Q: How do I send mail?
A: Usually you send mail through your ISP’s provided mail server.
However, the Enterprise Virtual Server account can also act as an authenticated SMTP server. This can allow you to send mail in a controlled way from any internet service in the world without having to reconfigure your email program. The Enterprise Virtual Server also provides a robust webmail client as part of its web Control Panel.
Q: How do I choose usernames and passwords?
A: User names must be unique so common names will often not work. Try user names that are first name and last initial such as valeriet or johnx. User names can contain only lowercase letters or numbers, no punctuation or symbols. Passwords must be at least 8 characters and contain a capital letter and a number. The more complex and random it is, the more secure it will be. Passwords can contain almost any character.
Q: Do you backup my data?
A: Yes, an online, incremental backup of files on your account is made each night and the backup is available for up to 3 days before being archived to tape. A fee is required for retrieval from tape archives. The ‘/backup’ directory on your account has a copy of all user files in their most recent backup (usually from the last night).
Q: What if I need more mail storage space for large attachments?
A: That’s easy. In the web interface of your account, you can customize the email quota of each of your user names or have no quota at all.
Q: What if I need more space?
A: You can upgrade to the next account level in minutes with no down time.
Q: Why does my password have to be so complicated?
A: The more complex it is, the more secure it is and hard to guess. This protects your account from being accessed by those who should not be allowed to access it.
Q: How do I upload files to my new account?
A: The best way to do that is to use a File Transfer Protocol program. We recommend the program Filezilla, which you can find on Google.com. You can also use the web interface to upload files.
Q: How do I administrate my account?
A: The easiest way is to use the CPX web interface. It can help you create or modify email accounts, website hosting configuration and make other changes.
Q: Can I have a database? What about PHP or other technologies?
A: The Enterprise Virtual Server account is a fully capable virtual UNIX server environment. You can use several different database servers such as MySQL or Postgre SQL. PHP4 is available along with many other powerful web hosting technologies. You even have real UNIX shell access to get to the command line interface of the server. Just ask technical support for help installing any software you need (custom work may incur additional fees).
Q: What is the Ports Collection?
A: It is a collection of pre-tested and configured software that has been designed to work easily with the FreeBSD server system. There are now over 5000 applications, utilities and services in the Ports Collection.
Q: What about E-Commerce?
A: The Enterprise Virtual Server account supports a huge variety of e-commerce and shopping cart solutions. One we have found to work very well is the open source project at http://www.zencart.com If you require a customized solution, call our sales office for more information.
The following is a collection of some of the more common questions about the Enterprise Virtual Server platform.
Q: Why can't I login to my Enterprise Virtual Server as the root user?
A: For security purposes, direct root logins using the username root and the root password are not permitted in any Enterprise Virtual Server service. Many administrative tasks can be accomplished by logging into the Enterprise Virtual Server as the Administrative User.
Q: How does Sub-hosting work on my Enterprise Virtual Server?
A: The default location for sub-hosted Web content in Enterprise Virtual Server is in the content owner's www directory. This is the easiest way to manage sub-hosts in a multi-user environment. Other methods such as a common vhosts directory (as in other virtual servers) can also be used, but this can cause complications with ownership and file permissions.
Q: What is the difference between the Admin user, Root, and standard users?
A: The main difference between the different classes of users is based on what permissions that user has. A normal user can only affect the files he owns, whereas the Admin User can affect some system files. The root user has the ability to control anything, including files owned by other users. Because of the power the root user has, the root user does not have FTP or Email access and can only access the server through SSH (either directly using an SSH key for the root user or indirectly by logging in as the Administrative User and then using the su command to become root user.)
Q: Why is Java2 not installed on my Enterprise Virtual Server?
A: Sun's Java2 license does not allow Java to be redistributed. Those who wish to use Java2 must go to the Java Web site and agree to the license before downloading the program. Because the Java1 license does allow redistribution, we do have Java1.8 available by default on the Enterprise Virtual Server.
Q: How do I install custom applications or use the FreeBSD Ports collection?
A: The Enterprise Virtual Server environment allows you to install and run most FreeBSD compatible software exactly the same way it would be done on a dedicated FreeBSD server. This includes the ability to install software from the FreeBSD Ports collection, which is available in the /ports directory on your server. See The FreeBSD Ports collection for details on what is available and how to use the Ports.
Many common programs that require additional configuration or special installation steps are available using the vinstall utility.
There are some limitations and information that you should be aware of before trying to install custom programs on your Enterprise Virtual Server. If you wish to install software that you are not familiar with or need help with, please contact our support team for assistance.
Q: What are some of the differences between Enterprise Virtual Server, the old Pro Virtual Server, and dedicated FreeBSD UNIX?
A: Enterprise Virtual Server was designed with the goal to emulate the behavior of a dedicated FreeBSD server in a shared environment. Because of this, Enterprise Virtual Server will appear and feel much more like a Dedicated FreeBSD server than the older Pro Virtual Server. One of the key limitations of Enterprise Virtual Server is that, because of the shared environment, the Enterprise Virtual Server root user does not have the ability to modify kernel or hardware related systems. The core services and all applications are within the area controlled by Enterprise Virtual Server root. It is significant to note, however, that any of the system files not specifically changed by the Enterprise Virtual Server administrator will continue to be maintained and updated by our staff.
While many of the Pro Virtual Server based utilities have been extended to Enterprise Virtual Server, the multi-user environment makes application management slightly different. The Enterprise Virtual Server Admin User has many of the capabilities that the Primary User on Pro Virtual Server had. New software, however, must be installed by the root user, which has total control over the Enterprise Virtual Server (and can also be used for management). Because even the shell is within the virtual environment, the use of the virtual command has become obsolete. Added functionality also allows sub-users to have Shell access, install some of their own programs, and increases the security of your server.
Q: Can an Enterprise Virtual Server have more than one IP address?
A: No. Enterprise Virtual Server accounts come with a single dedicated IP address and are not able to have additional ones.
Q: Can an Enterprise Virtual Server handle multiple SSL certificates?
A: Because Enterprise Virtual Server has only one IP address, you can only access one SSL certificate using the standard SSL port (443). You can, however, configure your server to listen for SSL requests on other ports, and use different certificates for these different ports. Doing this would require you to indicate the port number in the URL, or alternatively, the mod_rewrite apache module could be used to force domain-specific requests to a different port. If you choose to provide multiple certificates on your Enterprise Virtual Server, please be aware that this configuration is not supported by our Technical Support representatives.
Q: What do the commands shutdown -r and reboot do on my Enterprise Virtual Server?
A: The shutdown and reboot commands have been designed to behave on a virtual level as close as possible to the same way they would on a dedicated UNIX server. Because you do not have access to the physical system to manually start up the system, you can not completely halt your Enterprise Virtual Server (the -h option in shutdown is disabled), but you can restart all the services on your server.
The shutdown command will attempt to cleanly halt and restart services on your Enterprise Virtual Server, including running the /etc/rc.shutdown commands. Any processes that do not exit cleanly are then killed, and the init process is restarted (init will then read your rc files and start up other services).
The reboot command is different from shutdown because it does not attempt a clean shutdown of your system. Instead, reboot simply kills all your running processes and then runs init (which will run the rc scripts)
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