Newbie with lots of questions

[rkstar]

I just signed up for jaguarpc hoping to replace my old website server, but i can't figure out a few things (and i'm sure a lot more to come) before i move the site over.

1) how do i change the website username?

2) how can i make index.pl files work like index.html so they don't need to be typed out?

3) how do i make it so file name extensions don't have to be part of the URL?

4) Why did i get 50 spam emails the very first time i checked my email after setting it up? I do have all domain emails forwarding to my main account, but still!

5) How can I change the default time returned by perl scripts to be EST?

6) How do I make it so any new .pl file uploaded automatically has the right executable permissions?

I think those are all my immediate questions before I move on. Every site I've worked on in the past had all of those features and I'd assume the same for here... I pretty much need them for continuity. Thanks!

-dan goodspeed

[jason]

Originally posted by rkstar
1) how do i change the website username?

You can't, but I'm not sure why you'd wnat to, either. If you really need to do this, contact support. If you wnat to change your password, you can do that in CPanel.

2) how can i make index.pl files work like index.html so they don't need to be typed out?

They should already.

3) how do i make it so file name extensions don't have to be part of the URL?

Do you mean that you want to be able to go to domain.com/page instead of domain.com/page.html? You might be able to set something like this up with mod_rewrite, but it would be complicated. You could also set up redirects for each page that you want to do this on. If you need help with it, let me know and I'll see what I can come up with.

4) Why did i get 50 spam emails the very first time i checked my email after setting it up? I do have all domain emails forwarding to my main account, but still!

I doubt it had anything to do with you moving your site to JPC. They say they don't sell your addresses to spammers and I have no reason not to believe them. There are many ways that spammers get your email address. This is probably just coincidental. JPC has an offering in the CPanel called SpamAssassin that is very good at filtering out your spam. If you wnat help setting up, just ask.

5) How can I change the default time returned by perl scripts to be EST?

Time is a server wide setting (there is only one clock for the server), and since the server is located in Texas, the clock is set to the local time in Texas, CST. If you want to change this, you'd have to change your script to compensate for it.

6) How do I make it so any new .pl file uploaded automatically has the right executable permissions?

I don't think there is a way to do this unless your FTP client (or whatever you're using to upload your files can be set to do it automatically. I've worked with numerous hosts, both for myself and for clients, and I've never seen this as an option.

I know that some of these things may not be exactly what you wnated to hear, but I hope they help you out. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. There is a friendly bunch of regulars on here that are always ready to answer your questions.

--Jason

[rkstar]

1) i just don't like the default username, has random characters in it and its too hard to remember. i'd like it to just be my domain name.

2) nope. just does a directory listing instead. .cgi works, but just about all my files are called .pl.

3) every web server i've ever hosted on has had the feature of if the url has no extension, first check if its a directory, then check for .cgi/.pl/.php, then check for .html and display those. i even just tried it here on my computer's built in webserver and it worked fine. like server.com/page displayed server.com/page.html no problem. i definitely need this to work for ste continuity (i'm going to link my old site to this one with multihosting and all the pages should have the same URLs).

4) my spam program caught the spams... and it probably was just coincidental... it was just curious that one of the reasons i'm switching sites is to get a new email and get a fresh start away from spam. no biggie i guess.

5) i have A LOT of scripts that get the date/time for various things. is there any built in function to automatically change the time? it'll be pretty annoying to have to change all of them manually.

6) i guess it's not a super big deal... but something i liked about interland (the company i'm moving from) is if you uploaded a .pl or .cgi file, it was automatically executable, no permission change needed. saved me lots of time.

-dan

[jason]

1. Ask support, see what they can do..

2. You can create a file called .htaccess and put it into your public_html directory (or use the tool for doing this in CPanel). Int that file add a line that looks like this:

DirectoryIndex index.html index.pl index.cgi

That will cause the server to search for files with the names listed to use as the default document when a specific file isn't requested. It will do this in the order specified, so if your directory contains both an index.html and an index.pl, the index.html will be displayed becasue it is first in the list. This directive seems to override the system default (instead of just adding to it), so be sure to specify everything you might use.

3. I'm not aware of an easy way to do it here. I don't have time to think about the mod_rewrite rules to enable it, either. I'll have to get back to you on it.

4. Good luck with it.

5. I'm not a perl expert, so I can't help you out with this. Maybe someone else here can. One idea might be to get a current unix time stamp and subtract 3600 (the number of seconds in an hour) from it, then convert that into a date string. That sholdn't be too dificult to do.

6. That wouldn't be a bad feature, but I'm not aware of support for it here.

--Jason

[rkstar]

1) i'm not sure how to get to support. i can't find any phone numbers anywhere and the ticket system says "Sorry, we were unable to process your login details. Please verify your details and try again." I'm using the same name/pswd as i do to access the control panel. I've tried several other combinations and haven't had any luck.

2) the .htaccess worked, thanks!

3) i guess i'll have to ask support about removing the need for extensions as well.

4) i'll ask support about this one as well.. if i can ever get in!

thanks.

-dan

[JPC-Les]

1) email sales with the last four digits of the credit card on file and the domain name and we will set you up.

Your username is the domain name (without www.) and the password is the same one that came in your activation email unless you had us change it.