Fantastico is just how the name implies – it’s fantastic! Fantastico De Luxe, developed by Netenberg, is an auto installer software will allows you to install various scripts easily through cPanel. Installing scripts may be a tedious job for the novice web master. Fantastico allows you to install more than 40 open source (free) software applications with minimum hassle. No technical knowledge Continue reading →

SharkSpace often receives tickets from our clients who claim that their website is not accessible. However, most of the time it turns out that the issue is actually at the client’s side itself. So in this blog we try to help you to run some self diagnostic tests which will equip you to figure out whether the issue is at your side before opening a support ticket.

Note: It is recommended that you subscribe to the “SharkSpace Server and Network Announcements” forum so that you will get notified whenever there is an ongoing server/network related issue. SharkSpace staff will post a report when any issue is detected by our 24/7 monitoring system. If you do not find any new topic after a few minutes, please go through the following steps to check whether the issue is at your side:

1) Check using third party monitoring services:

There are several website monitoring services available that can check whether your website is up or not. Most of them can also check it from multiple locations across the world. Some of the services that allows free website monitoring checks are:

http://www.alertra.com/spotcheck.php

http://www.hyperspin.com/en/quicktest.php

http://www.watchmouse.com/en/checkit.php

http://www.siteuptime.com/users/quickcheck.php

If the third party monitoring services are also reporting your website as down, please open a Support Ticket in our Help Desk. However, if they are reporting your website as “UP”, the issue is likely at your side itself. Let us see how we can further troubleshoot the issue at your side.

2) Traceroute:

The next step to diagnose the issue is to run a Traceroute command from your PC to your domain name. Trace route is a network utility that traces the path taken by your network to reach a host. It shows all nodes the packet travels from sender to destination (also reffered as “hops” in the network), the domains if available, IP addresses and the amount of time in milliseconds that took the reach that specific host. To run a traceroute command, you can do the following steps:

a) Assuming that you are using a Windows PC, click Start > Run

b) Type: cmd (and Press Enter)

c) Type the traceroute command at the prompt: tracert yourdomain.com (and press Enter)

d) Wait for a few seconds for the traceroute command to complete. Once the traceroute is completed, it will show “Trace Route Complete”.

e) To copy the trace route result, right click the Command Prompt window and click on “Mark”. Now drag and select the result to highlight it and press Enter to copy it.

Paste and Save this information in a text file which you can attach when submitting a Support Ticket later.

* If the trace route shows a “Unable to Resolve Host” message, it is likely to be a DNS issue at your side. You may be having a DNS cache or your ISP’s DNS server aren’t updated yet. In such cases, you can try flushing your DNS cache or you can use third party DNS addresses from OpenDNS, etc. to resolve this issue.

* If the trace route result shows “Request Time Out” within your ISP’s network range, it is likely that your ISP is having issues and you may have to contact them regarding this issue along with the traceroute result.

* If the trace route result shows “Request Time Out” towards the end (just before reaching the server), it is likely that your PC’s IP Address is blocked in the server’s firewall. Please open a Support Ticket in our Help Desk to get your IP unblocked from the firewall along with the trace route result and your IP address.

The above troubleshooting tests will help you find and resolve issues at your side quickly without the need for contacting us through the Help Desk. If there is an ongoing issue reported at our side, then it will be posted in the forum. In such cases, please do not open a Help Desk ticket as it would delay our efforts to bring back the server online since we will have to attend to your ticket at the same time. Please refresh the forum topic page or subscribe to the topic to receive an email notification when there is an update.

Web mail is mail facility using which you can access your accounts mails in the browser from anywhere in the world. This saves you the trouble of configuring mail accounts in your mail client to read your mails. Horde, SquirellMail and NeoMail are some of the popular Web mail software used.

Servers are basically very fast computers connected to the Internet on a fast connection network and runs softwares which ‘serves’ your files to the requester (browser). Before starting with the hunt for the right host, you must prepare a list of your own Continue reading →

Switching web hosts should be done after careful planning and analysis of the new host since it will definitely mean up to 48 hours of downtime for your site and mails. Once you decide to change hosts, Continue reading →

Before committing to a particular host, you need to go through the process of presales enquiries. These are some of the queries you can put forth: Continue reading →

Addon domains: Addon domain are fully functional websites but are managed from the main domain’s control panel. They share the resources of the main account and are a good way to host multiple domains in a single account.

Parked domain : These domains simply point (redirect) the visitor to the main domain. They do not have any content of their own and do not take any web space of your main account.

Sub-Domains : They are basically created to better organize a large site. So a big shopping site will have billing.shop.com, sales.shop.com, etc. They are simply folders created in the main site’s webspace.

Before you take a dive in the Internet ocean, it would help if you are familiar with some of the terminology used. Some of the more common terms used are:

Web host : They are the people from whom you buy your hosting package, where you are going to put your web site files .A good host will provide you with solid customer support (technical/non-technical) and excellent server services (uptime, speed, response, etc). Before you decide to take a plunge in online business, make sure you choose a very good host for your business may depend on his reliability.

Disk Space: This is your disk quota allocated to you by your web host as depends upon the package you choose.

Bandwidth: This is the amount of traffic that your site is allowed to upload and download from the server to the end user’s PC. They are usually reset each month and is measured in MB’s.

Domain name : This is the actual name of your website. You need to register your domain before you use it.

Database : It’s a data virtual storage and retrieval system usually used to maintain high volumes of data. Some popular databases are MySQL, MSSQL, Access, Postgres.

FTP : It’s a protocol especially built to transfer files to and from your server to your local PC.

POP3 : It’s a protocol used to get mails from mail store. It operates on port 110 by default.

SMTP: It is a protocol to send mails. It operates on port 25 by default. Some web hosts may also use port 26.