Domain Hosting

Any time you need a personalized address for your website, you will require a domain hosting account with someone providing this service.

Pennswoods.net provides this service, along with our regular internet dial-up service.

What is the process for setting up a domain?

1. The first step in the process of getting a domain account started, is to choose and register the domain name. For this, you will have to go to a source other than Pennswoods.net, since we only provide the hosting service and server space for the domain, and cannot register the domain name itself for you.. Domain names must be registered through certain registered companies. Here are a few popular ones:
   
   
   • GoDaddy
   • Dotster
   • Register.com
   • OpenSRS

   We Normally recommend GoDaddy, but feel free to shop around.

   When you register your domain name, regardless of who you registered with, they'll ask you for the domain name servers. If you've already decided to choose Pennswoods.net as your domain hosting provider, then the two domain name servers will be:

   name0.pennswoods.net
   name1.pennswoods.net

   If you've had your domain hosted previously with another provider, you'll need to contact your domain name registrar and update the domain name servers with the above information.

2. (Optional) If you require a secure site, you will also need to purchase a secure Digital Certificate or SSL Web Server Certificate in advance either from Verisign or Thawte.

   A secure server has SSL - Secure Socket Layer - enabled. Such a configuration requires the presence of an item called a 'certificate'. An ssl certificate is a piece of software digitally signed by a third party (That is, not the secure website in question or the end user.) that verifies the first party - the website - is who it claims it is. When the third party - the person visiting the website - visits a secure website, all of his transactions there are encrypted to protect the information being transacted, like a credit card number.

3. If you don't already have a site ready to go, and don't know how to do it yourself, then you'll need to find someone to design and develop your webpage. Your designer need not be local, though that is sometimes preferable. (Pennswoods does not do web design.) If you wish to try designing and developing the site yourself, you may find the following sites helpful:
   
   
   • HTML Help
   • Web Monkey
   • HTML Made Really Easy
   • HTML Tutorials


4. Find someone to host your webspace, such as Pennswoods.net. Things to look for: How much space do you need? How many email addresses do you need? Does your webpage require a certain type of server to host it? How much bandwidth do you expect to move monthly - does the server limit the amount of bandwidth per month? Do you need special services like access to a database, etc?
   


5. You get 10 e-mail addresses with your Pennswoods.net domain hosting account, so the next thing you need to do is choose the names for each of the e-mail addresses. For example: yourname@yourdomain.com. You don't have to choose all 10 at once.


6. Finally, after everything else is set up and ready to go, you'll need to upload your website content to our servers. Do this by pointing your FTP program to www.yourdomainname.com, using your chosen username and password. Special CGI scripts go in the cgi-bin folder, and all other files and folders you need to upload go into the WWW folder.

Common Questions

What is CGI?

CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface. It is a script that runs on the host server that performs some operation - such as processing an order form, sending an email, generating a dynamic HTML page, etc. Some types of Server Side Includes - like counters - are also CGI scripts. Every time you go to an internet chat room, order sometime online, etc. you're probably using some form of CGI script. Perl and C are common languages for writing CGI scripts.

What is PHP?

PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. For more information, visit the PHP site at PHP.net.

What is MySQL?

The MySQL database server is the world's most widely used open source database management system. A database is a structured collection of data, which may be anything from a list of products on your site to large amounts of information in a corporate network.

To learn more about MySQL, please click here.

What about FrontPage, Coldfusion, etc, etc?

The Microsoft FrontPage Extensions allow one to take advantage of additional website editing and viewing features when the Microsoft FrontPage software is used to edit the site. All domain hosting accounts through Pennswoods.net support the use of FrontPage Extensions, and this feature is available upon request.

We do not currently support ColdFusion. When we do support other features the changes will be posted here.

What is SSL?

SSL stands for "Secure Sockets Layer", and is a form of encryption. If you're going to run a site where financial transactions are taking place, SSL is a must in order to provide your customers with security and peace of mind. Without SSL, important information such as credit card numbers, checking account numbers, etc., stand a chance of being intercepted by a third party, such as a malicious hacker. With SSL, this information is encrypted, so that even if an attempt is made to retrieve it en route, it is impossible to decipher and read.

A site using SSL requires the use of a digital certificate signed by a third party, to ensure that the site is what it claims it is. The price of the certificate is not included with our domain hosting plans, and must be purchased separately from places such as Verisign or Thawte.