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Web Hosting - Getting Started Guide

Once your order is received, we begin work on setting up your new web hosting account. Within a couple hours your hosting account will be ready for use, at which time we'll send you a welcome email that will contain all the information you need to get started (username, password, DNS information, etc). The following steps outline what you should do next:

Step 1 - Domain Name Setup

If you already own your domain name, you have to change it's DNS (Domain Name Server) settings to the ones we give you in your welcome email. For example:

Nameserver 1: ns3.rbynet.com     IP: 66.96.218.37     <- Primary
Nameserver 2: ns4.rbynet.com     IP: 66.96.218.38

Note: The above assumes you are on our red.rbynet.com server. Please consult your welcome email to see what server your account is on, and what your nameservers should be set to.

If you registered your domain name through us, then we will have taken care of this for you... otherwise, you will have to do it yourself through the domain registrar where you registered your domain name. For detailed instructions on changing your domain name's DNS settings, consult our Technical Support page, as we have put together visual tutorials showing you exactly how to make these changes at 14 of the more popular domain name registrars.

Once you make these DNS changes, it will take 24-72 hours (1 to 3 days) for them to take effect (for your domain name to propagate), at which time your domain name will start pointing to our servers and your new hosting account.

Step 2 - Login to your Control Panel

You'll want to login to your control panel to do such things as view web stats, setup email addresses, MySQL databases, etc. To access your control panel, enter the following into your browser:

http://yourcompany.com:2082

... followed by your username and password (which are given to you in your welcome email).

Prior to Domain Name Propagation
The above link will not work until your domain name has fully propagated to our servers. In the meantime, you can login  to your Control Panel using the IP address of your primary nameserver (also given to you in your welcome email) like this:

http://66.96.218.37:2082

Note: This assumes your primary nameserver is ns3.rbynet.com (as shown above in step 1); be sure to check your welcome email to see what server your account is on, and what your primary nameserver IP address is.

Step 3 - Setup Email Address(es)

Once you are logged in to your control panel, you'll want to setup at least one email address.

Email Forwarding
If you want to simply "forward" all email to an outside email address (like your ISP email address), then simply set your Default Address (a tool in the Mail Management section of your Control Panel) to your ISP email address.... or to any email address where you want the emails to automatically be forwarded to. That way, any email sent to 'anything'@yourdomain.com will be automatically (and immediately) sent to you.
If you want to forward some emails to one address, and others to other addresses, you can do this with the Email Forwarders tool in your control panel.

Email Accounts (POP3 Accounts)
If you want to create a new email address with it's own account (or email box; this is called a POP3 email account), then use the Add / Del Email Accounts tool in your control panel. From there you can add POP3 email accounts, assigning each one it's own unique password. You will then want to go to your own email program (like Outlook, Outlook Express, etc.) and configure it to receive the emails sent to the new account you created.

For example: let's say your new hosting account is yourcompany.com and you created an email address in your control panel called you@yourcompany.com and assigned it a password called yourpass. The details you'll need to setup your email account(s) are as follows:

Account name: you@yourcompany.com
Password: yourpass
Incoming POP3: mail.yourcompany.com
Outgoing SMTP: mail.yourcompany.com

For more details on how to do this, we've created visual support tutorials to help walk you through this process. These tutorials can be found on our Technical Support page.

Step 4 - Upload your Website/Files

Once your domain name has propagated, you can upload your website and files to your account using a FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program like WS_FTP. If you do not have a FTP program, you can download a free version of WS_FTP... it is one of the most popular FTP programs in use today. Download the free version of WS_FTP.

Microsoft FrontPage
If you are using FrontPage to build your website, then you do not need a FTP program. Instead, use FrontPage's "Publish" feature to publish your website to your hosting account, using the username and password for your account (provided in your welcome email).

Prior to Domain Propagation
Another way to upload your files to your hosting account is by using the File Manager tool in your control panel. In fact, you can do this prior to your Domain Name propagating, so that your website will be functional prior to your domain name working. For more information on using the File Manager, and other tools in your control panel, check out our Control Panel Guide.

Step 5 - Viewing your Website/Files Prior to Domain Name Propagation

You may want to view your website prior to your domain name working, to make sure that it looks/works the way it should. You can immediately view your website prior to your domain name propagating by using the following link:

http://IPaddress/~username

Where IPaddress is the primary nameserver IP address given to you in your welcome email, and username is the username for your new account which is also given to you in your welcome email. So for example, if we assigned you the IP address of 12.123.12.123, and a username of "youracct", then you would simply browse to:

http://12.123.12.123/~youracct

If you want to view a specific page in your website, say contactus.html, then you would browse to:

http://12.123.12.123/~youracct/contactus.html

Of course, you will first have to upload your website to be able to view the pages.... and you can do that from within your Control Panel.