PlusNet Help...

[Tim Weaver]

We have a client who currently hosts with PlusNet and wants us to develop an Actinic Catalog site for them.

Reading their FAQs it seems it will support Actinic, but with some difficulty as the cgi bin is on a cgi server with a different ftp address - maybe the site can only work if it is all uploaded to the cgi-bin?

Also, it looks as though one can only gain access to the cgi bin if dialled up using PlusNet's broadband which would make it rather difficult for us to install and test their site.

Ideally we would like the client to host on our servers because we know that works and we can easliy set up and test their site.

Does anyone have experience of using PlusNet?

Thanks,

[Bruce]

PlusNet Hosting

Hi Tim,

PlusNet were earlier called Force9, luckily someone here remembered. There is a KnowledgeBase Article thet is dedicated to Hosting with Force9 (PlusNet).

You can find the article by clicking Here

Hope this helps,

Cheers,

[Tim Weaver]

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

[cavern]

Force9/PlusNet

As has been stated the CGI bin with Force9/PlusNet is on a different server than the normal web pages and the CGI bin server does not support SSL.

The web pages server supports SSL but does not have CGI support.

All Actinic files must reside on the same server so in order for Catalog, say, to work all the files must be placed on the CGI server.

The problem is that with no SSL the option in Actinic is to use Java for encrypting sensitive details. Unfortunately the Java Virtual Machine was not included with Windows XP due to licensing problems and potential customers would need to download the software from the web.

Customers using earlier editions of Windows, I believe, are not affected.

We have successfully uploaded a working Store to the CGI server but because of the Java problem decided to move it to another ISP which has CGI support and SSL on a single server.

An enquiry to PlusNet established that they have no plans to have SSL on the CGI server and no plans to have CGI support on the web pages server.

Pity, because other than that hiccup I've found them great.

I hope the above may be of some help.

[simonmc]

As has been stated the CGI bin with Force9/PlusNet is on a different server than the normal web pages and the CGI bin server does not support SSL.

The web pages server supports SSL but does not have CGI support.

All Actinic files must reside on the same server so in order for Catalog, say, to work all the files must be placed on the CGI server.

The problem is that with no SSL the option in Actinic is to use Java for encrypting sensitive details. Unfortunately the Java Virtual Machine was not included with Windows XP due to licensing problems and potential customers would need to download the software from the web.

Customers using earlier editions of Windows, I believe, are not affected.

We have successfully uploaded a working Store to the CGI server but because of the Java problem decided to move it to another ISP which has CGI support and SSL on a single server.

An enquiry to PlusNet established that they have no plans to have SSL on the CGI server and no plans to have CGI support on the web pages server.

Pity, because other than that hiccup I've found them great.

I hope the above may be of some help.

Soo.....ooo

Apart from them not being able to support Actinic...they are great

Thanks for the information. It may prevent some people falling over to get to their GREAT deal

Simon

[garyhay]

Seems link PlusNet have a pretty wierd setup. It must work for them but it is certainly not a standard setup

[Tim Weaver]

Thank you to everyone for all of this very helpful information.

We are trying to pursuade our customer that they would be better off in the long run by going for a host that is know to fully support Actinic.

[itsdanny]

So Tim what was your outcome in the end? i have recenlty been attempting to reset a former clients site on Plusnet (after he was told by some muppet that they did support it), to no avail, it currenlty 'seems' to connect to the plusnet server but times out (see attatched image). Did you get it working in the end? has anyone managed to get plusnet and actinic to work together or should i just give up now and inform the client to change ISP or forget Actinic altogther?
Dan

[Tim Weaver]

Sorry but I took the easy way out and pursuaded the client to cut their losses and move to one of our servers where I knew it would work!