ecohost co-op | UK based web hosting powered by renewable energy

Ecohost does not currently run nameservers for domains that were registered with 3rd party registrars, so if you have registered your domain with another registrar you will need to use the advanced DNS settings provided by your domain registrar.

A Records

Domain registrars vary in what advanced DNS settings are provided, but you can usually update your domain's A records and MX records.

Usually we suggest adding a minimum of two A records. For example, if your hosting is on a server with the IP address 80.240.88.45, you could add the following A records.

@ 80.240.88.45 (sometimes blank)

* 80.240.88.45 (wildcard)

@ : This is an @ symbol which represents the plain domain. For example 'mydomain.com'. With some registrars, this is just left blank, rather than adding an @ symbol.

* : This is a wildcard symbol which points anything.mydomain.com to the server. This allows you to set up subdomains such as www.mydomain.com or mail.mydomain.com.

MX records.

To use email for your domain you need to set at least one MX record.

After setting a wildcard above, we usually set at least one MX record

mail.mydomain.com     priority 10

This record needs to point to the same IP address:  80.240.88.45

 

My registrar has no advanced DNS settings.

If your domain registrar does not provide advanced DNS settings in the control panel you may need to move your domain to a registrar that does, such as our registrar's control panel at http://domains.ecohost.coop

We are planning to start running nameservers in the near future which will allow us to help customers who don't have access to advanced DNS settings.

 

 

 

 

Some ISPs (i.e. your broadband provider) block the standard port for outgoing SMTP email (port 25). This is an attempt to reduce spam originating from their networks.

For example BT require you to either use their own SMTP servers, or register the SMTP servers you wish to use.

If you are having problems with outgoing email, the first thing to do is double check your outgoing server details. To connect to Ecohost server for sending email, you should use the same credential as for your incoming server - ususally as follows:

• Outgoing (SMTP) server name:  mydomain.com
• Outgoing (SMTP) user name: myemailaddress@mydomain.com
• Outgogin (SMTP) password: [same password as used for your incoming email]
• be sure to enable outgoing (SMTP) server authentication as not all email clients do this by default. 

If all this is correct, and your local email client still can't connect to the outgoing email server, you should contact your ISP to check if they block outgoing SMTP connections to servers other than their own.

You can of course simply use the outgoing email servers provided by your ISP, but your ISP will be able to advise you more fully on this.

If you host with us and wish to proudly display your wind-powered status you are more than welcome to add one of our banners to your site. If you contact us we can add it for you free of charge, alternatively if you are html-savvy and want to do it yourself the code is highlighted in green below:

Tiny Banner - 88px by 31px

<a href="http://ecohost.coop"><img src="http://ecohost.coop/sites/default/files/images/ecohost_88x31.jpg" alt="ecohost.coop wind powered hosting" /></a>

Small Banner - 120px by 60px

<a href="http://ecohost.coop"><img src="http://ecohost.coop/sites/all/files/images/ecohost_120x60.jpg" alt="ecohost.coop wind powered hosting" /></a>

Medium Banner - 120px by 90px

<a href="http://ecohost.coop"><img src="http://ecohost.coop/sites/all/files/images/ecohost_120x90.jpg" alt="ecohost.coop wind powered hosting" /></a>

Square Banner - 125px by 125px

<a href="http://ecohost.coop"><img src="http://ecohost.coop/sites/all/files/images/ecohost_125x125.jpg" alt="ecohost.coop wind powered hosting" /></a>

Wide Banner - 234px by 60px

<a href="http://ecohost.coop"><img src="http://ecohost.coop/sites/all/files/images/ecohost_234x60.jpg" alt="ecohost.coop wind powered hosting" /></a>

We recommend FireFox, which you can both read about and download here: Firefox

There are a million reasons to use it over its competitors, but the most important are that it is open source, it is free and it is far more standards compliant and feature-rich than IE.

It has enjoyed explosive growth and development - 40% of people surfing the net today are using it, compared to just 16% in 2005.

Once you have started using it, you'll start enjoying it. Then please spread the word!

If you are looking at an image online, within your web broswer, you can usually save the image to your computer.

For Firefox:

1. Right-click on the image
2. You should see a menu appear as shown below - select "Save Image As..."
3. You will then be given a browser window where you can select a place to save the image onto your computer.
4. When you press "save" the image will be stored on your computer and you can then open it, edit it and upload it to your website.

For Internet Explorer:

1. Right-click on the image
2. Select "Save Picture As"
3. Select a location on your computer to save the image
4. Press "save"

Note: If you do not see a menu appear, or you see a warning message, when you right-click on an image then the webmaster may have disabled the right-clicking and saving of their images in this way.

Note: Unless otherwise stated it should be assumed that all images are copywrited by their creators (and are their creative and intellectual property) and are therefore not to be used without explicit consent.

Assuming the domain name you have chosen is not already taken, we will then register your domain name using the name and address details you supply with your order. This will add the flat fee of £11 inc. VAT to your order.

To log in to your Plesk control panel:

1. Open your web browser, and in the address bar type the URL fo your Plesk control panel (for example, https://admin.ecohost.coop:8443).
2. Press ENTER.

   Plesk login screen will open.

3. Type the login name and password your provider gave you into the Login and Password boxes, respectively.

   Your login name would be your domain name.

4. If you log in for the first time, select the language for your control panel from the Interface language drop-down box.

   If you had previously specified the interface language and saved it in your interface preferences, leave the User default value selected.

5. Click Login.

EITHER: Log in to your Plesk control panel and use the "File Manager". This can be found in the "Tools" menu as "Manage Files on Domain".
To upload files, click on "Add New File".

OR: Using an ftp client, such as Filezilla, log on to your ftp server with the ftp details you've been given. These should include ftp host address, user name and password. Your html files are in a folder called <httpdocs>. This is where your website files should be stored.

NOTE: If you are using the ISPConfig control panel it is not possible to transfer files through the broswer. You must use an ftp client (see the second option above).

To switch on spam filtering for a mailbox login to your Plesk contol panel:

1. On your Home page, click the Mail icon in the Services group.
2. Click the e-mail address you need.
3. Click the Spam Filter icon in the Tools group.
4. Configure the following settings as desired:
   • The score required before a mail is considered spam. This setting adjusts spam filter sensitivity. SpamAssassin performs a number of different tests on contents and subject line of each message. As a result, each message scores a number of points. The higher the number, the more likely a message is spam. For example, a message containing the text string "BUY VIAGRA AT LOW PRICE!!!" in Subject line and message body scores 8.3 points. By default, the filter sensitivity is set so that all messages that score 7 or more points are classified as spam.

     If you receive lots of spam messages with the current setting, to make filter more sensitive, try setting a lesser value in the The score required before a mail is considered spam box; for example, 6.

     If you are missing your e-mails because your spam filter thinks they are junk, try reducing filter sensitivity by setting a higher value in the The score required before a mail is considered spam box.

     Note: To further improve spam filter accuracy, you may want to train your spam filter on e-mail messages you receive (see the instructions on improving accuracy of spam detection in the following section).

   • What to do with spam mail. If you are sure that your spam filter is accurate, you may want to set the filter to automatically delete all incoming messages recognized as spam. To do this, select the Delete option. If you wish to filter mail with the software on your local computer, select the Mark as spam and store in mailbox option, and then specify how spam filter should mark the messages recognized as spam. "X-Spam-Flag: YES" and "X-Spam-Status: Yes" headers are added to the message source by default, and if you want, the spam filter will also include a specific text string to the beginning of Subject line. To include a desired combination of symbols or words to the message subject, type it into the Add the following text to the beginning of subject of each message recognized as spam box. If you do not want the spam filter to modify message subject, leave this box blank. If you want to include into the subject line the number of points that messages score, type _SCORE_ in this box.
5. If you do not want to receive e-mail from specific domains or individual senders, click the Black List tab, and then add the respective entries to the spam filter's black list:
   • To add entries to the black list, click Add Addresses. If you have a list of entries stored in a file, click Browse to specify it, and then click OK. Otherwise, select the From List option, and type the e-mail addresses into the E-mail addresses box. Place each address in one row, or separate addresses with a coma, a colon, or a white space. You can use an asterisk (*) as a substitute for a number of letters, and question mark (?) as a substitute for a single letter. For example: address@spammers.net, user?@spammers.net, *@spammers.net. Specifying *@spammers.net will block the entire mail domain spammers.net. To save the entries you added, click OK, then confirm adding, and click OK again.
   • To remove entries from the black list, under the Black List tab, select the entries and click Remove Selected. Confirm removal and click OK.
6. If you want to be sure that you will not miss e-mail from specific senders, click the White List tab, and then add e-mail addresses or entire domains to the spam filter's white list:
   • To add entries to the white list, click Add Addresses. If you have a list of entries stored in a file, click Browse to specify it, and then click OK. Otherwise, select the From List option, and type the e-mail addresses into the E-mail addresses box. Place each address in one row, or separate addresses with a coma, a colon, or a white space. You can use an asterisk (*) as a substitute for a number of letters, and question mark (?) as a substitute for a single letter. For example: address@mycompany.com, user?@mycompany.com, *@mycompany.com. Specifying *@mycompany.com will add to the white list all e-mail addresses that are under the mycompany.com mail domain. To save the entries you added, click OK, then confirm adding, and click OK again.
   • To remove entries from the white list, under the White List tab, select the entries and click Remove Selected. Confirm removal and click OK.
7. Once finished with setting up the spam filter, click the Switch On Spam Filtering icon, and then click OK.

You need to set you domain name's DNS records to point to our server. If we register the domain on your behalf, we will do this for you. If you registered the domain with another registrar, you will need to update the DNS records with that registrar.

You will be sent the IP address of your server in your welcome email.

If you are hosted on one of our UK based eco servers, you can access your webmail, at http://mail.[servername].ecohost.coop

For example,
http://mail.ash.ecohost.coop for the "Ash" server, http://mail.rowan.ecohost.coop for the "Rowan" server

You can log in with your email address and password.

After loggin in for the first time, please make sure to update your personal details including the 'Reply To' address, so that emails you send will have your email address attributed as the sender.

To edit these details, visit Options -> Personal Information once logged in.

Once you have set up your email addresses in the control panel, you will need know your username and password and incoming email server for the email account you wish to set up.

1. Click on "Tools -> Account Settings
2. Click "Add Account..."
3. Select "Email Account" and click "Continue"
4. Enter your name and email address in the relevant fields and click "Continue".
5. For the type of incoming, select "IMAP"
6. For the incoming server, enter a domain that points to your server. This will probably be the domain name of the email address in question. So if your email address is "info@domain.com", try entering "domain.com". Alternatively you can use the domain name of the server, which is usually treename.ecohost.coop (eg. rowan.ecohost.coop).
7. For the incoming user name, enter your full email addres.
8. The account name can be anything, but it can be usefull to set it as your email address to help distinguish from different accounts in the future.
9. Your outgoing server (SMTP) should be set to either:
   a) the same details as the incoming server, using the same username and password for authentication,
   b) or the SMTP server provided by your ISP (the company who supplies you with your internet connection).
10. Click "Done"