Pre-Sales Questions
Which methods of payment do you accept?
Currently we accept payments through paypal only. With paypal you are able to pay with all major credit cards (Visa, Master, Discovery and American Express). If you do not have a paypal account you can sign up which is integrated in the payment process and will not require more information than any other payment process. For more information about paypal, please visit http://www.paypal.com .
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How long does it take to set up my account?
We cannot activate the account until payment is received-that is, until your credit card is approved, paypal payment processed and cleared. You will receive an email with all the necessary configuration information for your account. We do not activate new accounts automatically, as we like to manually check all signups to guard against fraud.
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If I'm not satisfied with the service how do I receive a refund?
If you're not satisfied with our service and wish to cancel you may receive a full refund within the first 14 days of your initial service period. After the 14 day grace period, the refund is not applicable.
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What kind of hardware and software do you guys use?
- Dual Xeon 2.8 GHz
- Hyperthreading (functionally equivalent to a 4-processor server)
- 1.5 GB memory
- 100 Mbps uplink port
- Dual 80 GB hard drives
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What kind of hosting facility do you have?
We keep our servers at The Planet , a truly state-of-the-art data center in Dallas Texas. As expected, it has complete redundancy in power, fire suppression, HVAC, security, and network connectivity. Network redundancy is remarkable, with 12 network feeds from 9 different bandwidth providers.
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Do you support Microsoft FrontPage extensions?
All packages support FrontPage extensions, which can be enabled in your control panel.
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What if I need more space, more bandwidth and more features than you provide?
For websites that exceed the monthly bandwidth limit provided in the package may purchase an additional block of 1 gigabytes priced at $1.00 USD/month each.
For websites that need more web space may purchase additional blocks of 100Mb at USD $1/month.
If you need more features, such as more email addresses, databases and so on, please contact us.
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PHP, Perl, JSP, Servlets, MySQL, Postgres, Apache
All our packages provide PHP and Perl. JSP, Servlets, Mysql and Postgres are available from the standard packages upwards. The versions are frequently updated, though not always to the latest versions as our server and network specialists have to evaluate security and stability issues.
We provide either php 5 / MySQL 5 or php 4 / MySQL 4. php 5 is the preferred package as you will be on a new server and will have better performance. php 5 is highly backwards compatible and only very old code might have issues. The php 5 package comes with MySQL 5 and you will have a error log file which makes the jsp development easier.
Current versions:
- php: 4.4.7 / 5.2.2
- Perl: 5.8.1
- JSP:
Tomcat 6
- JDK 1.6
- MySQL: 4.1.24 / 5.0.24
- phpMyAdmin: 2.9.0.2
- Postgres 7.3.9
- phpPostAdmin
- Apache
1.3.37
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What control panel do you provide?
We are using Cpanel, an award winning control panel. Cpanel allows you to control most aspects of your account such as setting up email account, databases, view website statistics and so on. For screen shot click here.
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Will I have website statistics?
Yes. You will have daily updated statistics available in your control panel. We use Awstats and webalizer stats. In addition the raw logfiles and raw realtime information of the last 30 visits are available to you.
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Do these servers support SSL?
YES. All of our servers by default run OpenSSL. This means that URLs can be accessed securely. If you are on a shared server, we have a secure certificate for the server's master domain that all clients on the server can use. This means clients have access to their own secure area via
https://[servername].ia-dns.com/[username]
If you are a customer, check your welcome e-mail for details.
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Do I get a free domain name with your packages?
No we do not provide free domain names. Often hosting companies use this as an additional feature and give the domain name free for the first year, but will charge a relative high amount to renew the domain name for the following years. We believe that it is better for our customers that they are in full control of their domain names.
You may register your domain name at:
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After Sales Questions
My domain name does not work
If you registered a new domain, it will be available to you in 24 to 48 hours. Until that time, you will be able to access the account through the Host Name http://www.brainstabilizer.com/~your_login_name/ Make sure you set up the DNS servers to our name servers.
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How do I change my domain name servers to yours?
To change your name servers to brainstabilizer's, you must log into your current domain registrar's control panel and make the switch. Our nameservers are:
PHP 4 / MySQL 4 Servers:
- NS1. brainstabilizer.com
- NS2. brainstabilizer.com
PHP 5 / MySQL 5 Servers:
- NS3. brainstabilizer.com
- NS4. brainstabilizer.com
If you are unsure how to do so, or if you would like us to take care of this for you, please contact us.
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What name servers should I use for my domain
PHP 4 / MySQL 4 Servers:
- NS1. brainstabilizer.com
- NS2. brainstabilizer.com
PHP 5 / MySQL 5 Servers:
- NS3. brainstabilizer.com
- NS4. brainstabilizer.com
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How do I access my control panel?
To access your control panel (cPanel) you have to login at http://www.your_domain_name.com/cpanel
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How do I setup my mail accounts?
You can setup, add, delete and alter email addresses in your control panel in the section "mail".
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How do I access my webmail?
You have to login at http://www.your_domain_name.com/webmail. login name is your full email address. After login you can choose one of three webmail clients which you like to use.
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How can I password protect a folder on my site?
If you log into your domain control panel, you should see an icon or text link that says "Web Protect". Once you click that link you will be taken to a page to select the folder you would like to have password protected and you can assign usernames and passwords.
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Java
How does Apache and Tomcat work together?
We run Apache as a front-end for Tomcat, using mod_jk. In this configuration, Apache sees all Web requests. It processes some itself, and hands others off to Tomcat for processing.
By default, we configure Apache to pass the following URL patterns to Tomcat:
*.do
*.jsp
/servlet/*
/servlets/*
If you would like Tomcat to handle other URL patterns, you need to request us to set that up for you. For example, if you have a servlet-based online store at http://www.yourdomain.com/store, then you probably want Apache to send all URL's of the form /store/* to Tomcat. Note that the default setup will work fine if all URL's in your store end in *.do or *.jsp .
Here are some additional considerations to keep in mind:
- You cannot specify a welcome file in web.xml. The welcome file for a directory is determined by normal Apache mechanisms (e.g., the .htaccess file).
- You can password-protect directories using normal Apache mechanisms (e.g., the icon in cPanel will work fine whether your site uses Apache, Tomcat, or some mix of the two).
- If you have an SSL-based site, your certificate is installed for Apache in the usual way, and any Tomcat requests can be done over SSL with no additional effort.
Can I deploy WAR files? We can deploy a WAR for the customer upon request. It should be uploaded to /home/username in that case send us an email.
Auto-deployment is available by uploading to /home/username/public_html. But keep the following in mind:
1) After deployment, the expanded files will be owned by the user Tomcat runs under, so the client will not be able to edit those files. They can only update them by uploading an updated WAR.
2) Very few WAR's run correctly as uploaded. The most common problem is use of wrong pathnames, such as Windows-style c:\... instead of Linux-style. Be sure all paths referenced in all config files are absolute; they should all start with / home/username / ... 3)
Another common problem with uploaded WAR's, especially if they are a distribution of an open-source package, is that they often assume they will have security privileges beyond what we allow. In most cases, this isn't trivial to work around.
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Can I use Struts? Yes. You can use Struts by uploading the Struts libraries. There's nothing extra that needs to be done from our end to use Struts.
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Can I use Hibernate?
Hibernate can be supported, and is used by many of the sites we host. However, due to its poor design, we need to grant special security privileges to a site running Hibernate. So that request will need to be made by Helpdesk once the site is setup and uploaded.
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Can I use Spring?
Spring is popular, but poorly written from a system administrator's standpoint. We need to grant special security privileges to a site running Srping. So that request will need to be made by Helpdesk once the site is setup and uploaded. We prefer not to host websites that use Spring.
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Can I restart Tomcat myself?
Yes. You can use cPanel restart your Tomcat virtual host. This is recommended whenever you make changes to your web.xml, jars or class files.
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Shared JVM At the present time, we offer only a shared Java Virtual Machine (JVM), using a shared Tomcat instance.
This has certain implications:
- You do not have access to Tomcat's directories to view logs or work files, or to update configuration files.
- While we provide a way to restart your Tomcat Virtual Host via the "Tomcat Site Manager" in cPanel, you do not have access to restart Tomcat itself.
- A shared JVM is inappropriate for certain open-source libraries which require a high level of control over the JVM, so we are not able to support such applications at this time. Examples include Cocoon and Magnolia.
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Using JavaMail to send email JavaMail is the recommended way to send e-mail from Java code on our servers.
We keep the latest versions of JavaMail and the JavaBeans Activation Framework in your classpath, so you do not need to install these into your site.
The following sample JSP demonstrates the correct approach for sending e-mail from your Java code:
<%@ page import="java.util.*" %>
<%@ page import="javax.mail.*" %>
<%@ page import="javax.mail.internet.*" %>
<%@ page import="javax.activation.*" %>
<html>
<head><title>JavaMail Test</title></head>
<body>
<%
Properties props = new Properties(); // Properties for this mail session
Session mailSession; // Current mail session
Transport transport; // Mail transport protocol object
// Initialize props, mailSession, transport
props.put("mail.smtp.host", "localhost");
mailSession = Session.getInstance(props, null);
transport = mailSession.getTransport("smtp");
String fromAddress = "from@yourdomain.com";
String toAddress = "to@somedomain.com";
String subject = "Test message subject";
String body = "Test message body";
// Construct and send the e-mail message
MimeMessage msg = new MimeMessage(mailSession);
msg.setFrom(new InternetAddress(fromAddress));
msg.setRecipient(Message.RecipientType.TO, new InternetAddress(toAddress));
msg.setSentDate(new Date());
msg.setSubject(subject);
msg.setText(body);
// Send the message
transport.send(msg);
%>
If you don't see an exception report, then the message was sent successfully.
</body>
</html>
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For Developers
Can I use cronjobs?
If you have the Business Package you can create cron jobs in the control panel. These may not be scheduled to run more often than once per hour without special permission. Where permission is granted, an extra fee may be incurred based on system resources used and scheduling frequency.
Business Card and the Standard Package do not support cronjobs.
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Do you allow SSH?
No, currently we do not allow SSH / Shell access.
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