A Few Important Things You Should Know. Welcome to the Getting Started Guide. This resource is for the benefit of every new Ovica client, and we highly recommend reading this resource. We guarantee that it will make getting your email and websites online so much easier.
One of the first things that every new account user should know is that for a few days after your original signup date, you will NOT be able to access your website on the internet via your domain name(e.g yourwebsite.com)
You will be able to access your website from the following:
http://IPAddress/~username/
The IP address is the address given to you in your welcome email. Be sure to put the ~, and your username is your username given in your welcome email.
The reason for this is due to a process called domain propagation. It happens with every hosting provider and is something that cannot be avoided. This process can take from 1-3 days for new domains, and 1-4 days for domain name transfers. Clients who have a preexisting domain with another company(i.e registered their domain elsewhere), will need to change their DNS details at their domain registrar before they can view their website on the internet. Don't worry, this is a straightforward process, and we give you the details in the next few FAQ. If you registered your domain with Ovica, you DNS configuration for your domain is pre-configured, so you simply need to be patient and wait the 24-48 hours for your domain to become visible
To test to see if your domain is viewable, simply type your domain address into a Web browser such as Internet Explorer. If you can see your website via your domain name or you see a holding page(the holding page will have a bold texted "index of", and a list of titles such as parent directory and cgi_bin), your domain has propagated. If you see an "error, this page cannot be displayed page", then your domain has not propagated, and you may need to wait a few days.
NOTE: Over 90% of all questions from new clients relate to this issue. DNS changes are not an exact science, and can take up to 6 days in extreme cases. All we ask is that you be patient, as there is nothing Ovica can do to speed up the process.
Here is a simple reference guide:
Before domain propagation:
Access your website from: http://IPaddress/~username/. (no www)
Access email from : http://www.IPaddress.com.au/webmail
(note you won't be able to send and receive email until domain has propagated).
Upload(FTP) your sites from : Server IP address given in welcome email
Access your control center: http://IPaddress/cpanel
After Domain Propagation
Access your website from : http://www.yourdomain.com
Access email from: http://www.yourdomain.com.au/webmail
Upload(FTP) from : yourdomain.com.au
Access your control center: http://www.yourdomain.com.au/cpanel
Change the DNS for your Domain You will need to change the DNS information for your domain(yourcompany.com). DNS essentially tells your domain name to "point" to the Ovica.com servers. It allows all requests for your website to be pointed to the ovica.com servers where your websites are stored. You don’t need to know what DNS is or what is does, you just need to change them.
NOTE: As mentioned, if you have chosen to register your domain with Ovica, please ignore this step. You do NOT need to make any changes. You still, however, need to wait for domain propagation.
Those that have not registered through Ovica, you need make the changes through your domain registrar(the person you originally registered your domain with). When you registered your domain, you will have received an email from your domain regsitrar with your username and password.
Go the registrars website, and you will find a section that says something like "member area", Login area", "Domain Administration Area". Login to this admin area and you will see a general area that states something like "Change or Update DNS info". If you can’t find it, have a talk to your domain registrar to find out where the section is, or send us an email.
You then login using your username and password(that you received from your domain registrar-not the one from Ovica), replace the information that is currently there with the nameserver information that came with your welcome email.
It will look something like this
ns1.yourregistrar.com
ns2.yourregistrar.com
You simply need to replace them with the EXACT information given in the section of the welcome email from us called NAMESERVERS.(such as ns1.ovica.com, ns2.ovica.com)
IMPORTANT NOTE: This process can take up to 3 days for your website to be accessible to the internet by your domain name. You can still access your website via your servers IP address.
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Control Center Information Your control center is your very own password protected center to manage your website and email accounts.
You will have received your login details in your welcome email, and you can use these details to login to your control center.
If your domain has propagated, you can access your Control Center using the url:
http://www.yourdomain.com/cpanel. Where "yourdomain" is your actual domain name.
If your domain hasn't propagated, you can access your control center from
http://IPaddress/cpanel. "IPaddress" is the IP address of your server. It is a string of numbers given to you in your welcome email.
Take the time to familiarise yourself with the features, or view Video tutorials on almost every aspect of the control center.
Setup Emails IMPORTANT NOTE: You cannot send or receive email from your email accounts until your domain has propagated(takes approximately 1-3 days after nameserver transfer-
There are two steps in the process of setting up email accounts.
1. Setting up the email account on the server through your control center.
2. Setting up email in Outlook or Outlook Express.
If you require web-based email access only, you only need to complete number 1.
We also provide the process in step-by-step form here
(1). Setting up the email account on the server through your control center.
a.. Access your control panel for your domain name - http://yourdomain.com.au/cpanel
b. Select Mail
c. Choose "Add / Remove Accounts" -
d. Then choose "Add Account" down the bottom of the page -
e. Then add your email username and password then press "Create" -
Your email account has now been created on the server. Now you can setup and configure your Outlook Express as follows -
(2)
a. Access your Outlook and click on "Tools". It is one of the icons at the top of the page
b. Then click on "Accounts" -
c. Then click on Add "Mail" -
d. Then add your name -
This is the email address that will go in the "from" field in outgoing messages
e. Then add your email address – That you created in your control panel
f. Then add in your mail servers –
Both Incoming and Outgoing will always be
mail.yourdomain.com (replace the "yourdomain.com", with your actual domain name).
g. Then add your username and password.
Remember, your username is your full email address, and your password is the password you created when you setup the email account.
h. Then click finish.
Your email is now setup. Send some test emails to some other email accounts of yours. Also test that you can receive emails to your new email account.
Upload Your Website Files You cannot have a website without webpages, and webpages are simply files stored on a server that people can access through their browser(such as Internet Explorer).
If you have not designed your website yet, we provide an informative resource here, which may give you some ideas on how to design your website.
To upload your files to the Ovica servers, you need a File Transfer(FTP) program. A file transfer program does exactly what is says, it transfers files from one location to another.
We Use SMART_FTP to upload our files, which is available for download from http://www.smartftp.com
You need to upload you main homepage as index.html. So when someone types in http://www.yourbusiness.com.au, they will see the contents of that index.html page.
These FTP programs are all different, but there are a number of unifying themes that are required to transfer your files to our servers.
Hostname or FTP name of the server[/b]: Put in your domain name(i.e.yourdomain.com)
Directory: public_html
Username: The username from your welcome email
Password: the password from your welcome email
Port(if required)=21
IMPORTANT NOTE: If your domain has not propagated yet, you cannot use your domain name as the "hostname or FTP name of the server". You need to use the IP address of the server from the welcome email. This usually looks something like 90.87.444.32(yours will be different). It is not important that you know the details, but it is essentially a different means by which you can upload your files to our server.
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