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Dedicated Servers / Colocation Servers


How to get started with your Dedicated Server or Colocation

 How to add IP addresses ?
 How to add users ?
 How to deal with e-mail ?
 How to FTP ?
 How to reboot your UNIX computer ?
 How to telnet ?
 How to use DNS ?
 How to use vi ?
 Recommended Books
 Web hosting with Apache
 What utilities and daemons will be installed on my computer ?

 How is bandwidth measured?
 How much are your additional bandwidth charges?
 Can I get additional IPs?
 Do you offer back-up services?
 Do you offer backup DNS or Email services?
 Do you offer other custom services?
 Do you accept tower units?
 Do I need to provide rack rails?
 If I need additional or special support beyond my plan, what is the cost?
 Are minimum contracts required?
 Do you have any restrictions?
 How should I ship/deliver my colocation server or other equipment?

 What are the data center visitation policies and costs?


 
 How to add IP addresses ?
To add new IP addresses to network interface in FreeBSD you need to manually edit /etc/sysconfig file. Just add one line per IP. Format of the file is self-explanatory. To see the current network interface configuration use: ifconfig -a. To add IPs in LINUX you need to create a new file per each IP in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts directory. You will find in this directory file with a name 'ifcfg-eth0' or very similar. Open it in editor, you will easily recognize the first ip of your computer and figure out file format. Now copy this file: $cp ifcfg-eth0 ifcfg-eth0:0 Now edit a new file: you need to change original ip to a second one. Save edited file. To add a third ip: $cp ifcfg-eth0 ifcfg-eth0:1 Again edit it to change the first ip to a third one. Now you have three similar files in directory
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts: ifcfg-eth0, ifcfg-eth0:0, ifcfg-eth0:1. Please notice filename format: it is mandatory. Each of these files will provide IP information for a network initializing script. To activate new IPs just reboot a computer. You could activate new IPs by running network initialization script. In LINUX: /etc/rc.d/init.d/network -reload In Windows NT you add IPs in Settings > Control Panel > Network >Protocols > TCP/IP > Properties > Advanced
 
 
 How to add users ?
Under FreeBSD/OpenBSD systems use adduser command in interactive mode. If you want a new user to be able at some point to change to root user you need to specify a new user to be a member of a wheel group. Under LINUX use useradd command followed by login name. Such as:
$useradd Then you need to assign password to a new user: $passwd If you want a new user to be able to change to root user you need to manually add him to wheelgroup. $usermod -G wheel Under Windows NT you select Programs > Administrative Tools > User Manager
 
 
 How to deal with e-mail ?
You have two choices: use our mail server, or run your own. If you are using our mail server you need to contact sales or technical support at Contact Us. Another alternative is to run your own mail server.
Under UNIX you better off running SENDMAIL - a free and a pretty standard software which offers you a lot of options. You have SENDMAIL already installed at your computer (if we did the OS installation), so you only need to configure it. If you are not familiar with SENDMAIL configuration, we can do it for you on per-hour-payment basis. If you want to learn it go visit SENDMAIL official web site: www.sendmail.org. There is a good tutorial there. There is also a book on SENDMAIL see Recommended Books at the end of this FAQs. Another free SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) UNIX program is qmail. It is easier to use but it has less features. Visit www.qmail.org. To receive mail you usually use any daemon program based on pop3 protocol. In LINUX it is ipop3d and it comes with an installation. You do not need to configure pop3 programs. Under NT you can use a reliable but expensive program Post-Office (www.software.com). There is also SENDMAIL for NT. For sending mail only from FrontPage and ASP you can use Microsoft SMTP service (We install it as a part of Option Pack).
 


 
 How to FTP ?
From command line issue a command:
$ftp yourdomain.com or $ftp You will see FTP login popping up: $user: You type your ftp user name and later your password. After successful login your current directory will become home directory of a system user you used for this login. Main FTP commands are get (mget for multiple files) which serves to download files and put (mput) which is used to upload files. You can use many different file system commands while logged in FTP server such as chdir to change directory, mkdir to create a new directory, rmdir to delete directory and others. I order to download use: $get Use help command to get all FTP commands list and quit command to exit. The list of users for whom FTP is not allowed is in /etc/ftpusers file. By default root user is in this list, so to allow FTP for root you just delete it from /etc/ftpusers file.
 
 


 How to reboot your UNIX computer ?
To reboot UNIX computer you should be logged in as root. Type:
$reboot
 
 
 How to telnet ?
You can telnet to a remote UNIX computer from Windows or UNIX:
$telnet yourdomain.com or
$telnet <ip address of a computer
Server responds with login prompt: $login: You just need to type your username, hit enter and type your password at password prompt. Remember that login for root user is usually not allowed from the network for security reasons. If you need a root access, you login first as another existing user (say, admin). Such a user must be a member of a root (wheel) group. Then you issue a command: $su - System will ask for a root password and let you in.
 
 


 How to use DNS ?
As you know all the Internet traffic is routed using IP addressing only. DNS (Domain Name System) does an actual resolution from domain names to IP addresses, back and forth. Every domain must have a DNS record at some DNS server otherwise it would not be visible in the Internet. Read our InterNIC / Domain FAQs. Another name for DNS protocol suite is BIND. There are currently two BIND versions in use: BIND 4 and BIND 8. When you register a new domain at rs.internic.net, you are required to submit DNS server name and address. At this point you have two choices: register your domain with our DNS server (ns1.gometanet.com, ns2.gometanet.com) or configure your own name server. Choosing your own DNS server may be a better solution if you will need to deal with DNS records for your own clients.
Configuring your own name server is a relatively easy task. DNS daemon is named and it comes with our UNIX installation. First thing you need to do is to configure /etc/named.boot file for BIND 4. Same file has a name of named.conf for BIND 8. From the name of this file in /etc directory you can find out what version of BIND (DNS) your OS is running. To learn how DNS works read man page for named, or buy a book: DNS and BIND, see Recommended Books. Under Windows NT we will install Microsoft DNS Service upon your request.
 


 
 How to use vi ?
vi is a text editor widely available for UNIX platforms. To begin editing a file:
$vi filename There are 3 basic modes in vi. These modes are known as command mode, edit mode and ex mode. After starting vi you are in command mode. While in command mode, you can use arrow keys to move around the file, use x to delete a character under cursor, use dd to delete a current line. Pressing G (shift-g) will move cursor to the end of the file. The command 10G will move cursor to line 10 in the file. Typing i in command mode will place you into an edit mode. You can insert text in edit mode. Pressing A (shift-a) with begin inserting text at the very end of the line. To exit edit mode and return back to command mode hit ESC. To save your file and exit you need first to switch to ex mode. Ex mode is entered when you press : key from command mode. For example to write the file being edited use the command :w. Typing : causes you to enter ex mode and typing w followed by the Enter key completes the command. The command :wq writes to the file and exits vi. To quit vi without saving changes to the file use the command :q!. There are many other features in vi editor. Read about then in a book Using vi Editor. See Recommended Books.
 
 


 Recommended Books
 
UNIX
    Matt Welsh, Lar Kaufman. Running LINUX. O'Reilly & Associates. 1996. A classic LINUX book. Covers LINUX system administration in-depth. On-line go to sunsite.unc.edu, redhat.com
    Greg Lehey. The Complete FreeBSD. Walnut Creek. 1998. Big and new FreeBSD book. On-line use freebsd.org.

    Lamb Linda. Learning the vi Editor. O'Reilly & Associates. 1998 Good vi book

    Hunt Craig. TCP/IP Network Administration. O'Reilly & Associates. 1998 Classic book: TCP/IP, telnet, ftp, nfs etc.

    Liu, Cricket, and Albitz, Paul. DNS and BIND. O'Reilly & Associates. 1998 Great DNS book. You may need it to run your own DNS server. Covers BIND 8.

    Stern, Hal. Managing NFS and NIS. O'Reilly & Associates. 1992. The best NFS / NIS book

    Costales, Bryan,Allman, Eric, and Rickert, Neil. Sendmail. O'Reilly & Associates. 1997 Possibly intimidating book, but really a complete description of how to configure sendmail. The only one book on sendmail. On-line there is a nice manual at sendmail.org.

    Mohammed J. Kabir. Apache Server Bible. IDG Books. 1998. The best one on Apache. Covers also Apache modules in detail. Find a very good manual at www.apache.org

    Nemeth, Evi, Snyder, and Seebass, Scott. UNIX System Administration Handbook. Prentice Hall. The most frequently recommended book on the subject.

    Garfinkel, Simson and Spafford, Gene. Practical UNIX and Internet Security. O'Reilly & Associates. 1996 If you have security concerns that is the book to pick.

    Schwartz, Randal L. Learning Perl. O'Reilly & Associates. 1998 A manual to a famous scripting language. On-line go to www.perl.org

    Wall, Larry and Schwartz, Randal. Programming Perl. O'Reilly & Associates.1998. A reference to a famous scripting language.

    Tom Christiansen, Nathan Torkington, Larry Wall. Perl Cookbook. O'Reilly & Associates. 1998. Examples of Perl. A very practical book.
Windows NT Server
    Aeleen Frisch. Essential Windows NT System Administration. O'Reilly & Associates. 1998 A very good book on NT Server Administration (from O'Reilly !)
    Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft Internet Information Server Resource Kit. Microsoft Press. 1998. Alex Fedorov. Professional Active Server Pages. Wrox Press. 1998. Probably the best book on ASP.

    Craig Hunt. Windows NT TCP/IP Network Administration. O'Reilly & Associates. 1998.

 
 
 Web hosting with Apache
Famous Apache web server for UNIX comes with our original installation. His daemons name is httpd. All you need is to configure 3 files: httpd.conf, srm.conf and access.conf. LINUX has these files in /etc/httpd/conf directory, FreeBSD has them in /usr/local/etc/apache/conf directory. You may want to put all your entries as virtual domains in httpd.conf file. Read excellent documentaion in www.apache.org and a good book Apache Server Bible (See Recommended Books).

 
 


 What utilities and daemons will be installed on my computer ?
In case we install LINUX 5.2 or FreeBSD 2.2.7 at your computer you will get all the basic UNIX utilities +:
telnetd,
ftpd,
httpd,
SENDMAIL,
named,
ipop3d,
LaTex
package,
c/c++ development package + libraries,
perl,
tcl,
python,
bash,
ping,
traceroute
and many others.
As a result of Windows Win2000 installation you will get:
Service Pack 3,
IE 4.01,
IIS 4 ,
FrontPage Server Extensions,
Active Server Pages,
MS SMTP service
Scripting Host and most of Option Pack utilities.
 
 


 How is bandwidth measured?
Unless you have opted for capped bandwidth, bandwidth is measured by the 95% percentile use method. As an example, you would take the higher of your in/out bandwidth measurement from your monthly MRTG graph multiply that by .95 and that would be your billable bandwidth. Using this method each 1,000 Kbs is 1Mbs per month. Please see “Burstable Billing” in Wikipedia for more detailed information. Bandwidth usage monitoring is provided with all customer accounts.

 
 


 How much are your additional bandwidth charges?
Each dedicated and collocation plans has pre allotted bandwidth included with the plan. After the dedicated or collocation bandwidth allotment is reached the cost for overage varies depending on your service contract. If your requirements are greater than you anticipated please contact customer support for additional pricing. Depending on your selected bandwidth package you may burst to 10 Mbs, 100, or 1000 Mbs.

 
 


 Can I get additional IPs?
You can get additional IPs with ARIN justification. If you need more than the IPs allocated to your plan please contact your sales account manager.

 
 


 Do you offer back-up services?
For dedicated and collocation servers we can provide hot backup services for a monthly fee. We do not provide off-site tape backup.

 
 


  Do you offer backup DNS or Email services?
These services are basic, and included Free with every collocation plan.

 
 


 Do you offer other custom services?
We offer private firewalls and server load balancing and other custom services.

 
 


 Do you accept tower units?
Tower units are accepted, if space permits, and are billed based on the number of 1U spaces they take up.

 
 


 Do I need to provide rack rails?
We require round screw hole rack rails for each server. Square hole mounts may be provided at an additional cost. If you do not have rack rails we can provide a dedicated shelf which is available for a monthly fee. Or you have the option to mount your server in between other non racked servers.

 
 


 If I need additional or special support beyond my plan, what is the cost?
Please speak to your sales representative for details in regards to our support contract options.

 
 


 Are contracts required?
For dedicated and collocation services there is a required minimum 6 month initial agreement. After that, accounts become month-to-month with a 30 day notice of cancellation.

 
 


 Do you have any restrictions?
We do not allow free hosting or free email services, illegal content, email marketing services of any type, or IRC.

 
 


 How should I ship my server?
Please review shipping and data center access policies included in your welcome letter.

 
 


 What are the data center visitation policies and costs?
All escorted collocation visitation requires 24 hours advanced notice before 2PM Pacific Standard Time and is billed at an hourly rate of $65 per hour with a one hour minimum, in half hour increments. Initial Setup of Colocation is not subject to fees unless installation and setup is greater than one hour, then hourly fees apply. In the event of a server emergency, we will attempt to provide escorted access in the soonest possible time frame, less than 24 hours advanced notice, subject to availability of a field technician. Escorted visitation is reserved for customers between the hours of 6:30PM and 10PM. Extended visitation will be subject to overnight rates. Customers with private cabinets or cages, with temporary or permanent access who require assistance from a service technician, will be billed at the hourly rate of $125 per hour (2 hour minimum). Customers requiring emergency overnight access from 10PM to 8AM, will be billed at the hourly rate of $125 per hour (4 hour minimum). Customers requiring freight elevator access from 5PM-9AM will be billed at the hourly rate of $295 per hour paid in advance (4 hour minimum). Reservation of the freight elevator for night time use must be made by appointment only with Taconic building management 24-48 hours in advance. Rates subject to change please contact your sales representative to confirm current rates.

 
 


 

 


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