- What is robots.txt? Why is it listed in my error
log?
- Why can visitors see the files listed in my
directories? How can I stop this?
- Can I provide a custom page to display when a file
can't be found on my domain? How do I create my own customized error
pages?
- Which default index file types does FastVirtual
support?
- I have just finished uploading my new web site, but
my images are not being displayed. Why is this happening?
- I have just finished uploading my new web site. The
pages are shown in FrontPage/FTP, but my browser displays a "404
File Not Found" message for some/all of my pages. Why is this
happening?
- I am using an FTP program to upload my site. Where
should I place my files?
- Does FastVirtual support media streaming, such as
Real Audio and Video, QuickTime and Windows Media?
- Does FastVirtual support SSI (Server Side
Includes)? Can SSI execute scripts in the "cgi-bin" directory? Can I
place SSI instructions in .html files?
- I am using FTP and I can't delete some
directories from my site!
- My files do not open in my web browser. Instead a
'broken' icon is displayed.
- How can I add new FTP accounts to my domain?
- Can I restrict access to my site (or a directory)
and require a password only, instead of both a username and a
password?
- How should I handle password protection for a
large user base?
- For areas of my site that require authentication,
how can I display the username on my pages?
- What is favicon.ico? Why is
it listed in my error log?
- I designed my own 404 error page. This loads when
I visit the page directly, but it is not used when I visit a
non-existent page on my web site.
 What
is robots.txt? Why is it listed in my error log?
Search engines and spiders request the robots.txt file when they
visit your site.
You are not required to provide this file, but if it doesn't
exist, errors will continue to be logged each time the file is
requested.
robots.txt is typically used to specify what content on your site
should, and should not be indexed by search engines. If you are
interested in creating your own robots.tx file, please visit the
Web Robots Pages, provided by robotstxt.org.
Why
can visitors see the files listed in my directories? How can I stop
this?
If you don't have an index file in a directory, that directory
has no default page to load when somebody types the directory URL
only, without a filename. Therefore they will see the directory
listing.
To stop this from happening, make sure your directories contain
an index.html (or index.htm) file.
This can be either an actual HTML page of your site, or just a blank
page that's named index.html. i.e. to stop people from seeing the
contents of your /images directory, create a blank page called
index.html and place it in your /images directory.
Can
I provide a custom page to display when a file can't be found on my
domain? How do I create my own customized error pages?
Yes. You can create your own 404 (file not found), 401 (access
denied), 403 (access forbidden), and 500 (script error) pages.
To create your own 404 (file not found) error page, design the
page as required, name this file 404.html, and place it in your document root.
Further
information, including error page samples, is available in our
Error Message Documentation.
Note: Current versions of Internet Explorer will ignore
error pages that are smaller than 512 bytes. To ensure your error
pages load for Internet Explorer users, make sure they are at least
512 bytes in size.
Which
default index file types does FastVirtual support?
FastVirtual supports the following default index file types. File
types are ordered by priority:
- index.html
- index.shtml
- index.htm
- default.html
- default.htm
- home.html
- home.htm
- INDEX.HTM
- index.mv
- index.php3
When a URL is requested without a filename, i.e. yourdomain.com/directory/,
if the directory includes one of the above index file types, the
file will automatically load. You should ensure that all your
directories contain an index file, otherwise visitors will be able
to view a list of your directory contents.
I
have just finished uploading my new web site, but my images are not
being displayed. Why is this happening?
Web servers do not like spaces in filenames. As general images
and photos usually include spaces in their filenames, i.e. "My
Background.jpg", these files should be renamed before being included
in your web pages. Underscores or dashes are best, so the above file
would be renamed to "my_background.jpg", or "my-background.jpg".
Web servers are also case sensitive, so "My_Background.jpg" is
not the same as "my_background.jpg". Therefore, you should also
check to make sure you are entering the correct case for your
filename.
As a general rule, it is best to use lower case names for all
your web content, including web pages, images and other files. You
should only use alphanumeric characters, underscores, dashes and
periods. All other characters should be avoided.
I
have just finished uploading my new web site. The pages are shown in
FrontPage/FTP, but my browser displays a "404 File Not Found" message
for some/all of my pages. Why is this happening?
As with the previous FAQ, web servers are case sensitive, and do
not like spaces or special characters in filenames:
- Case sensitive: "MyPage.html" is not the same as "mypage.html".
- Spaces: "my page.html" would not work correctly. This
should be named as "my_page.html", "my-page.html" or "mypage.html".
- Special characters: use only alphanumeric characters
(a-z, 0-9), underscores (_), dashes (-) and periods (.) in your
filenames.
Check your files to make sure they are capitalized correctly, and
do not contain spaces or special characters. To ensure compatibility
with all web browsers and platforms, it is best to use lower case
characters for all web content, including web pages, images and
other files.
For more information please see the previous FAQ.
I
am using an FTP program to upload my site. Where
should I place my files?
FTP applications will automatically default to your /htdocs
directory. This is where you should upload all your web content.
Your domain includes other directories as follows:
| /access |
Internal system directory. |
| /bin |
Internal system directory. |
| /cart |
Internal system directory. |
| /cgi-bin |
For CGI-enabled accounts this directory
will contain your CGI scripts. |
| /cgi-out |
Internal system directory. |
| /freeCGI |
This directory includes the
configuration files for FastVirtual's range of free web tools
and scripts. You may be required to upload configuration files
to this directory when configuring various web tools. |
| /htdocs |
This is your main document root,
where you should place all your web content. You may wish to add
subdirectories to keep your files and web content organized. |
| /mvdata |
This directory will contain your
Miva data files. |
| /logs |
Your raw log files are stored in
this directory. |
| /sendmail |
Internal system directory. |
| /usr |
Internal system directory. |
| /webdropbox |
This directory is where users files
will be sent if you place a web dropbox to your site. |
Note: Some directories may not be available for certain
account types.
Does
FastVirtual support media streaming, such as Real Audio and Video, QuickTime and Windows
Media?
Yes. All FastVirtual web hosting plans support streaming of
QuickTime, Windows Media, Real Audio and Video, and many other media
types via HTTP streaming.
HTTP streaming, also known as pseudo-streaming, provides for
virtually unlimited streaming of media files, with the only
limitation being account bandwidth usage.
For further information,
including step-by-step instructions for popular media types, please see the Multimedia Streaming Guide.
Does
FastVirtual support SSI (Server Side Includes)? Can SSI execute
scripts in the "cgi-bin" directory? Can I place SSI
instructions in .html files?
Yes, we do support Server Side Includes. For further details, please see
SSI Guide.
Yes,
SSI can execute CGI scripts in the cgi-bin directory.
Files that are intended to parse SSI instructions should end in .shtml.
FastVirtual does not support parsing SSI commands in .html files.
Adding the following line to your .htaccess file may work:
AddType text/x-server-parsed-html .shtml .html
However, this method not efficient and
may degrade performance of .html files. FastVirtual does not provide support for problems that may result from
this configuration change.
I
am using FTP and I can't delete some directories from my site!
Are you using Microsoft FrontPage? If FrontPage extensions have
been enabled, you should not access your site with an FTP client.
FrontPage includes its own method for managing files and
directories. Access your site through FrontPage and delete the
directories you no longer require. If you no longer wish to use
FrontPage, visit the hosting area of your control panel and
uninstall FrontPage extensions. Then you will be able to delete the
directories you no longer require using your FTP client.
Have you applied access restrictions to the directory? Use Webby
to remove the access restriction. You will then be able to delete
the directory using your FTP client (or from within Webby).
Does the directory contain files or subdirectories? Make sure you
delete all files and subdirectories before attempting
to delete a directory.
Does the directory name include special, or non-standard
characters? If so, you will need to contact FastVirtual support to
have the directory deleted.
My
files do not open in my web browser. Instead a 'broken' icon is
displayed.
Your files may have been incorrectly uploaded. Image files, audio
and video files, executable files, etc., should all be uploaded in
binary mode. Text files, web pages, stylesheets, etc., should all be
uploaded in ASCII mode.
FTP programs don't necessarily recognize all extension types.
They usually include a configuration area where you can add file
extensions and specify whether they should be uploaded in binary or
ASCII mode.
If you are unsure about a file type, try opening the file in a
text editor. If you can read the content it's an ASCII file. If it
appears as gibberish, it's probably a binary file.
How
can I add new FTP accounts to my domain?
Add and configure FTP accounts via the FTP management system in
your control panel. FTP accounts can be granted access to your
entire site, or restricted
to a specific directory. You
can also flag FTP accounts as read-write or read-only.
All web hosting
plans include a predetermined number of FTP accounts. Extra FTP accounts
are subject to fees. For further information, please see the
FTP Guide.
Can I
restrict access to my site (or a directory) and require a password
only, instead of both a username and a password?
No. HTTP
authentication requires both a username and a password.
You could use an identical term for both the username and
password. Or alternatively, use a generic, easy-to-remember username,
such as guest.
How
should I handle password protection for a large user base?
If you have a large number of users that need to be authenticated
in order to access a certain area of your site, specifying
individual usernames and passwords is not very efficient, and is
usually not needed.
Assuming access to your protected area is based on a monthly
subscription, If you specify a single username and password, (i.e.
"guest", "password1"), this could be easily changed each month, then
simply emailed to your subscribers.
For
areas of my site that require authentication, how can I display the
username on my pages?
You can do this using Server Side Includes (SSI).
The SSI variable for the username is "REMOTE_USER". The pages
where you want to display the username should end in ".shtml" as
opposed to ".html", so the server knows to look for SSI
instructions, and the code would be as follows:
<!--#set var="username" value="${REMOTE_USER}" -->
<!--#echo var="username" -->
For security reasons, it is not possible to capture the password
used to access an authenticated area.
More information about SSI, including details of all supported
variables, can be found in our
Server Side Includes
Guide.
Note: There are known incompatibilities with Microsoft
FrontPage and .shtml files. FrontPage has it's own way of including
variables, called "bots", and we recommend that FrontPage users use
this method instead of SSI.
What
is favicon.ico? Why is it listed in my error log?
This log entry is caused when people visit your web site using a current browser.
The latest browsers can display a customized icon in the address bar
and in the bookmark/favorites list, and this is the image file those
browsers look for.
You are not required to provide this file, but if it doesn't
exist, errors will continue to be logged each time the file is
requested.
To take advantage of this feature, simply create an icon,
name it "favicon.ico" and copy it to the root directory of your domain.
At a basic level, the image should be 16x16 pixels and use the standard 16-color palette.
More advanced icon files include multiple images at different
quality levels and sizes, and can be created using specialized
software such as Microangelo and Icon Forge.
I
designed my own 404 error page. This loads when I visit the page
directly, but it is not used when I visit a non-existent page on my
web site.
This problem applies to Internet Explorer 4.x, which introduced
its own "Friendly" error messages, and switched this feature on by
default. To change this option back, click "Tools", "Internet Options"
and select the "Advanced" tab. Scroll down and uncheck "Show
friendly HTTP error messages".
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