Red Ace Customer Tips

Here are some tips to get the most out of your Red Ace Web Site.

Account Management

You can administer your Red Account through the Plesk control panel at https://www.yourdomain.org:8443/
Enter your account name and password.

Note: you will receive a prompt about accepting a certificate. Click the button to permanently accept this certificate. We are keeping your costs low by not buying a separate SSL certificate for every domain - using an internally generated certificate results in this warning, but is otherwise harmless. If you wish to set up an https web site for your users (to encrypt data or credit card numbers) this can be done for a small additional charge.

You have a number of administrative options available through the Plesk interface. You can click on Edit to update your contact information or change your Plesk password. Click on Traffic to see how much traffic your site is using.

Click on your domain name to administer the domain. Many of the buttons permit you to inspect or configure options.

You can change your password from the assigned default. There are two places to change your password:

Your Plesk password can be changed in the "Edit" icon. This affects how you login to the Plesk manager.

Your FTP/Email password can be changed in your domain. Click on your domain name at the bottom of the Plesk home page. Then click the Setup icon. Change your password as needed.

Be sure to save your default password, in case you find another area where it has not been changed. In particular, Front Page may require the original password.

Web Site Traffic Statistics

The new Plesk control panel comes with amazing new Webalyzer traffic reporting. To view your report, send your browser to
http://www.yourdomain.org/plesk-stat/webstat/
Login with your account login and password.

Web Site Updates

You can update your site with FTP. If you would prefer to use an encrypted protocol, such as ssh or sftp, or would like access to the Linux shell, contact Red Ace to arrange access.

Use the FTP protocol (in your web authoring software) or at the command prompt to connect to your own domain:

C:\> ftp www.yourdomain.org

Username: youraccount

Password: yourpassword

ftp> ls

You will see several subdirectories. Many of these are part of your separate environment. The most significant ones are:

httpdocs This is the root for your http (normal) web content.

httpsdocs If you are using an SSL certificate, your https (encrypted) content goes here.

cgi-bin If you are using CGI programming, your scripts go here

You can also use Microsoft Frontpage extensions to update your site.

E-Mail

If you are using a mailbox on your domain, you can access it as follows:

From the web: http://webmail.yourdomain.org/

From a POP or IMAP client: smtp.yourdomain.org, pop.yourdomain.org

Use your email address (e.g. you@yourdomain.com) and password to access your mailbox.

IMPORTANT: Also use your email address and password to send SMTP email. Find the option in your POP or IMAP client to specify that your mail server requires password authentication for outgoing mail, and enable it.

Setting up Outlook Express

You can use any POP or IMAP email client. The most popular POP client is Outlook Express, which comes with Windows. If you use OE, it will start an Internet Connection Wizard. (If it doesn't, use Tools | Accounts, Add | Mail.)

Display Name: enter your full name as you would like it to appear in email you send (e.g. Jane Smith.)
E-mail address: accountname@yourdomain.org, where accountname is the email account you created, and yourdomain.org is your domain name, without the www.. For example, jane@mhorton.net.
E-mail server names:
Incoming mail server: pop.yourdomain.org
Outgoing email server: smtp.yourdomain.org
(If you prefer to use IMAP rather than POP, you may select it here. You can use either pop.yourdomain.org or mail.yourdomain.org.)
Account name: Your email accountname as created in Plesk.
Password: Use the email password you created in Plesk.
Remember password: If you check this, anyone with access to this computer can see your email without entering the password.
Log in using SPA: do not check this.
IMPORTANT: after completing the wizard, you must set the next option in order to send outgoing email. From Internet Accounts (Tools | Accounts if it isn't visible) select your account and click Properties. On the Servers tab, in Outgoing Mail Server (at the bottom,) check My server requires authentication. Now click OK and then Close.

Mailing Lists

If you have a mailing list (mailman) on the server, you can administer it as follows:

From the web: http://lists.yourdomain.org/mailman/admin/listname

GD RAC