[Support Center] Recently Changed Articles

Server Side Includes (SSI)

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:39:10 GMT

Problem:

How do I use .html files to run SSI (Server Side Includes)?

Solution:

Apache Handlers
This is what you would use to specify how to treat file types. By default, .html files will not run server side includes, but .shtml files will. To allow these you need to add a new handler for HTML:

To allow SSI, set the handler as 'server-parsed' and the extension as '.html' (without the quotes).

This will tell the server to read the .html files so that you may use these directives in them.

Follow these rules:

Commands and arguments are in lowercase letters

The double quotes around the value are required

There is no space until after the command

That hash mark (#) is required

There is a space after the second double quote, before the second double hyphen (at the end)

Here's the format of the SSI:

The above format will create an SSI that will include the text found in the file "included.html".

Why Use "file="?

You use "file=" when the file that will be included is held within the same directory as the file that is calling for it. You can also use the file argument when the file is within a subdirectory of the directory containing the file that is calling for it.

You would use the "virtual=" argument if the file you are calling for is located in a position requiring an address starting at the server root. This means the file isn't in the same directory as the page that's calling for it.

Many times an "includes" directory is setup that contains all of your include files. This is a popular method of doing things. If so, then you'll use the virtual argument to attach the SSI command to the files. Just make a point of giving the command the path from the server root (the domain name). Like so:

That forward slash before the first directory is representative of the domain name (server root for that domain).

/home#/username/public_html/ is the server root to your Main Site of your hosting account (where username is your cPanel username).

/home#/username/public_html/addondomain/ is the server root to an addon domain of your hosting account.

If you have a file located at /home#/username/public_html/addondomain/includes/includedfile.html that you want to include in http://www.addondomain.com/index.html, then your SSI format inside the index.html file would look like this:

By using that leading slash, the server will add the domain name to the front of the address for you.

Rule of Thumb Use "file=" when the included file is within the same directory as the page that wants it. Use "virtual=" when it isn't.

Note: You need to adjust /home#/ to /home/, /home1/ or home2/ or a different number depending on the home directory your account resides on. To view the home directory for your account simply view the stats column on the main cPanel page of your account and look for the home directory.

Additional Notes:
By Default, there is an Apache Handler on the server to parse .shtml files which already have server side includes (SSI) inside of them.

Please add this line of code to the .htaccess file to run .shtml calls in a regular html file.
AddHandler server-parsed .html

SSIs will NOT work until the DNS has propagated to the Fastdomain name servers. You will not be able to test them in advance by using something in the format of http://204.130.255.7/~username/test.shtml.

Keywords: apache handlers ssi execute script include file

Email Setup with Entourage (Mac OSX)

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:31:37 GMT

Problem:

How do I add my Fastdomain email account to Entourage (mac)?

Solution:

Adding An Account to Entourage (mac):
Click for a video tutorial about configuring Entourage to work with Fastdomain.

Open Entourage and click on Tools and Accounts.

Click on the "New" Button then click "mail".

Enter an Account Name to identify this email account in Entourage.

Complete the requested personal information.

Enter the full email address as the Account ID.

Enter the POP or IMAP server as shown in the cPanel -> Email Accounts -> Configure Mail Client.

Enter the email account's password.

The SMTP server is the same as the incoming mail server

Click the button for "advanced sending options"

Ensure "SMTP server requires authentication" is checked and use same settings as receiving server is selected.

Click OK to return to the main entourage window.

Keywords: email Entourage mac apple setup configuration config Microsoft

Sending Emails Generates Error: 503 valid RCPT command must precede DATA.

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:28:23 GMT

Problem:

Why do I receive error "503 valid RCPT command must precede DATA" when attempting to send email?

Solution:

This usually is a result of the mail server requiring authentication.
If you are using Outlook 2003, here are the steps to enable authentication:

Watch the Outlook 2003 Tutorial!

Open Outlook

Go to Tools | Email Accounts

"View or change existing e-mail accounts" should already be marked

Click Next

Select the Account with the trouble and click Change

Click on More Settings

Click on the Outgoing Server Tab

Click "My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication" and make sure "Use same settings as my incoming mail server" is selected

Click on the Advanced Tab

Set "Outgoing server (SMTP):" port to 26

Click OK and then Test Account Settings

If everything is fine and reports no errors,

Click Close.

Click Next.

Click Finish.

If an error does occur, it will switch to the Errors tab and display the error

Note: If you are still having errors, make sure your login username is your full email address and that the password is correct.

Keywords: error valid RCPT unable to connect email send 503

Email Setup with Outlook 2003

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:27:10 GMT

Problem:

Configuring your email client: Outlook 2003

Solution:

Watch this Video tutorial!

Open Outlook 2003.

Click the 'Tools' menu, and select 'Email Accounts.'

Select 'Add a new e-mail account,' then click 'Next.'

Select 'IMAP,' then click 'Next.'

Setup the Account.

Enter 'Your Name' as you would like it to appear.

Enter your 'E-mail Address' in the form of 'username@yourdomain.com' (replace with your e-mail addresss). If you need to create an email address on Fastdomain, Click Here.

Enter 'mail.yourdomain.com' (replace yourdomain.com with your domain) in the 'Incoming Mail Server' (IMAP) field.

Enter 'mail.yourdomain.com' (replace yourdomain.com with your domain) in the 'Outgoing Mail Server' (SMTP) field.

Enter your full e-mail address (in the form of username@yourdomain.com) in the 'User Name' field.

Enter your password (for the e-mail account, not the password you use to log into the Control Panel) in the 'Password' field.

Click 'More Settings.'

Click on the 'Outgoing Server' tab.

Put a check next to 'My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication.' Make sure that 'Use same settings as my incoming mail server' is selected.

Click the 'Advanced' tab.

Change the 'SMTP' port to be 26.

Click 'OK.'

Click 'Next.'

Click 'Finish.'

That's it, you're done!
If you have trouble sending mail, please Click Here to view our article on how to change the email SMTP port from 25 to 26.

Keywords: outlook 2003 setup email configure configuration e-mail pop imap

Wordpress not working with Temporary URL

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:06:49 GMT

Problem:

My Domain name isn't resolving to my new account yet, so I have to visit my WordPress install with a url like http://70.103.189.86/~username/blog/.

I don't get any images or themes to show up, just the text. I also can't log into my Administrator Panel, because logging in wants to take me to a url with my domain name in it.

How can I change my settings to allow me to view my WordPress Blog before my domain name resolves?

Solution:

WordPress - Changing the Website URL

There are a few cases where you might need to go in and change a URL in the WordPress database.

My domain name isn't resolving to my new account yet, so I have to visit my WordPress install with a URL like http://70.103.189.86/~username/blog/. I don't get any images or themes to show up, just the text.

I also can't log into my Administrator Panel, because logging in wants to take me to a URL with my domain name in it. How can I change my settings to allow me to view my WordPress blog before my domain name resolves?

The URL appears like http://www.domain.com/addondomain/ and there are no redirects in the .htaccess

If WordPress was installed to an addon domain, then the database URL will need to be changed to something like http://www.addondomain.com

This requires a little MySQL trick. It's two simple edits in the database.

1. First, make sure that your WordPress installation is complete, and you know what the name of the database is. If Fantastico installed WordPress for you, it's likely the name of the database is something like:

username_wrdp1

or

username_wrdp2

and so forth.

If Simple Scripts installed WordPress for you, it's likely the name of the database is something like:

username_ss4868

2. If you don't know the database name, you can use the File Manager to look inside the wp-config.php file to find out its name.

3. Right click wp-config.php and select Code Edit. You can now see the database name.

4. Next, log into your cPanel. Look for the Databases section.

5. Select the icon named phpMyAdmin (looks like a sailboat.)

6. Once here, you need to select the database name on the left. (i.e. "_wrdp1")

7. This will display the names of the Tables to the right. Click on the one called "options".

8. Now there are icons to the right of the tables. The First one is called "Browse". Click "Browse".

9. Next, the database entries are listed in columns and rows. You want to select the pencil icon (for Edit) on the left for the VERY TOP row (option_name is "site url")

10. Once you've clicked the pencil icon, you will see your domain name listed something like this:

http://domain.com/blog

11. You want to change that to something like this:

http://70.103.189.86/~username/blog/

12. This step is crucial you don't make a mistake. Please take a moment to verify the URL you are typing in here is correct, or you won't see any change.

13. Once you've changed the URL, down at the bottom there is a "Go" button. Select the "Go" button.

14. This will save your URL change and should show a screen like this:

Select the ">" button to go to the next page

Look for the option_name home

15. Select the pencil icon for Edit.

16. Make the same URL change here as you did for siteurl earlier. And click the "Go" button.

17. Visit your Temporary URL (http://70.103.189.86/~username/blog/) for your blog, and all the images will show up just fine.

***Follow-up

Once you've changed your name servers so your domain name resolves to your account, you don't have to go back into phpMyAdmin to make the change again.

Simply log into your WordPress Admin Panel, there is a tab for "Options".
In there you will see WordPress address (URI):
It is set to your Temporary URL (http://70.103.189.86/~username/blog/). Change this to your domain name with any folders required, and you're back to normal.

Keywords: word press wordpress temp temporary wrong url ip domain resolve resolving blog

Malware

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:23:53 GMT

Problem:

Malware. What is this and how did it get there?

Solution:

Malware on your account that you did not put there is indicative that an attacker has found and exploited a vulnerability in a script on your account. Here are a few sites to assist you with securing your code:

Fastdomain.com - Basic Site Security Checklist

Google.com - Webmaster Tools Help

TopBits.com - Finding Security Vulnerability

Fority.com - Source Code Analysis

SecTools.com - Network Security Tools

Wikipedia.com - Code Injection

If you do not find these useful, you can run a Google.com search for code security, PHP security or HTML security.

Keywords: malware

CPU Throttling/Performance Issues

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:55:17 GMT

Problem:

Why does my site get throttled, or why did my account get suspended for performance?

Solution:

Throttling means that our new proprietary CPU Throttling System has automatically tied your account to its own dedicated core temporarily to keep your account from dominating too much CPU time. Throttling for less than 500 seconds in any given hour will not usually negatively affect your site's performance. Some accounts are still using too much process time like Ftp, DDoS or Mysql even with our Throttling System - in these cases, the admins may suspend the account until the scripts are optimized.

Throttling or Suspensions are usually caused by:

Queries that return inordinately large dataset results (eg: 100,000 records) in the Response object of a round trip to the server.

Queries that take too long to execute due to heavy aggregation commands like SUM, COUNT over very large datasets without proper indexing.

Queries that are doing complex unoptimized nested Joins.

Queries that execute large batch commands like INSERTS, UPDATES, OR DELETES - these types of sql calls are 10 times more expensive and resource intensive than the SELECT query command.

Poorly coded Php scripts such as multiple nested loops, or infinite loops.

Themes, Addons, or Plugins (if you just added a new component to your script, you may want to remove it to see if that new component caused your site to suddenly perform slowly)

DDoS Attacks

Any process that uses too much RAM, like a rogue cron job

Too many simultaneous connections like Downloads, FTP, IMAP, or PHP

How can you troubleshoot this?

Within your Bluehost cPanel under the logs category you will find the "CPU THROTTLING" icon. This tool will show you exactly how many seconds your account has been throttled during the past 24 hours. This data is valuable when analyzed along with other logs such as MySQL Slow Queries.

You can access your MySQL Slow Queries log to help you determine which of your queries or scripts are unoptimized. Inside your "mysql_slow_queries" folder, you will see a list of files that you can open which will show you which queries are executing slowly. Login into your cPanel. Look for the section called "Files" and click the icon called "File Manager". Start in the "Home Directory", choose Show Hidden Files, and then click Go. Once in the File Manager, look on the right side for a folder called "tmp" and navigate into that folder. Once inside the Tmp folder, you should see a folder called "mysql_slow_queries". Navigate inside that folder.

You should now look for the files with recent dates and right-click on one of those files and choose "Code Edit". In the new window that comes up, you will see the log details. Look for the logs where the Query_time is over 2 seconds. Queries that take over 2 seconds to execute usually need to be refactored.

These logs are generated to help you troubleshoot your database programming queries that are not optimized. Once you have found the query and database causing the problem, you can then optimize the query or queries by re-writing the query, creating an appropriate Database Index, repairing any damaged databases, etc. If you are not familiar with database programming, you may need to seek help from your web developer/programmer.

***** WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU BACKUP YOUR DATABASES BEFORE WORKING ON THEM *****

What are some Simple Steps you can perform to try to fix your database issues?

You can run a repair on all your databases. In the cPanel, click on the MySQL Databases icon and in the Repair section, choose a database to repair. You can safely run a Check and Repair routine on all of your databases.

You can try to optimize all of your databases. In the cPanel, click the PHP MyAdmin icon. On the next screen, choose a database name from the left side column. When the tables appear on the main screen, scroll to the bottom and click the link "Select All". Next, use the drop-down menu, and on the bottom, choose the "Optimize" option. You can do this optimize routine to all of the tables in all of your databases.

Performing these two simple steps will not harm your important data as these steps above are non-intrusive maintenance routines. As such, they may not fix the core issue as well. For instance, if you have severe data corruption, it can cause your queries to time out before they fully execute. Data corruption can be difficult to detect, and repair. Database corruption can occur if a database operation did not completely succeed. Partial data is a form of corruption which can break Referential Integrity, causing your web application to fail also. In short, the free Repair or Optimization routines that I just mentioned may not be sufficient to fix severe database corruption.

What are some Advanced Steps that you can perform on your databases?

You can download your websites onto your own local machine and create a local web development environment to test your sites. You can then set Break Points in your scripts and watch your computer's cpu performance as you Step Through your Stack and Heap. You should try to stress test your queries as well to see how they respond under a load.

You can empty tables that are merely statistic tables. When viewing your tables, you can see how many entries each one has and how many KB or MB it is using. Sometimes tables get thousands or millions of entries that just log statistical type of data, like what searches people have done on your site or what people have logged in, etc. If you have very large statistic tables, it may help optimize your site if you remove the records or rows within those tables. Warning: you should always consult the vendor of your scripts, or your web developer, before you attempt this - deleting any data in your database can potentially break your web application.

You can refactor your scripts so that heavy duty aggregation or crunching is not all being done server-side. For example, you can rewrite your scripts so that they use Ajax calls, where your scripts are doing some of the cpu crunching in your javascript. This way, you are leveraging your client's cpu time instead of just your server's.

You can make a ticket to our Site/Script Compatibility Team for some guidance and tips to fix your scripting or database issues. (They will not program for you, but they can usually point you in the correct direction. See Scripting Policy).

You can ask us to restore a system backup if we have one on file for you. The system backup is a snapshot of exactly how your site performed on a certain date. Doing a restore will not guarantee that your sites will be fixed, as your core issue may have existed at the time our System Backup Tool created your backup. Rolling back to a system backup will restore all of your sites, and not just a portion. Feel free to contact us to see if we have a System Backup available.

You can also ask us to do a full Reset of your account. This will delete everything on your account like it was on day one when you first signed up with us. Your account would be empty, containing no files, databases, email accounts etc. This would ensure a fresh start so that you can re-install all of your scripts with clean installations and clean databases.

Keywords:CPU throttling mysql slow query script optimize database

Executing PHP code within an HTML document

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 12:47:09 GMT

Problem:

Executing php code within a HTML document

Solution:

Executing php code within a HTML document is easy. Simply add this line to your main .htaccess file:
  AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .html .php .htm
Then, you can insert code into your .html pages like this:

Code:
  <?php
    echo "hello world"
  ?>

Keywords: php handler mime addtype sethandler addhandler parse

Adding Favorites icon (Favicon) to site

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 19:00:00 GMT

Problem:

How can I add a favorites icon (favicon) to my site.

Solution:

Step 1 - Find an Image

Most web sites use a smaller version of their logo or similar.

The main consideration is to keep your icon simple and clear at such a small size.

Most browser interfaces (the top tool bar containing the browser buttons) can display 256 colors, but it's best to use the Windows 16 colors.

Step 2 - Covert the Picture to an Icon

We recommend using DynamicDrive (www.DynamicDrive.com).

Step 3 - Including the icon in your web pages

Publish the icon into the root directory of your web site.
This is the location Internet Explorer will automatically look for your favicon when a visitor bookmarks your site.

Help the browser find your icon by including in the html, within the <head> tag, the following: <link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.your-web-site-name.com/favicon.ico">.
Preferably nearer the closing </head> tag, because more important information, such as your meta tags, should come earlier.

Save your web page and publish it.
If you want to create different icons for different pages, simply call them something other than favicon.ico, but still retaining the .ico suffix.
Link to them in your pages in the same way as above, just changing the href location for the different icons.

Step 4 - Testing your Icon

Open Internet Explorer (version 5 or above) and bookmark your page.

Determine if your icon stands out from other bookmarked web sites with favorites icons.

If necessary, re-edit your icon and publish it again.
However, you will need to remove the bookmark (Favorites > Organize Favorites, select your bookmark and click "Delete") and delete your temporary Internet files and page history (Tools > Internet Options, tab "General" and click "Delete Files" under "Temporary Internet Files" and click "Clear History" under "History").
This may take a few minutes if you haven't done this recently.

Close your browser and re-open it, bookmark your page again to check the new version of your icon.

Repeat until you're satisfied your icon is suitably eye-catching.

Keywords: favorites Favorites favorite Favorite icon Icon

phpMotion

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:56:50 GMT

Problem:

How to Install phpMotion

Solution:

Sorry, this cannot be installed. The phpMotion script requires FFMPEG module or flvtools. These are too processor intensive for a shared hosting environment. We recommend finding a host that provides VPS or dedicated servers for any video encoding utilities.

Keywords: phpmotion video

phpShield

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:06:54 GMT

Problem:

How to Install phpSHIELD Loaders

Solution:

Sorry, this cannot be installed. You must have root access to your server in order to copy the phpshield.x.x.lin to the extension_dir which is /usr/lib64/php/modules. If you have this access, it means you have a VPS, dedicated server or are running a server in your home. Since Fastdomain.com offers no root access in its shared hosting plan, you are not able to install phpSHIELD.

Keywords: phpshield phpmotion php.ini

Django Troubleshooting

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:52:18 GMT

Problem

While trying to deploy my Django application, I am getting error pages.

Solution

There are a few basic troubleshooting steps that can be done to diagnose what's wrong. Visiting the site through a web browser is one diagnostic method. 500 errors that occur will have information in the main error log. Another thing to test is the mysite.fcgi file by running it directly via shell, if you have SSH access enabled. Each test can help you determine what the problem is.

Problems with .htaccess

When visiting in a browser, if there is a 500 error happening with the generic error message "Internal Server Error - The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.", then it may be a .htaccess error. The error log will confirm it is a .htaccess problem if it references the .htaccess file when the error happens. For example, a typo in RewriteRule may result in an error that looks similar to the following:

 
/home/username/public_html/.htaccess: Invalid command 'RewrireRule', perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration

Do a quick check over your .htaccess file and make sure there are no syntax errors, and try again. Once you're fairly certain it is no longer the .htaccess file that is causing the problem, and you're still having trouble, move on. In some cases, fixing the .htaccess file may be the only thing that needs to be done.

Problems with mysite.fcgi

If loading the web browser displays a 500 error that is similar to "500 Server Error A misconfiguration on the server caused a hiccup. Check the server logs, fix the problem, then try again.", then you may have a problem with the mysite.fcgi script. The error logs will confirm a problem with a mysite.fcgi file. There are various errors and error messages that you may come across. Fixing one error could make another error appear. Fix each problem as it comes until you have a working installation.

File Permissions

The following is an error log snippet for when the mysite.fcgi file is not executable:

 
[Thu May 27 14:28:35 2010] [notice] mod_fcgid: process /home/username/public_html/mysite.fcgi(14904) exit(communication error), terminated by calling exit(), return code: 121
suexec policy violation: see suexec log for more details
[Thu May 27 14:28:35 2010] [warn] (104)Connection reset by peer: mod_fcgid: read data from fastcgi server error.
[Thu May 27 14:28:35 2010] [error] [client 224.0.0.1] Premature end of script headers: mysite.fcgi

Make sure that the mysite.fcgi file has permissions set to 755. Permissions of 777 will not work in our environment-- Apache recognizes 777 as unsafe and treats it like it has no permissions.

Bad Interpretor

Once the file is executable, if it still doesn't work, then there is likely a different problem with the mysite.fcgi file itself. A possible error log message when getting a 500 error related to the mysite.fcgi file is the following:

 
[Thu May 27 15:19:49 2010] [warn] (104)Connection reset by peer: mod_fcgid: read data from fastcgi server error.
[Thu May 27 15:19:49 2010] [error] [client 224.0.0.1] Premature end of script headers: mysite.fcgi
[Thu May 27 15:19:55 2010] [notice] mod_fcgid: process /home/username/public_html/mysite.fcgi(10502) exit(communication error), terminated by calling exit(), return code: 1

Instead of bad permissions, in this case the problem is a bad interpretor line. This can be confirmed by SSHing into your account, and attempting to run the mysite.fcgi file directly. Before manually running, make sure you run the command unset PYTHONPATH first, to more closely duplicate the environment the script is run in through Apache.:

 
$ unset PYTHONPATH
$ ./mysite.fcgi
-bash: ./mysite.fcgi: /usr/bin/python^M: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

In this case, the mysite.fcgi file was uploaded by FTP in binary mode instead of ASCII mode from a computer running Windows. As with any CGI or shell script that includes an interpretor line at the top, it must be uploaded in ascii mode, or converted to the unix-style newline format if it isn't already using that.

The bad interpreter error can also happen if the #! line points to a location that doesn't exist. For example, #!/foo/bar/m/python in which case the error when running mysite.fcgi would look like this:

 
$ ./mysite.fcgi
-bash: ./mysite.fcgi: /foo/bar/m/python: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

Python Errors and Exceptions

If at this point the .htaccess file, the permissions of mysite.fcgi, and the #! line in mysite.fcgi are all good, and you are still getting an error, it is likely an error occurring in the Python code, including unhandled exceptions and syntax errors. This still produces a 500 error in the browser, and the error log will look similar to the following:

 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/username/public_html/mysite.fcgi", line 13, in ?
    from django.core.servers.fastcgi import runfastcgi
ImportError: No module named django.core.servers.fastcgi
[Thu May 27 16:02:56 2010] [warn] (104)Connection reset by peer: mod_fcgid: read data from fastcgi server error.
[Thu May 27 16:02:56 2010] [error] [client 224.0.0.1] Premature end of script headers: mysite.fcgi
[Thu May 27 16:02:58 2010] [notice] mod_fcgid: process /home/username/public_html/mysite.fcgi(30339) exit(communication error), terminated by calling exit(), return code: 1

The same mysite.fcgi file, when run via SSH (after running unset PYTHONPATH) produces the following output:

 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/username/public_html/mysite.fcgi", line 13, in ?
    from django.core.servers.fastcgi import runfastcgi
ImportError: No module named django.core.servers.fastcgi

This particular ImportError means that the django package isn't found by Python when the script is run. Make sure that the directory holding the django package has been added to sys.path in mysite.fcgi. If your django installation is located at /home/username/.local/lib/python/django then you'll need to have sys.path.insert(0, "/home/username/.local/lib/python") in mysite.fcgi. If it is in a different directory, it too will need to be inserted to the sys.path list. You can add multiple locations to sys.path if needed.

An example of a syntax error in the error_log is the following output:

 
File "mysite.fcgi", line 7
    sys.path.insert(0, "/home/username/")
    ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
[Mon May 31 10:17:00 2010] [warn] (104)Connection reset by peer: mod_fcgid: read data from fastcgi server error.
[Mon May 31 10:17:00 2010] [error] [client 224.0.0.1] Premature end of script headers: mysite.fcgi
[Mon May 31 10:17:01 2010] [notice] mod_fcgid: call /home/username/public_html/500.php with wrapper /usr/local/cpanel/cgi-sys/fcgiwrapper

And running mysite.fcgi directly looks like this:

 
File "./mysite.fcgi", line 7
    sys.path.insert(0, "/home/username/")
    ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

The syntax error here is an indentation error. Python uses indentation to indicate code blocks. A line that shouldn't be in its own block was indented. Un-indenting that line fixes this particular syntax error.

Another common traceback that is output is the following:

 
ERROR: No module named flup
  Unable to load the flup package.  In order to run django
  as a FastCGI application, you will need to get flup from
  http://www.saddi.com/software/flup/   If you've already
  installed flup, then make sure you have it in your PYTHONPATH.

This may happen, even if you have installed flup already. If you are using Python 2.4, and did a python setup.py install --home=$HOME/.local installation of flup, you likely have a flup egg file. This egg needs to be added to your Python path as well. If your flup egg is located at /home/username/.local/lib/python/flup-1.0.2-py2.4.egg, then you will need to add the following line to your mysite.fcgi file:

 
sys.path.insert(0, "/home/username/.local/lib/python/flup-1.0.2-py2.4.egg")

A third common error page displayed in the browser is the following message: "Unhandled Exception An unhandled exception was thrown by the application.", which happens after flup has been called, but an exception is thrown before Django starts up enough to be able to use its normal error handling. In the error logs it looks like the following:

 
[Thu May 27 16:33:48 2010] [warn] mod_fcgid: stderr: Traceback (most recent call last):
[Thu May 27 16:33:48 2010] [warn] mod_fcgid: stderr:   File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/flup/server/fcgi_base.py", line 558, in run
[Thu May 27 16:33:48 2010] [warn] mod_fcgid: stderr:   File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/flup/server/fcgi_base.py", line 1118, in handler
[Thu May 27 16:33:48 2010] [warn] mod_fcgid: stderr:   File "/home/username/.local/lib/python/django/core/handlers/wsgi.py", line 230, in __call__
[Thu May 27 16:33:48 2010] [warn] mod_fcgid: stderr:     self.load_middleware()
[Thu May 27 16:33:48 2010] [warn] mod_fcgid: stderr:   File "/home/username/.local/lib/python/django/core/handlers/base.py", line 33, in load_middleware
[Thu May 27 16:33:48 2010] [warn] mod_fcgid: stderr:     for middleware_path in settings.MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES:
[Thu May 27 16:33:48 2010] [warn] mod_fcgid: stderr:   File "/home/username/.local/lib/python/django/utils/functional.py", line 276, in __getattr__
[Thu May 27 16:33:48 2010] [warn] mod_fcgid: stderr:     self._setup()
[Thu May 27 16:33:48 2010] [warn] mod_fcgid: stderr:   File "/home/username/.local/lib/python/django/conf/__init__.py", line 40, in _setup
[Thu May 27 16:33:48 2010] [warn] mod_fcgid: stderr:     self._wrapped = Settings(settings_module)
[Thu May 27 16:33:48 2010] [warn] mod_fcgid: stderr:   File "/home/username/.local/lib/python/django/conf/__init__.py", line 75, in __init__
[Thu May 27 16:33:48 2010] [warn] mod_fcgid: stderr:     raise ImportError("Could not import settings '%s' (Is it on sys.path? Does it have syntax errors?): %s" % (self.SETTINGS_MODULE, e))
[Thu May 27 16:33:48 2010] [warn] mod_fcgid: stderr: ImportError: Could not import settings 'mysite.settings' (Is it on sys.path? Does it have syntax errors?): No module named mysite.settings

When running mysite.fcgi manually, it looks like this:

 
WSGIServer: missing FastCGI param REQUEST_METHOD required by WSGI!
WSGIServer: missing FastCGI param SERVER_NAME required by WSGI!
WSGIServer: missing FastCGI param SERVER_PORT required by WSGI!
WSGIServer: missing FastCGI param SERVER_PROTOCOL required by WSGI!
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/flup/server/fcgi_base.py", line 558, in run
  File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/flup/server/fcgi_base.py", line 1118, in handler
  File "/home/username/.local/lib/python/django/core/handlers/wsgi.py", line 230, in __call__
    self.load_middleware()
  File "/home/username/.local/lib/python/django/core/handlers/base.py", line 33, in load_middleware
    for middleware_path in settings.MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES:
  File "/home/username/.local/lib/python/django/utils/functional.py", line 276, in __getattr__
    self._setup()
  File "/home/username/.local/lib/python/django/conf/__init__.py", line 40, in _setup
    self._wrapped = Settings(settings_module)
  File "/home/username/.local/lib/python/django/conf/__init__.py", line 75, in __init__
    raise ImportError("Could not import settings '%s' (Is it on sys.path? Does it have syntax errors?): %s" % (self.SETTINGS_MODULE, e))
ImportError: Could not import settings 'mysite.settings' (Is it on sys.path? Does it have syntax errors?): No module named mysite.settings
Content-Type: text/html
 
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
<html><head>
<title>Unhandled Exception</title>
</head><body>
<h1>Unhandled Exception</h1>
<p>An unhandled exception was thrown by the application.</p>
</body></html>

This particular error happens when the settings module isn't found. In this case, the mysite Django project isn't on sys.path. Depending on where you've chosen to put your Django code, you may need to add a third location to sys.path in mysite.fcgi. In this case, adding sys.path.insert(0, "/home/username/django-projects") did the trick, because in this example, the mysite package is located at /home/username/django-projects/mysite.

Other Errors

At this point, you should have fixed any of the most common errors seen by Fastdomain users when getting their Django site working. If you have DEBUG on in your settings.py, you may see one of the nice styled error pages that Django generates. If you're getting the nicely formatted DEBUG=True error pages, (or if DEBUG is off, you get the error emails) then your Django deployment onto Fastdomain has been successful, and the error you are experiencing is out of the scope of this document.

keywords: python django 500 error flup fastcgi

Publisher 2007 Upload Instructions

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:34:38 GMT

Problem:

How do I publish my website using Microsoft Publisher 2007

Solution:

Before you may publish your website to the Fastdomain server, you will need to create an FTP location within Publisher.
To create an FTP location using Microsoft Publisher 2007:

In Microsoft Publisher, from the File menu, click "Publish to the Web".

In the Publish to the Web window, click Tools, and then click "Map Network Drive".

In the Map Network Drive window, click "Connect to a Network Server".

Click "Next".

Click "Specify the address of of FTP site".

Enter your hostname in "Network address" box eg. ftp://IPaddress/public_html where IPaddress is the IP address of your Fastdomain server. The IP address can be found in your cpanel in the left column 'stats', or by contacting Fastdomain technical support.

Un-check "log on anonymously".

Enter your username in the User name box eg. your 8-character cPanel username or custom FTP username. This information is found in your cPanel under the icon "FTP Accounts".

Enter a name for this connection. eg. "My Website".

Click Next.

Click Finish.

To upload site content using Microsoft Publisher 2007:

In Microsoft Publisher, from the File menu, click "Publish to the Web".

From the Save in list, click "FTP Locations".

Select the appropriate domain name.

Double-click the folder where you want to publish your site.

Click Save.

Keywords:Microsoft Publisher publish settings FTP upload

phpList Suggested Settings

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:17:55 GMT

Problem:

PHPList is not sending all messages.
The most common error is "could not instantiate mail function".

Solution:

Locate the config.php file. If installed with defaults from Simple Scripts the full path will be
/home#/username/public_html/list/config/config.php.

Please make a backup at this point.

Locate the Miscellaneous Section.

Below this section find the following.

Code:

# define the amount of emails you want to send per period. If 0, batch processing
# is disabled
# Fastdomain suggest a default of 150 per hour.
define("MAILQUEUE_BATCH_SIZE",0);

# define the length of one batch processing period, in seconds (3600 is an hour)
define("MAILQUEUE_BATCH_PERIOD",3600);

These are the default settings.
Here is the suggested default code.

Code:

# define the amount of emails you want to send per period. If 0, batch processing
# is disabled
# Fastdomain suggests a default of 150 per hour.
define("MAILQUEUE_BATCH_SIZE",150);

# define the length of one batch processing period, in seconds (3600 is an hour)
define("MAILQUEUE_BATCH_PERIOD",3600);

The above settings tell phplist to send 150 emails per hour.
The last edit to make is under the Experimental Section.

Code:

# Mailqueue autothrottle. This will try to automatically change the delay
# between messages to make sure that the MAILQUEUE_BATCH_SIZE (above) is spread evently over
# MAILQUEUE_BATCH_PERIOD, instead of firing the Batch in the first few minutes of the period
# and then waiting for the next period. This only works with mailqueue_throttle off
# it still needs tweaking, so send your feedback to mantis.tincan.co.uk if you find
# any issues with it
define('MAILQUEUE_AUTOTHROTTLE',0);

Change the MAILQUE_AUTOTHROTTLE to 1.

Code:

# Mailqueue autothrottle. This will try to automatically change the delay
# between messages to make sure that the MAILQUEUE_BATCH_SIZE (above) is spread evently over
# MAILQUEUE_BATCH_PERIOD, instead of firing the Batch in the first few minutes of the period
# and then waiting for the next period. This only works with mailqueue_throttle off
# it still needs tweaking, so send your feedback to mantis.tincan.co.uk if you find
# any issues with it
define('MAILQUEUE_AUTOTHROTTLE',1);

Keywords:phplist

Canceling the Hosting Account

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 21:23:28 GMT

Problem:

How can I cancel my hosting account?

Solution:

We do not require our customers to sign contracts so you may cancel your hosting services with fastdomain.com at any time and receive a prorated refund of the unused time remaining on your hosting term. Before contacting the Billing Department to have your hosting account canceled, please review the following information regarding the cancellation of a hosting account:

Only the Account Owner can request to have the account canceled.

When a hosting cancellation is processed, ALL content is permanently deleted from our servers. This includes all of your emails, files, and databases associated with the hosting account. Once this data has been deleted, there is no possibility of restoration. So prior to canceling, you will want to make sure you have ALL necessary backups of your emails, files, and databases.

*Click Here for information about creating and downloading backups.

Canceling a hosting account will delete the hosting services for ALL domains associated with the account. This includes parked, unparked, and add-on domains.

Canceling the hosting services will not affect your access to the Domain Manager to manage the domain name(s) you have registered with us. You will still be able to log in to your Domain Manager to manage your domain(s) to update your privacy options, nameservers, and the domain registration renewal settings. All domains kept on the default Auto-Renew setting will attempt renewal 15 days prior to expiration.

All notifications regarding your hosting account and any domains you have registered with us will be sent to the contact email address you have provided in the Profile/Billing tab of your cPanel. This needs to be a current email address unassociated with your hosting account. If necessary, please update your email address prior to contacting us to cancel the account.

A prorated refund of the unused time remaining on your hosting term will be issued back to the Credit Card account or PayPal account with which the service was most recently purchased. If the account is no longer active, please indicate this in your cancellation request so we can make alternate refund arrangements for you.

When you are ready to cancel your hosting account, simply contact the Billing Department via Phone, Live Chat or by Opening a Ticket. Please be sure to include ALL of the following information to expedite your request:

Your first and last name.

The Primary domain name of the hosting account you wish to cancel.

For security purposes, verify you are the Account Owner by providing:

The last four case-sensitive characters of the cPanel login Password.
AND

If you paid with a Credit Card: the last four digits of the credit card used to pay for the most recent hosting payment.

If you paid with PayPal: the full 7-digit PayPal Invoice Number for the most recent hosting payment

*Note: BOTH the password AND the verifying method of payment are required to process the cancellation.

Confirm you have all necessary backups of your emails, files, and databases, and that the Billing Department can proceed with canceling and deleting all content from our servers associated with your hosting account.

Specify the desired renewal settings for the domain names you have registered with us. Please note that Auto-Renew is the default setting.

Confirm that your contact email address is current and unassociated with your hosting services.

Confirm that the Credit Card/PayPal account is still active.

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

Backup Utility Tools in cPanel

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 21:15:46 GMT

Problem:

How to use the CPanel Backup Tool

Solution:

In the cPanel under the Files section are two icons: Backups and Backup Wizard.
The backup areas in the cPanel allow you to download the courtesy backup file of your entire web site, a home directory /public_html or a particular MySQL, alias, or filter backup file. If your computer crashes or your personal backups are destroyed, these files allow you to recover your site in a convenient manner (you could use FTP to download each file, but it would take much longer as the files are not compressed). Having multiple backups in different locations provides security against permanently losing information.

***Important***: You should keep your own backup copy of your web site as well. See Backup Policy for more details.

Note: A complete web site backup file includes everything: web pages, images, scripts, MySQL Databases, and access logs. A large site will have a large backup file, and will take some time to download.
To download in the Backups icon:

Click on the Backup button in your account's cPanel.

Click on the dated button to begin downloading to your computer the entire system backup or click on the link underneath the required area to download an SQL, Alias, or Filter backup file.

Save the file to your disk.

To download in the Backup Wizard icon:

Click the Backup link.

Click link to do Full or Partial backup.

With either choice, select the link for the available backups to begin downloading to your computer.

Save the file to your disk.

In the Full Backup option, you can generate a new backup you can download when completed. This is limited to 5 GB. An email will be sent to notify you when completed. For an account larger than 5 GB, use the command line.
Note for Windows users: This file is in .tar.gz format (a GZIP archive file that contains a TAR archive file). This is a common archive format used on Unix machines, in the same way that .zip is a common Windows archive format. Most compression utilities should be able to uncompress a .tar.gz file. Click here to visit www.EZSiteMove.com, they will perform backups and restores for a discount for Fastdomain Customers to a different hosting Service Provider.

Keywords: cpanel backup back ups backups utility mysql

MySQL Version

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 16:34:41 GMT

Problem:

What version of MySQL are you running?

Solution:

The current version can be viewed in the cPanel on left side. Alternately, you can view which version the server has with the following Telnet 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 Setup using Fetch (Mac)

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 16:25:18 GMT

Problem:

How do I upload my page to your server using FTP on a Mac?

Solution:

How to Connect and Upload files on a Mac via FTP using Fetch (Version 4.0.3).

Open Fetch. It will prompt you to enter some login info.

For Host, type your domain name. Also type in your username and password and click OK.

Once you have logged in, open the public_html folder. To open it, double-click it.

Once in the public_html folder, click Put Files.

Select the picture you want to upload. Then click on Choose.

Fetch will confirm the file name that will be uploaded and saved. Click OK to upload.

When you look under public_html, you should see the newly uploaded file.

If you do not have fetch, here are a couple more popular and free FTP clients:

Cyberduck

RBrowser

Keywords: Mac Macintosh OSX OS-X FTP fetch

Unable to Assign Domain via Domain Manager

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:27:08 GMT

Problem:

I tried to assign a domain through the Domain Manager, but it does not allow me to. What is wrong?

Solution:

Most likely you have not yet changed the NameServers (NS) or A record for the domain you are attempting to assign. If you have changed the NS or ARecord, it is possible enough time has not been allowed for DNS propagation.
If you have not yet changed the NS record, please change it to point to:

Primary NameServer: ns1.fastdomain.com

Secondary NameServer: ns2.fastdomain.com

Allow up to 24-48 hours for DNS propagation.
Note: If the NameServers or the proper ARecord has been pointed to us and you are still having any difficulty assigning domains, please contact us via Phone, Live Chat or by Opening a Ticket.

Keywords: addon add-on park parked domain

Duplicate Messages in Outlook 2002

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:07:24 GMT

Problem:

Why Am I Getting Duplicate Messages in Outlook 2002?

Solution:

Symptom:
Outlook downloads messages from a Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3) server again after it empties the Deleted Items folder even if you have both the Leave a copy of messages on the server and the Remove from server when deleted from Deleted Items options enabled on the POP3 account.
Cause:
This problem occurs because a background synchronization took place at the same time or just after the Deleted Items folder was emptied. This is an issue with the order in which Outlook carries out the deletion from the server and the downloading of messages.
There is not an available workaround for this problem other than not to begin a synchronization at about the same time that the Deleted Items folder is emptied. This issue does not result in data loss (other than messages that you instructed Outlook to delete). Simply delete the duplicate messages.

Keywords: email outlook duplicate

How to clear browser cache

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 10:58:51 GMT

Problem:

What is Cache? How do I clear my browsers Cache?

Solution:

Cache is a block of memory used for temporary storage of data (ie: webpages, etc..) that is likely to be used again. Your CPU and hard drive frequently use a Cache, as do web browsers and web servers. A Cache is made up of a pool of entries. Each entry has a piece of data or copy of the original information which can be stored in multiple locations. Each entry also has a tag, which specifies the identity of that particular piece of data in your storage. When the Cache client (web browser, ISP, or operating system) wishes to access this data it first checks the Cache. This helps save time and reduces the workload on the system using the Cached client. If you use your web browser and an entry can be found with a tag matching that of the desired data, then the Cached version is used instead. This situation is known as a Cache Hit. When the Cache is consulted and found not to contain data with the desired tag, it is known as a Cache Miss.
So, for example, a web browser program might check its Local Cache stored on your computer to see if it has a local copy of the contents of a web page at based on a particular URL. In this example, the URL is the tag, and the contents of the web page is the data. The percentage of accesses that result in Cache Hits or Cache Misses is known as the Hit Rate or Hit Ratio of the cache.

Most systems fetch and retrieve updated versions of your stored data or Cache every 24-72 hours. This means that your ISP and your local system can at anytime have an out of date version of your data (i.e. website) in its Cache. If you have updated your website, migrated servers or changed webhosts you may not immediately see the changes you made. This could be because your local system has an out of date copy or your ISP's system has not clear their Master Cache. Follow the steps below to clear your local systems Cache first. If this does not do the trick then you may need to contact your ISP and request they manually flush their current cache. Depending on the ISP if they refuse you will have to wait for them to automatically clear their Cache which may take 24-72 hours for them to do.

How do I clear my browsers Cache?
For Internet Explorer 4.x and Up

Click Tools from the Internet Explorer menubar

Click Internet Options

Click the General Tab

Click the Delete Files button in the Temporary Internet files section

If you still have a problem, repeat the steps above and restart the computer.

Please refer to the Internet Explorer Support page for more details on How and Why to Clear Your Cache

For FireFox 1.5x and Up

Click Tools from the FireFox menubar

Click Clear Private Data...Ctrl+Shift+Del

Make sure the box is checked next to each option you wish to Clear Private Data for. (Browsing History, Cache, Cookies, Authenticated Sessions)

Click the Clear Private Data Now button.

If you still have a problem, repeat the steps above and restart the computer.

For Opera

Click Edit from the Opera menubar

Click Preferences... from the File menu

Click the History and Cache menu

Click Cache

Click ok to close the Preferences menu

If you still have a problem, repeat the steps above and restart the computer.

Please refer to the Opera support page for more detailed information on Web Caching

For AOL 3.x and Up

Start AOLfrom the AOL menu bar

Select Keyword > Go to Keyword

type the keyword preferences

Click Go
Dialog box: AOL Settings: Customize your AOL Experience

Select Essentials tab > Internet (Web) Options - Set Web browser options and properties
Dialog box: Internet Options

Select General tab

Click Delete files
Dialog box: Delete Files: Delete all files in the Temporary Internet files

Select Delete all offline content

Click OK

Click OK

If you still have a problem, repeat the steps above and restart the computer.

Please refer to the AOL Support page for more detailed information on Web caching

For Safari 1.x for Macintosh OSX

Open Safari.

Click on Safari in the toolbar and select Empty Cache...

When prompted Are You Sure, click Empty.

Exit your Safari browser completely and re-launch Safari.

If you still have a problem, repeat the steps above and restart the computer.

Please refer to the Safari Support page for more detailed information on Safari Issues

Keywords: Cache

Shared vs. Dedicated IPs & Port Access

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 17:56:58 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, censure particular web sites by their IP address. If a web site they censure 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.

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 Fastdomain. 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.

The second is by using the Fastdomain 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.fastdomain.com/~yourunixusername. When your customers look at the URL or examine the validity of the Shared Certificate they will see that it belongs to Fastdomain 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 Certificate if you have purchased a dedicated IP, only when you are on the shared IP.
Purchasing a Dedicated IP & Private SSL:
If you would like to purchase a Dedicated IP or a Private SSL Certificate please review our articles on Purchasing a Private SSL or Purchasing a Dedicated IP.

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

Comodo Positive SSL Certificate Seal

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:33:50 GMT

Problem:

Where do I get a copy of the site seal for my SSL I purchased through Bluehost?

Solution:

If you purchased the SSL Certificate from your Bluehost cPanel, the SSL you purchased is the Comodo Positive SSL Certificate. This certificate includes a static image which you may place on your website. Simply right click on the image below and save the image to your computer. You may then upload the image to your Bluehost account and incorporate it in the design of your website.

SSL Certificate Authority
To learn more about the Comodo Positive SSL Certificate you may visit www.positivessl.com

Keywords: ssl cert seal secure image logo

Problem using fsockopen function

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 12:55:58 GMT

Problem:

Why am I unable to use the fsockopen function?

Solution:

The fsockopen function will work for outbound connection to any URL on port 80 (HTTP) or 443 (HTTPS). If fsockopen is attempting to use another port, it will not work until we have added that port to the firewall.
By default, your account is on a shared IP address. We have a firewall for our shared IP customers which prohibits opening additional ports. If you need to connect using a port number other than 80 or 443, this will require you Purchase a Dedicated IP for your Fastdomain account.
Dedicated IPs cost $2.50 per month, the equivalent of $30 per year (prorated to the remaining hosting term). You may purchase a Dedicated IP address from within your cPanel by clicking on the Dedicated IP tab at the top of the page.
Once you have a dedicated IP, you will need to contact us via Phone, Live Chat or by Opening a Ticket to request the specific port number is added to the firewall.

Keywords: fsockopen php rss curl remote dedicated IP port

Django

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 21:41:11 GMT

Problem

How do I set up Django?

Solution

Using Django on Fastdomain
This is a brief tutorial showing how to set up Django for either development or deployment of Django applications on Fastdomain. It is not a Django tutorial. The official Django documentation includes a tutorial as well as documentation on just about every feature that Django offers.

Django is a web framework that makes it easy for developers to rapidly create complete web applications using best practices, and a clean design. It has a database abstraction layer built in, a templating engine, an automatic admin interface, and much more.

Pre-requisites

You will need SSH access to use Django.

Optionally, you can install your own version of Python into your home directory. This is not required, but can be done if you choose. All versions of Python run by any Fastdomain server can run Django.
Installing Django

Django itself is just a bunch of Python code. The way that Python code is made accessible by Python is by putting it into a directory that is on the Python path.

Due to a few differences in Python 2.6, the instructions are slightly different for installation. To find out what version of Python you are running, type python -V at the command line.
Python 2.6 and newer

As of Python 2.6, default location for user-specific Python code in your home directory is ~/.local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/. This directory is where we will install Django.

Now, you are ready to download and install the Django code to this directory. The latest release of Django is available from http://www.djangoproject.com/download/. Go ahead and download the latest version of Django to your home directory, and untar it:
$ wget http://www.djangoproject.com/download/1.1/tarball/
$ tar xzvf Django-1.1.tar.gz
$ cd Django-1.1
This is the Django distribution tree. Installation is easy:
    $ python setup.py install --user
Python 2.3, 2.4 or 2.5

First, we need a directory for Python code to reside in your home directory. Python 2.6 has made a standard for doing this, but you can follow the new convention with older versions of Python as well. Create this directory by doing the following:
    mkdir -p ~/.local/lib/python/
Now, we need to put this directory on your Python path. To do this, add the following to the bottom of your ~/.bashrc file using a text editor:
    export PYTHONPATH=$HOME/.local/lib/python/:$PYTHONPATH
Re-log in to your session to effect this change.

Now, you are ready to download and install the Django code to this directory. The latest release of Django is available from http://www.djangoproject.com/download/. Go ahead and download the latest version of Django to your home directory and untar it:
$ wget http://www.djangoproject.com/download/1.1/tarball/
$ tar xzvf Django-1.1.tar.gz
$ cd Django-1.1
This is the Django distribution tree. Installation is easy:
    $ python setup.py install --home $HOME/.local
Installing Support Libraries

Django comes with plenty to get your site working out of the box, but it also needs some support libraries for some functionality. Each of these support libraries come with their own set of instructions for installation, and in many cases, the setup.py method can be used.

You will at least need the flup library to get Django working on Bluehost. You may also need one or more of MySQLdb, sqlite3, or psycopg2. Depending what database you plan on using, what version of Python you are running, or what is already installed server-wide.

You can download the latest version of flup from http://www.saddi.com/software/flup/dist/. Once downloaded, the install process is the same as it was for Django itself:
$ wget http://www.saddi.com/software/flup/dist/flup-1.0.2.tar.gz
$ tar xzvf flup-1.0.2.tar.gz
$ cd flup-1.0.2
For Python 2.6 and higher:
    $ python setup.py install --user
For Python 2.3 - 2.5:
    $ python setup.py install --home $HOME/.local
Follow this process for any other Python modules you will need for your project.
Your Django Application

Your Django application is also Python code, just like django and flup. Go ahead and put your Django project directory into ~/.local/lib/python2.6/site-packages or ~/.local/lib/python, depending on the version of Python you are running. Once there, you will be ready to actually deploy your Django application using Apache/FastCGI.

The instructions in the official Django documentation for deploying Django on shared hosting using FastCGI work perfectly on Fastdomain. The official instructions are here: http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/howto/deployment/fastcgi/#running-django-on-a-shared-hosting-provider-with-apache

Essentially, you need two components to make this work. The first thing you need is a fastcgi script, written in Python, that loads your Django application and starts the FastCGI listener. Here is a (slightly) modified copy of the script from the Django documentation. This example assumes your Django project is called myproject, but you should update it to be whatever your project name really is. Copy the following code, and put it into a file called mysite.fcgi in your public_html directory, updating it to reflect your project:
#!/usr/bin/python
import sys, os

# Add a custom Python path.
sys.path.insert(0, "/home/username/.local/lib/python")

# Switch to the directory of your project. (Optional.)
# os.chdir("/home/user/myproject")

# Set the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable.
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = "myproject.settings"

from django.core.servers.fastcgi import runfastcgi
runfastcgi(method="threaded", daemonize="false")
Please note that you may need to have additional Python path locations. Simply add additional instances of the 'sys.path.insert(0, "/full/path/to/path")' lines for each location you need to add. If any of the support libraries you install are installed as eggs, you may need to add the full path to the egg. The flup module falls into this category.

Make the mysite.fcgi file executable by setting the permissions to 0755. Please note that if you are using a different or a custom version of Python, that you should update /usr/bin/python on the first line to reflect the real location.

Next, we'll need to set up a rewrite so you won't see mysite.fcgi/ in your URL. Make sure the following code is in your .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ mysite.fcgi/$1 [QSA,L]
Note: Django installs many files please be sure that these additional files do not exceed our terms of service. 

keywords: python django script install