Site Non-Functional (its my fault)

[FockerFGAA]

so i recently got a semi dedicated account here. i copied the joomla files and the vbulletin files to this server and i used myAdmin to copy the database over. i went in and made the changes i believe i needed to make in the config files to show the new server. now i dont have a domain pointing to it yet so i just modified my hosts file so that i wouldnt get that apache frontpage showing up. instead i get a 500 Internal Server Error. the ip of the site is http://69.73.181.50/. now i should be getting at least a database error of some sort i would imagine since i have all the files there. any help would be appreciated.

[Ron]

Maybe start by removing any .htaccess files to another name to see if they're causing the issue.

But first you might want to check your error log in CPanel to give you a hint of where the problems lay.

[Vin DSL]

the ip of the site is http://69.73.181.50/

Um...

That's the IP for ewok.nocdirect.com

There should be more to the addy, like:

http://69.73.181.50/~fockers

[the_ancient]

Um...

That's the IP for ewok.nocdirect.com

There should be more to the addy, like:

http://69.73.181.50/~fockers

what he is doing it editing his HOSTS file to reflect the new IP address. if you edit the HOSTS file you dont use the Username


to the OP, you need too look at your raw apache logs (found in Cpanel) it will tell you exactly what is causing the error

[Vin DSL]

what he is doing it editing his HOSTS file to reflect the new IP address. if you edit the HOSTS file you dont use the Username

Yeah, I know, but maybe he isn't adding the account name to his hosts file, yes?

Anyway, not enough info, so...

Good luck!

[FockerFGAA]

are these the errorrs you are referring to?

[Wed Mar 7 08:53:46 2007] [error] [client 70.179.146.102] Premature end of script headers: /home/fvsports/public_html/index.php
[Wed Mar 7 06:38:44 2007] [error] [client 74.132.150.149] File does not exist: /home/fvsports/public_html/favicon.ico
[Wed Mar 7 06:38:44 2007] [error] [client 74.132.150.149] File does not exist: /home/fvsports/public_html/500.shtml
[Wed Mar 7 06:38:44 2007] [error] [client 74.132.150.149] Premature end of script headers: /home/fvsports/public_html/index.php


and as for the whole ipaddress/~fockers how come i can log onto cpanel using just the ip address? and if i was to connect a domain to it would i have the domain point to ipaddress/~fockers?

[djg320]

Not exactly, the cPanel/WHM accessed from there on the I.P. of the server is where your cPanel/account control is (all of this is like such due to the shared I.P.). To actually access your site, you'd need to access the directory its in. cPanel does this through the /~usernamehere redirect.

In other words cPanel and your site are in different places on the server.

(Hmm, hope I explained that well enough.)

Oh, and to answer the domain question, you simply can point the domain to Jag's nameservers. They'll handle all of that. Or if you do point it to the server I.P. itself I believe it will work also.

[the_ancient]

Yeah, I know, but maybe he isn't adding the account name to his hosts file, yes?

Anyway, not enough info, so...

Good luck!

you DO NOT add the account name to the hosts file. apache looks for the host name in the Request and directs the request to the appropriate files in that fashion, so you only need to direct your web browser to the right IP, IP ONLY, apache handles the rest

[jason]

Here's a breakdown of what's happening:

[Wed Mar 7 08:53:46 2007] [error] [client 70.179.146.102] Premature end of script headers: /home/fvsports/public_html/index.php

This is the real problem--there is something wrong with the index.php file. Basically, what this error is saying is that it isn't returning a proper set of headers to the server. The server (and later the client) use these headers to decide how to process the data that comes with them.

[Wed Mar 7 06:38:44 2007] [error] [client 74.132.150.149] File does not exist: /home/fvsports/public_html/favicon.ico

Here your browser is looking for a favicon.ico file which, if present, will be displayed next to teh URL in the location bar and/or in your bookmarks/favorites list when you bookmark the page. This is an automated request that the browser makes and you can ignore it.

[Wed Mar 7 06:38:44 2007] [error] [client 74.132.150.149] File does not exist: /home/fvsports/public_html/500.shtml

When the script error occured on the php page the server automatically looded for a file in your account called 500.shtml to display in place of its default error message. Since none was found this error was generated, but it too can be ignored.

[Wed Mar 7 06:38:44 2007] [error] [client 74.132.150.149] Premature end of script headers: /home/fvsports/public_html/index.php

You must have hit reload. See my comment on the first line above.

and as for the whole ipaddress/~fockers how come i can log onto cpanel using just the ip address? and if i was to connect a domain to it would i have the domain point to ipaddress/~fockers?

As djg320 already pointed out, a single copy of the cPanel application is installed on the server and it is shared by all users. Apache is configured to let you access cPanel in many different ways for convenience--by server name or IP, by an account's domain name, by an account's unique IP (if you have one...you'd know if you did), etc. I could even go to www.someotherguyssite.com/cpanel and log in to my cPanel as long as both sites are on the same server.

Since you don't have a unique IP, Apache can't serve up your site based solely on IP--it has know way to know which account you actually want. Therefore you need to use /~accountname when typing the IP into your browser. From your hosts file you should be able to map the fully qualified domain name that you told JPC that you'll be using to the IP they gave you and be able to see your site on the JPC server (and, since you got the server error and not the generic cpanel page that I see, it sounds like it worked). This is actually a good trick for testing a site before switching the DNS that I've never thought of trying--thanks!

OK, on to the PHP issue....

As I said, scripts need to deliver a set of headers to Apache before they send content so that Apache can understand how to deal with the request itself and then tell the receiving browser how to deal with it as well.

This particular error is common in CGI scripting, where programmers have to explicitly create the headers themselves. PHP generates the headers automatically in most cases, so this is less of an issue.

Since this is your site's homepage, I assume it is HTML. Therefore nothing special should have had to be done with the headers, so this error is strange. PHP should have just sent the normal "Content-type: text/html" that is sends 99.9999999% of the time.

The error could have been caused by the way you transferred the file, but this doesn't seem likey to me. This generally isn't an issue with PHP scripts like it is with scripts written in other languages. Right now everything is pointing at a PHP misconfiguration in your account.

Try creating a script like this:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Name it something like info.php and upload it to your account. Then try to load that page in your browser and see what happens. You should see a whole lot of configuration info if it works. If you get that then we can eliminate the issue being with PHP or the way you are accessing it, meaning that the problem must be inside the index.php file.

--Jason

[FockerFGAA]

i got the forum to show up. i had another error that popped up saying that my folders were writeable by other users so i did chmod 755 on those folders and it fixed that. however now the front page just shows a joomla page thing so now i know i have a configuration issue somewhere in joomla.

and its actually http://69.73.181.50/~fvsports just so you guys know if you want to see what i see.

[Ron]

How did you get the forum to show up?

I just read the whole thread.. I was thinking that error might be an extra carriage return at the beginning or end of index.php.

Anyway, glad things are looking up for you.

[FockerFGAA]

How did you get the forum to show up?

I just read the whole thread.. I was thinking that error might be an extra carriage return at the beginning or end of index.php.

Anyway, glad things are looking up for you.

i just changed the permissions for the folder to 755 because it was saying i basically am not allowed to have a folder set at 777.

[the_ancient]

i just changed the permissions for the folder to 755 because it was saying i basically am not allowed to have a folder set at 777.

That is correct, now that PHP is CGI nothing can be World Writable, that is a major Security concern

[Gwaihir]

Hmm.. slightly the other way around. Having stuff world writeable was always a security concern, however until the new setup it was impossible to avoid. Now, under PHP-CGI, there's no need for it anymore, so the servers have been configured to refuse executing scripts from 777 folders.