WK11/12: Hosting + Web Publishing
Now we are reaching the end of the semester you’ll be soon finishing your web page and want to publish it onto your own domain. If you haven’t yet done this we recommend you purchase hosting with your own name (myname.com) and setup your assignment submission on a subdomain. This way you can use your domain and hosting next semester in Advanced Web Design. If you’re unsure on a host or looking for a good first-year deal, VentraIP has a coupon code (SWITCH75) to pay only 75% of their first order, or even their little sister company Zuver offering plans at as little as $1.50 per month.
Once you’ve paid for your hosting account there are two ways you will be interacting with your new web server: cPanel and FTP.
cPanel
cPanel is your go to for managing everything to do with your hosting account – users, emails, databases, file manager, add-on domains, DNS management etc.
If you got your domain for free as part of web hosting then it’s likely the bare minimum parts of the cPanel you will have to deal with is the file manager and/or add-on domains. If you don’t need to manage email accounts, databases or DNS, then the rest of the default settings will be fine for you to get started.
FTP Client
Once you’ve got your domain and hosting registered, you’ll probably only be concerned with moving files between your computer and the server. One method of doing this is using File Transfer Protocol. To use FTP you need an FTP client which acts like a file browser/manager that can view both your local computer and a web server(s). FileZilla is a free, cross-platform FTP client (just make sure you download the client, not the server).
To login to your web server via FTP, you will need the following three bits of information:
- host
- username
- password
These details should be provided to you by your host. Then, using your FTP client create a connection between you and your host.
Once connected you can basically treat your web server like it was another directory on your computer; browsing, copying, deleting files etc.
If you’re using a mac, you may prefer a cleaner and simpler interface. Cyberduck is an alternative FTP client available for mac users and might provide you with a simpler and more friendly experience. It works fundamentally the same way; click Open Connection and enter your details.
With either client, transferring files is as simple as dragging and dropping files.
For a closer look, check out the video below if you’re having trouble setting up.
Try it out
If you are yet to choose a host, you can practice these basic hosting routines with our temporary server and web page at https://dxb301.rocks/ to ensure you are confident with cPanel and uploading your files.
The cPanel is located at cpanel.dxb301.rocks.
You can login with the username dxb301, and password R9oVBRErN@mi.
Feel free to add your own subdomain (yourname.dxb301.rocks) and upload files.
Follow the general instructions in the screen cast if you’re unsure about how to achieve this with cPanel or FTP.
Help: Parked domain on VentraIP or Zuver
To those students who have purchased hosting and a domain from the same provider but in separate transactions,
As a result of purchasing hosting after your domain or vice versa, you have found that the domain is parked and not configured to work with your hosting + cPanel off the bat. This sort of issue is a matter of having the correct nameservers for your domain so that the host can connect the two.
If you have purchased hosting after the domain the host may have updated the nameservers so that these are connected, and it will just be a matter of time for these changes to propagate. However, to be sure that it has been correctly set, do manually check the settings in Manage DNS or an equivalent section that the nameservers for your domain are the ones your host requires.
After purchasing your chosting you should be able to find some description of hosting management that describes what primary domain your cPanel is configured for, as below. If this is correct then your hosting side of things are configured correctly.
Now just manually check your domain has the appropriate nameservers set. You should be able to find a description of what nameservers your domain needs to be set to on an admin panel or email, however for Zuver the process to confirm it is correct is as follows.
Find your domain management area and expand the controls for your relevant domain.
Find a tab or link to manage your Domain Name Servers or DNS.
If you have an option to quickly configure your nameservers to your hosts cPanel, click this option and to save updates to your nameservers. You can see in this example it confirms the nameservers for this domain are n1.zuver.net.au and n2.zuver.net.au which assures me that the domain will correctly connect to their servers.
Once you’ve done this (or your host automatically does this) there can be a decent delay before your changes go live and propagate across the web, so be patient, wait up to a day and contact your friendly hosting support team if you think you’ve made a mistake somewhere along the way.
If you have registered a domain elsewhere, the process of configuring your domain with your hosting is the same. It’s all a matter of assigning your domains nameservers to be managed by your host rather than your domain registrar.