OK|Public Web Hosting

Downtime Today – December 6, 2009 RESOLVED

Eliot — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:20:36 +0000

Update 11:26 12/6 EST (below) Today some OK Public customers have been experiencing some unexpected downtime for which we sincerely apologize.

This is unscheduled and was caused not by issues with our servers but by a mistake by the datacenter that we use. The gyst of the issue is that the datacenter launched a change to their internal infrastructure and in doing so, they incorrectly altered the DNS settings for domain names that resolve to servers within the datacenter. So basically OK Public’s servers and your sites are up and running just fine right now but, because of the DNS issue, people viewing your websites via the web aren’t being properly directed.

We are in contact with technicians at the datacenter and, although we don’t have an estimate time for when all sites will be back up, we will keep you posted here with any new information.

All the Best,
Eliot

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Update 2:07 EST

Just received an ETA of 60-90 minutes from a datacenter administrator. Will add more info as it comes in.

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Update 3:47 EST

I wanted to update everyone as it’s been 100 minutes since my last update in which I mentioned the datacenter had given me an ETA of 60-90 minutes to resolve the issue. Alas, there are still OK Public users experiencing issues. We’ve been hounding them for info but unfortunately we have nothing new to report right now. I’ll post here as soon as I have any new information.

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Update 8:08 EST

Unfortunately there is no update of significance at this time. At 5:10 today our datacenter said that the issue had been resolved. Here is the exact communication:

At this time, DNS issues have been resolved. Customers may still see some truncated data in their customer portal and this will be corrected within the next 24 hours.

We apologize for this disruption and thank you for your continued patronage and understanding.

That was at 5:10 and 3 hours later the issues aren’t resolved.

And here is the latest aknowledgement from an admin that I discovered in a forum, which was posted at 7:50:

Hey folks, we realize there are still issues with those customers who used to have geodns as slaves to their master servers. We’re still working on identifying and correcting the source of these issues. Sorry about the slowness of updates.

I know this doesn’t make it better as many of you are still having issues, but please know we’re doing the best we can on our end. I’ll post again with any additional information.

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Update 11:26 EST

The DNS issues have been resolved by the datacenter and your sites should be coming online shortly if they aren’t already. I am confident that there shouldn’t be any additional issues caused by the overlying DNS problem but I will post again here if any arise. I will also post any additional information that I receive from the datacenter as to why this occured and plans for the future.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding. Again, I sincerely apologize for the downtime.

All the Best,
Eliot

How to Move Your Site Over to OK Public

Eliot — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:21:24 +0000

IMPORTANT: Downtime for Datacenter Power Maintenance

Eliot — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:19:22 +0000

How to Transfer a Domain to OK Public

Eliot — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:56:18 +0000

This article explains the steps necessary to transfer a domain from a different registrar to OK Public.

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If you haven’t already, the first thing to do is to place an order for a domain name and, during the ordering process, select the option “Transferring Domain” for the “Domain Action” field. This is not necessary if you’re looking to transfer a domain and use it as your free domain for a Level 1 or a Level 2 account.

Here are the next steps for transferring a domain:

You will need to obtain the domain authorization code. This is also sometimes referred to as the auth code, transfer secret, or transfer code (it varies between registrars). Sometimes you will be able to obtain this right from the control panel of your current registrar and other times you will need to contact your registrar and request it to be emailed to you.
The next step is to make sure that the domain name is “unlocked” at your current registrar. A transfer request can only take place if the domain name is unlocked. Again, sometimes you will be able to unlock the domain right in the control panel of your current registrar and other times you will need to contact the registrar directly and ask that it is unlocked.
After completing the above steps, contact us via email and make sure to include the domain name you want to transfer, the authorization code for that domain name, as well as a confirmation that the domain has been unlocked. We will then complete the transfer for you.

Please note that it is not necessary to transfer your domain name to OK Public in order to have hosting with OK Public. If you would like, you can keep the domain name registered with your current registrar but change the DNS settings so that the site can be hosted with OK Public.

Host Multiple Websites Under One Account – Addon Domains Tutorial

Eliot — Fri, 09 May 2008 01:03:02 +0000

How to Create a New Addon Domain

Please Note: Some of the control panel images may not coincide with your control panel exactly. But the basic concepts are the same no matter which control panel your account is currently setup to use.

Login into your control panel (http://yourdomain.com/cpanel) and click on “Addon Domains” or “Manage Addon Domains” from the home page of your control panel.
You should then see the follow fields or similiar fields along with an “Add Domain!” button:

Here is an explanation of the fields:
- New Domain Name: The new domain name that you are adding to your account
- Username/directorysubdomain Name: This is the field that you use to tell the system which directory the new domain name should point to. This new directory will reside in the public_html directory in your account. So for instance, if you type in “newsite” in this field, the domain name will then resolve to the files in the directory “public_html/newsite/”
- Password: This field is present because a new FTP account will be created with the addon domain that resolves just to this new website directory. This is handy if you are setting up a site under your hosting account for a friend for instance. Let’s say you set the password to be “password” (please don’t ever do that in real life though!). You’ve set the directory above to be “newsite” and now, once you click “Add Domain!”, there will be a new FTP account with the username “newsite@yourdomain.com” (note that your domain name, the new one you’re adding, will be appended to the end of the new FTP and account) and the password “password”.
Click “Add Domain!”

And that does it!

Please Note: It may take sometime for the new domain name to actually resolve to the directory you specified. It could take up to 24 hours, but more than likely it will resolve within a few hours.

Also Note: If you’re adding on a domain name that wasn’t ordered with OK Public, then you’ll need to change the DNS (domain name server) settings with the company that you registered the domain with. Here you’ll find the correct DNS entries that you’ll need to set.

Moving On Up – Server Migration

Eliot — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:50:57 +0000

Great news! We’re upgrading our servers to provide you with faster and more robust service for your websites.

The process will continue through the second week of May.

Will this effect my website in anyway?

Your website should experience very little downtime if any. While the new DNS settings are propagating, people that visit your website may see a message that the the account is being moved to a new server. But this shouldn’t last for more than an hour and we will be doing most of the migrations during off-peak hours (late at night or early in the morning).

As always, if you experience any issues with your account, please contact support.

Setup MySQL Databases

Eliot — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:50:40 +0000

This article demonstrates how to setup MySQL databases with your hosting account.

Login to the control panel and click on the “MySQL Databases” link in the “Databases” section.
Use the form (shown below) to create a new database. Type in the name of the database that you’d like to create. Please note that the name that you input will be appended to the end of your username. For example, if you type in contacts, the database will end up being named yourusername_contacts.
Next you will need to create a user that has permissions to read and write to the database. Use the form (shown below) to create this user by typing in a username and password. Again, the username you input will be appended to the end of your control panel username. For example, if you type in “contacts” for the username, the username will end up being yourusername_contacts.
Once you have created both the database and the user, you now have to link the user to the database. In other words, you have to let the server know that the user has permission to read and write to the database that you created. Use the dropdown options in the “Add Users to Your Databases” section to assign the new user to the new database.

You have now created a database, a user and you have assigned the user to the database. You can now use that information to connect to the database using a web application or a script in your hosting account.

When setting this up, the host should be “localhost” unless you’re connecting to the database from outside of your hosting space with OK Public.

The Difference Between Domain Names and Hosting

Eliot — Wed, 23 May 2007 16:18:52 +0000

When you’re just beginning to setup a website, it can be difficult to understand how a domain name and hosting work together to connect your website to the rest of the world. After all, there are no ‘domain names’ nor ‘hosting space’ outside of the virtual realm of the Internet. Here are a couple analogies that may help clarify things.

Real estate and mailing addresses

You can think of hosting and a domain name like a building and a mailing address. As a building is a space that holds all of your stuff, hosting space is where you house your website files and other digital information.

But without a mailing address, the building (or people residing in the building) cannot be contacted by the outside world. In a similiar way, people cannot easily connect to a website if it doesn’t have a domain name associated with it.

People with name tags

My friend Micah sent over this analogy.

You can also think of hosting and a domain name as a person with a name tag. Without the name tag, other people can not address that person. In a similiar way, without a domain name, an Internet user can not easily find a website.

Also, just as a name tag can be swapped among different people, a domain name can be swapped between different hosts. For instance, if you own a domain name and have hosting, you can take that domain name and use it with a different host.

I hope those help (and don’t cause any more confusion)! Do you have your own analogy? Feel free to submit it as a comment below.

How to Setup Email Accounts at OKPublic

Eliot — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 16:05:11 +0000

Here are 5 simple steps to add a new email address to your hosting account:

First you will need to login to the control panel if you haven’t already done so. Your username and password are included in the “Domain Activation” email that was sent when you first signed up with OKPublic. If you didn’t receive it, please contact us and we’ll get the info out to your right away.
Click on the “Manage Accounts”
Click on the “Add Account” link.
Type in your desired email address and password for the new account. Then, if you’d like, you can set the quota to limit how much mail the new account can hold. If you’re not sure about this, then just leave this field blank for no quota.
Click on the “Create” submit button. You will see a screen that reads “Account Created.” Click on the “Go Back” link. You will now see the new account listed!

There are two ways to read and send emails with the new account:

Use the webmail client. To do so, go to http://www.okpublic.com/webmail/ and enter in the full email address and password of the account. You will have the opportunity to use three different mail clients; Horde, NeoMail or SquirrelMail. Each works very well but whereas Horde has many advanced features, NeoMail and SquirrelMail are a bit lighter and perhaps easier to use.
Setup a Email Client. You can also setup an email client like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird to access your email. While viewing the list of email addresses in the control panel, click on the “Configure Mail Client” link to view the account information that you’ll need in order to setup access via an email client.

If you are at all stumped, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Commenting Added to Articles

Eliot — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 05:06:31 +0000

We’ve added the ability to comment on current and future articles. We’d love to get feedback on these knowledge articles that we hope provide some valuable information about building your site with OKPublic. Hopefully posting a comment can also provide an opportunity to ask any lingering questions. Also, we know that you have great ideas and we’d appreciate any additional tips that you’d like to tag on. If you have any topics that you’d like us to cover, please contact us and we’ll be on it.

All the Best,
Eliot