How To Host A Web Site On the CGI Server
Active Web Hosting will allow you to host your entire site on your CGI server.
Note that you can not have any hostees on the CGI server. The CGI server
is only for use by the domain owner. Those attempting to host others on
their CGI server will have their domain taken offline.
Here is how you can get your domain to point to your CGI server instead of your
main web server:
Create a directory on your hard drive to hold your web site files and directories. It is always a good idea to keep a backup of your entire web site on your own hard drive and make regular backups.
If you are transferring your web site from the web server to the CGI server, log into your web server using your FTP program and download all of your web site files and directories to the new directory on your hard drive. Do not download the logs directory or it's files. This should remain on your web server even after you're done with the transfer. Log out of your web site FTP when done.
Be sure you have set up your CGI account.
Upload your web site files to your CGI server via FTP. Be sure that the start page is named index.html if you are transferring from your web server. If you are uploading a PHP script, be sure that the main index page is index.php.
Test your new site by pointing your web browser directly to your index page. This would be http://cgi.yourdomain.com/ changing yourdomain.com to your actual domain name. Make any corrections until the site works.
Contact support@activewebhosting.com and request your site be moved to your CGI server.
Be sure to test your site using http://yourdomain.com/ (where yourdomain.com should be your actual domain name) before you delete your files from your web server. Do not delete the logs directory from your web server.
When your visitors type in your domain in their browser, they will be pointed to
your index.html or index.php file on your CGI server. The
http://cgi.yourdomain.com/ address will also still work (where yourdomain.com
represents your actual domain name). To update your site, log into the CGI server
and not your web server.
You will no longer need to keep your files on the web server after you upload
them to the CGI server. If you have files that
are not allowed on the CGI server,
you may not want to have your domain point to your CGI server. An alternative
method would be to place those files on your web server and link to them from
your site on the CGI server. You can get your visitor's browser to
automatically go to your site on the CGI server by using a
meta refresh tag and put a link to your actual
web site in between the <body> tags of the same document.
Using a refresh rate of 0 in the meta tag will cause the page to refresh fast
enough to be invisible to the visitor, yet search engines may still have time
to see the link and follow it.
Changing Your Site Back To The Web Server
If you would like your site changed back to the web server, Be sure to back up
all your files to your hard drive and then upload them to your web server. Note
that Perl and CGI scripts will not work on the web server. You'll need
to leave those files on the CGI server and link to them from your site on the
web server.
When ready, contact support@activewebhosting.com
and request that your domain point back to your web server instead of your CGI
server.