CREATING WEB SITE To create a new web site open "Web Sites" screen through hosting space left navigation menu: Click "Create Web Site" button to open Web Site creation wizard: Select domain to base web site on. If dedicated IP addresses were allocated to your hosting plan by your hosting provider then you have an option to create a web site with dedicated IP; otherwise by default name-based web site will be created. If dedicated IP option is available you will see "IP Address" field. You could select "Dedicated" and pick available IP address from the list. If IP address is already used by some web site it won't shown in the list. Click "Create Web Site" button to finish the wizard. You could see the list of IP addresses allocated to your hosting space as well as their usages on "IP Addresses" page of the space: USING WEB APPLICATION GALLERY TO INSTALL WEB APPLICATIONControl panel is integrated with Microsoft Web Application Gallery enabling you to easily install popular web application to your web site. To browse the catalogue of web applications click "Microsoft Web App Gallery" in the hosting space left navigation menu: To get the list of available web applications control panel connects directly to Microsoft web site. All applications in the catalogue were certified by Microsoft. The list of applications is constantly growing, so stay tuned! Please note that the list you see may be various for different hosting spaces, because the list is filtered depending on resources available in the hosting space. For example, if SQL Server databases are not allowed in your hosting space you will not see those applications requiring SQL Server database such as DotNetNuke or BlogEngine. To install the application click its icon in the list or "Install" button. You will see the detailed information about the application you are about to install. When you click "Next" button control panel will connect application vendor web site to download the application installation files. It may take some time. After download is complete you will see application installation screen.Select web site to install the application. If you want to install the application into some folder under your web site (virtual directory) then specify its name; otherwise the application will be installed in the root of web site. Specify database options. You could select from existing databases and databases users or create new ones just for this application. There might be other application settings below "Database" section. Those settings vary from application to application. To finish installation wizard click "Install" button. In case of unsuccessful installation you could check "Audit Log" under your account for more details. CONFIGURING WEB SITE HOME FOLDER SETTINGSOpen web site properties page, "Home Folder" tab: HOME DIRECTORY LOCATIONSelect "Folder in your Hosting Space" option to point web site to some folder within the hosting space. You could change web site root folder from default one "wwwroot" if it was allowed in the hosting plan. Select "Redirection to URL" to redirect all requests from client application, such as web browser, to another Web site or virtual directory by entering a URL in the box below. SECURITY SETTINGSTick "Enable Write Permissions" option to allow web site users uploading files and their associated properties to the enabled directory on your server or to change content in a Write-enabled file.Write access is allowed only when web browser supports the PUT feature of the HTTP 1.1 protocol standard. Tick "Enable Directory Browsing" to allow web site visitors seeing a hypertext listing of the files and subdirectories in this site. Tick "Enable Parent Paths" to allow web pages to use relative paths to the parent directory of the current directory (paths using the ".." syntax). This option might be required for legacy ASP applications. AUTHENTICATION Tick "Allow Anonymous Access" to allow anonymous connection to this web site. Normally, this option must be enabled for the most of web sites. Tick "Enable Integrated Windows Authentication" to require web site users entering their credentials in order to access the web site. Windows authentication ensures that the user name and password are sent across the network in the form of a hash. This provides secure form of authentication. Normally, this option must be disabled for the most of web sites. Tick "Enable Basic Authentication" to require web site users entering their credentials in order to access the web site. Basic authentication is part of the HTTP specification and is supported by most browsers; however, user name and password are not encrypted and could present security risks. Normally, this option must be disabled for the most of web sites. DEFAULT DOCUMENTSDefault documents are used by web server to identify a default document whenever a browser request does not specify a document name. Specify default documents in a top-down search order. CREATING VIRTUAL DIRECTORIESA virtual directory is a friendly name, or alias, for a physical directory on your server that does not reside in the home directory. For example, if you create a virtual directory called "images" from a folder anywhere on your server, the contents of that folder will appear at http://www.mydomain.com/images/ even though they are not physically located in the images/ subfolder of your web site's root folder. To see the list of virtual directories click "Virtual Dirs" tab: To create a new virtual directory click "Create Directory" button: Specify virtual directory name and select its root folder. Click "Create Directory" button to finish the wizard. When directory is created you will be redirected to the screen with its properties: Properties look very similar to web site properties. CREATING WEB SITE SECURED FOLDERSControl panel offers the ability to protect selected web site folders with a password. To enable secured folders feature open web site properties, navigate "Secured Folders" tab and then click "Enable Secured Folders" button: Click "Add User" button and create a new user account. Specify its username and password and click "Save" button: Click "Add Group" button and create a new security group. Specify its name and select group members. Click "Save" button: Click "Add Folder" button to create a new secured folder: "Folder title" is a text that will be displayed on browser logon screen when accessing this folder. Select path to the folder within a web site that must be protected. Select users and groups that will have an access to this folder. Control panel creates two files in web site root folder: .htpasswd file with user accounts and their password and .htgroup file with secure groups: CONFIGURING CUSTOM ERROR PAGES "Custom Errors" tab of web site properties allows you to customize HTTP error messages that are sent to clients when web server errors occur. It is possible to use generic default HTTP 1.1 errors, detailed custom error files that IIS provides, or create your own custom error files. To add a new custom error click "Add Custom Error" button. Specify error code and optional sub-code, select handler type and then type URL or path of custom error page. Error code is a number between 200 and 900; the most popular ones are: 404 - page not found, 401 - unauthorized and 403 - forbidden. To the full list of HTTP error codes type "http error codes" in search engine. If you select "File" for Handler type you should provide a path to error page file relative to web site root. For example, if 404.htm error page is located in the root of web site type "404.htm" in Error content field. If you select "Redirect" you have to provide absolute URL to destination page, for example http://www.site.com/error.aspx.Finally, if you select "Execute URL" then you have to provide URL of custom error page relative to the web site root, for example "/error.aspx". After you've added or modified custom errors click "Update" button to update web site settings. CONFIGURING CUSTOM HTTP HEADERS "Headers" tab of web site properties allows you to customize custom HTTP headers that are sent from the web server to the client browser. Custom headers can be used to send instructions from the Web server to the client browser that are not yet supported in the current HTTP specification, such as newer HTTP headers that IIS may not inherently support at the time of the product's release. For example, you can use a custom HTTP header to allow the client browser to cache the page but prevent proxy servers from caching the page. To add a new header click "Add Custom Header" button, specify header name and header value in corresponding fields. After you've added or modified headers click "Update" button to update web site settings. CONFIGURING CUSTOM MIME TYPES "MIME Types" tab allows you to customize Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) types. MIME is a specification for creating file formats to be used in the exchange of e-mail, in Web documents, and in other applications on intranets and on the Internet. Each MIME format includes a MIME content type ("MIME type") and subtype which denote the kind of data stored in the file. IIS includes a table of the most common Web-related MIME types/subtypes and associated file name extensions. If IIS does not have MIME information for a MIME-formatted file that you download, then IIS will attach a default MIME identity to that file. As a result, the client receiving the file may misinterpret its contents. You can manually add MIME types, subtypes, and file name extensions to IIS for files whose MIME identity is not in the table. To register a new MIME type click "Add MIME" button then specify MIME extension (it must start from the dot) and MIME type. After you've added or modified headers click "Update" button to update web site settings. You could find more information about MIME types by entering "MIME types" in search engine. USING FILE MANAGER File manager allows you to fully manage file system within the hosting space. You can browse, copy, move, rename, delete files and folders; change files and folders permissions; create new files and folders; upload, zip, unzip files through your web browser. Frankly speaking, there is no necessity in FTP as it could be completely replaced by file manager. To open File Manager click its link in the hosting space left navigation menu: To browse folders click their links in the files list pane. You could use path breadcrumb to navigate folders above up to "Home" folder - root folder of your hosting space. To upload new files click "Upload" button: Click "Browse..." button to browse files on your local drive. You could upload up to 5 files in the same time. Click "Upload" button to upload files into your hosting space. To create new text file click "Create File" button: Specify file name with extension and optional file contents. Click "Create" button to create a file. To create new folder click "Create Folder" button: Specify folder name and click "Create" button. To zip files and folders select them in files list: and then click "Zip" button: Specify archive name and click "Zip" button. For archiving control panel supports "zip" format only supported in most operating systems. To unzip selected archive click "Unzip" button. Archive will be unpacked in the current folder, so make sure you copied it into the right location. To copy selected files and folders click "Copy" button: Specify destination folder or pick it from file selector and click "Copy" button to complete operation. To move selected files and folders click "Move" button: Specify destination folder or pick it from file selector and click "Move" button to complete operation. When using an access you could point to the database from the application by creating ODBC data source or by specify direct path to it in the connection string. To allow your web site write access to the database click "Lock" icon on its file in the files list and thentick "Write" checkbox over desired web site: Alternatively, you could create a database in web site's "Data" folder (Home -> Web site name -> Data) which allows write access by default. File Manager allows you to recalculate disk space consumption by clicking "Calculate Diskspace" button in the bottom of File Manager screen: Disk space calculation could take some time, so it will be run asynchronously. No need to click "Calculate Diskspace" button twice.
