How can I manage my Windows Fusion site using Core FTP?

How to install and use coreFTP to manage your Windows Fusion website.

Along with IIS 7 Manager and WebMatrix, Windows Fusion also offers FTP capabilities. Below you will find information on how to connect and manage content with Core FTP.

If you do not already have a copy of Core FTP, it can be downloaded here http://www.coreftp.com/download.html

Once installed, open it up. You should see something like this:

The folders on the left are the folders on your local machine.

Now, click on File followed by Connect.

This will open up the Site Manager window. Click on New Site.

A new, unnamed site should have been added to the list on the left side. You should now name your site and fill in your FTP connection information. Try to avoid naming it “my website” or anything like that to avoid confusion (especially if you manage multiple sites). For this example, my site’s name is ‘windowsfusion.donet.com’ so that’s what I named my site within Core FTP. Here’s what the completed FTP connection looks like:

Another great thing about Windows Fusion is that, if you want to use an encrypted connection, you can! To enable this feature in Core FTP, select “Auth TLS” from the Connection drop-down menu.

After clicking Connect, you will be connected to the web server, and the directories belonging to your user name will appear on the right side of Core FTP (your local desktop will be on the left).

The /php directory is where the PHP configuration (php.ini file) is stored, the /www directory is where you will upload your site content, and the rest of the directories can be ignored unless otherwise instructed.

For additional documentation, FAQs, tutorials, etc., please visit the Core FTP website.

If you have any questions or concerns please contact DataYard support.

How can I restore my files from my server or VIP with Ready backup?

Restoring files from Ready Backup using the Ready client installed on your server.

You will need to have the following information available, which was provided to you in your Welcome Letter.

Web Portal URL: https://ready.datayardworks.com

Username: username@/clients/domain
Client Path: /clients/domain/servername
Password: The password provided to you

You will first use the above information to log into the Avamar portal at https://ready.datayardworks.com

Once logged in you will see the following on your home screen:

Calendar

This calendar shows you all of the available dates that have restore points for your files.

For example, this calendar shows the following dates have available restores: September 16th, September 23rd, September 24th, September 25th, September 26th, and September 27th.

This will vary from server to server, so don’t worry if yours does not look exactly as the one shown.

As you select a backup by sequence number below you will see the corresponding directories that are available for backup from that backup. Once you see the backup showing the drive you wish to restore from you will select that drive.

After selecting the drive, you will then see a list of all files that are available for download

Selecting the blue arrow icon will download this file to your local PC.

From there you can restore the files to the appropriate directories needed to replace lost data.

Please Note the following

If you are trying to restore a file or directory that is larger than 1GB you will be unable to do so using this service. If you are unable to restore the file yourself, please contact DataYard support.
Downloading the file from this service does not automatically restore the file; you are only downloading it to your local PC and still must upload the file where necessary.

How can I manage my Windows Fusion site using Filezilla FTP?

Along with IIS 7 Manager and WebMatrix, Windows Fusion also offers FTP capabilities. Below you will find information on how to connect and manage content with Filezilla.

If you do not already have a copy of FileZilla, it can be downloaded at http://filezilla-project.org/download.php/

Once installed, open it up. It will look like this:

Now, click on File followed by Site Manager.

This will open up the Site Manager window. Click on New Site.

A new, unnamed site should have been added to the list on the left side underneath My Sites. You should now name your site. Try to avoid naming it “my website” or anything like that to avoid confusion (especially if you manage multiple sites). For this example, my site’s name is windowsfusion.donet.com, so that’s what I named my site within FileZilla

Now, you need to fill in the connection information.

You should have received this information from DataYard after signing up for Windows Fusion hosting, but if you lose that information, you forget it, you need to change it, etc., just give us a call. We will reset the information and send it to you.

Using my own login information along with the rest of the FTP information, here is what my FileZilla connection looks like for my site, windowsfusion.donet.com:

Another great thing about Windows Fusion is that, if you want to use an encrypted connection, you can! To enable this feature in FileZilla, select “Require explicit FTP over TLS” from the “Encryption” drop-down menu.

After clicking Connect, you will be connected to the web server, and the directories belonging to your user name will appear on the right side of FileZilla (your local desktop will be on the left).

For additional documentation, FAQs, tutorials, etc., please visit Filezilla’s website.

How can I use Microsoft Expressions Web with your Fusion Website?

How can I use Microsoft Expressions Web with your Fusion Website?

If you do not have a copy of Microsoft Expressions Web, it can be purchased through Microsoft.

Expressions Web is a web development program by Microsoft. This software is very different from other basic FTP programs, but it also has FTP capabilities. This comes in handy because you can edit your site in Expressions and then upload your changes to the server. There’s quite a bit to this program, so for the sake of brevity I will only be providing instructions on how to publish via FTP or FTPS. If you’re looking for Expressions Web help in general, please see the Microsoft website.

First, you’ll have to be in a position to edit your site. In Expressions you have to open the site from the File menu. Click File, select Open, type your website address (including http://) and click Open.

This opens the site in Expressions, at which point you can make whatever changes you wanted to make, and then you will save the website in Expression’s site directory. After making your changes, click File followed by Save. Name the site whatever you’d like and then click “Save.”

Now that the changes are saved to your local computer, you just need to publish the changes to your website. To do this, click on the Site menu on the top toolbar, and then click Publishing.

The first time you publish, you will be presented with the option to add a publishing destination. Click the link that looks like the one below in Expressions to do this.

This will open up the connection settings, which is where you will enter your FTP information. Here’s what my connection looks like for my Windows Fusion site windowsfusion.donet.com:

Once you’ve finish adding the publishing destination, all you have left to do is publish.

FTP Information

Host: The Windows Fusion FTP host is currently cluster02.webhost.donet.com, though this is subject to change, or vary from customer to customer. Please refer to your Windows Fusion Welcome letter to make sure, and if you cannot find it just contact us for help. If for some reason you cannot connect to that host name, it’s possible you’re having local DNS issues, so try using the IP address instead: 72.9.40.53

User name: Your Windows Fusion FTP user name will be in this format: [site name]@windows.donet.com. For example, if my site name is ‘windowsfusion.com,’ then my user name will be [email protected]

Password: DONet does not store customer passwords in plain text, so we are unable to retrieve any lost or forgotten passwords. If you can’t remember your password, please refer to your Windows Fusion welcome letter. If you still can’t find it, please call us at 937-226-6896 so that we can verify your identity and work with you to get your password changed.

Port: 21

Connection Type: FTP or FTPS (also known as “FTP over SSL”)

How can I password protect my Linux Fusion Website?

One of the most common configuration changes users desire is the ability to easily password protect a website directory or file from public access. This is easily done with the help of an .htaccess file.

The first step is to generate an .htaccess file. Create the file using a text editor and following the pattern below (replace the word ‘donet’ with your username):

You can also change the AuthName to a message of your choice. Just replace ‘Secure’ with your preferred text leaving the quotes.

This file will be placed in the directory you wish to secure.

The second step is to generate an .htpasswd file. If you have your own server or VM through Donet, you can do this on the command line. If you have a shared hosting solution, you will need to generate the .htpasswd file using a tool such as this one: www.htaccesstools.com/htpasswd-generator/. Copy your encrypted string into a new text file, save it as .htpasswd, and upload via FTP to your root user directory*.

*NOTE*
Your root user directory is the directory that you see when first logging in via FTP. Typically, this is not the directory that your website files are in (i.e. ‘www’), but is the directory that contains the ‘www’ directory.

After creating your .htaccess and .htpasswd files, test to ensure it is working:

.htaccess (distributed configuration) files can be used for all sorts of things including password protecting directories, enabling directory browsing, etc. For a more advanced look into the possibilities of .htaccess, check out the Apache Tutorial page

How do I upload and include my own PHP libraries in my Windows Fusion website?

PHP settings can be viewed by going to ‘www.yourdomain.tld/phpinfo.php’.

You can customize certain PHP directives in your PHP configuration file. To access this file, log in to your site via your preferred FTP client.

You will see several folders on the right, one of them being PHP.

If you open up that folder, you will see a file called php.ini.

This folder will already have several directives configured. You can place your additional PHP directives in this file. Since the web server is continuously monitoring changes to this configuration file, you should notice these changes take place immediately.

Technical Overview current as of August 29, 2012

Current Version: 5.3.10

We are currently running PHP 5.3.10 (latest stable version as of 03/01/2012). As new versions are released, we will test and implement the new PHP versions in addition to supporting this PHP version. If your application requires a specific version of PHP, please contact us and we can attempt to work with you to accommodate your specific requirements.

Runtime Protocol: FastCGI

For performance and security reasons we have implemented PHP in our Windows Fusion environment utilizing the FastCGI protocol for interfacing PHP to the web servers.

Runtime Session Save Handler: PHP WinCache

“Windows Cache Extension for PHP is a PHP accelerator that is used to increase the speed of PHP applications running on Windows and Windows Server. Once the Windows Cache Extension for PHP is enabled and loaded by the PHP engine, PHP applications can take advantage of the functionality without any code modifications.” – IIS.NET

We have taken several steps to improve the performance of PHP sites hosted on our Windows Fusion product. If you have any additional technical questions, please contact us for more information.

How can I use phpMyAdmin with my Linux Fusion website?

If you’re running a content management system (CMS) like WordPress or Joomla on your DataYard Fusion website, one of the things you may need is direct access to the MySQL database powering the CMS. You could use the mysql command line client, but there are web tools that can make it much easier. One such tool is phpMyAdmin.

What you will need to install phpMyAdmin on your website

Your own domain name
A Linux Fusion web site from DataYard (including your FTP and MySQL login information)
Please note that this tutorial will not work with Windows Fusion websites
A web browser
An FTP client

Here is a quick (<5 minutes) video tutorial on how to install phpMyAdmin inside your Fusion website:

Note: You will need to download phpMyAdmin 4.0.10.20 (https://www.phpmyadmin.net/downloads/). Newer versions will not work.

If you have any trouble during installation please, contact DataYard support.

How do I use Microsoft WebMatrix to publish my Windows Fusion website?

How to use publish your Windows Fusion website using Microsoft WebMatrix.

DataYard’s Windows Fusion hosting product is completely compatible with Microsoft WebMatrix. This tool is one-of-a-kind; it allows users to have nearly everything they need to build a website from scratch at their fingertips – and then some.

For general information, tutorials, how-to’s, etc., please visit the Microsoft WebMatrix website. There, you’ll even find step-by-step instructions on how to put together a website from beginning to end

Below you will find instructions on how to publish your Windows Fusion website via FTP and WebDeploy.

FTP:

Click the “Publish” icon followed by Publish.

Use the following connection information:

Protocol: FTP

Server: webhost.donet.com
Site path: www (or whichever directory you would rather publish to)
User name: [yoursitename]@windows.donet.com
Destination URL: http://[yoursitename.tld]

WebDeploy:

Click the “Publish” icon followed by Publish.

Use the following connection information:

Protocol: FTP

Server: webhost.donet.com
Site path: www (or whichever directory you would rather publish to)
User name: WINDOWS\\ [insert SAM user name here]
Destination URL: http://[enter site name here]

How do I use WordPress with my Linux Fusion website?

Installation guide for WordPress on a Linux Fusion site.

Running WordPress CMS (content management system) on your Fusion website is quite simple. If you’ve ever wanted to use WordPress to manage your web site, but didn’t know how to get started, we’ve put together a quick (~6 minute) video tutorial on how to install WordPress inside your Fusion web site from DataYard.

Please note, this tutorial is specific to Linux Fusion hosting environments.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact support.

How can I add additional Disk Space to my VDC virtual instance?

Assistance with adding additional Disk Space to your VDC.

If you are in need of additional Disk Space in your VDC virtual instance you can contact DataYard Sales at 937-226-6896 or e-mail [email protected] for a price quote.

The initial amount of disk space allotted to a new VDC instance is 25GB. Increases are made in 25GB increments, and there is no maximum allowance.

Please be sure to include how much disk space you would like to increase to and your company information.