It is quite amazing how perl scripts just some years back were the majority of scripts our customers used on their websites. Read more »
Category Archives: Linux Hosting
Perl apps now available via our automatic script installer.
Posted by helpinghost
on October 17, 2011
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How to install Drupal
Posted by helpinghost
on September 28, 2011
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Today I would like to show you how easy it is to install Drupal at HelpingHost.com.
For those of you who do not yet know Drupal, it is a so called content management system which allows you to create and manage the content of a website easily even with or better esp. with multiple contributors.
Just like most CMS it can be styled with a template to give it any look you like. Once installed and styled you can login to your Drupal from any computer and add pages or articles at will.
The installation of Drupal is the hardest part for somebody who never installed and PHP app before.
That is where our one click installer works wonders.
Find the Softaculous icon in your hosting control panel
First you will need to login to your hosting control panel as usual, look for an Icon called Softaculous App Installer and click on it.
On the page that appears, click on the little blue icon next to the Domain name you want to install Drupal on.
You now are inside our Softaculous installer.
On the left side open the section Portals/CMS and look for Drupal. You will find Drupal 6 and just Drupal.
I would suggest to choose Drupal which contains the latest version of Drupal (version 7 at the moment).
Drupal 6 is just for those of you who have reason to go with the older version.
Locate the “Install” link and click on it.
Fill in the fields as they make sense.
One field to pay attention to is the field “In Directory”.
if you enter anything in this field Drupal will be installed into a folder with that name.
In the example here it would be installed under http://www.example.com/drupal/.
If you leave that field empty, Drupal would become the homepage for your website instead.
If Drupal is the only thing you want on your website it is best to leave that field empty.
Two fields you can ignore completely are Database Name and Table Prefix.
All you have to do now is click the install button and a few moments later your brand new Drupal is ready to serve you.
FTP SSL configuration
Posted by helpinghost
on September 1, 2011
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In today’s world with hackers everywhere it is important to keep interaction over the internet as secure as possible.
One function used for almost every website is FTP (File Transfer Protocol) that everybody owning a website uses at least indirectly.
Sadly FTP by default sends the username/password in clear text over the internet for any hacker to read it out.
Today I would like to show you how to enable FTP-SSL on a widely used FTP Program – Filezilla.
Enabling FTP SSL will encrypt the transfer of your username and password.
- Start Filezilla as usual and edit your site via the SiteManager.
Open the SiteManager to enable FTP SSL
- Next, click on the Site you would like to enable FTP-SSL for.
- On the General Tab look for the DropDown “Encryption”
- Choose “Require explicit FTP over TLS”
Choose Require explicit FTP over SSL
That was it!
Now your FTP password will no longer be sent un-encrypted over the internet.
Some of you might receive an error after performing this step.
This can be due to your website using a dedicated IP address for example.
However, just contact our support team they will give you a different FTP Hostname which will solve the problem.
PHP Modes under Apache explained
Posted by helpinghost
on August 15, 2011
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Today we talk about the different modes in which the PHP Engine can run under the Apache web server and what the differences are. The two modes available are mod_php and CGI.
- PHP running under mod_php means the PHP engine is activated and configured only one time exactly when you start apache.
The biggest advantage of this mode is that PHP runs very fast since it can take advantage of caching and does not have to perform certain tasks every time a PHP script is being executed. One of those tasks is for example loading the configuration.
This is also one of the big dis-advantages mod_php has. To make any configuration change, PHP or actually Apache needs to be restarted.
Another negative for mod_php is the fact that is executed under the user under which Apache runs. This creates various permission issues especially for files created by the PHP script.
- PHP running in CGI mode means the PHP Engine is called whenever Apache detects a php script needs to be parsed. It has th advantage that configuration changes can take effect immediately but it also makes the script execution a lot slower since the Engine has to read its configuration on each and every php files that needs to be executed. In addition, it is much harder to take advantage of memory caching since every call to a PHP script creates a whole new environment. So basically a script you are executing multiple times will need to be loaded into memory from the harddisk every time.
The biggest advantage of running PHP in CGI mode is the fact that it is executed under the FTP user account it belongs to. It creates a lot less issues with writing files via PHP Script.
With HelpingHost.com you can switch the mode in which PHP runs on each of your websites independently.
Simply login to your hosting control panel and edit the Web Service settings of the domain you are working on.
Just remember, it can take up to 20 minutes after you hit “Apply Changes” until the web server picks up your changes.
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