BlueHost Web Hosting Package

Following up on my previous post about Bluehost’s SSH services, listed below are some of the common commands in for SSH.

ls : list files/directories in a directory, comparable to dir in windows/dos.
ls -al : shows all files (including ones that start with a period), directories, and details attributes for each file.

cd : change directory · · cd /usr/local/apache : go to /usr/local/apache/ directory
cd ~ : go to your home directory
cd - : go to the last directory you were in
cd .. : go up a directory

cat : print file contents to the screen
cat filename.txt : cat the contents of filename.txt to your screen

tail : like cat, but only reads the end of the file
tail /var/log/messages : see the last 20 (by default) lines of /var/log/messages
tail -f /var/log/messages : watch the file continuously, while it’s being updated
tail -200 /var/log/messages : print the last 200 lines of the file to the screen

more : like cat, but opens the file one screen at a time rather than all at once
more /etc/userdomains : browse through the userdomains file.
hit Space to go to the next page, q to quit

pico : friendly, easy to use file editor
pico /home/burst/public_html/index.html : edit the index page for the user’s website.

vi : another editor, tons of features, harder to use at first than pico
vi /home/burst/public_html/index.html : edit the index page for the user’s website.

grep : looks for patterns in files
grep root /etc/passwd : shows all matches of root in /etc/passwd
grep -v root /etc/passwd : shows all lines that do not match root

touch : create an empty file
touch /home/burst/public_html/404.html : create an empty file called 404.html in the directory /home/burst/public_html/

ln : create’s “links” between files and directories
ln -s /home/username/tmp/webalizer webstats: Now you can display http://www.yourdomain.com/webstats to show your webalizer stats online. You can delete the symlink (webstats) and it will not delete the original stats on the server.

rm : delete a file
rm filename.txt : deletes filename.txt, will more than likely ask if you really want to delete it
rm -f filename.txt : deletes filename.txt, will not ask for confirmation before deleting.
rm -rf tmp/ : recursively deletes the directory tmp, and all files in it, including subdirectories. BE VERY CAREFULL WITH THIS COMMAND!!!

last : shows who logged in and when
last -20 : shows only the last 20 logins
last -20 -a : shows last 20 logins, with the hostname in the last field

w : shows who is currently logged in and where they are logged in from.

netstat : shows all current network connections.
netstat -an : shows all connections to the server, the source and destination ips and ports.
netstat -rn : shows routing table for all ips bound to the server.

top : shows live system processes in a nice table, memory information, uptime and other useful info. This is excellent for managing your system processes, resources and ensure everything is working fine and your server isn’t bogged down.
top then type Shift + M to sort by memory usage or Shift + P to sort by CPU usage

ps: ps is short for process status, which is similar to the top command. It’s used to show currently running processes and their PID.
A process ID is a unique number that identifies a process, with that you can kill or terminate a running program on your server (see kill command).
ps U username : shows processes for a certain user
ps aux : shows all system processes
ps aux –forest : shows all system processes like the above but organizes in a hierarchy that’s very useful!

file : attempts to guess what type of file a file is by looking at it’s content.
file * : prints out a list of all files/directories in a directory

du : shows disk usage.
du -sh : shows a summary, in human-readble form, of total disk space used in the current directory, including subdirectories.
du -sh * : same thing, but for each file and directory. helpful when finding large files taking up space.

wc : word count
wc -l filename.txt : tells how many lines are in filename.txt

cp : copy a file
cp filename filename.backup : copies filename to filename.backup
cp -a /home/burst/new_design/* /home/burst/public_html/ : copies all files, retaining permissions form one directory to another.
find * -type d|xargs -i cp –verbose php.ini {} : copies your php.ini file into all directories recursively.

kill: terminate a system process
kill -9 PID EG: kill -9 431
kill PID EG: kill 10550
Use top or ps ux to get system PIDs (Process IDs)

EG:

PID TTY TIME COMMAND
10550 pts/3 0:01 /bin/csh
10574 pts/4 0:02 /bin/csh
10590 pts/4 0:09 APP

Each line represents one process, with a process being loosely defined as a running instance of a program. The column headed PID (process ID) shows the assigned process numbers of the processes. The heading COMMAND shows the location of the executed process.

Putting commands together
Often you will find you need to use different commands on the same line. Here are some examples. Note that the | character is called a pipe, it takes date from one program and pipes it to another.
> means create a new file, overwriting any content already there.
>> means tp append data to a file, creating a newone if it doesn not already exist.
< send input from a file back into a command.

grep User /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf |more
This will dump all lines that match User from the httpd.conf, then print the results to your screen one page at a time.

last -a > /root/lastlogins.tmp
This will print all the current login history to a file called lastlogins.tmp in /root/

tail -10000 /var/log/exim_mainlog |grep domain.com |more
This will grab the last 10,000 lines from /var/log/exim_mainlog, find all occurances of domain.com (the period represents ‘anything’,
– comment it out with a so it will be interpretted literally), then send it to your screen page by page.

netstat -an |grep :80 |wc -l
Show how many active connections there are to apache (httpd runs on port 80)

mysqladmin processlist |wc -l
Show how many current open connections there are to mysql

mysqldump -u username -p dbname > file.sql
MySQL Dump

tar -zxvf file.tar.gz
UnTAR file

mysql -u username -p database_name Importing MySQL database

which [perl]
Finding path to [perl]

These codes are quoted from Bluehost’s Helpdesk - thus in case you have questions about them, it’s best to refer back to Bluehost technical supports.

Lunarpages and Bluehost are both in my favorite hosting list for long. Both hosting companies are in business for long and both are offering topnotch hosting services.

Bluehost vs Lunarpages in a glance

To save your time, I had highlighted several key hosting features of Bluehost and Lunarpages below.

From the table, you’ll see that there are indeed not much differences between the two. In fact, pricing is the only differences between Lunarpages and Bluehost (with LP slightly cheaper than BH).

In term of popularity, Bluehost is much welcomed among webmasters. Google Trend (refer to the diagram) shows that Bluehost is growing much faster when compare with Lunarpages.

To my wild guess I think this is due to Bluehost’s quality customer support as well as aggressive web marketing plans.

Guest Article: Comparison between Bluehost and Lunarpages

On top of my personal review, I’m glad to have experienced web writer - Justin Knights to share his view on the topic. Check out his view about Bluehost and Lunarpages in this guest post below.

Comparison Between BlueHost and Lunarpages

There are many hosting providers out there in the market today and 2 companies that are worth mentioning is BlueHost and Lunarpages. Both these companies have been around for quite some time and have a good reputation in the industry. However, which company is the better of the two? Lets us make a comparison to see which company excels in the different categories.

By comparing the packages provided, Lunarpages provides specific packages for blogs, small business or enterprises but BlueHost is not clear in their packages. So, to find out which package suits you if you want to choose BlueHost, you will need to spend s little time to do a research. Lunarpages also provides Window hosting while BlueHost do not. Even though this might not be big matter, it still proves that Lunarpages provide something that BlueHost do not provide.

Next, we take a look at the price for both companies. Lunarpages is the more cost effective choice but Bluehost are much welcomed among webmasters. Bluehost is hosting a lot more domain than Lunarpages at the moment and a check on both companies search popularity will show that Bluehost is way ahead of Lunarpages. From the customer’s point of view, both companies are satisfactory. In fact, many customers have websites hosted by both of these companies. Last but not least, both companies provide user friendly hosting panels. Different users prefer different panels like cpanel, Fantastico. Both companies provide the same stuff.

For a conclusion, the company that you will choose must be an effective business investment. Lunarpages provide more choices and is cheaper; while BlueHost, despite being more popular, offer less hosting choices and are slightly more expensive.

Bluehost vs Lunarpages: Who’s the best?

So who’s the best between Lunarpages and Bluehost? Well it seems that it’s pretty tough to choose between these two hosting companies. In case you’re looking for budget hosting, then Lunarpages is recommended; for those who don’t mind paying a little extra for the pop star, then Bluehost is very much your choice. All in all, both hosting companies are doing very good in their industry. In case you are still unsure with them, I suggest you to try both services yourself as they both offer 30 days free trial period.

Yes, you can always use SSH services for secure connection at Bluehost. However, SSH services are not enabled by default at Bluehost. In order to begin using SSH functions, you’ll need to submit a copy of your photo identification card via email or uploads via cPanel. On top of Bluehost’s admin approval, you’ll also need to manage SSH keys for automated SSH login.

Connection to SSH Shell at Bluehost

To start using SSH services, here’s what you do:

1. Click on the connect button. It is the first one from the left.

2. Enter in Hostname. (your domain name with out the www.) and your username. Highlight password when you’re done.

3. Click Connect and enter your password when you’re prompted to do so.

What’s SSH and why should I care?

Personally I don’t use much SSH services but it’s indeed a very useful function. A SSH or sometimes known as secure shell is a kind of network that enables data exchange done in a safe channel.

The reason for SSH to exist is simple: Security. Internet is an open space that’s so vulnerable to malicious attacks - eavesdropping for passwords or sensitive information; hijacking messages to inspect and modify transmitted data; and faking network addresses to fool access control mechanisms or redirect connections to a fake server - these are all the common disaster we heard (or experienced!) about all the time. Using SSH protects you against all of these attacks.

Common SSH application: SFTP

In web hosting, SSH services are mostly used as secured file transfer protocol (SFTP). To transfer your data files between Bluehost server and your local machines, all you need to is as below:

1. Download an FTP program that support Secure FTP.
2. Enable SSH/Shell access on your account by submitting your identification card.
3. Log into your SFTP program using port 22.

Imagine this: You’re so keen to start your website and finally makeup your mind with Bluehost, you search for the right domain name, fill up all the hosting/billing issues, and make your payment.

Obviously, the next thing comes into mind is how soon you can get your hosting account running after the payment is done. Who wants to wait more for a product that you’d already purchased?

Starting a new website at Bluehost

Question is, how long does it take to get a new website to go live at Bluehost?

Basically Bluehost will have your website online the same day you purchase your hosting.

The hosting account will be installed within the first hour of your order and you will receive the hosting account information via email. At this point, you’re ready to get started - start uploading web files, installing web apps, and so on to get your website running.

Nevertheless, the website DNS might take a little longer to process. Depending on whether it is a new registration or a domain transfer, DNS might takes 24 - 48 hours to be fully sorted out.

Thus it would be wise to expect a day or two for the website to be visible in front of your users.

One big advantage of Bluehost is that they offer two auto-install scripts services instead of one. By hosting with Bluehost, you’ll get free auto installation services by both Fantastico and Simple Scripts.

What’s Fantastico?

Fantastico is a well known script library that automates the installation of web applications to a website. Generally, Fantastico services are executed from the cPanel at Bluehost. At the time of writing, Fantastico’s officials claims that the auto-install scripts services are installed on ten thousand servers, with a million users worldwide, which would make it the leading product of its type.

Fantastico Library

What’s Simple Script?

SimpleScripts is the new name in town that offer the same services as Fantastico. SimpleScripts officials claim that their service works faster and covers more web scripts in their library.

A huge plus point on SimpleScripts is that the service works perfectly well on cPanel and Plesk; whereas Fantastico works only with cPanel.

Simple Scripts Library

Advantages of Fantastico and SimpleScripts

Installation/updating of blog/CMS software like WordPress and Joomla used to be complicated but not with SimpleScripts anymore.

With the smart installer function, SimpleSripts will automatically checks to make sure your web host is compatible upon installation; also, web software updates are done within seconds as SimpleScripts will take care of all the dirty work back scene.

What’s good about having both Fantastico and Simple Scripts?

Both Fantastico and Simple Scripts cover a wide range of open source web application.

By having both services in your web hosting simply means you have more choices. Take CMS for example, Simple Scripts include Joomla, Drupal, MODx, and e107; while for Fantastico: Joomla, GeekLog, Mambo, phpNuke, phpWCMS, phpWebsite, Drupal, Post-Nuke, SiteFrame, and Xoops - that’s 12 CMS application for Bluehost customers.

The non-www and www pages used to be a critical treat to SEO works as Google sees it as two different pages and assign two different page rank to the same page.

Generally, the problem has now been solved within Google (by sorting out the issue in their algorithm and introducing Google Webmaster Tools).

Nevertheless, it is more professional to have a standardized website URL thus redirecting non-www pages to www is still necessary.

Redirect with .htaccess files at Bluehost

One good thing about hosting with Bluehost is that Bluehost users are allowed to access (create/modify/delete) the .htaccess files at root. Hence, redirecting all non-www web pages to www counterpart is easy.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Create or locate your .htaccess file

A .htaccess file is an Apache directory-level configuration file which can be used to password protect or redirect files. To redirect your non-www pages, you will first need to create or locate the .htaccess file. If it doesn’t exist, create it on your Bluehost root (yes, this means public_html in Bluehost); if it exist, open it with wordpad or any other text editing software.

2. Add the following lines to your .htaccess file

Replacing ‘example.com’ with your website domain, copy and paste the lines below to your .htaccess file. Save and replace the original file at your root folder and you’re now done.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.example\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.example.com/$1 [L,R=301]

To test, simply type in the non-www URL of your website to your Internet browser and see your web URL being redirect to the www.

Bluehost has recently (on mid Sept) updated their pricing structure.

You used to get the $6.95 rate if you signed up for 24 months of hosting (and paid for it in advance). That rate is now available only if you pay for 36 months. Official pricing info available at here.

Bluehost Pricing

For the ease to review, I had compiled the detail pricing info for Bluehost hosting services. Note that setup fees are totally $0 for hosting plan longer than 12 months; while hosting plan for 6 and 3 months will cost you $30 extra on the setup fees. All price listed below is shared hosting packages and websites are hosted on a shared IP.

36 Month Account $6.95 a month

• 1 FREE Domain Registration good for the life of your hosting package.
• No set up fees [$30 Savings]
• Less than $0.23 (23 cents) a day!
• $250.20 Total due at sign-up; [36 month account x $6.95 mo.]

24 Month Account $7.95 a month

• 1 FREE Domain Registration good for the life of your hosting package.
• No set up fees [$30 Savings]
• Less than $0.27 (27 cents) a day!
• $190.80 Total due at sign-up; [24 month account x $7.95 mo.]

12 Month Account: $8.95 a month

• 1 FREE Domain Registration good for the life of your hosting package.
• No set up fee [$30 Savings]
• Less than $0.30 (30 cents) a day!
• $107.40 Total due at sign-up; [12 month account x $8.95 mo.]

6 Month Account: $99.70

• $9.95 A Month
• [+] $30 One Time Set Up Fee
• [+] $10 Annual Domain Registration Fee

* $99.70 Total due at sign-up [6 mo. x $9.95 mo.($59.70) + $30 Setup + $10 Registration]

3 Month Account: $69.85

• $9.95 A Month
• [+] $30 One Time Set Up Fee
• [+] $10 Annual Domain Registration Fee

* $69.85 Total due at sign-up [3 mo. x $9.95 mo.($29.85) + $30 Setup + $10 Registration]

Optional Features at Bluehost

After your Bluehost hosting account is registered, you’ll be given the choice of other optional features such as registering additional domain names, hosting your website on a dedeicated IP, registering a private SSL certificates, as well as Postini Mail Filtering (new).

Each of these features will be charged separately. Have a quick glance on these pricing below:

• Additional Domain Names = $10.00 each year
• Dedicated IP = $30.00 each year [$2.50 mo.]
• SSL Certificates = $45.00 each year
• Expired Account Reactivations = $30.00
• Postini Mail Filtering = $1.00/mo per e-mail address

Special pricing from ReviewBluehost.com

The good thing about shopping from ReviewBluehost.com is that you get to keep $6.95 as your 24 months hosting cost! The last time I checked, all order links from ReviewBluehost.com are still on the old pricing structures - thus this means you get to save $1/mo for 24 months hosting plan.

Anyhow, I wouldn’t stress too much about this as it’s not much different holding your account for 24 or 36 months with a good host. Further more, Bluehost allows pro-rated payback in their refund policy, this means you can signup with the 36 months hosting plan and simply cancel the services whenever you feels like stopping without losing much money.

Special Pricing: $6.95/mo for 24 months plan! Order Bluehost now.

Are you planning to own more than one website? Here’s a cost efficient way to host multiple website: host multiple domains in one single hosting account.

Think the advice sounds too simple? Now I won’t be too sure for that! It’s true that most hosting companies nowadays enable webmasters to host multiple domain on one single hosting account; but still there’re quite some web hosts that don’t offer the same. Gate.com, for example, allows only one single domain in their standard hosting package.

Which web host offer good multiple domain hosting services?

For multiple domain hosting, Bluehost, Lunarpages, and Hostgator are some of the top well known names.

Take Bluehost for example, Bluehost users get to host unlimited addon domain in one single hosting account. The first registered domain with Bluehost is known as the main domain; and the following will be added as addon domain.

One thing to be clear is that an ‘addon domain’ is different from a ’subdomain’. An ‘addon domain’ is a new domain that’s added on top of your main domain; on the other hand, a subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger domain. “mail.example.com” and “calendar.example.com”, for example, are subdomains of the “example.com”.

So how do you add an addon domain at Bluehost?

First, make sure your domain DNS is setup properly (example: NS1.BLUEHOST.COM; NS2.BLUEHOST.com). Then, login to Bluehost account control panel, go ‘Domain’ > ‘Addon Domains’ > ‘Domain Manager’.

Key in your domain name along with the desired root folder location. Note that you are given a choice of ‘Parked Domain’ and ‘Addon Domains’ in the setup page. A ‘Parked Domain’ simply means a redirect domain for another - users who visit a parked domain will be transferred to other (intended) domain; in our case, select the option ‘Addon Domains’.

Simply click ‘Add Domain’ once you are ready and you are now done. Pretty simple.

Bluehost upgraded their hosting plan since May 2008. That’s about 4 months ago and guess what, there’re still many who’re unclear about this latest offer.

Bluehost Upgraded Hosting Plan

Back then, Bluehost’s hosting offer was limited. I still can recall I was hosting on a 300/3,000 GB (storage/bandwidth) hosting capacity with a limited 5 addon domains for a single account.

Not now.

Starting May 2008, BlueHost is offering unlimited web storage space, bandwidth transfer, and unlimited addon domain capacity for all the shared hosting plan.

The offer is quite a shock in the industry as you can now stuffs all your web files into your hosting without worrying it exceeds your package limit.

And the best of all, it’s just $6.95/mo!

What can you do with Bluehost unlimited offer?

Well of course Bluehost is banking on the fact that webmasters will not be silly enough to move all their files to the web server. Rather, I suspect that they are expecting web owners to switch and to host all of their websites under one single hosting account.

In fact, that’s what can you do as well. We were used to host not more than 6 websites under one hosting account in the past; but for now, the limitation vanished.

Stop wasting extra money for the web host. With this “unlimited offer” by Bluehost, you are recommended to take the features for granted and host multiple domain under the same hosting account. Yeah, this means you can aave some green, dude!