Last Revised: 23 January 2000.
Virtual Hosting FAQHere are some questions we have received since we instituted virtual hosting. Hope this helps you out:Q: Is Virtual hosting supported on all of the Virtual Server Systems? Yes. Virtual Hosting will work on both the Basic Virtual Server (Server A) as well as the Fully Functional Server Virtual Servers (Servers B and C). Virtual Hosting will not work as well on a Server A because you won't be able to use "vadduser" to add an FTP account for your Virtual Host. Thus you (as the administrator) will have to upload all of the files for your clients. However, you will still be able to allow for a cgi-bin and e-mail aliasing for the Virtual Hosts on Server A. We only *recommend* that you use Virtual Hosting only on Fully Functional Virtual Servers. There is no technical limitation to doing Virtual Hosting on a Server A, only inconvenience. Q: Are there limits to the amount of Virtual Hosts I can place on a single Virtual Server System? Yes. In order to maintain the highest performance standards possible, each Virtual Server System has recommended guidelines as to the amount of Virtual Hosts that can be configured. These guidelines are as follows: Server A: up to 5 subhosts We cannot guarantee the number of Virtual Hosts you will be able to host since each Virtual Host uses a differen't amount of resources. It may be that you can only host one other Virtual Host before resources are exhausted on your Virtual Server. It is up to you to monitor Virtual Hosts and upgrade high load Virtual Hosts to their own Virtual Server. Q: What effect will this have on my virtual servers and what are the differences between Apache and NCSA? We have programmed Apache to recognize NCSA parameters in the configuration files. If you are using Microsoft® FrontPage® 97 extensions you will need to upgrade to Microsoft FrontPage® 98 or FrontPage® 2000 extensions. For some information on Apache see: For information on the Microsoft FrontPage server extensions see: Q: How will the number of subhosts on my virtual server be counted? VirtualHosts (or "subhosts") will be counted by the number of "<VirtualHost...>" directives in the "httpd.conf" file. With the new Apache version it is possible to put multiple Virtual Host names in one directive. Therefore, if you place multiple CNAMES or other domain/hostnames in one "<VirtualHost...>" directive it will only count as one (1) with regards to the set number you may have according to your Virtual Server type. As the new version of Apache allows you to make multiple entries (domains, CNAMES) in the same VirtualHost directive it may be advantageous to place both the www and non-www entry in the same directive. This can be seen in Example 1 where both www.foobar.com and foobar.com are in the same VirtualHost directive. Consider the following example:
The above would count as 1 (one) Virtual Host (one VirtualHost tag). Example 2:
The above would count as 2 (two) Virtual Hosts (two Virtual Host tags). In short, if you want to know how many Virtual Hosts will count on a Virtual Server you can simply count the number of "<VirtualHost...>" directives (or tags) in your configuration file(s). Q: When will the limitations take effect? The Virtual Host limitations are recommended guidelines only and not hard limits. Q: Why are you limiting the number of subhosts allowed on each Virtual Server? Since we announced subhosting as a feature of the Virtual Server, we have left the number of subhosts unrestricted. We have always stated the recommended number of subhosts on one Virtual Server be kept around 25. Over the last year, however, the number of subhosts per Virtual Server has sky rocketed and has had a serious effect on the performance of our servers. The new Apache that has been developed will reduce the load on our servers and give us the performance boost we need in order to give you and your customers the highest quality servers in the world. Q: To use the Virtual host for www.myclient.com , am I correct to assume that my client needs to register with Internic? If that is the case, will A Little Technology Shoppe, LLC provide the registration service? yes...you will still need to register any additional domains with Internic. They will charge you a $70 registration fee that is good for the first two years. A Little Technology Shoppe, LLC charges you a $35/domain setup and processing fee (Virtual Server Reseller Discounts Apply effective February 1, 2000). We will provide you with the InterNIC form filled out with instructions for your first couple of domains. If you need a new domain name for a server send mail to dns@littletechshoppe.com and include the domain name that you would like to register (please check its availability first at our Domain Check Form) and the account that the domain name should be aliased to (include your account name, domain name, and IP address). Q: If the Virtual Host package cannot offer telnet access (a shell account), how can our Virtual Hosted Clients upload their data to the server? You will want to offer FTP access and POP accounts for your Virtual Hosts by
using the Q: Is there anyway to restrict disk usage for the Virtual Hosting subdirectories? Yes, if you have a server type B, the Deluxe Virtual Server, you can add users with vadduser and give them ftp rights and an ftp quota. Create their ftp directory as their virtual host directory and you can limit the amount of space they can use. Q: I assume that non "HTTP_HOST" browsers can still connect sucessfully to the main server? If not what errors do they get? One potential problem area is going to be from the older browsers. If the browser does not support the HTTP_HOST variable... they will simply get the main home page of the virtual server. In the example I posed in my original post, requests for www.newdom.org would be sent to the home page of the home server. It's not a perfect solution but it works pretty well. Some people simply have no account on their main server and instead put a link page to all their virtual host directories. That way the people with older browsers will still be able to access the pages. Q: Did you say virtual hosting was NOT available for non-fully functional accounts? No. Virtual Hosting will work on both the HTML/Email only server as well as the deluxe virtual server. We personally think that Virtual Hosting will not work as well on an HTML/Email only server because you won't be able to use "vadduser" to add an ftp account for your virtual host. Thus you (as the administrator) will have to upload all of the files for your clients. However, you will still be able to allow for a cgi-bin and email aliasing for the Virtual Hosts on an HTML/Email only server. Q: If a Virtual Host has their own CGI-BIN, are the CGI scripts allowed to play with the directory system of the Virtual Server or do they operate safely with their own "sandbox"? Scripts executed in a Virtual Hosted cgi-bin will run as your username with all its rights and permission. Therefore, you will have to be a little careful about security issues. For example, if your subhosted client uploads a CGI script that executes the command "rm -rf /" (which recursively deletes all files on your Virtual Server) there is nothing in place to stop them from doing such an action. In most cases however, it is likely that not only are you providing your clients with hosting service, but you are also designing their web content and writing their CGI scripts as well. So this may be a non-issue. If you are allowing your subhosted clients to upload their own CGI scripts, then you will want to be very careful. Please see our document, Virtual Subhosting and Security Issues for more information. Q: If I have a customer that wants a virtual host but doesn't want it's own domain name, can I create a virtual host like "user.mydomain.com"? I assume that needs DNS setup too? Yes. It is possible to add canonical names to your domain name and have them configured to point to subdirectories of your own server. So for example, let's say I had a web prescense company reselling servers and I wanted to look real cool by appearing to have all kinds of web servers, not only do I want a URL for "http://www.mycompany.com", but I want "http://support.mycompany.com", and "http://search.mycompany.com" and "http://home.mycompany.com". To get these canonical names setup, mail dns@littletechshoppe.com and include your domain name and the canonical name (i.e. "support", "search", or "home"). There is a $25 setup fee for each canonical name (sorry, it does takes some work to do). Then to configure the "http://support.mycompany.com" to point to a subdirectory, you would do something like the following:
Virtual Hosting is a versatile tool, but it has its place and comes with several limitations. It is a very good solution for potential clients that just want to get their feet wet on the net and not spend too much money. Later, you can upsell your Hosted clients to Virtual Servers as they recognize the power of the Internet. We're pretty sure that there are thousands of small businesses around your town or neighborhood you do business in that are a little apprehensive about the Internet at first, want a low start-up cost and see how it goes. Willing to pay a few hundred in some HTML/CGI consulting.... you get the picture. Q: You indicate the Virtual Host package cannot offer telnet access (a shell account). If so, how can our Virtual Host Clients upload their data to Virtual Host? Use "vadduser" to set up an Email/FTP account for the Host. They can then upload content to thier site using ftp. "vadduser" only works for Fully Functional Virtual Servers. Microsoft Front Page extensions are also available and can be used for your clients to upload their content.
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