Warning: The control panel allows you to make changes to your website hosting setup. If you are unsure what you are doing, don’t mess with it — your site could become unavailable to the public, lose data, or otherwise become broken.

Logging In

To access your control panel, type https://example.com:20000 into your browser’s address bar, replacing example.com with your website’s name. For example, if your site is arrowquick.com, type https://arrowquick.com:20000.

Typing the address into Internet Explorer

Note that it is https – if you leave out the “s”, you will see an error message, with a link to the correct page.

The first time you access the control panel, you will probably see a security warning. This is because the security credentials are self-signed (not verified by a third party). However, all traffic between your computer and the control panel remains encrypted.

Security warning in Internet Explorer.

Most browsers will require you to mark the control panel as being trustworthy before you can continue:

• Internet Explorer: Click on “Continue to this website”. To prevent this warning in the future, next click on the “Certificate Error” bar, click “View Certificates”, then the “Install Certificate” button and follow the prompts.
• Firefox: Click on “I Understand the Risks”, then the “Add Exception” button, then the “Confirm Security Exception” button.
• Chrome: Click the “Proceed anyway” button. To prevent this warning in the future, see Chrome’s support page.
• Safari: Click the “Continue” button. To prevent this warning in the future, instead click on “View Certificate”, tick the “Always trust …” checkbox near the top, then click “Continue”.

You should now see the “Login to Usermin” screen. Type in your username and password (same as your FTP username and password) to log in. If you have forgotten your username or password, please contact us to reset it.

Control panel login screen

You may want to bookmark this page, for future reference.

Modules

Once you login, you can navigate using the menu on the left side of the page. Click on a category to show the available modules.

Control panel, with the Applications cateogory open

Here is an overview of modules you may see, depending on your hosting package:

• Preferences
  • Change Language: Change the language used in the control panel itself.
  • Change Password: Change the password used for logging into the control panel, FTP, and SSH (when available).
  • Change User Details: Change the account name and login shell (when available).
• System
  • Command Shell: Allows you to run commands as if you had logged into the shell.
  • Local Email: Interface for viewing and sending mail on the local system. (Note: This is different from your email service.)
  • Scheduled Commands: Schedule commands to be run in the future.
  • Scheduled Cron Jobs: Manage the job scheduler.
  • Scheduled Email: Schedule emails to be sent in the future. (Note: This is different from your email service.)
• Files
  • File Manager: Manage your website files (requires Java).
  • Upload and Download: Manually upload files to your website, or download files to your computer.
• Applications
  • Apache Options Files: Manage the .htaccess files in your website.
  • MySQL Database: Manage your databases.
  • Protected Web Directories: Setup and manage simple password-protection for folders.
  • Running Processes: View all application processes running under your account.

• All servers have been upgraded to the latest version of the underlying operating system. This gives us the latest patches and low-level improvements to the basic system.
• PHP has been updated with the latest security patches. Note that garbage collection of sessions is now turned off. Sessions are instead cleaned up by the operating system. If your site’s software uses a custom garbage collector, it may need to be updated to delete old sessions.
• The web servers themselves have been tweaked to use system memory more effectively. There is a fine line between allocating enough memory so that it isn’t wasted, but not using so much that it crashes the system.

Many hosting companies subscribe to the “set it and forget it” methodology. We are constantly improving and updating our systems so that you get the best possible hosting.

We are always looking for ways to increase value and reduce our costs so that ArrowQuick can offer you the best hosting possible. If you aren’t hosting with us, we hope you will consider it.

There are many tricks you can use to speed up a site, but now there’s an easy way. Beginning today, all ArrowQuick website hosting comes with the “pagespeed” module, a simple way to optimize your site.

Pagespeed was created by Google and recently made available to the general public. It works transparently, so your site doesn’t look any different or require any changes to your files. Google estimates speed improvements of 25-60% in most cases — a low-risk, high-impact way to improve your site immediately.

Best of all, the pagespeed module is included in your hosting plan, at no extra charge! Learn how to enable and use pagespeed on your website.

All hosting plans come with the Google “pagespeed” module that optimizes your website to make it faster for visitors.

Note: The pagespeed module is still labeled as “beta”, which means it is still actively worked on. There may be some minor bugs, and some features may change. In our experience, the module has worked without any problems and been very stable.

Activation

Enabling the “pagespeed” module for your site is very easy. Create a file called .htaccess in your html folder. (Note that the file begins with a period.) If the file already exists, just add to it.

Type or paste the following code:

<IfModule pagespeed_module>
ModPagespeed on
</IfModule>

That’s it! Save the file (and be sure to upload it to the server). If it’s working, then your site should look the same, but the HTML code will be slightly different. The module doesn’t actually change any of your files — all changes happen on the fly.

If your website stops working and you see “Internal Server Error” messages, then double-check the .htaccess file — there’s probably a typo. Contact our support team if you need help, or would like us to permanently enable pagespeed for your site.

Configuring Filters

You can fine-tune the optimizations (“filters”) that pagespeed uses. The safest optimizations are included in the default setup:

• add_head – Adds a <head> element to the document if not already present
• combine_css – Combines multiple CSS elements into one
• extend_cache – Extends cache lifetime of all resources by signing URLs with content hash
• inline_css – Replaces small images with data: URLs
• inline_javascript – Inlines small JS files into the HTML document
• rewrite_css – Rewrites CSS files to remove excess whitespace and comments, and rewritew or cache-extends images referenced in CSS files
• rewrite_images – Optimizes images, re-encoding them, removing excess pixels, and inlining small images
• rewrite_javascript – Rewrites JS files to remove excess whitespace and comments
• trim_urls – Shortens URLs by making them relative to the base URL

Other filters can be enabled in your .htaccess file. For example, to add filters for removing comments and unnecessary quotation marks in HTML:

<IfModule pagespeed_module>
ModPagespeed on
ModPagespeedEnableFilters remove_comments,remove_quotes
</IfModule>

You can also remove filters by using ModPagespeedDisableFilters. For more information on configuring filters and the list of available filters, check out the pagespeed documentation.

Restricting URLs

You may wish to exclude some webpages or files from being optimized. For example, there is an issue where the TinyMCE editor (packaged with WordPress, Joomla, and other content management systems) stops working. To fix this, simply exclude it:

<IfModule pagespeed_module>
ModPagespeed on
ModPagespeedDisallow */tinymce/*
</IfModule>

(This is the fix for WordPress; the exact value will vary from site to site.)

You can read more about disallowing specific URLs in the official documentation.

Adding Domains

By default, Pagespeed will only optimize resources that originate from the same domain as the webpage. For example, given the webpage http://www.example.com/index.html, Pagespeed will only optimize resources that are part of www.example.com. If your pages embed images and other files from other subdomains (e.g., static.example.com) or websites (e.g., www.example.org), you can optimize those resources as well:

<IfModule pagespeed_module>
ModPagespeed on
ModPagespeedDomain http://static.example.com
ModPagespeedDomain http://www.example.org
</IfModule>

Warning: Only add domains that you own and control! Adding domains that aren’t yours (e.g., flickr.com) opens your website up to attack.

Need Help?

Post your questions in the comments below, or contact our support team for assistance.

What is SPF?

SPF stands for “Sender Policy Framework”. It provides a way for owners of a domain to tell others where email from that domain should be coming from. That way, if an email is sent from somewhere the mail system does not expect, it can flag it as spam or discard it.

For example, let’s say that Widgets Inc owns the example.com domain. All of their email addresses are @example.com, and they have a mail server in their building named mail.example.com that they use for sending and receiving email. They can create an SPF record that says “only accept email that comes from mail.example.com“. That way, if somebody receives an email from joe@example.com, their mail system will check the SPF record automatically and flag the message if it does not come from mail.example.com.

What Are My SPF Settings?

SPF settings are stored in the domain name system (DNS) as TXT records, so this is a part of your web hosting or email service. You can view your SPF record using any DNS tool (if you are technically-minded), or can use this handy SPF testing form.

Do I Need To Change My SPF Settings?

If ArrowQuick hosts your DNS, then we automatically created SPF records for you. By default, email is approved if:

• it comes from your website (the web server)
• it comes from your email provider (the mail exchange)

If you send email through any other system, you should add those mail systems to the SPF list so they are approved and not flagged as spam.

Examples of other systems you might be using to send email include:

• corporate email servers
• your internet service provider (ISP)
• email marketing services like Constant Contact, MailChimp, and VerticalResponse

A Quick Note About Using Your ISP’s Servers

Often, our customers will use their ISP’s mail server to send emails. While it’s no problem to add your ISP’s server to your SPF settings, there are some things to keep in mind:

• ISPs change; if you ever switch internet providers then you will not only need to change the settings in your email program, but update the SPF settings too.
• If you have employees that work from home or are on the road a lot, it’s not practical to setup email for every ISP they will connect to.
• You’re paying for your email service or server — use it! All email systems provide an outgoing (SMTP) server for you to send email.

How Do I Change My SPF?

If ArrowQuick is your hosting provider, then we can make any changes you need. Contact support with the list of servers or settings you want.

Do I Need SPF?

Because it does require some work to make a list of what email systems are valid and keep it updated, it is tempting to ignore SPF entirely. And if you leave out a valid system, then email sent from there is more likely to get marked as spam.

SPF is not a requirement; it is simply a mechanism for reducing spam. If a domain doesn’t have SPF records, then email is not checked against its origin.

However, SPF is one of the easiest ways to cut down on global spam. And if you have no protection, then spammers can easily steal your company’s identity for their own purposes.

 More Info

If you’d like to find out more about SPF and its technical details, check out:

• Wikipedia article on SPF
• Official website

Photo provided by Tom Newby Photography.

Logging In

All changes are made through the web-based control panel at webmail.arrowquick.com. Type in your administrative username and password and click “Login”. If you have forgotten your username or password, please contact support.

We also recommend that you tick the "SSL" box for added security.

Email Account Management

If you aren’t taken there directly, click the “Settings” icon at the top of the page. Then click “Email Account Management” on the left side to go to the list of email accounts.

The control panel, with important links highlighted.

The Email Account Management page lists all mailboxes in use by your organization. It also includes additional information, such as name, current status, used space, and the space limit.

The Email Account Management page.

Adding a New Mailbox

If you need to create a new mailbox (for example, when you hire a new employee), click on the “Add Email Account” button on the Email Accounts Management page.

Adding a new email account (mailbox).

The form for adding a new mailbox asks for some information. Please note on the form which fields are required.

• Username — This is the username that the employee will use to login to send and receive email. The name is up to you, but it is recommended that you use a full email address. (Usernames must be unique system-wide, so if there is a “john” already in the system elsewhere, you will not be able to have a “john” account in your organization.)
• Password — Choose a hard-to-guess but easy-to-remember password for the account. Note there are some basic security rules for passwords that must be followed — click the “password rules” link to see what they are.
• Disk Limit — Depending on your organization’s email plan, you may be able to choose how much space the employee has available for email and other files. (Note that this does not include email that is downloaded to the employee’s computer through Outlook or other email programs.)
• Sync Access — Tick this box if the employee wants to synchronize their email across multiple computers and devices. (Leave this blank if you are unsure.)
• Personal Information — The employee’s name, email address, and physical address are used in the control panel and when the employee sends email using the web-based interface. It is not used if the employee uses Outlook or another email program to send email.
• Mail Aliases — All mailboxes must be associated with at least 1 alias to receive email. By default, the alias is the same as the employee’s email address, but multiple aliases can be associated with an employee. (See “Aliases & Forwards” below.)

When you have filled out the form, click the “Create Sub-Account” button at the bottom of the page to create the account. It may take a few minutes before the new mailbox appears in your account list and is ready for use.

Modifying a Mailbox

To modify an existing mailbox (for example, to reset a password), click on the username on the Email Account Management page. You will see a page that is very similar to the “Add New Account” page (see above), where you can modify the employee’s username, password, personal info, and can add or remove aliases.

Removing a Mailbox

To delete an account that is no longer needed, tick the box next to the username on the Email Account Management page, then click the “Terminate” button at the bottom of the page. You will be asked to confirm the deletion. All email and information related to this account will be permanently deleted.

If you would like to keep the account around, but do not want the employee to be able to send/receive email, you can click the “Suspend” button instead of “Terminate”. The account will become inactive, and any email sent to that mailbox will be rejected and returned to sender. (Inactive mailboxes still count toward the total in your plan.)

Aliases & Forwards

As demonstrated when you create new accounts, an alias is a way to route email to a specific mailbox. The most common aliases are used to route email to the mailbox with the same name — for example, the “john@example.com” alias routes to the john@example.com mailbox. This is done automatically when you create a new mailbox.

You can set up aliases any way you want. You could associate the  ”sales@example.com” address with an existing mailbox, without having to create a new account. In fact, there is no requirement that an email address goes to a mailbox with the same name — if John leaves the company, you can move the “john@example.com” alias to another mailbox and still receive email addressed to John. Think of an alias as the email address, and the account as the mailbox that stores the email.

You can create and modify forwards by clicking the “Forwards, Autorespond, Lists” link in the lefthand navigation. Forwards work like aliases, but they route email to another email address rather than a mailbox. Use forwards if you want to route emails to a destination outside your organization (such as corporate), or to another email provider (such as a Yahoo or Hotmail address). Mailing lists let you forward email to multiple recipients.

These instructions assume that you have a basic knowledge of HTML and creating webpages.

Note: Email is not a secure method of transmission. Do not use this to collect sensitive information (such as social security numbers or credit card numbers).

Step 1: Create Form

First, create the form in your desired webpage, using the editor or tools you normally use.

The form must have the following settings:

• The method should be “post”.
• The action or URL should be “/cgi-bin/TFmail.pl”.

You must also create a hidden field with the name of _config. (That’s an underscore followed by “config”.) The value of this field will be the name of the configuration file you create in Step 2, so give it a value to remind you of the form, such as “contact_form”. Since this will correspond to a filename, keep it lowercase and stick to alphanumeric characters and the underscore (_).

When you’re done, the HTML code should look something like this:

<form action="/cgi-bin/TFmail.pl" method="post">
  <input type="hidden" name="_config" value="your_config_name">
  ... all your other form stuff here ...
</form>

Caveat: Form fields with names beginning with an underscore (_) are treated as special. Always name your fields beginning with a letter.

Step 2: Configure Email

Next, you’ll need to create a file for the email configuration.

All configuration files go inside the “config” folder in the root of your website. When you login to your site (through FTP), then you should see the config folder.

Email configuration files have a “trc” file extension. There should already be a file called “default.trc” in that folder. You can either modify this file, or create a new file. (You can copy default.trc and use it as a starting point.)

The configuration file is a simple text file that can be edited in any text editor. It has the following requirements:

• It must have a “.trc” extension.
• The filename (before the extension) must match the _config field in your form.
• The file must have “%% NMS configuration file %%” on the first line.
• It must have a recipient parameter with the email address that the form contents are sent to.

Parameters are written in the format “parameter_name: value”. The only mandatory parameter is recipient, but there are optional parameters that you can use:

• email_input — The name of the field in the form of the sender’s email address. This value will be used for the “From” address in the email.
• realname_input — The name of the field in the form of the sender’s name. This value will be used for the “From” address in the email.
• subject — The subject line of the email.
• redirect — A web address (URL) that users get sent to after they successfully fill out the form.
• required —  The list of form fields (separated by commas) that users must fill in.
• excluded — Getting a lot of form spam? This lists the form fields that must not be filled in. Put a hidden field in your form and add it to this configuration option. Humans won’t see it, but spam robots will usually fill it in.
• email_template — The “.trt” template used for the emails you receive. Defaults to “email”.
• success_page_template — The “.trt” file for the success page (if redirect is not specified). Defaults to “spage”.
• missing_template — The “.trt” file for the “missing required fields” page. Defaults to “missing”.

When you’re done, your file will look something like this:

%% NMS configuration file %%
#
# TFmail configuration.
# You can start a line with a "#" for comments.
#
recipient: your.email@example.com
subject: Contact Form from Website
email_input: email
realname_input: name
redirect: http://www.example.com/thanks-for-contacting-us
required: email,name,phone

Step 3: Test It

Once your form and configuration file is in place, try it out yourself.

If successful, you should see the success page and receive an email with the form information:

requested by someone@example.com  on Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 08:25:14.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

name: Person's Name

email: someone@example.com

phone: 555-555-1122

----------------------------------------------------------------------

remote address: 192.168.0.1
user agent:     Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0)
referred by:    http://www.example.com/contact-us

If you get the success page but not an email, check your spam folder to see if it’s in there. (Configurations that don’t set an email_input will come from do-not-reply@arrowquick.com.)

If you see a page that says “Application Error”, then you made a mistake somewhere. Check the error logs (in the “logfiles” folder) to find the specific error message; it will mention “TFmail.pl”. For example:

[Tue Mar 08 07:12:59 2011] [error] [client 192.168.0.1] request method must be POST at /var/www/example-com/cgi-bin/TFmail.pl line 439

What Next?

Need to customize? The “.trt” files in your “config” folder are templates used by TFmail to generate the emails and webpages. “Email.trt” is the layout for the emails that you receive. The files “missing.trt” and “spage.trt” are the pages displayed when a user leaves out a required field or successfully completes the form, respectively. You can modify these as desired.

There are many other configuration options that you can use in your “.trc” file, and there are additional features that I didn’t mention in this article, such as allowing users to upload files. The best TFmail documentation comes with the software, so I recommend that you download the files from the official website for further information. The “README”, “EXAMPLES”, and “FAQ” files included with the software will be of help.

If TFmail is still too simplistic for your needs, then you’ll want to find something more flexible, or hire someone to build it for you.

Program Settings

If you use an application like Outlook, Windows Live Mail, Apple Mail, or Thunderbird to check your email, enter the following for your account settings.

Replace the arrowquick.com part of the server with your organization’s name.

Need detailed instructions for setting up your email? Download our reference guides:

• Email Setup Guide for Outlook Express
• Email Setup Guide for Apple Mail
• Email Setup Guide for Thunderbird
• Email Setup Guide for Outlook

Webmail

You can also access your email through the web.

Replace the arrowquick.com part of the location with your organization’s name.

FTP

When you upload files to the server through FTP, you should see the server name when you first connect. You may need to consult the documentation of your application on how to view the FTP log. You should see a message like “220 Welcome to [name] server. All transfers are logged.”

Example on the command line. (Click on the thumbnail for a larger version.)

Example in Filezilla. If you don't see this panel, go to the View menu and click on "Message log". (Click on the thumbnail for a larger version.)

SSH

If you have SSH access, you probably already know the name of the server. If you are unsure, the name is displayed when you log in.

Example of SSH. (Click on the thumbnail for a larger version.)

Beginning March 31, we will be upgrading our servers from PHP4+MySQL4 to PHP5+MySQL5. Here are some tips in making sure that any custom code on your site works with these new versions.

PHP

PHP will be upgraded from version 4.4.9 to a recent stable version of PHP 5. (At the time this post was written, PHP would be upgraded to 5.3.3.)

Most of PHP5 is backward-compatible with PHP4, but there are a few things to watch out for. One significant change is object copying — in PHP5, the assignment of an object (using “=”) will create a reference, not a copy.

We recommend you read the official migration guides, particularly the “backward incompatible” sections:

• Migrating from PHP 4 to PHP 5.0.x
• Migrating from PHP 5.0.x to PHP 5.1.x
• Migrating from PHP 5.1.x to PHP 5.2.x
• Migrating from PHP 5.2.x to PHP 5.3.x

The PHP configuration will also include minor changes, which may include (but may not be limited to):

• output buffering is turned on
• errors will not be displayed in the browser
• magic quotes will be turned off
• dl() will be disabled
• environment variables will be excluded
• open URLs cannot be include()’d
• long arrays will be turned off

You will still be able to override the default configuration with an .htaccess file.

MySQL

MySQL will be upgraded from version 4.1.20 to a recent stable version of MySQL5. (At the time this post was written, MySQL would be upgraded to 5.1.49.)

Most of MySQL5 is compatible with MySQL4, but there are a few things to watch out for. One significant change is the precedence in JOIN operations — in MySQL5, a statement like “SELECT * FROM a, b JOIN c” will be interpreted as “SELECT * FROM a, (b JOIN c)”.

We recommend you read the official migration guides, particularly the “incompatible” items:

• Upgrading from MySQL 4.1 to 5.0
• Upgrading from MySQL 5.0 to 5.1

What is PHP and MySQL?

PHP and MySQL make up the hosting platform that runs your website.

PHP is a programming language used on websites. You can typically find it on webpages or files with a “.php” suffix.

MySQL is the database system that stores your data. The data stored can be anything, but typically includes things like page content, images and media, and users.

Why Are You Upgrading?

This upgrade is long overdue. ArrowQuick’s (inherited) web servers currently run PHP 4 and MySQL 4.

Development on PHP4 stopped in 2007, and the final security patches were added on August 7, 2008. Support for MySQL4 stopped in 2009.

So, by technology standards these versions are very old. They do not have the newest features and they do not have the latest security patches.

Although many web applications have continued to work on PHP4 and MySQL4, we are starting to see popular applications discontinue support for these aged versions. For example, the newest version of WordPress will only work on PHP5 and MySQL5.

Will My Site Be Affected?

Ask your webmaster if your website uses PHP or MySQL. If so, your site will be included in the migration to the newer software.

Also, check your hosting plan — Managed Shared and Managed Dedicated customers will almost certainly be affected. Basic Shared customers may be affected by the PHP upgrade; they do not have a MySQL database. You can find your hosting plan on your invoice.

What Do I Need To Do?

If your site runs on regularly-maintained software, like WordPress or Joomla or Drupal, you are probably okay. If the software has not been updated recently, or was created more than a few years ago, you may need to update or fix your website.

We recommend that you audit your site and test it to be sure that it will work under PHP5 and MySQL5. Contact your webmaster or the company that updates your site; they should be able to tell you if anything will break, and test the site for compatibility. You can also contact ArrowQuick’s web team for assistance.

When Is This Happening?

We will begin rolling out the upgrade on April 4, 2011. Your site and data will be migrated to the new platform automatically. Your site may go offline briefly as it is being upgraded. If your website is compatible with PHP5 and MySQL5, it will not appear or act any different after the upgrade.

If you need more time (or would like to migrate sooner), let us know — we will try to accommodate you as best we can.

Will This Happen Again?

This situation is out of the ordinary because the underlying software has not been updated for such a long time.

As part of our managed hosting, most upgrades will be incremental updates throughout the year. If we anticipate any big changes, we will endeavor to let you know as soon as possible and minimize the disruption.

I Have Questions

Still have questions? Contact our support team. Also, watch our blog for more information as we get closer to the deadline.

A standard login popup.

Caveats

HTTP Basic Authentication (“HTTP Auth” for short) is a simple, but not robust method for access control.

• It sends passwords unencrypted from the user to the server, easily readable by eavesdroppers.
• It requires some manual configuration on your side.

If you’re looking for non-technical or robust access controls, you’ll want to look into a content management system or other web software. But HTTP Auth is good enough for quick protection for not-so-secret things.

Password File

First, you’ll want to create a file that lists your users and their passwords. A password file is a simple text file. Here is an example:

john:7yHPZGcLvUFvs
mary:xnre.ZESc8xAY
dave:fAaGBmQB6mWRE

Each line contains the username, then a colon, then their encrypted password. You can add as many users as you want. Usernames and passwords are case sensitive — they must be typed exactly as you enter them!

To get the encrypted version of a password, use a tool like Htpasswd Generator.

Save this file and upload it to your website. A file name of “.htpasswd” is common, but it can be named anything. Files that begin with “.ht” are hidden on your website, but we recommend putting the file in your root folder, outside of the “html” folder, for extra safety.

(Note that most operating systems, including Windows and Mac OS X, don’t display files that begin with a period, so you may need to change your settings if you want to edit the file on your computer.)

Access File

Next, you have to create the file that actually limits access. This file should be named “.htaccess” and goes into the folder you want to protect. (If an .htaccess file already exists, simply add your stuff to the bottom.)

It should look something like this:

AuthType Basic
AuthName "My Protected Area"
AuthUserFile /var/www/yourdomain-com/.htpasswd
Require valid-user

The “AuthType” line is required. It tells the server what kind of authentication you are using. It should not be changed.

The “AuthName” line contains the heading of the login box that is presented to the user. It provides the user with an idea of what is being protected.

The “AuthUserFile” contains the password file that you uploaded in the previous step. It must contain the full path to the file, which usually begins with “/var/www/yourdomain-com/”. (Replace “yourdomain-com” with your domain name. Hyphens replace the periods, so “yourdomain.com” becomes “yourdomain-com”.) In the above example, the .htpasswd file was uploaded to the root folder.

The final line tells the server to allow any access for any user in your password file (with the correct password). You could replace this line with “Require user john mary” if you only wanted to give access to some users.

You can also use the Htaccess Authentication tool to quickly create an access file.

Troubleshooting

Once you upload these two files, try loading the webpage or folder that you protected. You should get a login box asking for your username and password. If you get an “Internal Server Error” message, you typed something wrong — go back and double-check your work. A common error is using the wrong value for “AuthUserFile”.

Additional Information

• The htaccesstools.com website contains the file generators and other useful information.
• For the more technical people, here is the official documentation for the web server.

It was bad timing, to say the least, since we are in the process moving all websites to new, more secure servers. Those that were affected were unfortunately still on the old server.

Here is a summary:

• Around 11am CST Thursday morning we detected that a benign file had been added to all sites on the server at 4am that day.
• Further investigation determined that the system’s root (core) password had been compromised. Because of the extent of the attack, the entire web server was taken offline around 1pm.
• The exact origin of the attack was then determined. The website that was the opening for the attack was deactivated and the server was brought back online around 5:10pm.

Since then, we have removed all injected files and have continued with forensics. We don’t believe any data was lost or compromised. (The database server was unaffected.) Let us know if you notice anything missing or suspicious regarding your site.

What we’re changing so this doesn’t happen again:

• The servers that we are moving to will have the latest security patches so that attackers are less likely to exploit the core system.
• The new servers will also segment websites so that if one site is compromised, other sites on the server are better protected from being affected. (Of course, those using our Dedicated plan won’t have to worry about this, since their sites are already contained on a separated server.)
• Utilizing active management, ArrowQuick will be able to prevent, detect, and recover from attacks like this faster and more effectively.

Of course, security starts with the website itself. Keep your website updated! There are regular updates to WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and other website software that not only gives you the latest and greatest features, but may also fix security holes.

Reminder: In the future, you can always check our Twitter feed for updates.

Our email system sends out notices when you approach or are over the storage limit for your mailbox. When you are close to running out of space, you will get a warning. Once you reach the storage limit, you will get the following email:

Once you reach your limit, all emails sent to your mailbox will be returned with the message “recipient’s mailbox is full”.

Here’s what you can do to free up space so you can receive new email:

• Make sure messages are deleted from the server. If you use a desktop app like Outlook, Apple Mail, or Thunderbird, check your account settings to make sure that email is not permanent stored on the server. Messages should be deleted after a set time (for example, after 7 days) or when you delete them from your computer.
• Delete old emails. If you have a lot of emails sitting around, it’s time for some “spring cleaning”. Delete what you can, and archive others that you don’t need quick access to — you can back them up on CDs or other media if you need them in the future.
• Upgrade to a bigger plan. Some people just get a lot of email. Attachments take up a lot of space and can also be a killer. If you’re on our Basic Email plan, consider upgrading to Professional Email, which has 20x the space for only $0.25/month more. If you’re already on Professional Email, you can increase your limit up to 10 GB.

If you’re a business owner, you probably don’t want to worry about such things. As long as visitors can reach your site, everything is good. But what do you do if the site goes down, or is so slow that visitors leave?

Status Quo

If you are using one of the popular hosting services such as GoDaddy or 1&1, you don’t have many options. These companies provide the servers and perform basic maintenance to make sure they’re running, but that’s the extent of their interaction with you. They host thousands of websites per server; it is simply impossible to provide a high level of personal service for such a large volume of customers.

We have found that customers want to leave the technical management of their websites in the hands of experts. But the web developers who create and update the websites don’t want to also monitor the servers. This leaves a gap in management.

A Better Way

ArrowQuick takes a different approach. We offer Managed Shared and Managed Dedicated plans that let you concentrate on your business while we take care of the heavy lifting.

These plans take a pro-active (rather than re-active) approach to the computers and software running your site. Using these techniques, we can anticipate and prevent problems before they happen.

• System updates and security patches. Large hosts have to cater to the lowest common denominator; with thousands of sites, improvements can be slow.
• 24/7 monitoring. Often we know about a problem before our customers (and their customers) do.
• Security audits. We always test our system for any potential holes, but we’ll also let you know if something on your site may be a security risk.
• Intrusion detection. The best exploits don’t leave any trace of a breach. It’s our job to sniff them out if they occur.
• Backup management. All websites get secure, verified, off-site backups.
• Disaster recovery. When something goes wrong, we’re the first ones on the scene and we work until the problem is solved.
• Performance audits and tuning. We’ll let you know when your site becomes so popular that it should be upgraded for better performance. We are also constantly looking for ways to tweak our systems for that extra bit of speed.
• Software installation and configuration. Need some special server software for your site? Let us know and we’ll see what we can do. (Managed Dedicated customers get a fully customizable system.)

For those with less-vital sites, or who want to monitor the sites themselves, we still offer a Basic Shared plan.

Our prices are competitive with similar packages from other hosting companies. Considering that fully-managed dedicated servers typically cost hundreds of dollars per month, we think that our plans strike a good compromise.

ArrowQuick Solutions, a technology services company, is expanding their hosting services for websites and email. ArrowQuick also offers consulting services to small and medium businesses.

ArrowQuick has partnered with Mahaska Communication Group in the past to provide the hosting, but they will now be taking over full management of hosting services. “We’ve offered hosting through MCG since we started, back in 2001,” says owner Rob Hammann. “We’ve learned a lot, and we’re excited to take it to the next level.”

For their part, MCG wants to focus on their own core services. “MCG is committed to delivering reliable, cost-effective Triple Play services of Phone, Internet and Video to Oskaloosa businesses and residents over a state-of-the-art fiber-optic network,” says Sam Van Maanen, marketing manager at MCG.

The physical infrastructure for ArrowQuick’s hosting will be distributed across the country. “Hosting through these state-of-the-art data centers provides speed and scalability that you unfortunately can’t find in Iowa,” says Hammann. Although the data centers will be at different locations, ArrowQuick will have full management and control over the services. “The data centers manage the upkeep of the hardware components, but we do everything else, from the system software to customer support,” says Hammann. “This is the perfect solution for customers who need reliable hosting as well as local service”.

ArrowQuick will be adding these expanded services to their existing backup services and domain registration. “We want to give customers more choices and flexibility,” said Hammann. “Current customers can still expect to get help from the ArrowQuick people they’ve always talked to.”

	Access your email from any computer using our new web interface. Both stylish and powerful, it makes it easy to organize and write emails and change your settings.
	Spam and virus filtering is included with all accounts. You can customize your spam settings and create lists of approved/unapproved senders.
	Create “mail rules” so that certain actions are automatically applied to messages as they are received. Delete emails, organize them in folders, or even reply to them without ever lifting a finger.
	Easily set up vacation messages for when you are away for extended periods.
	Don’t want to have a browser window cluttering up your screen? Download our desktop notification client to be notified when you have new messages.
	You can now establish secure connections using SSL, using email clients like Outlook or using the web interface.
	For those who don’t like POP3, you can now use IMAP for accessing and storing your email. Read more about the differences between POP and IMAP.
	You now have a dedicated SMTP server to use for your outgoing messages. Use it for the best performance and speed when sending email.
	Productivity tools, including Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, and Notes are included in the web interface. You can even share info with others in your organization.
	Consolidate email from other POP3 email accounts so you can read it all in one place.
	More administrative control, so now the administrator at your organization can modify mailboxes and troubleshoot problems directly.

Check out these features by logging into your account.

Questions or comments? Post them using the form below, or contact us.

Overview of the Process

1. An email notification was sent to every mailbox in your organization. The email contains the scheduled date of the transition, as well as the password for the new mailbox.
2. Another email was sent to the administrative or technical person at your organization in charge of email.
3. On the scheduled date of the transition, email will begin to be directed to the new server. On this date, you should begin using the new email settings, as described below.
4. A week later, the transition will be complete and your old mailbox will be deleted.

Once the transition begins, all emails sent to you will go to your new mailbox. You should see no interruption in service. Any email that came into your old mailbox after you last checked will be migrated to the new mailbox. There may be a slight delay as messages going to the old mailbox get forwarded to the new mailbox.

You may switch to your new mailbox immediately and use it for sending email, but it will not begin receiving email until the scheduled date of transition.

Instructions for Email Apps

If you use an email application for reading and sending email, on the date of the transition you will need to update your account settings. Email programs include Outlook, Windows Live Mail, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, and other desktop or phone apps. You may continue to use your preferred application; you only need to modify its settings.

The exact way to change your account settings varies from application to application. Check the Documentation section of our support page for reference guides on the most popular applications. If you need help, please contact our support team.

Instructions for Webmail

If you currently use the website interface for reading and sending email, on the date of the transition you will need to begin using the new website interface.

Important note: Only your Inbox messages will be migrated to the new server. Messages in Drafts, Sent, Trash, or other folders will not be transferred to your new mailbox. If you want to keep any of these messages, you will need to download and save them to your computer, or move them into the Inbox. Your address book will also not be transferred.

How to Change Your New Password

1. Login to the webmail interface (see “Instructions for Webmail”, above).
2. Click on the “Settings” button at the top of the screen.
3. Click on the “Account Maintenance” link on the left.
4. Click on the “Change Password & Secret Question/Answer” link.
5. Enter the password from the email we sent you into the “Old Password” field.
6. Enter the password of your choosing into the “New Password” fields.
7. Click the “Update…” button to save your changes.

What is changing?

• Email accounts will no longer be bundled with our website hosting. They will be tracked separately and appear as a separate item on your invoice.
• The cost for a Basic Email mailbox will decrease from $1.00 to $0.75 per month. Forwards, aliases, and mailing lists will be free.
• Spam and virus filtering will be included with all accounts.
• Webmail, spam filtering, and administrative control will all be combined into a new, improved web-based control panel.
• IMAP, SMTP, SSL, productivity tools, and other features will become available.

For details on our email packages, please check our email services page.