Anyone using f2s (freedom to surf)?

[tuestunim]

Hi there,

I'm trying to sort out my network config and the lovely people at f2s haven't got back to me (it's been 10 days now so note to all of you, never, ever start a hosting account with them).

Just wondering if anyone else uses their hosting service and if so what is the network configuration, path to cgi etc?

Also, is it possible to upload to a directory other than the root? The site's not really ready to go yet but I want to give it a thorough test. Either that or do you know a half decent free hosting package which is Actinic-suitable? (Doesn't matter if it's full of ads, no one other than me will ever see it anyway).

Cheers,

Scott.

[chris ashdown]

Suggest you print out your network file using the export facility and post to this site after removing your password from the file

Then people can see probable areas or error

Are you on a windows server or linux

[tuestunim]

It's a linux server.

HTTPPROXYMODE 0
HTTPPROXYADDRESS
HTTPPROXYPORT 80
HTTPPROXYUSER
HTTPPROXYPASSWORD
FTPPROXYMODE 0
FTPPROXYADDRESS
FTPPROXYPORT 21
FTPPROXYUSER
FTPPROXYPASSWORD
SCRIPTID 1
SCRIPTEXT .pl
SMTPHOST outmail.animal-house.co.uk
WEBSITEURL http://www.animal-house.co.uk/
IGNOREPASSIVEERRORS true
USERELATIVECGIURLS false
PATHTOPERL /usr/bin/perl
USEENHANCEFTP true
FTPCLIENTTIMEOUT 15000
FTPRETRYDELAY 3000
FTPSILENT false
FTPMAXRETRIES 3
FTPCONNECTTIMEOUT 25000
SMTPAUTHREQUIRED false
SMTPUSERNAME
SMTPPASSWORD
SSLCATALOGURL https://secure.animal-house.co.uk/
SSLCGIBINURL https://secure.animal-house.co.uk/cgi-bin/
SSLPATHFROMCGITOCATALOG ../acatalog/
SSLCODEBASE ./
SSLFTPHOST ftp.animal-house.co.uk
SSLFTPUSERNAME ***
SSLFTPPASSWORD ***
SSLPATHTOCGIBIN cgi-bin/
SSLUSEPASSIVEFTP false
CATALOGURL http://www.animal-house.co.uk/
CGIBINURL http://www.animal-house.co.uk/cgi-bin/
PATHFROMCGITOCATALOG ../acatalog/
CODEBASE ./
FTPHOST ftp.animal-house.co.uk
FTPUSERNAME ***
FTPPASSWORD ***
PATHTOCGIBIN cgi-bin/
USEPASSIVEFTP false
FTPPATHFROMCGITOCATALOG

They're my exported network settings.

The errors I'm getting are:

"Your web server is not configure(sic) for secure communications (no SSL license). contact your system administrator or ISP"

Now, the f2s site says this:

"Do you support secure sites?
Yes. https://secure.yoursite.com with SSL and an internationally recognised secure certificate for your domain and business are available. We can supply secure sites compatible with either our PHP or ASP webspace types.
You would use secure ftp to upload your site and be able to use the same kind of files as a normal site. The difference will be that web data is transferred in encrypted form and the site will be secured with an official SSL certificate to validate your web business."

The other error I get is:

"Unable to move to the cgi-bin directory "cgi-bin/" on the FTP server. The specified directory does not exist or you do not have access to the directory"

The f2s site says:

"There's no cgi-bin directory?
The freedom2surf webservers allow you to place your Perl scripts anywhere on your website. A common place to put them is in a directory called cgi-bin although this is not necessary."

Any ideas? Thanks for looking by the way

Scott.

[chris ashdown]

Sorry scott, but i do not have SSL set up on my site so not sure what happens,

I would suggest you set up a cgi-bin file by using a ftp program

Hopefully someone with ssl knowledge can help further

[tuestunim]

Is SSL necessary on a site? I'd imagine that it was as otherwise unencrypted card details would be sent otherwise? Or am I just being a bit new to this?! I'm a designer really, not up with all this network stuff!

[Mike Hughes]

SSL may or may not be necessary. If you use a PSP then you can certainly live without SSL.

The best way forward is to ignore SSL for now. Get it working and then add SSL to the settings once everything is up an running.

So turn off SSL in the network settings, then create a directory on your webserver called cgi-bin (if you haven't already done so) and then make sure the permissions on the cgi-bin and acatalog directory are set to 755.

That should get you there, but may need a tweak or two to the settings depending on what error messages come up.

Mike

[Duncan Rounding]

You will probably also need to change the following:
CATALOGURL http://www.animal-house.co.uk/
to
CATALOGURL http://www.animal-house.co.uk/acatalog/

[tuestunim]

Got it sorted, thanks a lot for all your help.

Something I realised on top of all the advice you've given me is that the stupid hosting servive I'm on has a www.animal-house.co.uk/ directory which I'm meant to upload everything to. The path to CGI didn't refect that but it does now

Now to have a look at those SSL settings...!

Scott.

[NormanRouxel]

Glad it's working. I wouldn't knock the hosts too much as they're only charging either £24 or £48 per year and their online help pages seem to be useful. It may be a bit much to expect a lot of dedicated personal help at such prices. You tend to get what you pay for, after all.

[Mike Hughes]

I know it's a daft question but have you purchased an SSL certificate? All the text above says is that SSL is "available".

Mike

[tuestunim]

Nothing's a daft question when it comes to my knowledge of anything beyond drawing pictures! The hosting package was sorted out before I started work here so all I know is that we have a service provided by a company called f2s, ssl certificates are available (I don't know if we've got one) and we've got 200mb to play with.

Thanks for all your help, I'll get onto f2s and see when I have to do to get an SSL certificate (my boss doesn't know if we've got one or not)

Ta,

Scott.

[pinbrook]

you can tell if you have ssl by typing https://yourdomain.ext into a browser

[tuestunim]

It took its time but eventually it said it can't establish a connection. I'm guessing that's a negative towards the existence of an SSL then!

I can't believe all the help I've got here today, thank you all so much. I hope to pass it on one day.

Scott (the thrown-in-at-the-actinic-deep-end graphic artist )