this you need to enable Outgoing Server Authentication in your mail program. In Outlook, it's under "More Settings" in "View/Change Email Accounts". For info on your email program, check here or see your software help files.

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MAILING LISTS
The mailing list program, "MailMan" on the new servers is much improved from SmartList. The biggest question we imagine you'll have is "how do I put my current subscribers on the new list?" Well, this one's actually quite easy. When we copied your account, we also copied your sibscriber list. You will find it in the root folder (the top-level folder) of your new account, with the filename of [listname]-dist (where 'listname' was the name of your mailing list on the old server). This file has all your subscriber email addresses, neatly arranged one per line. Download this file (as ASCII if you use FTP!) or open it in File Manager, and then copy & paste the contents into Notepad on your computer. Then in cPanel, select "Mailing Lists", create your list and once you are logged in to MailMan, click on "Membership Management" and then "Mass Subscription". There's a box there, just waiting for you to drop in your addresses, one per line - just like the file we provided. Just paste in your list - or use the handy 'upload' feature to pull in your Notepad plain text file, and you're good to go. You can choose whether or not to send a 'welcome letter', but you probably won't want to at this point since these folks are already subscribers of yours.

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WEBMAIL
Like the old way, you will get to WebMail using www.$domain.com/webmail - only this time you can choose which of 2 popular programs you like best. We offer both Horde and SquirrelMail to you, and there's even control over what the end users can and can't do inside of WebMail (like reset passwords, etc). You can export your address book from the old WebMail program and/or an email client and import into the new programs as well.

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"DEFAULT" EMAIL (Catch-all)
In accordance with good mail server practices, the use of a 'catch-all' email address is disabled. A 'catch-all' account will accept mail for any address at your domain, and is a magnet for spam and dictionary attacks. Any mail sent to your domain to an address you have not established will be bounced back to the sender. This will save you an enormous amount of junk! Also, you will notice that the new hosting plans have no limit on the number of email addresses and forwarders you can have. Since you can set up any addresses you like, the 'catch-all' serves no purpose other than to generate junk to you. Any legitimate sender who misspells your email address will get a polite bounce notice, and spammers trying to get through to you any way they can will be turned away at the front door.

FORWARDING DISABLED TO CERTAIN ISPS
If you have been with us for any length of time, you know that one of he struggles we've endured is staying off the 'blacklists' at some particular ISPs. We get on those lists because well-meaning clients have set up addresses at their domains that blindly forward all mail to an address at one of these providers. That includes the junk mail and spam. The ISP sees that a lot of spam comes from our server (even though it didn't originate there), and we get blocked.

If you have users who are currently having their mail forwarded from an address at your domain to one of the above providers, they will need to change this, preferably prior to moving the site to the new servers. Their choices are either to establish a POP account and use either one of our 2 WebMail programs or their email software (Outlook, etc) to check it; or provide you an alternate external address that is not at one of the above providers.

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NEW SPAM PROTECTION
Previously we offered the "AntiSpam Suite" as a billable add-on product. Effective with the transition, powerful anti-spam tools come standard! You will get a new, updated version of SpamAssassin, along with anti-virus scanning and user-level filtering capability. The new "MailScanner" interface gives you control over all the settings for your domain in a convenient spot - right in your cPanel! Also, the server has been 'beefed up' with improved fraud/spoof protection and inbound filtering.

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FORMMAIL
The new servers have a version of FormMail installed. For convenience, the path has been duplicated so the existing scripts you have now will work (/cgi-sys/norman.pl) but the real location is now /cgi-sys/FormMail.cgi. There are 2 main differences you need to be aware of with this script:
1) The script will not allow the 'recipient' to be an incomplete email address (no aliasing). You must therefore use a fully-qualified email address in the 'recipient' variable. You can 'obfuscate' your email address so it's not easily picked up by spam-bots. Here is one URL where you can do this: http://alicorna.com/obfuscator.html

2) The script will not send mail to any address that is off the server. You *must* configure the 'recipient' variable to be an address within your domain. You can use a forwarder from there, but the variable on the form must be in that format or the script will exit with an error. This is very good spam-protection for all of us!

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UPDATING DOMAIN REGISTRATIONS
After your account on the new server is set up and you're satisfied that all is ok, you'll need to update your domain registration at your provider. In many cases, that registrar is us, through either GNS Domains or Register.com/RenewMySite.com. In those cases we can assist you if you need it. For all other registrars, you will need to log in and update your registration so that the following new nameservers are listed for your domain name (see below). To determine who your registration service provider is, go to a free WHOIS lookup at sites such as Domain Tools and the output will show you. If you see "Domain Services Provided By: Mayers Enterprises, Inc. http://www.gnsdomains.com" you are registered with GNS Domains, and if you see: "Registration Service Provided By: Register.com / 5DollarHosting.com" then you are registered with us via www.renewmysite.com. Anything else will show the appropriate name and web site to visit to update your registration. Once there, you will need to replace the existing nameservers with the new ones:

NOTE: propagation can take anywhere from 0-24 hours, during which you will have access to both your new and old accounts. There is no downtime involved. You'll notice there are 4 of them now. Make sure you enter all 4 of them after removing the 2 existing ones. Having 4 nameservers gives us some extra redundancy in case the primary and secondary are unavailable. The 3rd and 4th nameservers are hosted on separate servers from the first 2, giving additional protection against downtime. If you have questions regarding updating your domain registration, contact support.

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PUBLISHING YOUR WEB SITE
In many ways, this has not changed. To publish your site via FTP, just use ftp.yourdomain.com (substitute your real domain name). If you are publishing with FrontPage, make sure you install/activate the FP Extensions (there's an icon for it in cPanel) and then you should be able to publish right to the domain name as you are used to. If your domain name isn't pointed over yet, you can actually FTP to either the server name or IP, and when you use your login info you'll be placed in the correct folder.

One big difference is in the naming of the folders. On the old server, the 'web root' was called $domain-www (where $domain was your domain name without the extension), and a shortcut called 'www' was also there. Well, the 'www' is still available, but the web root is now called 'public_html' in your account. If you've been publishing to 'www' then no changes are needed! Note: if you have any scripts that use the full server path (i.e. home/$user/$domain-www) you'll need to swap out $domain-www for the new 'public_html'.

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CPANEL VERSUS CONTROL CENTER: LOGGING IN
Currently, users visit www.$domain.com/menu to log into the Control Center. Under cPanel it is very similar, just substitute "cpanel" for "menu" to get this: www.$domain.com/cpanel (sub in your real domain name of course). If your domain name is not yet pointed you can use the server name or IP with /cpanel at the end and use your login information. You'll get put in the right place (the servers are pretty smart that way).

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SHELL ACCESS (SSH)
For now, we are not able to offer command-line access to the servers via SSH or telnet, even if you had it on the old servers. This is chiefly for security reasons. The tools in cPanel give you far greater control and flexibility than possible before, and if there is something you need done at the command line, contact support and we'll be glad to assist. Keeping the SSH restricted is another layer of protection against hacking and other attacks.

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IP ADDRESSES
By default, hosting accounts on the new servers do not receive dedicated IP addresses. This does not affect your ability to access your account as you can still use the server name or IP followed by a slash (/) tilde (~) and your userid as follows: http://$servername.com(or $IP)/~$userid

The only really legitimate need for a dedicated IP is for those who will be purchasing (or have already) a domain-based SSL certificate and wish to use it. If you are in that situation, contact support and we will assign you an IP. As all IP addresses must be justified to ICANN (with paperwork and everything), we can only assign one to those that truly need it. Note: not having a dedicated IP address does not in any way change your users' experience on your web site, nor affect your ability to publish, get email, etc.

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PHP & OTHER CORE PROGRAM VERSIONS
The new servers are running much newer versions of most operating system and other core files. The O/S is CentOS Enterprise 4.5 i686, running Apache 1.3.39, and PHP 5.2.4 and 4.4.7 are running concurrently. If your code does not work under PHP 5 which is the default, a simple command will enable your site to use PHP 4. Just contact support.

The PHP environment in the new servers has been "hardened" through use of both SUPHP and PHP SuHosin, programs designed to make it difficult for spammers and other "bad guys" to abuse your scripts and exploit vulnerable code. PHP is running as a CGI in this environment versus an Apache module. Together, these changes could mean that adjustments may be necessary to your code. See www.php.net for information.

MySQL DATABASE DIFFERENCES
The biggest difference here is in how cPanel names the databases. Instead of $domain_com_$dbname, your databases created in cPanel will have the format $userid_$dbname

The MySQL version on the new servers is a newer 4.1, versus 4.0 on the old. (Note: we have not upgraded to 5.0 as there are still quite a few compatibility issues owing to the different structure of the databases in 5.0.)

MySQL storage usage is now tracked in the main disk quota instead of a separate resource limit, so one less thing to worry about, quota-wise.

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SITEXPRESS / CARTXPRESS / CONTENTXPRESS / URCHIN
SiteXpress is not available on the new servers, as it is proprietary software now owned by Navisite. We are working on finding a suitable replacement for the new environment. The current, published ("live") version of sites published with SiteXpress will be brought over and will be active, but the editing interface will not.

CartXpress powered by OSCommerce is not guaranteed to work on the new system. However, OSCommerce is part of the "Fantastico" package and you may be able to import your data into it. The same is true for ContentXpress powered by PostNuke. PostNuke is also available in "Fantastico" and importing may work as well. We have not tested either one 'dropped' into place on the new servers, so functionality is unknown. As both were customized by Alabanza to an extent, there may well be compatibility challenges.

Urchin stats will not be available in the new environment. Google has purchased Urchin and ceased development on the standalone product. Fortunately, we have 2 excellent statistics analyzers (AWStats and Webalizer) installed and ready for you at no extra charge. Pick the one you like best.

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RESELLER ISSUES
Resellers may elect to continue using Virtual Nameservers however there will be an additional charge as it requires multiple IP addresses which are not assigned by default. It is recommended that the Reseller and all Resold domains be assigned to our generic nameservers (see above).

Exciting and new is the ability for Resellers to have their own WebHostManager (WHM) software, allowing them control and reporting on their Resold accounts. Full branding is enabled, and you can even post news and info that will appear only in your client's cPanels. To them, you are the hosting company. WHM is standard with every Reseller plan. Need more? Check the "Reseller - Fantastico" package which includes multiple programs for hosting billing and help desk software, as well as content management, client contact and more. It's a very inexpensive add-on (see plans & prices page)

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SUN ONE ASP (FORMERLY CHILI!SOFT ASP)
Unfortunately we will not be able to support ASP-coded pages in our new environment. Clients who are currently using ASP will need to either re-code their pages to use PHP or another supported language, or will need to seek out hosting that supports ASP (generally Windows-based hosting will handle this). With the widespread popularity and compatibility of PHP, it's worth considering re-tooling as it will make your site more portable, and you can stay with us!

If you are concerned about your site, ask us. Chances are if you don't fully understand what ASP is, you don't have it.

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PARKED DOMAINS/SUBDOMAINS
The new cPanel servers handle additional domains a little differently than we're used to. Firstly, rest assured that whatever you have set up now will be moved over to the new environment as-is. Going forward, here are the differences you need to know:
PARKED: a parked domain is one that simply redirects into your existing site. It's a second (or third, etc) name pointed at the 'master' domain in your account. These will continue to be offered at $19 setup with no monthly fee, just as we do now.
SUBDOMAIN: This is sometimes referred to as a "3rd-level" domain, in that you are adding something in front of your existing domain name, such as 'blog.yourdomain.com' and directing visitors to the 'blog' subfolder. It's an alternative to 'yourdomain.com/blog', and costs you nothing. You may add these right from your cPanel.

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