[Bluehost Support Center] Most Popular Articles

Bluehost.com Pricing

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:48:38 GMT

Problem:

What is Bluehost.com Pricing Structure?

Solution:

Note: You may see a promotional price on the Bluehost main page.
These prices are for your initial hosting term only, and everyone must renew at the regular price at that time, the following prices are for normal renewals. For the most up to date pricing please call our billing or sales department and we can help you sign up with the term which would be best for your needs.

36 Month Account $ a month

1 FREE Domain Registration good for the life of your hosting package.

No set up fees [$30 Savings]

$ Total due at sign-up; [36 month account x $ mo.]

24 Month Account $ a month

1 FREE Domain Registration good for the life of your hosting package.

No set up fees [$30 Savings]

$ Total due at sign-up; [24 month account x $ mo.]

12 Month Account: $ a month

1 FREE Domain Registration good for the life of your hosting package.

No set up fee [$30 Savings]

$ Total due at sign-up; [12 month account x $ mo.]

Optional Features after sign-up

Additional Domain Names = $10.00 each year

Dedicated IP = $30.00 each year [$2.50 mo.]

SSL Certificates = $45.00 each year

Expired Account Reactivations = $30.00

Postini Mail Filtering = $1.00/mo per e-mail address [prorated]

Privacy = $4.95 Domain Privacy for the first year

Terms

Bluehost.com offers one set of Hosting Features. All Hosting accounts are paid for upfront and in full at sign up. All Setup fees are non-refundable. All accounts canceled in the first 30 Days of service qualify for a *full refund at the monthly rate.

Example: Two Year 24 Month Account is $ a Month x 24 months = $ paid at sign up.
*If you cancel in the first 30 days Your refund would be $

All accounts canceled after 30 Days of service qualify for a prorated refund at the monthly rate.

Example: Two Year 24 Month Account is $ a Month x 24 months = $ paid at sign up. If you cancel two months into it then you would be reimbursed at the $ a month rate for a period of 22 months. Your prorated refund would be $ x 22 = $174.90.
When canceling your Bluehost account prior to your accounts end of term; you forfeit the FREE domain registration [12 or 24 month accounts] and Bluehost deducts $10.00 from your final refund amount to cover our costs for registering your NEW domain on your behalf for one year.
You will retain ownership of your domain until the end of it's registered period.

*If you cancel within 5 days, you will get a full refund and the domain name will be released.
If you cancel after 5 days but within 30 days, there will be a $10 fee (for the domain name) deducted from your full refund. You will get to keep the domain name and the hosting price is refunded. Domain names can only be canceled and refunded within 5 days.

Keywords: Bluehost.com Pricing

DNS Records (MX, CNAME, ARECORD)

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:58:50 GMT

Problem:

How Do I Change DNS Settings for My MX, cNAME, A RECORD, etc.?

Solution:

MX Entries:
As a Customer, you can change your MX Entries as you need. Please log into the cPanel to edit these by clicking the MX Entry icon in the Mail section. When multiple MX entries are required with same priority, please contact Tech support via a ticket as described below.
A RECORD, cNAME, TXT:
Please request DNS changes by opening a new ticket in the helpcenter. To help expedite the process, please include the last four digits of the credit card used for the most recent **WEB HOSTING** payment or last four characters of the hosting password inside the body of the ticket.

Please format the ticket as follows for quickest service:

Hello Support,
My main domain is "Insert Main Domain" and the last 4 of my credit card are as follows 0123.

A record: friends.yourdomain.com -> 74.220.195.50 (always point to an IP address)

CName: blog.yourdomain.com -> ghs.google.com

MX Entries: yourdomain.com -> 5 ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM

MX Entries: yourdomain.com -> 5 ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM

Note: Our servers do not support Reverse DNS Lookup. This means that a Reverse DNS Lookup will not resolve to the domain name, but instead to the server that the hosting account is on.
We do have TXT entries and PTR entries to help with SPF records when sending email. This shows the email was legitimately sent from a Bluehost server, where the domain will be listed if a Reverse DNS Lookup is done.We do allow customers to request custom TXT entries in order to help fight against spam. Both SPF records and DKIM records are TXT entries in a zone file. Unfortunately at this time we do not support custom PTR or SRV records for customers. If you require custom entries like this you will need to subscribe to a third party DNS service (examples are dyndns.com or dnsmadeeasy.com).

Keywords: DNS MX CNAME ARECORD entry record name mail google apps googleapps reverse DNS SPF

.htaccess Tutorial

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:01:36 GMT

Problem:

What is the .htaccess file and where can I find more information?

Solution:

Introduction to .htaccess Tutorial

In this tutorial you will find out about the .htaccess file and the power it has to improve your website. Although .htaccess is only a file, it can change settings on the servers and allow you to do many different things, the most popular being able to have your own custom 404 error pages. .htaccess isn't difficult to use and is really just made up of a few simple instructions in a text file. Bluehost supports .htaccess files however as a customer you are responsible for what is in this file and how it changes your site.

There is a huge range of things .htaccess can do including: password protecting folders, redirecting users automatically, custom error pages, changing your file extensions, banning users with certain IP addresses, only allowing users with certain IP addresses, stopping directory listings and using a different file as the index file. Most of these can be done via point and click directly from the Bluehost cPanel.

Creating A .htaccess File

Creating a .htaccess file may cause you a few problems. Writing the file is easy, you just need enter the appropriate code into a text editor (like notepad). You may run into problems with saving the file. Because .htaccess is a strange file name (the file actually has no name but a 8 letter file extension) it may not be accepted on certain systems (e.g. Windows 3.1). With most operating systems, though, all you need to do is to save the file by entering the name as:

".htaccess"

(including the quotes). If this doesn't work, you will need to name it something else (e.g. htaccess.txt) and then upload it to the server. Once you have uploaded the file you can then rename it using an FTP program.

Warning: Before beginning using .htaccess, I should give you one warning. Although using .htaccess on your server is extremely unlikely to cause you any problems (if something is wrong it simply won't work), you should be wary if you are using the Microsoft FrontPage Extensions. The FrontPage extensions use the .htaccess file so you should not really edit it to add your own information. If you do want to (this is not recommended, but possible) you should download the .htaccess file from your server first (if it exists) and then add your code to the beginning.
Custom Error Pages

The first use of the .htaccess file is custom error pages. These will allow you to have your own, personal error pages (for example when a file is not found) instead of using your host's error pages or having no page. This will make your site seem much more professional in the unlikely event of an error. It will also allow you to create scripts to notify you if there is an error (for example I use a PHP script on Free Webmaster Help to automatically e-mail me when a page is not found).

You can use custom error pages for any error as long as you know its number (like 404 for page not found) by adding the following to your .htaccess file:

ErrorDocument errornumber /file.html

For example if I had the file notfound.html in the root directory of my site and I wanted to use it for a 404 error I would use:
ErrorDocument 404 /notfound.html 
If the file is not in the root directory of your site, you just need to put the path to it:
ErrorDocument 500 /errorpages/500.html 
These are some of the most common errors:
401 - Authorization Required
400 - Bad request
403 - Forbidden
500 - Internal Server Error
404 - Wrong page
Then, all you need to do is to create a file to display when the error happens and upload it and the .htaccess file.
Part 2 - .htaccess Commands
Stop A Directory Index From Being Shown
Sometimes, for one reason or another, you will have no index file in your directory. This will, of course, mean that if someone types the directory name into their browser, a full listing of all the files in that directory will be shown. This could be a security risk for your site.
To prevent against this (without creating lots of new 'index' files, you can enter a command into your .htaccess file to stop the directory list from being shown:
Options -Indexes 
Deny/Allow Certian IP Addresses
In some situations, you may want to only allow people with specific IP addresses to access your site (for example, only allowing people using a particular ISP to get into a certain directory) or you may want to ban certain IP addresses (for example, keeping disruptive members out of your message boards). Of course, this will only work if you know the IP addresses you want to ban and, as most people on the internet now have a dynamic IP address, so this is not always the best way to limit usage.
You can block an IP address by using:
deny from 000.000.000.000 
where 000.000.000.000 is the IP address. If you only specify 1 or 2 of the groups of numbers, you will block a whole range.
You can allow an IP address by using:
allow from 000.000.000.000 
where 000.000.000.000 is the IP address. If you only specify 1 or 2 of the groups of numbers, you will allow a whole range.
If you want to deny everyone from accessing a directory, you can use:
deny from all 
but this will still allow scripts to use the files in the directory.
Alternative Index Files
You may not always want to use index.htm or index.html as your index file for a directory, for example if you are using PHP files in your site, you may want index.php to be the index file for a directory. You are not limited to 'index' files though. Using .htaccess you can set foofoo.blah to be your index file if you want to!
Alternate index files are entered in a list. The server will work from left to right, checking to see if each file exists, if none of them exist it will display a directory listing (unless, of course, you have turned this off).
DirectoryIndex index.php index.php3 messagebrd.pl index.html index.htm 
Redirection
One of the most useful functions of the .htaccess file is to redirect requests to different files, either on the same server, or on a completely different web site. It can be extremely useful if you change the name of one of your files but allow users to still find it. Another use (which I find very useful) is to redirect to a longer URL, for example in my newsletters I can use a very short URL for my affiliate links. The following can be done to redirect a specific file:
Redirect /location/from/root/file.ext http://www.othersite.com/new/file/location.xyz 
In this above example, a file in the root directory called oldfile.html would be entered as:
/oldfile.html
and a file in the old subdirectory would be entered as:
/old/oldfile.html
You can also redirect whole directories of your site using the .htaccess file, for example if you had a directory called olddirectory on your site and you had set up the same files on a new site at: http://www.newsite.com/newdirectory/ you could redirect all the files in that directory without having to specify each one:
Redirect /olddirectory http://www.newsite.com/newdirectory 
Then, any request to your site below /olddirectory will bee redirected to the new site, with the extra information in the URL added on, for example if someone typed in:
http://www.youroldsite.com/olddirecotry/oldfiles/images/image.gif
They would be redirected to:
http://www.newsite.com/newdirectory/oldfiles/images/image.gif
This can prove to be extremely powerful if used correctly.
Part 3 - Password Protection

Introduction
Although there are many uses of the .htaccess file, by far the most popular, and probably most useful, is being able to reliably password protect directories on websites. Although JavaScript etc. can also be used to do this, only .htaccess has total security (as someone must know the password to get into the directory, there are no 'back doors')
The .htaccess File
Adding password protection to a directory using .htaccess takes two stages. The first part is to add the appropriate lines to your .htaccess file in the directory you would like to protect. Everything below this directory will be password protected:
  AuthName "Section Name"
  AuthType Basic
  AuthUserFile /full/path/to/.htpasswd
  Require valid-user 
There are a few parts of this which you will need to change for your site. You should replace "Section Name" with the name of the part of the site you are protecting e.g. "Members Area".
The /full/parth/to/.htpasswd should be changed to reflect the full server path to the .htpasswd file (more on this later). If you do not know what the full path to your webspace is, check your Bluehost cPanel. Look on the left "stats" column of the cPanel.
The .htpasswd File
Password protecting a directory takes a little more work than any of the other .htaccess functions because you must also create a file to contain the usernames and passwords which are allowed to access the site. These should be placed in a file which (by default) should be called .htpasswd. Like the .htaccess file, this is a file with no name and an 8 letter extension. This can be placed anywhere within you website (as the passwords are encrypted) but it is advisable to store it outside the web root (in your home directory) so that it is impossible to access it from the web.
Entering Usernames And Passwords
Once you have created your .htpasswd file (you can do this in a standard text editor) you must enter the usernames and passwords to access the site. They should be entered as follows:
username:password 
where the password is the encrypted format of the password. To encrypt the password you will either need to use one of the pre-made scripts available on the web or write your own. There is a good username/password service at the KxS site (http://www.kxs.net/support/htaccess_pw.html) which will allow you to enter the user name and password and will output it in the correct format.
For multiple users, just add extra lines to your .htpasswd file in the same format as the first. There are even scripts available for free which will manage the .htpasswd file and will allow automatic adding/removing of users etc.
Accessing The Site
When you try to access a site which has been protected by .htaccess your browser will pop up a standard username/password dialog box. If you don't like this, there are certain scripts available which allow you to embed a username/password box in a website to do the authentication. You can also send the username and password (unencrypted) in the URL as follows:
http://username:password@www.website.com/directory/
Note: .htaccess is one of the most useful files a webmaster can use. There are a wide variety of different uses for it which can save time and increase security on your website.

Keywords: .htaccess tips tricks

Bluehost Nameservers (NS)

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:01:40 GMT

Problem:

How do I modify my nameservers?

Solution:

Please change your name servers to the correct Bluehost name servers.
ns1.bluehost.com - 74.220.195.31
ns2.bluehost.com - 69.89.16.4
Note: Please contact the Registrar (the company from whom you bought your domain). Request they change your Nameservers (NS) to the ones listed above. Most registrars allow customers to make the changes online themselves. Standard Propagation time is 24 to 48 hours. This means after 24 hours the domain name should be correctly pointing to your Bluehost account.

Keywords: DNS name servers ns nameservers

MySQL Version

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:43:12 GMT

Problem:

What version of MySQL are you running?

Solution:

The current version can be viewed in the cPanel on left side. Alternately, to see which version you are running with the following command from either Window's DOS prompt or a terminal on Mac or Linux, It will print out the current version
In command prompt or terminal:
 telnet domain.com 3306

Keywords: MySQL SQL version

FTP - Uploading the website

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:27:41 GMT

Problem:

How do I upload my web site?

Solution:

The best way to upload your web site is via FTP. This can be done in a number of different ways using many different FTP clients. Every client needs 4 things:

Domain name or IP Address.

Username.

Password.

Port (Usually port 21)

This information is emailed to you in the welcome email you received when you signed up with us.

Our fantastic tutorials at tutorials.bluehost.com will guide you though this process at your own pace.

Click here to view the FTP tutorials available!

Keywords: upload web site website uploading ftp

Email Setup in any client (General Information)

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:50:53 GMT

Problem:

How can I set Email up quickly?

Solution:

Below are the settings that are needed to configure and retrieve email from your main pop account:
Type Of Mail Server: POP
POP server: mail.yourdomain.com
POP username: (your full email address)
POP password: (the password that you selected when your account was setup)

Here are the settings that you'll need to send email:

SMTP server: mail.yourdomain.com
SMTP username: (your full email address)
SMTP password: (the password that you selected when your account was setup)

Note: The outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication (Make sure you select this option when setting up your email client.) i.e. when you send email you'll be prompted for your username and password.

Keywords: Email Quick Setup

How to host the Primary Domain from a subfolder (.htaccess)

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:00:17 GMT

Problem:

How do I make a sub directory (or sub folder) act as the public_html for your main domain?

Solution:

The main domain on the hosting account uses the public_html directory for all of its Web site files. Addon domains use sub directories inside the public_html directory. In order to also set up your main domain to use a subdirectory on your hosting account you will need to set up a redirect in the .htaccess file in the public_html folder so that the server knows that any request for your main domain will be redirected to a subdirectory on public_html.
To setup the rewrite/redirect, edit the ~/public_html/.htaccess file. Insert the following code block and make modifications as noted in the (#) comments.
# Bluehost.com
# .htaccess main domain to subdirectory redirect
# Copy and paste the following code into the .htaccess file
# in the public_html folder of your hosting account
# make the changes to the file according to the instructions.
# Do not change this line.
RewriteEngine on
# Change yourdomain.com to be your main domain.
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?yourmaindomain.com$
# Change 'subdirectory' to be the directory you will use for your main domain.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/subdirectory/
# Don't change this line.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
# Change 'subdirectory' to be the directory you will use for your main domain.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /subdirectory/$1
# Change yourdomain.com to be your main domain again.
# Change 'subdirectory' to be the directory you will use for your main domain
# followed by / then the main file for your site, index.php, index.html, etc.
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?yourmaindomain.com$
RewriteRule ^(/)?$ subdirectory/index.php [L]
Visitors to your Web site will not be able to tell that your main domain is using a subdirectory, they will still see the Web site address as http://www.yourdomain.com/page.html.

Keywords:.htaccess - How to make a subdirectory the main directory for your main domain

Webmail Access

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:00:42 GMT

Problem:

How do I use webmail?

Solution:

The best way to access webmail is to go to the webmail URL. It is just the domain name with "/webmail" appended to the end.
http://yourdomain.com/webmail
Other ways include logging in via the cPanel and clicking the Webmail link or visiting login.bluehost.com and entering the full email address and the correct corresponding password. See Webmail Client Direct Login URL to see how to access each of the webmail directly.

Keywords: Webmail web mail

Ruby on Rails Setup

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:28:54 GMT

Problem:

How do I set up Ruby on Rails?

Solution:

Using Ruby On Rails on Bluehost:
This is intended to be a brief introduction to developing ruby on rails applications on a account with us.

At the bottom of this article you will find a number of resources to help you learn more about ruby on rails and related information, as well as links to some rails tutorials that will go into more depth than this document.

Before you start digging your feet into Ruby on Rails, you should understand exactly what it is.

Ruby on Rails is an advanced object-oriented Model-View-Controller application framework. If you did not fully understand the meaning of the previous sentence, you are going to need to put in some study time before you can jump into rails programming. Ruby On Rails is aimed at advanced programmers; jumping into it before you're ready is likely to be very very hard. This tutorial should be easy enough for anyone to follow, but there's a lot more to rails than you'll be learning here.

This tutorial serves as a first step into ruby on rails development on Bluehost. The Model-View-Controller (abbreviated to MVC) design pattern is fairly straight-forward, it simply means that your program is split into three separate components: The Model, View, and Controller. The "Model" is your data, no matter how it is stored. If you are writing a blog, this is where all of your posts and comments would go. The "View" is your interface. In the case of Ruby on Rails, we are talking about the part that displays your HTML. The controller handles the business logic and ties the model to the view. MVC programming is beneficial for many reasons. From this point on, it is assumed you have an understanding of both object-oriented design and MVC and now you can get into how to develop rails applications on Bluehost.

A few additional notes before you start: First of all, you need to have SSH access enabled.

Secondly, you will see a lot of tutorials referring to a program called "script/server" or "webrick". This is NOT NECESSARY on a Bluehost account and you should never have to use it. This is designed for people who are developing their rails application on their own computer where there is no apache install which is pre-configured to use ruby on rails.

However, you do have access to such a server on Bluehost, so you do not need to worry about script/server. Do not run it as it is not set up to work properly.

Third, this tutorial assumes that you are using MySQL.

This document is Bluehost-specific. To begin, log into the server using SSH. You'll need a work area for your rails application. Assuming ahead of time that you may eventually want multiple applications, you should make a work directory and then cd into it. You can name it whatever you would like, but this document assumes that it is called "rails".

% mkdir ~/rails
% cd ~/rails

Now you may create your application. As we are just making a simple Hello World application, we'll assume that the application is named "first". How you create the application depends on what version of Rails is on your server (currently we are in the process of upgrading all of the servers to 2.3.2, but while this is not complete some servers may still be running 2.2.2). To find out which version of rails you are running use the following command:

% rails -v

If you are running rails 2.3.2, then you will need to create your application like this:

% rails -D -d mysql first

The -D is short form for "--with-dispatchers". This is now required for rails 2.3.2 since the dispatch files are no longer created by default.

If you are running rails 2.2.2, then you will need to create it like this:

% rails -d mysql first
% cd first

Next, we are going to set up a subdomain for this application to run on.

Log into your cPanel, click on 'subdomains', then type 'first' into the first text box and click 'Add'. You have now created a new subdomain, first.yourdomain.com, which will be the new home of your ruby on rails application. Now, we're going to make your application's "public" directory be the root dir of that subdomain with the following commands:

% cd ~/public_html/
% rm -r first
% ln -s $HOME/rails/first/public $HOME/public_html/first

You should now be able to go to http://first.yourdomain.com/ where you will see the Ruby on Rails welcome message. As the welcome page suggests, it is now time to set up your databases.

In cPanel, click on 'MySQL Databases' icon. The first thing you'll want to do here is add an SQL user for rails to use. You can name this whatever you would like. We will assume you used 'rails'. cPanel prepends your username to the user name, so you should take note of the actual name created (it should be username_rails). Next, we're adding a database. Name this database 'first', to match your application name. You will again notice that username_ has been prepended. Since rails supports having a development mode and a production mode we'll also create a second database. Name this second database firstdev. Finally, we're going to link this username to the database. Select username_rails and username_first from the drop downs and make sure the 'All' checkbox below them is checked, then click the 'Add User To DB' button. Now you should repeat this step, with 'firstdev' as the database name, and linking username_rails to it.

Now we're going to edit the database.yml file. Open ~/rails/first/config/database.yml in your favorite editor and modify the 'development' and 'production' sections to contain the username, password, and database that you just created in the cPanel. You will also want to replace the "socket" line with a line specifying the host:

development:
adapter: mysql
encoding: utf8
database: username_firstdev
pool: 5
username: username_rails
password: password
host: localhost

production:
adapter: mysql
encoding: utf8
database: username_first
pool: 5
username: username_rails
password: password
host: localhost

At this point, the old tutorial directed you to create the model, view, and controller separately. The tutorial now differs in that it will take a more "rails like" approach.

We're going to create what is called a "scaffold". A scaffold would create a CRUD structure for information, the controllers, the views, and the routes necessary for a basic application.

% cd ~/rails/first
% ./script/generate scaffold Person name:string street1:string street2:string city:string state:string zip:string

This will create everything your basic application needs, but we are not quite done. You will need to type in one more command:

% rake db:migrate

This will set up the database for you.

Now that we have this set up, we will need to add a way for rails requests to be processed. We will need to create rewrite rules in a .htaccess file so that all non-static requests coming into your application are processed through fastcgi.

% touch ~/rails/first/public/.htaccess

Now edit the newly created file with your favorite editor and add the following:

# General Apache options
AddHandler fcgid-script .fcgi
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^$ index.html [QSA]
RewriteRule ^([^.]+)/!$ $1.html [QSA]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi [QSA,L] ErrorDocument 500 "<h2>Application error</h2>Application failed to start properly"

That's it. Now you will be able to view your application that you had just created.

Remember that when a you create a scaffold it takes on the plural form of the name you gave it. You will need to access it the following way:

http://first.yourdomain.com/people

You can now create, edit, and delete people (along with their associated records). Congratulations, you've now created your first rails application on Bluehost!

Now, how do we make it so that you do not need to go to first.yourdomain.com/people to see the new application? Is there a way to make it so that you just need to go to http://first.yourdomain.com for it to show up? Of course, there is!

First, delete the index.html page in your public folder:

% rm ~/rails/first/public/index.html

Now, we'll have to change the routes for your application. Open up the ~/rails/first/config/routes.rb file and edit the following line (down around the bottom):

# map.root :controller => "welcome"

Un-comment it out and change it to point to our controller so that it looks like this:

map.root :controller => "people"

Now you will be able to go to http://first.yourdomain.com and the application should come up.

Another important thing to know about rails on shared hosting is that the environment can change. While Bluehost tries its very best to notify customers using Ruby on Rails of any updates, inevitably, somebody will get missed or forget to take the necessary precautions. To help prevent your application from breaking when updates get done to the server, you can "freeze" your application. This will effectively make your application use the version of rails that it was created with. The best way to do this with us is to run the following commands:

% cd ~/rails/first
% rake rails:freeze:edge RELEASE=2.x.x (changing 2.x.x to the version of rails you created the application with)

You should now go on to read other Ruby on Rails tutorials. You can find a lot of helpful information at http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/, as well as at http://rubyonrails.org/docs. You should also watch the Ruby On Rails Screen casts, which show you, among other things, how an experienced Ruby on Rails developer can create a fully functional application in a matter of minutes using Ruby on Rails.

Keywords: ruby on rails setup

Remote Database Connection Setup

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:32:53 GMT

Problem:

How do I remotely connect to my Database using programs like MySQLfront?

Solution:

To administer databases from home on a PC, using a program like Navicat, MySQLFront, or Dreamweaver, you will need to add an "access host" via the Remote My SQL Database Icon in the cPanel and in the Profile/Billing Tab.

For example, if your Internet Service Provider is AOL, enter "%.aol.com". You can also use this to grant access to a database from another server, for example if you have a web site on a different server which needs to access this database. To do this, instead of entering %.your-isp.com, enter the IP of the server which needs access, like this: "60.15.10.5".

The most common problem in connecting is due to the use of an incorrect user name and password. Please make sure the user name you use matches the user name created in the My SQL database section of cPanel.
Note: MySQLFront can be downloaded at http://www.linuxfixit.com Navicat can be downloaded at www.navicat.com.

Keywords: MySQLfront SQL database remote connection

Configuring the PHP Environment With php.ini

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:42:18 GMT

Problem:

How do I change the PHP environment for my site with php.ini?

Solution:

The Bluehost servers have 3 different ways to use PHP:

Standard PHP (Default)
By default all accounts use standard PHP. With standard PHP selected, a php script will use the server's master php.ini configuration file if the script's directory does not contain a php.ini file. Each hosting account initially has a copy of the php.ini file in the public_html directory. You may make any changes to this file and the modification will take precedent over the master file. With standard PHP selected in the cPanel, you will need to copy the modified php.ini file into all subdirectories containing php files which are to use the custom php settings.
Note: Different folders can have different php.ini files containing different php settings. If you need to use different php settings for two different scripts, you can place them each in their own folder and with their own php.ini file.

PHP Single php.ini
To avoid copying the same php.ini file to each and every directory containing php files, you may select PHP Single php.ini. This option changes the php handler defined in ~/public_html/.htaccess to indicate that all subfolders use the same php.ini found in public_html/.
Note: The .htaccess php handler is recursive through all subdirectories unless a subdirectory has a .htaccess file also defining a php handler.

PHP FastCGI
Using the PHP FastCGI option makes all your PHP applications run through mod_fcgid instead of mod_suphp. FastCGI uses only one php.ini file located in the public_html directory. For more detailed information about PHP FastCGI including benefits and potential problems, Click Here

Note: For information about configuring php for an addon domain, Click Here.
To change the PHP type used for your account:

Login to your cPanel

Click on the PHP Config icon located under "Software/Services"

Select the type of php version you wish to use, click "save changes"

To generate a new php.ini file:

Login to your cPanel

Click on the PHP Config icon located under "Software/Services"

Look for the section that says "Install Default php.ini"

Click the "INSTALL PHP.INI MASTER FILE" button

You will now have a file inside the public_html folder named php.ini.default

Use the File Manager or FTP to rename that file to php.ini

If you have any further questions about configuring the php.ini file, there are extensive descriptions within the file itself. You may also find more help at: http://www.php.net/docs.php

Keywords: php.ini php configuration server

Transferring Domain to Bluehost

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:18:27 GMT

Problem:

How do I transfer my domain's registration to Bluehost?
Is it required to transfer my domain's registration to Bluehost?

Solution:

If the domain is not already assigned to your Bluehost account, please first review the helpdesk article: "How to assign domains to my hosting account".
Note: It is NOT required to transfer your domain's registration to the Bluehost registrar. You may host any domain with us by simply contacting your current registrar and pointing the nameservers to us. Pointing the nameservers to us will NOT automatically transfer the domain's registration.
The Bluehost nameservers are:

Primary Server Hostname: NS1.BLUEHOST.COM

Primary Server IP Address: 74.220.195.31

Secondary Server Hostname: NS2.BLUEHOST.COM

Secondary Server IP Address: 69.89.16.4

Once you have made this change, allow 24-48 hours for propagation and your domain will be pointed to us.

Note: We highly recommend pointing the nameservers to us before initiating a registration transfer. Transfers can take 5-7 days to complete. During this time the nameservers cannot be modified. If you point the nameservers to us before starting a transfer, your domain will be pointed to us during the duration of the transfer.
To begin the domain registration transfer to Bluehost's registrar:

Contact the current registrar to unlock the domain and retrieve the EPP or Authorization code.
Make sure the whois contact information is correct as we will be sending a verification code to the email address listed.

Log into your Bluehost cPanel and click the Domain Manager tab at top of the screen.

Select the domain you wish to transfer from the list.

To the right of the domain, under the "Main" sub-tab, click on the link "Transfer this domain to your account"

Read the information presented and provide the EPP code then click continue.

We will now send an email containing a second verification code to the administrator email address. If you do not have access to this email address, contact the current registrar and update the WHOIS contact information.

Enter the second verification code and click continue.

Select the options you require for nameservers, Autorenewal, Contact Information, Privacy and agree to the Terms of Service. Click "Add transfer to shoppingcart"

Complete the checkout process

Note: The transfer process takes 5-7 days once initiated. Ensure the domain name will not expire in this time frame to avoid potential problems with the transfer. If recently renewed, make sure it is at least 30 days after the renewal date to ensure you do not lose the additional time added with the current registrar.
Note: When transferring a domain to us, ICANN requires an additional year is added to the domain's current expiration date. The cost for this is $10 per domain. If your account has an available "free domain" credit, it will automatically be applied during the checkout process.
Note: If you would like to start hosting the domain with us within 24-48 hours rather than waiting the seven days to complete registry transfer, contact the current registrar before starting the transfer and modify the DNS to NS1.BLUEHOST.COM and NS2.BLUEHOST.COM. Once the transfer is initiated, no change to the DNS can be made until the transfer is either canceled or has completed.

Keywords: domain transfer

Upload_Max_Filesize

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:33:45 GMT

Problem:

How do I change my upload_max_filesize?

Solution:

Summary

Locate the php.ini file in the folder your upload script resides in. If none exists, install a new php.ini file from the PHP config icon in cPanel.

Rename php.ini.default to php.ini.

In the php.ini file, locate the line called 'upload_max_filesize = 2M'.

Modify that entry to read 'upload_max_filesize = 10M', or whatever your script requires. (M = megabytes)

Extended Version:

Though PHP presents a very versatile and user friendly interface for handling file uploads, the default installation is not geared for working with files in excess of 2 Mega Bytes. This article is an aid to configuring PHP for handling such large file transfers.

The php.ini file contains all the configuration settings for your installation. Sometimes these setting might be overridden by directives in apache .htaccess files or even with in the scripts themselves but for the moment let's just concentrate on the ini file.

This file contains the following settings that we need to modify

file_uploads

upload_max_filesize

max_input_time

memory_limit

max_execution_time

post_max_size

The first one is fairly obvious if you set this off, uploading is disabled for your installation. We will cover the rest of the configuration settings in detail below.

upload_max_filesize and post_max_size

Files are usually POSTed to the webserver in a format known as 'multipart/form-data'. The post_max_size sets the upper limit on the amount of data that a script can accept in this manner. Ideally this value should be larger than the value that you set for upload_max_filesize.

It's important to realize that upload_max_filesize is the sum of the sizes of all the files that you are uploading. post_max_size is the upload_max_filesize plus the sum of the lengths of all the other fields in the form plus any mime headers that the encoder might include. Since these fields are typically small you can often approximate the upload max size to the post max size.

According to the PHP documentation you can set a MAX_UPLOAD_LIMIT in your HTML form to suggest a limit to the browser. Our understanding is that browsers totally ignore this directive and the only solution that can impose such a client side restriction is Rad Upload Applet

memory_limit

When the PHP engine is handling an incoming POST it needs to keep some of the incoming data in memory. This directive has any effect only if you have used the --enable-memory-limit option at configuration time. Setting too high a value can be very dangerous because if several uploads are being handled concurrently all available memory will be used up and other unrelated scripts that consume a lot of memory might effect the whole server as well.

max_execution_time and max_input_time

These settings define the maximum life time of the script and the time that the script should spend in accepting input. If several mega bytes of data are being transfered max_input_time should be reasonably high. You can override the setting in the ini file for max_input_time by calling the set_time_limit() function in your scripts.

Special Notes:

Apache Settings

The apache webserver has a LimitRequestBody configuration directive that restricts the size of all POST data regardless of the web scripting language in use. Some RPM installations sets limit request body to 512Kb. You will need to change this to a larger value or remove the entry altogether.

Other Options

If you expect to handle a large number of concurrent file transfers on your website consider using a perl or java server side component. PHP happens to be our favorite web programming language as well but perl is just slightly ahead when it comes to file handling.

Most installations of perl as an apache module can accept up to 32 megabytes out of the box. Compare this against the 2MB default for PHP. The downside is that perl coding takes just a bit more effort than PHP but it's worth it.

Keywords: PHP uploads php.ini optimize upload

URL redirect/rewrite using the .htaccess file

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:41:34 GMT

Problem:

How do I perform a URL redirect/rewrite using the .htaccess file?

Solution:

.htaccess Redirect/Rewrite Tutorial

Part 1 - How do I redirect all links for www.domain.com to domain.com ?

Description of the problem:
By default your website can be accessed with both www.domain.com and domain.com. Since Google penalizes this due to duplicated content reasons, you should restrict the access to either www.domain.com or domain.com. Some links may be outside of your website scope and/or the search engines may have already indexed your website under both addresses.
Solution:
Create a 301 redirect forcing all http requests to use either www.domain.com or domain.com:
Example 1 - Redirect domain.com to www.domain.com:
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.domain.com$ [NC]
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
Example 2 - Redirect www.domain.com to domain.com:
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^domain.com$ [NC]
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
Explanation of this .htaccess 301 redirect:
Let's have a look at the example 1 - Redirect domain.com to www.domain.com. The first line tells apache to start the rewrite module. The next line:
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.domain.com$ [NC]
specifies that the next rule only fires when the http host (that means the domain of the queried url) is not (- specified with the "!") www.domain.com.
The $ means that the host ends with www.domain.com - and the result is that all pages from www.domain.com will trigger the following rewrite rule. Combined with the inversive "!" is the result every host that is not www.domain.com will be redirected to this domain.
The [NC] specifies that the http host is case insensitive. The escapes the "." - because this is a special character (normally, the dot (.) means that one character is unspecified).
The final line describes the action that should be executed:
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
The ^(.*)$ is a little magic trick. Can you remember the meaning of the dot? If not, this can be any character(but only one). So .* means that you can have a lot of characters, not only one. This is what we need because ^(.*)$ contains the requested url, without the domain.
The next part http://www.domain.com/$1 describes the target of the rewrite rule. This is our "final" used domain name, where $1 contains the content of the (.*).
The next part is also important, since it does the 301 redirect for us automatically: [L,R=301]. L means this is the last rule in this run. After this rewrite the webserver will return a result. The R=301 means that the webserver returns a 301 moved permanently to the requesting browser or search engine.

Part 2 - How do I redirect domain.com/ to domain.com/index.php ?

Description of the problem:
You have a website with the name domain.com and you want to redirect all incomming urls that are going to domain.com/ to domain.com/index.php
Solution:
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain.com$
  RewriteRule ^$ http://domain.com/index.php [L,R=301]
Explanation of this .htaccess 301 redirect:
What does this code above do? Let's have a look at Example 1 - Redirect domain.com to www.domain.com. The first line starts the rewrite module. The next line:
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !www.domain.com$
specifies that the next rule only fires when the http host (that means the domain of the queried url) is not (- specified with the "!") www.domain.com.
The $ means that the host ends with www.domain.com - and the result is that all pages from domain.com will trigger the following rewrite rule. Combined with the inversive "!" is the result every host that is not www.domain.com will be redirected to this domain.
The [NC] specifies that the http host is case insensitive. The escapes the "." - because this is a special character (normally, the dot (.) means that one character is unspecified).
The final line describes the action that should be executed:
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [L,R=301].
The ^(.*)$ is a little magic trick. Can you remember the meaning of the dot? If not, this can be any character(but only one). So .* means that you can have a lot of characters, not only one. This is what we intended. ^(.*)$ contains the requested url, without the domain.
The next part http://www.domain.com/$1 [L,R=301] describes the target of the rewrite rule -this is our "final" used domain name, where $1 contains the content of the (.*).
The next part is also important, since it does the 301 redirect for us automatically: [L,R=301]. L means this is the last rule in this run. After this rewrite the webserver will return a result. The R=301 means that the webserver returns a 301 moved permanently to the requesting browser or search engine.

Part 3 - How can I migrate domain content with .htaccess ?

Description of the problem:
You have an old website that is accessible under olddomain.com and you have a new website that is accessible under newdomain.com. Copying the content of the old website to the new website is the first step - but what comes after that? You should do a 301 moved permanently redirect from the old domain to the new domain - which is easy and has some advantages:

Users will automatically be redirected to the new domain - you do not have to inform them.

Search engines will be redirected to the new domain and all related information will be moved to the new domain (but this might take some time).

Google's PageRank ™ will be transfered to the new domain, as well as other internal information that is being used to set the position of pages in the search engine result pages (serp's) - like TrustRank .

Solution:
Create a 301 redirect for all http requests that are going to the old domain.
Example 1 - Redirect from olddomain.com to www.newdomain.com:
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !newdomain.com$ [NC]
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
This is useful when you use www.newdomain.com as your new domain name (see also this article about redirecting www and non-www domains). If not - use the code of example 2.
Example 2 - Redirect from olddomain.com to newdomain.com:
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteBase /
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !newdomain.com$ [NC]
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://newdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
Part 4 - How can I add a trailing slash to requested URLs ?

Description of the problem:
Some search engines remove the trailing slash from urls that look like directories - e.g. Yahoo does it. However it could result into duplicated content problems when the same page content is accessible under different urls. Apache gives some more information in the Apache Server FAQ.
Let's have a look at an example: enarion.net/google/ is indexed in Yahoo as enarion.net/google - which would result in two urls with the same content.
Solution:
The solution is to create a .htaccess rewrite rule that adds the trailing slashes to these urls. Example - redirect all urls that do not have a trailing slash to urls with a trailing slash:
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !example.php
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.*)/$
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com/$1/ [L,R=301]
Explanation of the add trailing slash .htaccess rewrite rule:
The first line tells Apache that this is code for the rewrite engine of the mod_rewrite module of Apache. The 2nd line sets the current directory as page root. But the interesting part is:
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f 
makes sure that existing files will not get a slash added. You shouldn't do the same with directories since this would exlude the rewrite behaviour for existing directories. The line
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !example.php
exludes a sample url that should not be rewritten. This is just an example. If you do not have a file or url that should not be rewritten, remove this line. The condition:
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.*)/$ 
finally fires when a url does not contain a trailing slash. Now we need to redirect the urls without the trailing slash: pre> RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com/$1/ [L,R=301] does the 301 redirect to the url, with the trailing slash appended. You should replace domain.com with your url. Make sure that you stick with the right domain name; if unsure, have a look at this article.
This article was referenced with gratitude from enarion.net.

Keywords: htaccess URL rewrite redirect .htaccess

Email Setup with iPhone or iPod Touch

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:01:08 GMT

Problem:

How can I set up an Email Account on the iPhone or the iPod Touch?

Solution:

To configure the iPhone or the iPod Touch with your pre-existing Bluehost email account, please enter the correct email account information:

Username, which is the email address you created.

Password, which is the password for that email address.

Incoming and outgoing mail servers, normally "mail.yourdomain.com"

Third-party software cannot be supported directly by BlueHost. If you have further questions about your iPhone, please visit http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/
Please also visit the tutorials page for a video on how to set this up: http://tutorials.bluehost.com/.

Keywords: iPhone e-mail setup IMAP POP POP3 retrieve configure settings configuration

SSH Access

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:19:56 GMT

Problem:

How can I get SSH/Shell access on my account?

Solution:

To enable SSH for your account, you can do one of the following to send a copy of the account holder's government issued photo ID (i.e. driver's license, passport, etc):

Fax - 1-801-765-1992 (make sure to include your main domain name on the document).

E-mail - Open a ticket attaching a photo ID. Click Here to open a ticket. Select the Sales option.
Upload your ID file to your hosting account and give us a link to the picture file with a ticket opened with above link.
Note: The ID must also match the name of the owner of your account with us. SSH will then be enabled as soon as possible.

Keywords: SSH Shell command line Secure bash

Shared vs. Dedicated IPs & Port Access

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:23:34 GMT

Problem:

What is the difference between a Shared & Dedicated IP? How do I get Port Access? What type of SSL Certificate is right for me?

Solution:

Shared IP's:

Every domain name has an IP address assigned to it. An IP address is the real address of a web site or server. Domain names were developed because it is difficult to remember long IP numbers like 234.123.66.7.

In shared hosting we host several hundred web sites on one server; those same sites will share one single IP address. Instead of having a unique IP address for every domain, you share one IP address with all of the accounts on your server. The downside to shared IP's is that some countries, like China, censor particular web sites by their IP address. If a web site they sensor is on the same server as yours, and China blocks that web site using the shared IP address, then your web site and the hundreds of others on that server are also blocked. This means that any clients in China would be unable to view your site. Getting a dedicated IP address would make your web site separate so that if the shared IP address was blocked, your site wouldn't automatically be blocked along with it.

Email:

Email will not be affected by obtaining a dedicated IP address. Other than a program needing more than 5 minutes to send out emails from a mailing list, there is no benefit to email between a shared and a dedicated IP address. All email, including forwarded email, is sent out through our mail proxy servers. Obtaining a dedicated IP address will not prevent your emails from being marked as SPAM, having an ISP block the IP of the mail proxy server, or pass a reverse DNS test for places such as AOL. People sometimes are under the wrong impression that these things will change by obtaining a dedicated IP address. They won't change.

Dedicated IP's:

By purchasing a dedicated IP your site is the only one on the internet that will be using that unique IP address. For example, if you typed http://64.233.187.99/ into your web browsers address bar you would see Goggle's web site come up. This is their dedicated IP address and no one else's. This is their unique address on the web that has been attached to the domain name google.com

Program/Script Requirements:

The program or script you run on your site may require a process to run longer than 5 minutes. On a shared IP address, the process will terminate at the 5 minute mark. With a dedicated IP address, processes are allowed to run for more than 5 minutes as long as they aren't consuming too much of the server's memory, which would result in a CPU throttling. CPU throttling can occur both on a shared and a dedicated IP address. Certain voice chat programs require a dedicated IP address before they can be setup and used. If you have a program that sends out emails every so many seconds, such as from a mailing list program like DaDa Mail, then you would need to get a dedicated IP address, if it's going to take more than 5 minutes to send out the emails..

Port Access:

In a Shared Hosting environment, where everyone shares the same IP, some ports must be blocked. We block access to certain ports to help avoid having security holes in the firewall, and to allow us to monitor and control customers who attempt to abuse the different services that we allow to run through these ports. The majority of processes requiring specific Port Access typically are bound to the IP address which they are running on. On a shared IP only one service could run through a specific port from that IP. We have only opened the ports for processes which we are running on our servers (web mail, cPanel, etc.). Purchasing a dedicated IP will allow us to grant you access to the ports you will need to run your specific services on. This applies to both outbound and inbound connections running on non-standard ports. If you have a dedicated IP and require ports to be opened, please contact us via Phone, Live Chat or by Opening a Ticket.

Alternative Options:

There are two ways you can get around purchasing a Dedicated IP & Private SSL.

1. The first is by using a PayPal shopping cart or an alternative shopping cart that is hosted by another company off of your site. Your main site would still be hosted with Bluehost. However when someone goes to pay they would be redirected to the company you choose to host your shopping cart. Most businesses and customers don't like the idea of sending or being sent to a new web site address to complete transactions.

2. The second is by using the Bluehost Shared SSL. This is a free SSL. The Shared SSL carries all the same levels of encryption and security that a Private SSL carries but there is a big difference. To use your SSL certificate you would point your hyperlinks that you want to be secure to https://secure.bluehost.com/~yourunixusername. When your customers look at the URL or examine the validity of the Shared Certificate they will see that it belongs to Bluehost instead of to your specific site. This tends to cause anxiety for most customers or at least raise a flag of caution. For the sake of professionalism most companies will opt to purchase a Private SSL.

Note: You cannot use the shared SSL Cert if you have purchased a dedicated IP, only when you are on the shared IP.

Purchasing a Dedicated IP & Private SSL:

There you have it! If you would like to purchase a Dedicated IP or a Private SSL Certificate please see our article on Purchasing a Dedicated IP Address & Private SSL.

Keywords: Shared vs. Dedicated IP's, Port Access & shared SSL Cert.'s Secure Socket Layer Certificates

PHP with FastCGI

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:55:52 GMT

Problem:

What is FastCGI for PHP?

Solution:

FastCGI for PHP makes all your PHP applications run through mod_fcgid instead of mod_suphp. FastCGI applications are fast because they're persistent. There is no per-request startup and initialization overhead. This makes possible the development of applications which would otherwise be impractical within the CGI paradigm (e.g. a huge PHP script, or an application which requires a connection to one or more databases).

Benefits:

PHP scripts will run faster. The PHP interpreter is loaded into memory rather than calling from storage for every hit, greatly improving performance of your scripted site.

You will use less Server Resources. Since the server does not have load the PHP interpreter for each hit, you will be able to accommodate a higher traffic site without exceeding your CPU quota.

NO modifications to your existing code are required. Everything you currently run will work with FastCGI for PHP.

Potential Problems:

You will only have one php.ini file available for all subdirectories (/home/USERNAME/public_html/php.ini). This is necessary to help optimize the website code as much as possible. If you need multiple php.ini files to accommodate different scripting needs, you can disable FastCGI for PHP on any of your subdirectories while leaving the rest of the account enabled for performance. Contact us via Phone, Live Chat or by Opening a Ticket for further assistance.

There can be a few minute delay in any updates you make to your PHP environment (ie, php.ini changes). Since your php.ini is loaded into memory for greater speed, every hit does not re-read it from storage.

To Enable FastCGI:

Login to your Bluehost cPanel and click the PHP Config icon under software/services.

Select PHP5 (FastCGI)

Click Save Changes.

Keywords: fastcgi php scripting acceleration

Payment Types Accepted

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:05:54 GMT

Problem:

Do you accept payment other than Credit Cards?

Solution:

Bluehost.Com accepts all major Credit Cards (Visa, Master Card, American Express, Discover), PayPal, Checks (U.S. Only) and Money Orders.

When sending checks and money orders be sure to include the following information:

First & Last Name

Company Name (optional)

Billing Address

Phone Number

Valid Email Address

Domain Name [new or if transferring your current domain]

Domain Privacy [state yes or no] if yes please change the amount. Call us to verify cost for privacy.

Terms of Service [state you read & agree]

Package Type [24 or 12 month account]

Password [for administrative control panel]

Checks and money orders are only accepted for 1 year or longer plans.

Mailing Address:
Bluehost.com
1958 South 950 East
Provo, Utah 84606

We will contact you when payment has been received.

Keywords: Payment Types how to pay credit money order check do you accept other Pay Pal

How to change the Primary Domain

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:01:46 GMT

Problem:

How can I change the Main Domain Name or How can I Rename an Addon Domain to Main Domain?

Solution:

Changing the primary domain of your account is something we would be happy to help with. Before contacting us to make the change, please review the following information regarding renaming an account:

The current main domain can never become your main domain again.

The current account's username, password, files, databases and e-mails will remain unchanged.

The new primary domain will point to the public_html directory itself, the same way your main domain does currently.

The website files may need to be moved into and out of the public_html directory to corespond with the new primary domain and assignment of the old primary domain to a subfolder.

Although renaming an account should not move or delete any files on your account, we do recommend creating/downloading a backup of all files and databases prior to requesting the rename. Please Click Here for information about creating and downloading backups.

The new primary domain must be registered to you. If needed, you may register new domains for $10 each, per year, via your Bluehost Domain Manager tab at the top of your cPanel.

When you are ready to have your account renamed, simply contact us via Phone, Live Chat or by Opening a Ticket and request the rename. Be sure to include the following information to expedite your request:

Primary Domain:

New Primary Domain:

Last 4 digits of the credit card on file or cPanel password:

I already own the new primary domain:

I have read and understand the account rename information including: my username will not change, I cannot rename the account back to the same domain, I have backed up my files/databases in case there is any data lost during the rename process:

Note: Newly registered domains can only be cancelled within 3 days of purchase. If you would like your primary domain released and refunded as part of the rename process, please indicate this in your rename request.

Keywords: Domain Registration Renewal Hosting Expired Renewing Redemption Auth Code ADDON DOMAINS EPP DNS NAME SERVERS RENAME NEW REPLACE

Canceling the Hosting Account

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:03:36 GMT

Problem:

How do I cancel my account?

Solution:

Please contact the billing department via Phone or by Opening a Ticket to request the cancellation.
We provide a 30-day money back guarantee. If you cancel after this time period, we will credit you back the pro-rated amount of service left on your account.
Note: If you received a free domain name from us during your signup and cancel anytime after the first three days, there will be a $10.00 charge for that domain registration, which will be your domain name to keep for 1 year. The remaining balance will be refunded to the current credit card on file. If you paid via Check or PayPal your funds will be refunded using that method.

Keywords: cancel credit prorate pro-rate 30-day guarantee

Create an FTP Account

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:21:50 GMT

Problem:

How do I create a FTP account

Solution:

Follow these steps:

Login to your control panel http://YourDomain.com/cpanel/

Choose 'FTP Accounts'

Enter a Login: username

Enter the Password as needed:

Choose the Directory you'd like them to have access to.

Note: If you leave the directory blank or enter '/', this will give root access (/public_html) of all the hosting files. Usually the path is public_html/ for the main/primary domain and public_html/addondomain for an addon domain.

Keywords: FTP setup

SSH Commands

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:00:41 GMT

Problem:

Here is a good list of basic SSH commands.

Solution:

ls : list files/directories in a directory, comparable to dir in windows/dos.
ls -al : shows all files (including ones that start with a period), directories, and details attributes for each file.

cd : change directory
cd /usr/local/apache : go to /usr/local/apache/ directory
cd ~ : go to your home directory
cd - : go to the last directory you were in
cd .. : go up a directory

cat : print file contents to the screen
cat filename.txt : cat the contents of filename.txt to your screen

tail : like cat, but only reads the end of the file
tail /var/log/messages : see the last 20 (by default) lines of /var/log/messages
tail -f /var/log/messages : watch the file continuously, while it's being updated
tail -200 /var/log/messages : print the last 200 lines of the file to the screen

more : like cat, but opens the file one screen at a time rather than all at once
more /etc/userdomains : browse through the userdomains file.
hit Space to go to the next page, q to quit

pico : friendly, easy to use file editor
pico /home/burst/public_html/index.html : edit the index page for the user's website.

vi : another editor, tons of features
vi /home/burst/public_html/index.html : edit the index page for the user's website.

grep : looks for patterns in files
grep root /etc/passwd : shows all matches of root in /etc/passwd
grep -v root /etc/passwd : shows all lines that do not match root

touch : create an empty file
touch /home/burst/public_html/404.html : create an empty file called 404.html in the directory /home/burst/public_html/

ln : create's "links" between files and directories
ln -s /home/username/tmp/webalizer webstats: Now you can display http://www.yourdomain.com/webstats to show your webalizer stats online. You can delete the symlink (webstats) and it will not delete the original stats on the server.

rm : delete a file
rm filename.txt : deletes filename.txt, will more than likely ask if you really want to delete it
rm -f filename.txt : deletes filename.txt, will not ask for confirmation before deleting.
rm -rf tmp/ : recursively deletes the directory tmp, and all files in it, including subdirectories. BE VERY CAREFULL WITH THIS COMMAND!!!

last : shows who logged in and when
last -20 : shows only the last 20 logins
last -20 -a : shows last 20 logins, with the hostname in the last field

w : shows who is currently logged in and where they are logged in from.

netstat : shows all current network connections.
netstat -an : shows all connections to the server, the source and destination ips and ports.
netstat -rn : shows routing table for all ips bound to the server.

top : shows live system processes in a nice table, memory information, uptime and other useful info.
This is excellent for managing your system processes, resources and ensure everything is working fine and your server isn't bogged down.
top
Shift + M to sort by memory usage
Shift + P to sort by CPU usage

ps: ps is short for process status, which is similar to the top command. It's used to show currently running processes and their PID.
A process ID is a unique number that identifies a process, with that you can kill or terminate a running program on your server (see kill command).
ps U username : shows processes for a certain user
ps aux : shows all system processes
ps aux --forest : shows all system processes like the above but organizes in a hierarchy that's very useful!

file : attempts to guess what type of file a file is by looking at it's content.
file * : prints out a list of all files/directories in a directory

du : shows disk usage.
du -sh : shows a summary, in human-readble form, of total disk space used in the current directory, including subdirectories.
du -sh * : same thing, but for each file and directory. helpful when finding large files taking up space.

wc : word count
wc -l filename.txt : tells how many lines are in filename.txt

cp : copy a file
cp filename filename.backup : copies filename to filename.backup
cp -a /home/burst/new_design/* /home/burst/public_html/ : copies all files, retaining permissions form one directory to another.
find * -type d|xargs -i cp --verbose php.ini {} : copies your php.ini file into all directories recursively.

kill: terminate a system process
kill -9 PID EG: kill -9 431
kill PID EG: kill 10550
Use top or ps ux to get system PIDs (Process IDs)

EG:

PID TTY TIME COMMAND
10550 pts/3 0:01 /bin/csh
10574 pts/4 0:02 /bin/csh
10590 pts/4 0:09 APP

Each line represents one process, with a process being loosely defined as a running instance of a program. The column headed PID (process ID) shows the assigned process numbers of the processes. The heading COMMAND shows the location of the executed process.

Putting commands together
Often you will find you need to use different commands on the same line. Here are some examples. Note that the | character is called a pipe, it takes date from one program and pipes it to another.
> means create a new file, overwriting any content already there.
>> means tp append data to a file, creating a newone if it doesn not already exist.
< send input from a file back into a command.

grep User /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf |more
This will dump all lines that match User from the httpd.conf, then print the results to your screen one page at a time.

last -a > /root/lastlogins.tmp
This will print all the current login history to a file called lastlogins.tmp in /root/

tail -10000 /var/log/exim_mainlog |grep domain.com |more
This will grab the last 10,000 lines from /var/log/exim_mainlog, find all occurances of domain.com
(the period represents 'anything', comment it out with a so it will be interpretted literally), then send it to your screen page by page.

netstat -an |grep :80 |wc -l
Show how many active connections there are to apache (httpd runs on port 80)

mysqladmin processlist |wc -l
Show how many current open connections there are to mysql

mysqldump -u username -p dbname > file.sql
MySQL Dump

mysql -u username -p database_name <file.sql
Importing MySQL database

tar -zxvf file.tar.gz
UnTAR file

which [perl]
Finding path to [perl]

Keywords: SSH Commands

IonCube Installation

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:49:04 GMT

Problem:

How do I install Ioncube into a Bluehost hosting account?

Solution:

Ioncube is already installed on all of our servers. Before your scripts may use Ioncube, you will need to generate a new php.ini file with Ioncube already configured:

Login to your control panel

Choose "PHP Config"

Check the box labeled "IonCube" under "Install Default php.ini"

Click "INSTALL PHP.INI FILE"
This will a place php.ini file with the name of php.ini.default in your public_html folder.

Rename the file from "php.ini.default" to be "php.ini" and place into whichever folder you need IonCube installed.

Keywords: Ioncube zend php extension encoder ion cube