Minimizing Downtime During Web Hosting Moves With Plesk

Changing your web hosting provider can be quite a hassle, especially if you have to learn how to use a new control panel in the process. In fact, learning how to use the control panel, often accounts for most of the time spent during the familiarization process that you encounter with every new web host. To minimize the amount of changes and adaptations you’ll need to make, you should try to keep the transition as smooth as possible by minimizing the amount new things you’ll need to learn with you new web host. Luckily for those with the Plesk control panel , they can take their control panel with them whenever they do decide to switch web hosting providers, as there are many web hosts that offer Plesk as their default solution. If both your new and old web host offers Plesk as the primary control panel solution then you’re in luck, as you are about to learn how tom minimize your sites down time during the move using Plesk.

Switching Servers

A common problem that many webmasters have when changing servers is data loss during transfer. This happens because the TTL (Time to Live) is not instant, and therefore some of the data is lost in transition, or at the very least delayed. To prevent this you’ll need to change a few settings at least 24 hours before the relocation of your website. Login to Plesk in your current hosting account and click on Domains. Locate the domain that you’re about to move and click on the DNS settings.  Then select the SOA record. You’ll need to change the Default TTL to 15 minutes or 900 secs. Once you’ve done this click on SET to finish the process. Now any changes that take place will be final within 15 minutes of the change, thereby minimizing downtime and data loss.

Restoring Your Site’s Backup

After about a day, login into the Plesk admin of your new domain and locate the Backup Manager.   Then click on Personal FTP repository settings.  Enter the required information, and type in httpdocs in the directory for backups field. Finally click on OK to activate the change.

Now go back to the main backup manager module, and click on backup. Create a backup name, then click on Personal FTP repository. Click on Domain configuration and content then select Backup. Depending on the size of your website, the backup process should finish within 5 minutes for a small website, to one day for a tremendously large website. The connection speed will also cause time variations as well.  Once the back up is made, you may easily download it through the backup module.

Finalizing the Process

Now you’ll need to contact the new host’s support company and let them know that you need to restore the backup of your old website. Give them the name of the directory, in this case httpdocs. You can also ask them for assistance in restoring your domain using the backup file, and they should be able to walk you through the rest of the process with ease. Once you’ve contacted the hosting company, there re literally 2-3 steps left until you have your entire site running exactly the same as it was prior to the web hosting move.

How to Setup a Cron Job in cPanel

Setting up a cron job will allow you to run certain commands at scheduled times.  For example, you could set a cron job to create a backup of your website every week, or you could set a cron job to delete certain file types every week to save disk space. Cron jobs are useful for webmasters who have a busy schedule and would like to have daily tasks carried out automatically. There are many commands available online for cron jobs, and finding a cron job command list for your control panel should be your first step in deciding what kind of cron jobs would suit your needs.

You may think you have no need for a cron job, but once you’ve reviewed the list of available commands, you may reconsider this decision. Each command tells the control panel to do a certain task, and the prevalence of each command execution can be adjusted within the cron job manager. Users can choose to execute the command as little as once a month, or as often as once a day.

Whatever the reason, this tutorial will help you set up a cron job. In this tutorial we will discuss how to setup a cron job using the standard cron manager module in cPanel. There is a more advanced cron manager that can be used, but we will save that for another tutorial. Novice users should find this tutorial very helpful.

Setting a Cron Job in Standard Mode

1. First you’ll need to access the Cron Jobs Menu in cPanel. To do this, click on the Cron jobs icon found on the main screen of the cPanel interface.

2. Then select Standard to access the Standard Cron Manager, and type in the email address that you would like the cron output to be sent to in the corresponding field.

3. Now type in the command code that you would like the cron job to run in the blank bar next to where it says Command to run. Make sure the command you enter is a valid command. If you are unsure about what kind of commands can be entered, try searching online for cPanel cron job commands.

4. Choose how often you would like the command to be executed by checking an option in all of the boxes.

5. To finish setting up the cron job, select Save Crontab to save your changes.

How to Delete the Cron Job

When you no longer need the cron job, you can delete it to prevent the task from being executed regularly. Follow the steps below to delete the cron job in standard mode.

1. Once again you’ll need to access the Cron Jobs Menu, then select the cron job icon found on the main cPanel interface.

2. Then select Standard to open the Standard Cron Manager.

3. Finally, to delete the cron job, Click the Delete button located next to the cron job you would like to delete.

Creating Backups In cPanel

With all of the time and effort that is put forth into building a website, it would be foolish not to secure your efforts by creating a backup. Failing to backup your website could result in months or even years of work being lost overnight. There are a number of situations that could result in data loss for your website; your server’s hard drive can fail, your webhost can go out of business without warning, electrical problems can occur, and various other mishaps can take place. To prevent this from happening, users of cPanel can backup all of their website’s information quickly and easily with cPanel’s integrated backup utility. The entire backup process is automated, requiring only a few simple selections on your behalf, and cPanel users can even use the same backup utility to restore lost data.

Creating and Downloading a Full Backup

To create and download a full backup in cPanel, click Download or Generate a Full Web Site Backup in the cPanel Backup Utility Menu. Once the backup has been generated, you can select the file and save it to your computer by finding the recently created backup in the “Backups Available for Download” section. If needed, you can use this file at a later date to restore lost data within cPanel’s backup utility.

Creating Partial Backups

It is also possible to save certain pieces of your website, by clicking the appropriate links under the “Partial Backups” heading. Using his method will cause the backup file(s) to be downloaded to your computer in the directory of your choice.

Saving a Copy of Your Website to the Web Server

To save a copy of your website to the web server click  Download or Generate a Full Web Site Backup. Then select Home Directory from the “Backup Destination” heading. Next, type in your email address so that you can receive a notification email when the backup is ready. Finally, click Generate Backup.

Storing a Backup Remotely

While this feature is best done by advanced cPanel users, it is possible to log into a remote computer and store backup files through FTP/SCP. After you have entered all of the necessary information, the backup file can then be stored in the directory of your choice on a remote device. You will also receive a notification email at the email address of your choice, once the backup has been completed .

NOTE: When restoring a website using cPanel’s backup utility, you cannot use a full backup. Instead, the file must be downloaded and then decompressed before data restoration can occur. Only after the file has been decompressed will you then be able to upload and restore the individual segments of your website that are contained within the full backup.

cPanel Tutorial: How to use the Index Manager

The Index Manager in cPanel is a very useful tool as it makes it easy to manage the look and feel of the directories on your web hosting account.  It gives you the ability to define their presentation, letting you display your directories in four different ways:

Default System Settings - With this option, the setting initially defined by the system determines how directories will be displayed when you access them.

No Indexes – This is the setting to use if do not want the system to use an index.

Standard Indexing – This uses a standard indexing format that displays no images.  It is a great option for directories that contain a lot of files and need to be loaded quickly without consuming too many resources.

Fancy Indexing – This setting is graphic-based and formats your directories for the benefit of presentation.  In the cPanel environment, this is usually the default setting you get.

With exception of Default System Settings, all of the above settings should work fine in most web browsers.

Working in the Index Manager

Setting up your folders is a simple process that can be done very quickly.  As you probably know, manually browsing through your folders and subfolders can be a little confusing.  For this reason, you may want to pay close attention to each step.  It is also important to remember that you do not need to place settings on folders that contain index files.  This could lead to problems so you need to be cautious when making these adjustments.  Keeping this in mind, follow these steps to customize your directories:

- Login into cPanel and click on the “Index Manager” icon underneath the “Advanced” category.  This will bring up the directories installed on your hosting account.

- If you want to work with a main folder in the root directory, simply click on it.

When the next page loads, you will then be able to choose from the options we mentioned above:

- Default System Settings

- No Indexes

- Standard Indexing (text only)

- Fancy Indexing (graphics)

After making your selection, click on the “Save” button.

- If you want to change the settings on one of your sub directories, simply click on the directory it is located in and disregard the current settings.

- Navigate to the bottom of the page and find the link that reads: “Back To /home/username/public_html/folder/.”  Just click this link and it will show you the directory listing for that particular folder.

From here, the folder you need can easily be selected and adjusted with the setting of your choosing.

How to Remove Settings

Removing settings on your directories is just as easy as applying them.  All you have to do is click on the folder you want the settings removed from and choose “Default System Setting”.  Doing so will revert everything back to the previous state.

Warning

It is highly recommended to check the permissions on each individual folder before applying settings to your directories.  If they are not are applied correctly, those directories may become inaccessible.

cPanel Tutorial: Working with MIME Types

Multipurpose Mail Extensions or simply MIME types, use an internet standard that instructs a web browser on how to process certain types of file extensions.  Many of them come pre-installed on web server configurations to support the most commonly used extensions.  For example, text/html is already preset so when a web browser loads htm, html and shtml file types, it knows how to read and properly display them to the viewer.  MIME types are typically used for technologies and standards that have yet to be implemented globally.  In this tutorial, we will give you a brief overview on MIME types and show you how easy it is to add them through your  cPanel control panel.

Main Content Types

A client browser primarily deals with six content types: audio, application, image, text video and x-world.  There is a large number of MIME types for these content types on most servers, but more than half typically are not used.

Audio

Audio content types are used for handling audio files such as MPEG, WAV, and AU.

Application

Application content types are primarily used for executing zip, gzip and tar.  They can also be used for popular document types such as PDF and Postscript.

Image

Image content types are actually subtypes used to handle a wide range of image formats such as JPEG, PNG, GIF and PBM.

Text

These are also subtypes.  They are used to execute various text and HTML files.

Video

Video content types are subtypes used to handle common video formats such as MPEG, AVI and Quick Time.

X-World

These are subtypes used for VRML and other 3D images.

How to Add MIME Types in cPanel.

If you have cPanel, adding MIME types is very easy.  Simply follow these steps:

- Login to cPanel and click the “MIME Types” icon underneath the “Advanced” section.

- On the MIME Types page underneath “Create a MIME type”, simply enter the MIME type you want to add to the server and the corresponding extension.

- Next, click on the “Add” button.

Keep in mind that you can only delete or edit the MIME types you added to the system.

- Once you create a MIME type, you can easily delete it under the “User Defined MIME Types” section.  Deleting it permanently removes it from your account.

Things to Keep in Mind

Because such a large number of MIME types are configured on the server, it is highly recommended to refer to the list to make sure the MIME type you want to add isn’t already set.  If not, conflicts will likely arise and result in errors.  Also take note that these preset MIME types cannot be altered via the standard cPanel interface by a regular user.  You would need root access on the server in order to change them.  You can view the complete list of preset MIME types on the MIME Types page in cPanel.