Looking to host something that’s more than a little risqué? Then perhaps adult web hosting is what you need. Unlike your typical blog or fan website, many hosts will not host adult sites. So how do you know if your host allows mature content?

Thankfully, every provider will tell you what type of sites are allowed up front. Sometimes the information will be on the sign-up page, but usually it will be listed in the terms of service. If in doubt, you can always ask a sales representative.

While adult sites can be profitable, a good many web hosts don’t want to deal with them for a variety of reasons. Some don’t want to be associated with the content while others have found that adult sites use up a lot of resources and are thus not profitable to host. Look around, however, and you’ll find that there is a decent number of hosts that don’t give a damn.

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Many website owners need photo galleries for their content. There are essentially three options for someone who wants an online photo gallery:

1. Use one of the gallery scripts supplied and installed by your web hosting provider (if available)
2. Download a free or commercial gallery application and install it on your server
3. Use a third-party photo sharing or gallery hosting site.

The advantage of a locally hosted gallery on your own server is that you can usually easily export your gallery and take it to another host. You also have full control over customization and features (especially if you are using an open source product). With option #1 the biggest disadvantage is that you are limited to whatever your web host provides, which may or may not be available if you switch to another host. The disadvantage of #2 is that you are responsible for updates and maintaining the security and stability of the gallery.

Option #3 eliminates the disadvantages of #1 and #2. Your gallery is maintained by another company and hosted on a remote server. You never have to worry about upgrades. The big disadvantage is that you do not have control over your own content and may not be able to easily export it and take it to another host or gallery.

Photo: Flickr

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You might think that as one of the largest web hosts in the United States, DreamHost would want its customers to use its own email service. You’d be wrong to think so, however. Since May 2008, the company has encouraged its users to switch to Gmail for their email needs.

In a blog post, Dream Host co-founder Josh Jones stated, “Just over HALF of all the support requests we get are about email… It’s just not something people are looking for from us, and it’s something the big free email providers like Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google can do better.”

So rather than improve its own email system to make it more user friendly, DreamHost has opted to outsource it to Google. This is a great cost-cutting measure and it’s nice that the company is giving its customers more options. But I think the real underlying problem here is that DreamHost isn’t as user-friendly as it could be.

The company may have improved since I switched to a different host several years ago, but from my experience, the DreamHost control panel is hard to use. I remember it being very slow and arranged in a very illogical fashion. As DreamHost half-heatedly admits, their email service wasn’t easy to set up. Instead of copping out by switching to Gmail, the web host should fix what was broken in the first place.

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Question: Why do domain registrars require two name servers?

Answer: The short answer to this question is that Internet standards require it according on RFC 1034, published by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). But there is a good reason for it.

The intent of the standard is to ensure that domain name servers have redundancy. If one name server goes down, a website will still have at least one more to keep it alive. In other words, your server could be working perfectly fine, but without name servers, no one will see your site. Furthermore, sites with heavy loads might be able to distribute that load between the two name servers.

Because of the above reasons, the intent is to have two distinct name servers, at two locations, using two different IP addresses. If you have your own server and do not have access to a another server for DNS, I recommend using one of the many DNS services that are available at low cost. It will save you trouble in the long run and will make sure your site is up to standards.

Photo: Flickr

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Question: What is FFmpeg hosting?

Answer: FFmpeg is a suite of tools that provide users with video manipulation, editing, streaming, and recording capabilities on numerous platforms and multiple formats. As the name indicates, it supports a number of mpeg compression formats as well as other open and proprietary video codecs.

In order to have better than average video conversion and streaming on a website, you need a webhost that has FFmpeg installed on your server, accessible from web scripts, and ready to use. Since the advent of YouTube, many hosts have started offering dedicate FFmpeg server packages completely separate from their shared hosting accounts.

This allows the video conversion, streaming, and other tasks to use as much of the CPU and RAM that it needs to complete the tasks quickly and thoroughly. Normally, such servers will also include other related tools and libraries to support as many codecs and options as possible. Those may include but are not limited to Myplayer, xvidcore, Ogg (Theora and Vorbis), and LAME (MP3 Encoder).

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Whether you’re a newbie or a seasoned veteran, you will most certainly need to read some documentation at some point in the life of your website and/or web server. Documentation can take numerous forms, so it is important to know what is available. Here is a quick round-up

1. Manuals (in PDF, HTML, or text) - The most traditional form in electronic format. Most server appliances and control panels will use this type of traditional documentation.

2. Readme files - Most free scripts (php, perl, etc.) rely on readme files to convey important information. These are usually found in the compressed package.

3. Man pages - Linux and UNIX commands almost always have man (manual) pages. Simply type “man command-name”.

4. FAQs and Knowledge bases - Web hosting companies will typically have these for their users.

5. Forums - This is your connection to the large body of web hosting minds, and it’s free.

6. Wikis - Many open source projects will provide documentation in the form of wikis.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

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One common issue new website owners run into is the hosting of copyrighted content. You may want to host a music video on your site, offer a song for download, or use another site’s image. Is this allowed? Unless you have permission from the copyright holder to use the content, your web host could remove it at any time.

Keep in mind that copyright infringement is illegal and although hosts aren’t responsible for their customer’s actions, they can be held liable for not putting an end to illicit activity in a timely manner. If your host gets a complaint from a copyright holder, you could find yourself kicked off their servers and out any deposits or fees paid.

This is the case for most North American and European hosts. Web hosting companies in developing countries are often much less stringent about the enforcement of copyright law.

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Even if you did not pay attention to them, you have probably seen privacy policies and terms of service statements on multiple websites, especially those owned by major businesses. If you are just starting out with a new web hosting account, do you really need to worry about such things?

One strand of thinking would say that there is really no reason to bother with such formalities on a small website and that only big businesses that collect a lot of user data need to be concerned with it. On the other hand, many small websites still collect user data, particularly small online stores, and those stores are as vulnerable to lawsuits as any major corporation.

There are many websites and free services that offer privacy policy generators and terms of service templates. If for no other reason, having those statements on your website provides clarify if a user is ever unsure about your purpose and what you do with their information.

Photo: Flickr

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Question: I have a shared hosting account, but my web host has disabled my ability to make .htaccess files. How can I create redirects on my site?

Answer: First of all, it is a bad practice for a web hosting provider to completely disable .htaccess. You should probably consider getting a new host, but if that is not an immediate option, you can use PHP to redirect.

First, replace all of the code in the file you want to redirect to this:

< ?php
header( 'Location: http://www.domainname.com/new-page.html' ) ;
?>

Change the address to reflect your real domain and the correct filename for your new page.

That’s it! There is no second step. You need to make sure that there is no text before the PHP code, not even the <html> tag. Now, every time users visit the old page, they will be automatically redirected to the new one.

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Question: I have spammers sending multiple email messages to my mail server. How can can I limit the number of emails they can send in a given amount of time?

Answer: This is a trick that many spammers and malicious hackers will use to flood your server with their nonsense. Although a spam blocker will certainly help, it still has to process each email. If thousands of emails are sent an hour, that takes up valuable CPU power, memory, disk space, and time.

Postfix mail server allows you to limit the rate of incoming emails, keeping the spam messages from flooding your server. To configure it, edit /etc/mail/main.cf:

# nano main.cf (or vi main.cf)

Add the following directives:

smtpd_error_sleep_time = 1s
smtpd_soft_error_limit = 10
smtpd_hard_error_limit = 20

With these settings, after a client has made 10 connections, Postfix will pause and delay the next connection. If the connection is made 20 times without delivering mail, Postfix will disconnect.

Source: nixCraft

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