You've Got Questions? We've got answers. If you cannot find the answer to your questions, let us know, so we can be sure all of your needs are being met. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
You may also wish to check out our Forms for additional information that may be helpful in managing your site.
Domain Names:
What
is a Domain Name?
How
can I check to see if a Domain Name is already in Use?
How
do I transfer my service and Keep my Domain Name
How
much does the Internic Charge for Domain Names?
CGI Scripts:
What
is the process for installing Custom Written PERL 4.0 CGI scripts?
How do
I place a count in my web page?
How do I set-up
an Image Map?
FTP
What is FTP?
Does my
site include Anonymous FTP?
How
do I access my Web Site via FTP?
E-mail Addresses
What is
an E-mail Aliases
What is a POP
E-mail Address?
Netscape Compatible Encryption
(SSL)
What
is Netscape Compatible Encryption?
How much
does it cost?
What
is a Digital Certificate?
Can
I have SSL without a Digital Certificate?
Microsoft Frontpage(tm) Extension
Installing
Microsoft Frontpage(tm) Extensions to Gold, Platinum and Diamond Servers.
Removing Microsoft Frontpage(tm) Extensions from the Gold, Platinum, and Diamond Server.
Newsgroups and Majordomo
Can I install
Newsgroups to my Gold/Platinum/Diamond Server?
What
is Majordomo?
How
do I install Majordomo?
After
I install Majordomo, is there anything I need to do to set it up?
Is
there any documentation on Majordomo?
Misc. Questions About First State
Internet Services
Which
Web Search Engines does First State Internet Services
add
my site to?
If
I pay by check, do I have to wait to open my account till you
receive
my payment?
Are there any hidden costs associated with First State Internet Services?
Can I place Adult
Oriented Material at my First State Internet Services Web Site?
What is a Domain Name?
- A domain name is a representation of your
Internet address on the Internet. In the case of a web page it is a representation
of the address to your primary web page. For instance
First State Internet Services domain name is "thefirststate.com" - This domain name represents the address whereby the First State Internet Services Server exists on the Internet.
Our PREMIER PLUS, TOTAL, SUPER, and DEDICATED accounts require a domain name. Our Non-Virtual Account, the PREMIER plan, does not require a domain name.
- The Internic assigns domain names in the
United States. To check to see if a Domain Name is already in use,
Click Here.For other
countries contact the NIC services there to check if a Domain Name is in
use. A Domain name does not have to be a US registered domain to work with
our server, however First State Internet Services will only register US
domains on behalf of our customers.
- When you registered your domain name with
the Internic, you we're charged a one time fee of $100.00 by Internic for
processing your registration for your first two years use of that domain.
Each additional year the Internic will charge you to continue to keep your
domain name.
The Web Server you used to be with should NOT own your domain name registration. When you transfer service to First State Internet Services all you need to do is complete the order form, and provide us with your domain name. We will automatically submit a modify request to transfer your existing domain to your new web server with First State Internet Services. This is especially convenient for you, as your customers will never know you switched services. They will still use the same domain name they have always used.
- Internic
has a $70.00 registration fee to register your domain name for 2 years.
Currently the Internic is charging
$35.00 renewal rates for renewing a registration you may already have.
This renewal rate applies for renewals after the initial 2 years. Internic
will invoice you directly for the registration fee. First State Internet
Services does not receive any portion of the $70.00 registration fee.
- First State Internet Services offers our
PREMIER PLUS, TOTAL, SUPER, and Dedicated
server customers the ability to write their own PERL 4.0 and 5.0 scripts,
C and C++ programs to manage their sites as CGI programs.
There is a directory under your login directory named CGI-BIN. Place your CGI program in that directory, and execute it from there. Be sure you have set the file permissions to 755 (USER: Read Write Execute. GROUP: Read Execute, WORLD: Read, Execute)
- These instructions
are for those on the PREMIER Account plans. For those on the PREMIER
PLUS, TOTAL, SUPER, and DEDICATED servers use the Server
Administrators Handbook to determine how to setup a count on your web page.
1. Create a text file in the same directory with the same base name as the HTML file you wish to have the count inserted into, with .count as an extension. For instance, if you wish to have a count in your index.html file, then create a text file named index.count.
2. In your index.count file (Or whatever the file name is that is your count file) insert on the first line, the number that you wish to have the access count start it at. On the second line, place the CONTROL+D character - see the following example:
- 0
^D
3. In your HTML file, place the following code where you want the Count to appear:
- There have been <!--#exec cgi="/cgi-bin/c4.pl"-->
Visitors to this Site!
- These instructions are for those on the
Silver and Silver PLUS Account plans. For those on the Gold, Platinum,
and Diamond servers use the Server Administrators Handbook to determine
how to setup a Count on your web page.
1. Create a Map file named whatever you wish with ".map" extension. For our Example we will use the name of the image map "example-image.map"
2. In this Map file place the coordinates that relate your image map. I won't go into the specifics of creating an image map code as there are many tools that will create the map for you. Yahoo has a list of image map programs that can be downloaded.
3. Upload the Image map file to your account using FTP
4. Register your Image map with the First State Internet Services Database. NOTE: You will need your User ID and Password to register your image map with us.
- FTP or File Transfer Protocol is the protocol
on the Internet that allows for the transferring of a file from client
to server. The server as it relates to your First State Internet Services
account is your directory (i.e. ftp.thefirststate.com/youruserid) - You
need an FTP client that will allow you to send files to your account, and
retrieve files from your account.
The following clients can be downloaded and are recommended by First State Internet Services: Please note: The following software is shareware. Please register it, if you plan to use it. This helps the vendors of the shareware to continue to provide updates to the software. It is NOT freeware.
After you have downloaded and setup your FTP client, you should be able to access your Account.Click Here for a Graphic that shows how to setup WS_FTP
- Currently First State Internet Services
does not provide Anonymous FTP for uploads.
For those on PREMIER PLUS, TOTAL, SUPER, and DEDICATED Servers, you may upload executables that may be downloaded from your web server.
To do this simply create a link to the file that is in your server directory. Whenever a visitor clicks on the link the client download will be initiated.
- To access your site via FTP to download
and upload your web pages, use the following URL
- ftp.thefirststate.com/youruserid
Click Here for a Graphic that shows how to setup WS_FTP
If you are using Netscape Navigator to publish your documents, your web site address would be ftp.thefirststate.com. Enter your User ID in the User ID field, and the password in the password field. This will FTP files to your root directory, where your main web page is stored. If you have sub-directories under your root directory, simply qualify the ftp address (i.e. ftp.thefirststate.com/subdirectory/)
- E-mail aliases are virtual e-mail addresses.
It is not a POP, rather it provides a name that others may e-mail to. When
the server receives an e-mail sent to an alias, the server will forward
that e-mail to the real POP e-mail address. If your POP E-mail address
was userid@thefirststate.com and you wanted people to send e-mail to fakename@firststate.com,
the server would forward any e-mail it receives for fakename@thefirststate.com
to the POP address userid@thefirststate.com
As a customer of First State Internet Services, you may set up an unlimited number of e-mail aliases. To setup an e-mail aliases go to our registration form, and submit your e-mail alias request.
- POP e-mail or Post Office Protocol represents
a true e-mail post office box if you will. It is the address to a storage
area on a server where e-mail will be stored until the mail is picked up.
All First State Internet Services accounts come with one POP E-mail address at no extra charge. For PREMIER Account setups your e-mail address is youruserid@thefirstate.com
PREMIER PLUS, TOTAL, SUPER, and DEDICATED account users may setup e-mail aliases of youruserid@yourdomain.com which can be forwarded to your POP E-mail account of youruserid@thefirststate.com - Instructions on how to do this may be found in the online Server Administrators Handbook.
SUPER, and DEDICATED account users may setup unlimited POP e-mail addresses. Each address being address@yourdomain.com - There is no additional fee, except for storage fees that may apply. In addition, you may setup unlimited numbers of e-mail aliases. Instructions for setting up both POP accounts and e-mail aliases may be found in the onlineServer Administrators Handbook
The following information will help you setup your e-mail software if you are on the PREMIER account plans:
- POP E-mail Account: youruserid@thefirststate.com
Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.thefirststate.com
Incoming Mail Server: pop.thefirststate.com
- POP E-mail Account: youruserid@yourdomain.com
Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.yourdomain.com
Incoming Mail Server: pop.yourdomain.com
- It is an added feature to your virtual
server that provides a secure socket layer (SSL). This is frequently referred
to as "Netscape" encryption. This allows a Netscape
browser (Many other browsers are starting to support this as well) to communicate
with the server in a secure environment. It is often used to transfer credit
card numbers, passwords and other sensitive information between the browser
and the server safely. If someone intercepts the transmission, they will
not be able to de-crypt the data very easily.
- There is a one time setup fee charge by
First State Internet Services of $40.00 and a monthly fee of $30.00 to
add this feature to your Virtual Server. Only the Gold, Platinum, Diamond
and Dedicated servers can be set up with Netscape compatible encryption.
Verisign provides a digital certificate
that is designed to work with your SSL. Their price is $290.00 to register
the digital certificate for one year, and then $90.00/year after the first
year.
- A server uses a digital certificate to
prove it's authenticity. A digital certificate is similar to a driver's
license or a business license hanging on the wall of a business, in that
it provides legal proof of a relationship between a legitimate company
and their web site. This allows those using netscape browsers to feel safe
about sending sensitive information across the internet with security that
no one else can read the information being sent, and that the information
is going to the appropriate destination.
- Sorry, the answer is no! - The reason
is that without a digital certificate customers will see a window that
netscape will display that could and may drive off business from your site.
This not only hurts your business but will decrease the reliability of
your site, and your traffic will decrease. We are in the business of helping
you make it on the web, and are not interested in doing anything that decreases
your success on the web, and thus digital certificates and SSL go hand-in-hand.
- Here is how you install the FrontPage
Server Extensions on your server. You need to telnet to your server and
follow these steps:
First, you need to make sure you have a clean copy of your httpd.conf file. If you have installed any virtual hosts to this, they need to be commented out, or you need to make a copy of the httpd.conf file, then edit the original so it has no virtual hosting information in it. The httpd.conf file can be found in the www/conf directory.
After you have successfully completed installing the server extensions, you can re-add the directives to the httpd.conf file. If you haven't added any virtual hosts, don't worry about the above step.
"fpsrvadm" program:
- fish% fpsrvadm
Doing a first time install of Microsoft Front Page Extentions
- Installing MS Front Page Extentions in
~/usr/local/frontpage
Untar'ing MS Front Page Extentions... (please wait)
Making ~/dev/tty...
- Type "fpsrvadm -h" for help on command
line options
Please enter command:
- 0) quit
1) install
2) upgrade
3) uninstall
4) check
5) enable authoring
6) disable authoring
7) change security settings
8) recalculate links
9) putfile
10) recalcfile
Your choice [1]: 1
- Please enter server type:
- 0) apache
1) apache-manual-restart
2) apache-wpp
3) cern
4) cern-manual-restart
5) ncsa
6) ncsa-manual-restart
7) netscape-commerce
8) netscape-communication
9) netscape-enterprise
10) netscape-fasttrack
11) netscape-manual-restart
Your choice [0]: 6
- Enter server config filename:
Type "/usr/local/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf".
- Enter host name for multi-hosting []:
Type the fully quatified host name of your site (e.g. "www.yourdomain.com")
- Starting install, port: www.yourdomain.com:80,
web: ""
Enter web administrator name []:
Type in the username of your administrator (e.g. "admin").
password:
- Enter web administrator password:
Confirm password:
Creating root web
Recalculate links for root web
- Install completed.
- Please enter command:
0) quit
1) install
2) upgrade
3) uninstall
4) check
5) enable authoring
6) disable authoring
7) change security settings
8) recalculate links
9) putfile
10) recalcfile
Your choice [1]: 0
Here are a few steps to get started:
- (1) Bring up "FrontPage Explorer" on your
PC.
- (2) Select "Open Web" on the "File" pull
down menu or click on the "Open Web" icon (the one that looks like an opened
folder).
- (3) Type your web server's full host name
(e.g. "www.yourdomain.com" in the example above).
- (4) Click on the "List Webs" button.
(5) Select "" and click on the "OK" button.
(6) You will now be prompted to put in your Front Page Administrator's username and password (this the same one that you enter above installing front page).
- (7) After a few moments the screen will
be filled with your pages to edit. Click on the page you want to edit and
the Front Page Editor will come up.
- (8) Have fun.
- How do I remove the Microsoft(TM) FrontPage
Server Extensions from my Virtual Server if I don't want them anymore?
Simply telnet to your server and type "fpnuke" at the command prompt.
- Unfortunatly newsgroups are not supported
by our server system, and are also not allowed. Newsgroups have the
tendency to retain indecent material, and as a result, we have decided
to refrain from supporting a medium that is difficult to monitor/moderate
for the content. As an alternative, you may setup moderated mailing
lists whereby people may subscribe to news information. We recommend
majordomo for this feature.
- As an alternative to newsgroups which
are difficult to moderate and manage for content we recommend using Majordomo
software.
One of the powerful features of the Majordomo software is the ability to create moderated lists which are controlled by a central moderator. This control prevents abuse of your mailing list by outside parties as well as allowing the moderator to restrict frivolous postings.
- To install Majordomo, telnet to
your Virtual Server (This cannot be done via FTP) and do the following:
1.Untar the Majordomo tar file located in the /usr/local/contrib area.
- % cd (this
will put you in your home directory)
% tar -xvf /usr/local/contrib/majordomo.tar
- % chmod 755 usr
% chmod 755 usr/local
% chmod 755 usr/local/majordomo
% chmod 755 usr/local/majordomo/Lists
- pico usr/local/majordomo/majordomo.cf
4.Edit your etc/aliases and add aliases like the following:
- # Majordomo Stuff
majordomo: "|/usr/local/majordomo/wrapper majordomo"
owner-majordomo: your_mail_address_here
majordomo-owner: your_mail_address_here
5.Run the command "vnewaliases" to update the aliases database:
- vnewaliases
- To set up a moderated Majordomo mailing
list, you will need to do two things:
- 1.Add Majordomo Aliases Configuration
2.Create Majordomo List Files
You will want to substitute the occurrence of "sample" in the files below with the name of your moderated mailing list.
- Majordomo Aliases Configuration
- The lines below represent the aliases
that you should add to your "~/etc/aliases" file to set up a moderated
list. After you add these aliases you will need to run the command "vnewaliases"
in order to update your virtual
server's alias database.
-
# sample moderated mailing list
owner-sample: bill@yourcompany.com
sample: "|/usr/local/majordomo/wrapper resend -A -R -l sample -h company.com sample-hidden-list"
sample-approval: owner-sample
sample-hidden-list: :include:/usr/local/majordomo/Lists/sample
owner-sample-outgoing: owner-sample
sample-request: "|/usr/local/majordomo/wrapper request-answer sample"
owner-sample-request: owner-sample
- Note that in the example above the "hidden"
mailing list is actually an alias "sample-hidden-list".
You will probably want to change the occurrences of "sample-hidden-list" to be something obscure (since this is the first thing people who want to break in your
list will check for).
You will also want to disable two dangerous commands in the majordomo perl script, namely "who" and "which". You can do this by commenting out lines 159 and 160 in the "majordomo" script in your usr/local/majordomo area.
It is also wise to modify your Virtual Server's "sendmail.cf" file (located in your "etc" directory) so that outside parties cannot expand (EXPN) and verify (VRFY) email aliases. Add the following line as the last entry in the "Options" section in your sendmail.cf file: Opauthwarnings,needmailhelo,noexpn,novrfy
Majordomo List Files
- The following three files represent
what you will need for your moderated mailing list. You will
need to create these three files for each moderated list and store them
in your
"~/usr/local/Majordomo/Lists" area.
-
sample - the file that contains the email addresses, one per line.
sample.passwd - the file that contains the moderator password.
sample.info - the file that contains the information for your mailing list.
- Now that you have a moderatored
mailing list, you will need to know how to post to it. You must supply
your password as a user defined mail header titled "Approved:". So if for
example your password was "mypass",
you would need to add the following header to a message for it to be
approved:
- Approved: mypass
Majordomo is not for the faint at heart. Please review the following files before you attempt to use Majordomo. All questions sent to Iserver Technical Support with regard to Majordomo mailing list configuration will be answered with a URL to this page.
- list-owner-info - has information for list owner to get them started using majordomo and the config files.
- majordomo.ora - This file is the chapter about Majordomo from the Nutshell Handbook "Managing Internet Information Services," written by Jerry Peek. The chapter is (c) Copyright 1994 by O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., and was included in the Majordomo distribution by permission of the publisher.
- This chapter is a good introduction to
setting up the majordomo software, be warned that it does not cover much
of the list operation details under 1.90 that deal with config files. Then
again the config files are supposed to be self documenting. A newer version
of this chapter that has been updated for 1.90 is in the works, and should
make it into the "Managing Internet Information Services" book. This newer
chapter should be available via ftp in due time. Stay tuned to the majordomo-announce
or majordomo-users mailing list for details.
- majordomo.lisa6.ps - The original Majordomo paper from the USENIX LISA VI conference in October, 1992. While this paper is somewhat out of date (some of the details about how Majordomo works have changed, and many of the items mentioned as "to be implemented later" have since been implemented), it remains a valuable introduction to Majordomo's basic form and structure.
- FAQ - The Majordomo FAQ.
Do the following for each list (list-name) you want to create:
- 1.Create an empty file called list-name
("my-list" in this example) in your usr/local/majordomo/Lists
directory and make sure the file mode is "644":
- % touch usr/local/majordomo/Lists/my-list
% chmod 644 usr/local/majordomo/Lists/my-list
- % cat > usr/local/majordomo/Lists/my-list.passwd
mypassword
^D (control-D)
% chmod 600 usr/local/majordomo/Lists/my-list.passwd
3.Create a file called "list-name.info". This file will contains the initial introductory info for the list. To create this file you can use "cat" (or your favorite UNIX editor):
- % cat > usr/local/majordomo/Lists/my-list.info
This list is for discussions about my list.
^D (control-D)
- # "My-List" list
my-list: "|/usr/local/majordomo/wrapper resend -h mydomain.com -l my-list my-list-outgoing"
my-list-outgoing: :include:/usr/local/majordomo/Lists/my-list
owner-my-list: your_list_managers_address_here
my-list-request: "|/usr/local/majordomo/wrapper request-answer my-list"
my-list-approval: your_list_managers_address_here
5.Run "vnewaliases" to update the aliases database:
- vnewaliases
- First State Internet Services will register
your site with the following search engines upon request:
- Unfortunately, the answer is Yes.
We offer the option to pay by check as we realize it is not always convenient
to pay by credit card. Our policy is that all payments are due prior to
each month of service or interruption in service may occur.
Invoices will be mailed via electronic mail unless you request invoicing by US postal mail which will incur a 2.00 processing fee each year. Payment must be received by the payment date on the invoice to avoid interruption in service.
- NEVER!! First State Internet Services
publishes all fees on our web pages. Some fees such as quotes for web page
authoring, or CGI script management are not published. But you can be assured
that we will never charge you a fee for any service without that fee being
published on our web site, or by notifying you via e-mail in advance and
getting your approval for services first. The only exception to this would
include collection fees for outstanding balances on your account, and/or
finance charges for amounts not paid.
- The answer is simple and Quick - NO! -
For several reasons. We would like to keep our server clean.