Abstract
This document describes how commercial websites are setup and answers some common questions about web-hosting with Vineyard.NET.
Directories
Where is my website?
All websites are stored in your home directory.
Each website has a unique name. If a website is associated with a particular domain, then the root directory for the website may also have the same name as the domain.
A website directory that maps to more than one domain (for instance myname.com and myfullname.com) may have a more abstract or generic name like "myname-www".
~YOUR_USERNAME/WEBSITE_NAME
The directory named WEBSITE_NAME, which is inside your home
directory. ~YOUR_USERNAME is short-hand for "the home
directory belonging to YOUR_USERNAME".
When you are connecting to the Vineyard.NET servers
via FTP you will automatically be taken to your home
directory.
The name of a website is also used as a unique identifier when logging traffic, generating web reports and, where applicable, CGI scripting on a per-website basis.
FTP
How do I FTP to my website?
If you are trying to get to your personal website, configure your FTP client as follows :
server : personal.vineyard.net
path : /personal
If you are trying to get to the website for a particular domain, configure your FTP client as follows:
server : DOMAIN_NAME <-- e.g. myname.com
path : /NAME_OF_WEBSITE <-- e.g. myname.com, myname-www, site1, site2
The two examples look strangely alike because they are. As of this writing, you could get to personal site by connecting to myname.com and vice versa. However, that may not always be the case so it is best to connect to the domain(s) associated with a website.
Logging and reporting
Where are the log files for my website?
Log files are stored in your home directory in directory named 'logs'. The log files for your website are stored in a child of the 'logs' directory with the same name as your website.
~YOUR_USERNAME/logs/WEBSITE_NAME/1016755319.1017216885.gz
~YOUR_USERNAME/logs/WEBSITE_NAME/access_log
~YOUR_USERNAME/logs/WEBSITE_NAME/error_log
Log files are processed nightly and archived periodically.
Where are the web reports for my website?
The web report files are stored under your home directory in a directory named 'reports/WEBSITE_NAME'. They are generated nightly, and you can access them by going to https://www.vineyard.net/reports/WEBSITE_NAME, where you will be asked to log in with your username and password. You can also view your web reports by first visiting Your Account Administration Page and then clicking on the appropriate link under the 'Your Web Reports' section.
CGI Scripting
Can I use CGI scripts on my website?
Yes.
CGI scripts are stored in nested directories in order to increase security and flexibility for customers with more than one website.
The Vineyard.NET servers are configured to recognize the cgi-bin directory as one where scripts may be run and, additionally, filters your programs through a secure wrapper.
However, if all of your websites shared the same cgi-bin directory, then you could run both scripts designed specifically for site "A" on site "B" or "C".
So, in order to provide localised CGI programs, scripts for each website are put in separate sub-directories of the "cgi-bin" directory.
For example imagine the following CGI scripts, each for a different website you own :
http://www.site1.com/cgi-bin/hello-world.cgi
http://www.site2.com/cgi-bin/customer_survey.cgi
The scripts and websites would be located on the Vineyard.NET servers in the following directories:
+ ~YOUR_USERNAME <-- your home directory
+ cgi-bin <-- the root cgi-bin directory
+ site1 <-- cgi-bin directory for www.site1.com
- hello-world.cgi
+ site2 <-- cgi-bin directory for www.site2.com
- customer_survey.cgi
+ site1 <-- www.site1.com
+ site2 <-- www.site2.com
Why aren't my CGI scripts working?
There are a variety of reasons why your CGI scripts are not working. Perhaps you misconfigured them, or maybe there is a syntax error in the CGI script code. If you wish to debug your CGI scripts further, you can alternatively write the URL to access them as:
http://www.yoursite.com/cgi-bin/cgiwrapd/YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_SITENAME/myscript.cgi
Accessing your CGI script via cgiwrapd (cgiwrap in debug mode) will provide copious output so that you can figure out what is stopping your script from running correctly.
Server Side Includes
Can I use SSI on my website?
Commercial websites are able to use SSI includes in their website. This is not available for personal websites. SSI-enabled webpages must have a .shtml extension for our webserver to execute any SSI directives. Otherwise, the SSI directives will not be executed and the page will be sent directly to the browser, unmodified.
Can I use Extended SSI on my website?
Yes. Much like regular SSI, commercial websites are able to use this feature, but again Extended SSI is not available for personal websites.
PHP
Can I use PHP on my website?
Yes, this is another feature that is only available for commercial websites. You can not use PHP scripting in personal websites.
Which modules does PHP support?
At the moment, we only provide the base PHP modules for Vineyard.NET customers.
Will you install additional modules on request?
We will consider requests to build additional modules in the PHP interpreter.
Glossary
What is a home directory?
Under multi-user operating systems, such as the one Vineyard.NET uses, each user on the system has what is known as a 'home directory', where they keep their files. This is written short-hand as ~username.
What is FTP?
FTP is an acronym for File Transfer Protocol.
FTP is used to move files to and from your computer and another computer connected to the Internet, the Vineyard.NET servers for example.
What is CGI?
CGI is an acronym for Common Gateway Interface (a name that is about as intuitive as a chocolate chip cookie, perhaps even less so.)
The CGI homepage describes CGI as : "a standard for interfacing external applications with information servers, such as HTTP or Web servers. A plain HTML document that the Web daemon retrieves is static, which means it exists in a constant state: a text file that doesn't change. A CGI program, on the other hand, is executed in real-time, so that it can output dynamic information."
Which can be shortened to : A CGI program can do many things, but is often used for generating webpages "on-the-fly" based on external parameters, for instance the data passed to it in a web form.
What is PHP?
PHP, which stands for PHP Hypertext Processor, is an embedded scripting language that can be used to add functionality to your web pages. The web server reads PHP commands from a .php file and outputs HTML which a web browser can understand. PHP is very fast, and very flexible. You can read more about PHP by going to The PHP Homepage.
What is SSI?
SSI stands for Server-Side Includes. SSI is a very simple method of loading external HTML files or executing commands for use in your webpages before they are sent to the browser. You can read more about SSI by visiting An Introduction to Server-Side Includes.