FAQ
The follow instructions will walk you through the process of managing virtual host and database accounts on your dedicated Xenon server. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.
If you have a dedicated Xenon server with ZeroLag, you can now add virtual host and database accounts directly to the server yourself, using ZeroLag Control.
Log into ZeroLag Control using an account that has sufficient access for your company.
In this example, we'll assume that the www01.example.ml.zerolag.com server is a dedicated server for a company called "Example Company", and that the "johndoe" user has full access for this company. We'll also assume that this company controls the www.example.com and www.example2.com domains.
Click on "Machines" in the left navigation menu, and then click on the server name in the list (in this case www01.example.ml.zerolag.com).
You will now see the machine page. Click on the "Add Account" button at the top right hand side of the page (button not pictured).
For now, we'll add a virtual host account. This will create a live virtual host on the web server, complete with a corresponding FTP account that can be used to update the web site.
Make sure you choose "This is a linked virtual host account" at the top (as opposed to a database account).
The domain should be in the form of "www.example.com", and not "example.com". This will help if you ever decide to add an SSL certificate to the site later. If you have an alternate subdomain name (e.g. media.example.com), this is fine too.
Make sure to pick a good password here that will be difficult for other people (and robots) to guess. A good rule of thumb is to make sure your password is at least 9 characters long, and contains a mix of uppercase and lowercase characters, and at least one numeric character and one extra punctuation character, such as a dot, an at symbol (@), an ampersand (&), etc.
If everything was filled out correctly, you should now have a live virtual host on your server and be able to log in immediately. Your site will only be fully live when public DNS is pointing to it though. If you don't understand this, we'd be happy to help you with the details.
If you ever want to change the password for the virtual host FTP user, simply select the account page for the virtual host, type in the new password you want to use, and hit save. The changes will take effect immediately.
It is also possible to rename virtual hosting accounts. To do so, just click on the account on the Machine page, change the domain name, and hit save. Be advised that the username and virtual host domain are linked, so renaming the account will change both the domain name that the account listens on, as well as the login used to update the site. It's not a good idea to rename an account unless you have a very good reason to do so.
It is also possible to add MySQL and PostgreSQL accounts through ZeroLag Control, assuming that MySQL and/or PostgreSQL are set up on your server.
From the machine page, click on the "Add Account" button at the top right hand side of the page.
This will create a live database on the server, complete with a corresponding database user account that can be used to access and update the database.
Make sure you choose "This is a linked database account" at the top (as opposed to a virtual host account).
The username chosen will also be the database name. It is generally best to choose a descriptive name for the database that reflects the name of the site. Database names (and thus usernames) can be up to 16 characters in length, and may only contain lowercase alphanumeric characters and underscores.
Make sure to pick a good password here that will be difficult for other people (and robots) to guess. A good rule of thumb is to make sure your password is at least 9 characters long, and contains a mix of uppercase and lowercase characters, and at least one numeric character and one extra punctuation character, such as a dot, an at symbol (@), an ampersand (&), etc.
The domain should be in the form of "www.example.com", and not "example.com". If the database is tied to a matching virtual host, please select the same domain name for the database. This will help us realize that the two are related if you contact us for support or if the site ever needs to be migrated.
If you ever want to change the password for the database user, simply select the account page for the database user, type in the new password you want to use, and hit save. The changes will take effect immediately.
Please remember that your web site probably uses this same username and password to access the database, so this could effectively bring your site down until you update your application config files, etc, to use the new password.
Finally, if you have any questions about this, don't hesitate to contact us. We will be happy to help you.