Bad Dog WebHosting

This file answers most of the regular questions we get here at BadDog concerning setting up certain aspects of your domain. If you have any other questions please feel free to contact us on the contact page and we will do our best to add them to this help list and FAQ.

Important: Make sure and read this help file thoroughly... it will help you immensely at becoming familiar with how the BadDogWebHosting.com server operates. Numerous hours of preparation and thought have went into this help file so that YOU can have all of the information that you possibly need to operate your domain in a successful fashion. USE IT OFTEN and USE IT as your webmasters BIBLE. Please do not e-mail BadDog for problems concerning cgi scripts etc. until you have read this help file.

Name Servers

Primary DNS	Secondary DNS
NS1.BADDOGWEBHOSTING.COM	NS2.BADDOGWEBHOSTING.COM

CGI-BIN CGI BIN AND SCRIPT USAGE
[Common parameters to modify]

When installing your own CGI scripts, you will, most likely, need to modify some of the script's parameters. In most scripts the parameters to modify will be located at the top of the actual script file after any instructions or headers (most are clearly marked and have concise instructions in the comments for modifying the parameter, rule of thumb, though, READ THE INSTRUCTIONS before modifying a script!)

FTP

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is used for transferring files (HTML pages, graphics, etc.) to/from your server. We suggest using programs specifically designed for FTP'ing (transferring) your files.

Common paths to programs

Most CGI scripts need to know the location of files to run properly (sometimes they even need to know where they are located themselves!). Here are some common paths and tips about paths for CGI scripts:

1.Absolute path refers to something's location on the server itself. Standard absolute paths are: '/var/www/vhosts/yourdomain.extension/httpdocs' (path to your web files) '/var/www/vhosts/yourdomain.extension/cgi-bin/' (path to your cgi-bin, where scripts are usually located) Most times an absolute path will be asked for when the script needs to find the directory of certain files (READ THE DOCUMENTATION TO BE SURE!)
URL path refers to something's location via the WWW. Standard URL paths are: 'http://www.you.com/' (path to your web site/files) 'http://www.example.com/cgi-bin/' (path to your cgi-bin via the web) Most times an absolute path will be asked for to handle HTML directions and coding
A commonly requested path (also required for Perl scripts) is the path to Perl, it is: '/usr/bin/perl' -or- '/bin/perl'
Another commonly requested path is the path to the sendmail program (for mail interfaces), it is: '/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i'
Lastly, a commonly request path is to the date program (for date and time tracking), it is: '/bin/date' If a path is requested and not covered in the documentation for the script, feel free to use the help desk feature in your control panel or the contact us page and we will do the best we can to help you track down the path for your script.
(READ the DOCUMENTATION FIRST!)

Tips for CGI Installations

Read the documentation for the script you are trying to install!
If you don't find any documentation WITH the script, check inside the script ITSELF, some scripts have the instructions written in with the coding.
If you can't find any help, contact the author of the script (most scripts have the author's information in the header of the script)
Make sure you have properly set any permissions for the file (most scripts require CHMOD 755, or read-execute permission to properly execute on the server)
Make sure you have properly set all paths and parameters
Make sure (if it's a Perl script) you transferred it as an ASCII file (Perl scripts are text files [ASCII] not binary files like some compiled CGI scripts!)

SERVER SIDE INCLUDES

BadDog has server side include capabilities and so will your domain. There are many different resources for using SSI in your pages and you can find most all of these by doing a web search by typing in SSI Tutorial or UsingSSI .

Remember, not all SSI tags will work with your remote host or ours... so a lot of this will be trial and error. Also some SSI that works with Microsoft Explorer will not work with Netscape.

MIME TYPES

The standard file format for the internet is called MIME.

Aspects of a web site (like the HTML pages, audio files, graphics files, etc.) must comply with the MIME standard to
be viewable by most browsers. If they are not standard, then sometimes the files need to be accessed with plug-ins
(players, etc.) that make the file MIME compliant. With the continuing growth of web technology, plug-ins and new file formats emerge each day. Luckily, BadDog can conform and grow with rising standards through the use of a MIME.TYPES file which contains information on how the server and the visitor's browser should react to that particular file.

MAIL TO FORMS

BadDog is pre-configured with a 'FormMailpl' (form mail) script that can be placed in your CGI-BIN. This script is designed to process any forms that you write for your site. No knowledge of CGI is necessary to implement a working form on your website. You will need to contact us so we can setup the FormMail.pl for you to use.

Add the following 4 lines to your form document and your form will send the information to the specified e-mail address.

The above 4 lines need to be placed at the beginning of your HTML coding that starts the forms. The above 4 lines declare that the forms in your HTML page will be processed by the FormMail.pl script in your CGI-BIN (Line 1).

Then, the 2nd line tells the form script to send the completed forms to the specified recipient (your e-mail address of whomever's you set it for).

The 3rd line tells the form script to place the declared subject line into the form sent to the recipient via e-mail.

The 4th line tells the form script to send the visitor filling out the form to a page thanking them for filling out the form. These are the only codes you need to interface with to get the forms working.

Don't forget to create a 'thankyou' page for your form.

Please note that if you DO NOT want to use the "thankyou.htm" you can specify:

<input type="hidden" name="redirect" value="no">

(this will display a default thank you page for you, saves some HTML coding) Also, the place in your HTML code where you ask the visitor for their e-mail address change the coding to reflect something like this:

<input type=text name="email">What is your e-mail address?

The key parameter is the name="email". This will take the e-mail address from the form and place it into the e-mail form that is sent to the recipient (declared in Line 2 of the form coding). Otherwise, the recipient will receive mail from "No-Email-Given@whatever.com" (a null used in the form script if no e-mail address is found via the username parameter).

USING YOU CUSTOMER ACCESS PANEL

The Customer Access Panel has been replaced Plesk control panel Click Here for more info.

ERROR CODES WITHIN THE LOGS

After signing with BadDog and you have the Customer Access Panel installed, when you obtain access to the Panel you will see the Graphical Statistics Analyzer. This analyzer will contain numerous codes that are explained below. These codes are specific to the server.

We have an optional online program for checking your logs with extremely useful and detailed information.

100 Continue
101 Switching Protocols
200 OK
201 Created
202 Accepted
203 Non-Authoritative Information
204 No Content
205 Reset Content
206 Partial Content
300 Multiple Choices
301 Moved Permanently
302 Moved Temporarily
303 See Other
304 Not Modified
305 Use Proxy
400 Bad Request
401 Unauthorized
402 Payment Required
403 Forbidden
404 Not Found

405 Method Not Allowed
406 Not Acceptable
407 Proxy Authentication Required
408 Request Time-Out
409 Conflict
410 Gone
411 Length Required
412 Precondition Failed
413 Request Entity Too Large
414 Request-URI Too Large
415 Unsupported Media Type
500 Server Error
501 Not Implemented
502 Bad Gateway
503 Out of Resources
504 Gateway Time-Out
505 HTTP Version not supported

INTERMITTENT FTP PROBLEMS

If you are having intermittent problems accessing to your server, please read the following:
To help trace problems with Internet traffic, try the following:

1.) If you are running Windows95, go to a DOS prompt.

2.) At the command line, type 'TRACERT yourdomain.com'
(minus the quotes, replace 'yourdomain.com' with your domain
name)

3.) Your screen may output information that looks like:
Tracing route to example.com [1.1.1.1] over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 - 123 ms - 123 ms - 123 ms - 38.1.1.1
2 - 147 ms - 145 ms - 182 ms - berea39.kih.net[38.147.37.1]
3 - 170 ms - 134 ms - 134 ms - 207.124.104.54
4 - 123 ms - 123 ms - 123 ms - example.com [1.1.1.1]

4.) This is called a traceroute, which traces, hop for hop, all the jumps you take from your internet connection to the destination.

The first few hops are usually through your service provider's network. The hops from there are usually through the backbone / upstream provider your service provider uses to route internet traffic. The last few hops will be with our upstream/backbone provider through our network and to your server. Each hop shows timing information (designated by 3 sets of 'ms' ratings). Timing below 300 ms is good timing.

Anything above that up to 1000 ms indicates some delays which will ultimately affect your overall connection performance. Any 'ms' timings represented by an asterisk (*)
indicate a timeout (bad connection). Whatever hop shows asterisks or timings above 500 will, more than likely, be where your connection is having problems. Check with the appropriate people regarding any performance problems. If the problems occur, in the first few hops, it is your service provider. If the problems occur within the midway hops, it is your service provider's upstream / backbone connection.

If the problem occurs within the last few hops to your site, then it is a problem on our end. Please note, if the problem occurs in the first few hops, it will affect most of the hops thereafter, so check with the source of the problems before checking with BadDog (if applicable).
Also try checking at http://www.mids.org/weather/ and see if the backbones are having packet losses.

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