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Customer Support -- FAQ (from Virtual Domain and Home Page HTML Authors)
| This page contains answers to common questions handled by our support
staff, along with some tips that were found to be useful and have been presented here as
questions. |
Help!Everyone can feel overwhelmed by unanswered questions when they're just starting out with something new. The Internet is a vast resource of information. To be an effective Internet user, you need only learn the basic techniques of mining that information. Think of the Internet as a great library on your desktop.
What does FOURnet have to do with this? FOURnet provides you with a standard TCP/IP connection. TCP/IP is the protocol upon which the Internet was founded. The TCP/IP protocol is used throughout the Internet because it is platform independent, meaning that many different types of computers can talk to each other and speak the same language! TCP/IP is the actual transport layer above which other programs run, such as browsers, email client programs that allow you to send and receive email from home, USENET newsreaders, etc. and many other applications which require Internet connectivity, some of which are yet to be developed.
Once you have your connection established using TCP/IP, you're free to run any TCP/IP compliant software that you have available to you, including Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer, Eudora or Pegasus Mail, or any other third party application. This allows you to upgrade your software browser and email client software frequently so that you can keep up with the latest standards and new developments.
FOURnet can provide support for connection related (TCP/IP) problems, and help regarding your proper use of protocols such as NNTP (news), SMTP or POP3 (mail), and how your use of these protocols relates to the products of third party vendors. If you should have a problem with your third party product, you should contact the dealer where you purchased the product or the software's parent company (such as Microsoft or Netscape).
FOURnet provides free Customer Support for its TCP/IP products, Gatewayf Enterprise Mail/Router/Proxy servers for a period of 90 days from the date of installation/purchase. After your warranty period, you may contract with FOURnet for additional Technical Support if necessary.
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Where can I find "xyz"
program?Be sure to keep your programs current! Often, the latest versions provide fixes for bugs which may have been reported to the program's authors. Vendors such as Netscape and Microsoft are constantly updating software to provide their customers with fixes for known problems. In most cases, you can obtain the latest version release or patches to fix your current software or upgrade some modems by visiting their Customer Support pages on the Web.
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Why do I receive junk mail addressed
to someone else?The Cyber world mimics the real world in more ways than one. In the real world, you might have your junk mail addressed to "Occupant". In Cyberspace, mailing lists are compiled using names retrieved from InterNIC databases, search engines, USENET newsgroups and advertisements.
Programs then perform mass mailings, most often using a blind carbon copy technique in order to suppress the recipient list. This is done to prevent you from replying to the entire list of names which they've also sent the email to, as well as to prevent you from seeing the entire list of names in your email. This method of sending email will make it appear to you that you're receiving somebody else's mail, as the line which follows "To:" in the address header will not contain your own email address. FOURnet has compiled some information about junk mail that you might want to read for more details.
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Why doesn't POP mail work from
"xyz.com"?Networks on the Internet have long based their security on a concept of "trusted hosts" and "untrusted hosts". Any machine which is located elsewhere on the Internet is considered to be an "untrusted host". Although this is a great simplification of the intricacies involved in running a secure site which is connected to the Internet, it will help to relate a general idea explaining why some services are not enabled to other sites which are located outside the FOURnet local Network.
FOURnet does not permit access to its POPmail server from other Internet sites, so you'll need to login directly to the modem pool to access your mailbox. This prevents anonymous users from gaining unauthorized access to the system from remote sites, as well as keeping your mail private as it should be. Because we take the security of our Network seriously, services which are possibly vulnerable to attack (such as POPmail and TALKD) are not allowed anonymous access from outside the FOURnet Network.
Recently, there have been a rash of new services popping up (pardon the pun) which offer FREE email. You're free to sign up for these services if you choose, but remember that if you do, it will only work if the company which is offering this free service is also willing to store your email on their server. If they're only offering to connect to your already-existing FOURnet mailbox to retrieve your email for you, then their service won't work because it will require an external connection. We cannot stress enough, if you sign up for free services on other Internet sites which require a password NEVER use your FOURnet password! You should never supply your FOURnet password to any external Internet site, or give it out to anyone other than a FOURnet staff member on the telephone.
If you give out your password over the Internet, it will become a part of someone's database somewhere, and further you should never allow it to be sent via a non-secure channel or via email. If you don't protect your password, then it's likely that your account may be compromised at some time in the future. If you've already inadvertently signed up for a service on the Internet and used your FOURnet password (other than for FOURnet) then you should change your password right away.
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It was working yesterday...Netscape (or Microsoft Explorer, or Eudora, etc) was working fine yesterday, but today nothing works! What's wrong?
When you send an email with a question asking why a program isn't working, please give us specific information about what's happening so that we'll be able to make constructive suggestions.
It's very important to include a brief description of the problem along with ALL error messages which the program exits with. Let us know which program gives you the error message, and what, if any other programs may also be running at the time. Record the EXACT time that you are logged onto FOURnet and you receive the message, and FAX or email the exact error message and time/date of occurence to Technical Support so that we can look up any possible error messages we may have recorded in the system's error logs (such as invalid password, etc).
Include the username and password exactly as you have entered them in your client program, as well as the telephone number that you're dialing. The easiest way to provide us with this information is to use our Technical Support Troubleshooting Worksheet at http://www2.four.net/cgi-win/form.exe/troubleIf you've recently installed new hardware or software on your system, the first thing that you should do is remove these most recent changes and see if the problem is resolved. If you have access to a different computer, then install your program on the other computer and see if you can duplicate the error on a second installation using different hardware. If you're having modem problems, try to borrow a friend's modem and see if it works better for you. If so, you've isolated the problem. If you're having line noise, plug in a telephone and listen to see if you can hear noise on the line (this is not a definitive way to determine if you have line noise, but sometimes it can be an easy way to learn about it. Often, line noise is an intermittent problem which is caused by nearby noise generators such as furnaces, refrigerators, and flourescent lights which are not operating 24 hours).
If you have software installed which works with other online services such as Compu$erve, America Online, Prodigy, or another Internet access provider, then remove all references to the other software before configuring your system to call FOURnet. AOL Version 5.0, in particular, is known to remove any other Internet Services configuration information from your system, making it impossible to login anywhere other than AOL.
NOTE FOR OLDER MACHINES: Before you install, delete old winsock files, and be sure there are no references to winsock files in your system startup files and that references to old winsock files are not in your $PATH. If you had Windows 3.1 installed on the same machine, delete old directories which contained Internet related files.
References to conflicting versions of winsock may cause "dynamic dynalink" errors or may try to run old 16 bit applications and report corrupt files unless they are deleted prior to your FOURnet installation.
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Why can't I get PPP to work?First, check that all of your host names and addresses have been entered correctly. If you're using Windows 95, from the Start -> Run box, type: winipcfg
Make sure that your entries are correct. If you manually entered IP addresses using the Microsoft Internet Connection Wizard, go over each step again.
Assuming you're sure that your modem is properly installed and tested and you have removed (or never installed) any other Internet software which was installed on your machine prior to installing your FOURnet configuration) the most common connection failure is that you haven't yet actually logged onto the system to run PPP on the FOURnet computer.
Most often, this is because you have the wrong username and password combination being entered at login time. Be sure that your username is entered in ALL LOWERCASE letters. Your username is your "screen" name and is eight characters or less and lowercase. There should be no spaces in your username. Your password is also CASE sensitive, and although you can use a mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters in your password, you need to type in your password exactly as you have provided it when you had your FOURnet account created. If you have the incorrect username and password combination, be sure to uncheck the "Save password" box in the connect dialog and reenter your username and password correctly.
The next most common reason for TCP/IP failure, is typographical errors entered in your configuration files, (such as substituting "," for a "." in IP addresses (example: 198,70.45.1), entering "fournet.com" instead of "four.net". Check each IP address entry, and go over each one of your settings.
If you're able to connect but you're not able to access your email, make sure that your email client program has been configured correctly. The name of FOURnet's mail server, SMTP host and/or POP3 server is mail.four.net. Be sure that your username has been entered with all lowercase letters in your email client program. Before running your email client, establish a connection with FOURnet. If you run two copies of your email client you'll receive an error message similar to "POP lock busy". (This message is interpretted differently by different email client programs, and some even misinterpret the message and call it an error - it isn't an error and is really an intentional part of the POP protocol meant to protect your mailbox from being corrupted).Be sure that you don't configure two separate email client programs to work automatically in the background or there may be conflicts between the two programs. If you attempt to run a second copy of your email program while there is already an automatically established connection working in the background you will also get an error message. This is to prevent the corruption of your mail file that might occur if one copy were to delete a mail while another didn't. If this happens, wait until the first program finishes (this can take some time if you have a large mail file downloading, such as a binary program or graphic file). Try again later. To prevent this problem, you may want to disable automated access to the POP server in the background. That way you can initiate mail transfer whenever you feel like checking mail and won't need to wait for the background process to finish.
For additional information about setting up the Eudora lite email client program, see our FOURnet specific Eudora email setup information or visit the Eudora Web site.
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Why doesn't my CGI-BIN program run?If you're an experienced programmer, then you might choose to create your own CGI-BIN scripts and programs using the PERL or C programming languages. If you're not an experienced programmer, you might want to go ahead and give it a try anyway, as there's not much damage that you can do. Feel free to experiment! But be forewarned that since CGI-BIN programming is more involved than the simple HTML markup language, there is a steeper learning curve before your programming ventures become successful ones.
You can learn from other's examples which are located in the directory: /u6/iserv/www.four.net/users/CGI-BIN from the UNIX shell prompt (if you're a FOURnet user) or there are also several simple examples located in ~username/web/CGI-BIN if you're a FOURnet Virtual Domain customer. We have seen plug-in programs which are intended to run the Perl code on our local server, but run an interpreter on another site on the Internet (such as counters, etc). This will most likely not work (or work poorly). There's no reason to use external programs or counters, as you'll find everything you need right here!
We've already installed a Perl and C capable CGI-BIN directory for your use, so you won't need to install your own. You simply need to be sure that your program uses the correct paths, permissions, syntax, and operates within its own environment space. CGI Programming, like all other programming skills, requires proper syntax and debugging.You don't need to install CGI libraries, or parsing programs. You can also view examples in your CGI-BIN directory of working page counters which are already installed for your use and modification, and a simple form. If you analyze these simple examples, you'll be off to a great start!
If you'll be coding your own programs, remember that all C programs must be statically linked, and your programs must be designed to operate within a chroot environment (see the CC and chroot man pages for more information). You'll also need to be sure that your file permissions are correct within your directory in order for your programs to operate correctly (see the man page concerning chmod and ls). Your PATHs must also be correct for your programs to work. FOURnet has a full development environment available, including gcc, cc, and Perl 4 & 5.
If some of this seems like greek to you, then you'll need to read up on the subject! There are many more topics that you'll need to become familiar with than can be covered here. Here are some helpful CGI programming books that we have reviewed and which we often recommend to our customers:
Foundations of World Wide Web Programming with HTML & CGI Tittel, Gaither, Hassinger, and Erwin ISBN 1-56884-703-3 HTML & CGI Unleashed December & Ginsburg ISBN 0-672-30745-6 Teach Yourself Perl in 21 Days David Till ISBN 0-672-30586-0 Web Programming Secrets with HTML, CGI, & Perl Tittel, Gaither, Hassinger, and Erwin ISBN 1-56884-848-X Serving The Web Robert Jon Mudry ISBN 1-883577-30-6 The Unix Programming Environment Kernhigan & Pike ISBN 0-13-937681-X You'll find additional information about Perl-Related books at the perl.com site. A wealth of useful information can also be found online by participating in USENET newsgroups, using the SEARCH function of your browser, joining Perl-related mailing lists, and by reading FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions). We highly recommend that your read the FAQs. You'll find much information there, and the answers to many of your questions.
OTHER MUST-READ DOCUMENTATION ABOUT PERL
- The Perl MANual
- Idiot's Guide to Solving Perl/CGI Problems
- Perl CGI Programming FAQ
- Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Perl
- Perl MetaFAQ
- CGI FAQ
- CGI Security FAQ
- WWW FAQ
- Information about The CGI.pm Perl 5 Library (the cgi-lib.pl replacement)
Although FOURnet provides you with access to your CGI-BIN directory and several simple examples of CGI programs, we are unable to debug programs which you write or provide support for your CGI programs or the programs of third party vendors. Often, it's much more difficult to debug a program than it is to write the program from scratch. If you need custom CGI programming for forms and/or databases, FOURnet will contract with you to write programs to your specifications at a reasonable cost. Please send mail to support@FOUR.net for a quote.
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FOURnet has installed a system-wide Web page counter utility which is available to all CGI-BIN users. You can use this feature by following the simple instructions which are included here.
The counter uses files (one per unique counter) to store your page access information. By default, the counter data files ar elocated inside your 'count' directory. When you wish to create a new counter, you must also initialize a new data file.
To create and initialize a data file to zero from the UNIX shell prompt:
echo -n 0 >count-2.dat
chmod 666 count-2.dat
This should be typed while inside your web/count directory. Use different filenames for each page you wish to count separately.
To add the counter to your HTML document, add a line similar to this:
<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/count.cgi?/www.four.net/users/youracct/web/count/count-1.dat"ALT="[web counter]">
Replace 'youracct' with your username and 'count-2.dat' with your counter file. If you're a Virtual Domain Web Site customer, the line would be:
<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/count.cgi?/website/count-2.dat"ALT="[web counter]">
where 'website' is your directory under iserv.
HOW IT WORKS
When your page is accessed, the browser requests the counter IMG. The server receives the request and then proceeds to execute the CGI-BIN counter program with the path value as an argument to the function.
The CGI-BIN program increments the value stored within this file, and then a GIF image depicting the actual count value is created on the fly and is sent back to the browser.
What
kind of programs can I run in my CGI-BIN directory?
You can run either secure statically linked C or Perl (Version 4 or 5) programs. To understand more about system security as it relates to the WWW, see the FAQ at http://www.w3.org/Security/faq/www-security-faq.html. For a brief explanation of chroot environments, see also http://www.genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/wwwsf2.html/#Q13.
Note: CGI scripts, especially those written by those who are unfamiliar with network security issues, are a potential security hole which may allow remote users from connected sites on the Internet to access restricted system files and gain unauthorized access. FOURnet reserves the right to remove or modify CGI scripts which may pose a security risk to the Network.
In general, if your CGI script requires insecure functions which are discussed in the above FAQ at MIT, then it's not likely that your script will work on FOURnet's servers, because our servers have been configured with Network security in mind. Please read the www-security-faq if you plan to write CGI programs for FOURnet's WWW servers for a better understanding of how to write security-aware CGI programs.
The sendmail program is a particular security risk. For this reason, we have provided a sendmail substitute which is available within the server environment. Use /bin/smtp instead of /usr/lib/sendmail in all of your CGI scripts. Remember that your PATH variable changes within the server environment and is not the same as the PATH for your Unix shell. Your Web PATH is relative to the server root '/u6/iserv' rather than '/'.
If you have a Personal PPP account, you cannot run CGI programs which resell Internet Services using FOURnet's resources. A Corporate Account is required if you wish to run CGI programs which require a userID and password, or if your program allows your users or clients to store and/or modify data on the web server (such as a advertising, corporate banners for profit, or conferencing systems).
My paths are
all correct but my CGI program won't run?
Make sure that you are in the CGI group on the server machine. If you are a standard access customer (Unix/Menu shell AND PPP Service) and you are not in the CGI group, send an email request to support@FOUR.net asking to have your userID placed in the CGI group on the web server. If you are an "Express Internet" customer with PPP-only access, you do not have a Unix shell account with CGI-bin capabilities on the web server machine. Ask to upgrade your account status to a Standard Access Account which includes PPP, Unix/Menu shell, CGI-bin and 10 mb storage space on the server and request to be added to the CGI group.
If you are certain that your service includes CGI access, you are in the CGI group, and your CGI program still does not run, check to make sure that the first line which invokes perl is correct, has the correct path (/bin/perl) and be sure that you correctly reference any necessary library files which are needed. If you have edited the file on a DOS machine, make sure that you have not included any invisible control characters. The most common reason why your CGI program may fail even when paths are correct is because the CGI program has embedded Control-M characters (^M) at the end of lines. The Unix Kernel WILL NOT invoke Perl if it finds a Control-M character following the invocation (ie /bin/perl ^M).
Login to your Unix shell account. Using the VI editor (vi filename) open the file to see whether you have any control characters. If so, you can convert the file to remove the characters by using the "flip" or "toix" command. Type "man flip" to learn how to use the conversion utility. Generally, you will type "flip -u filename" or "flip -ub filename" at the Unix shell prompt to remove the control characters and convert your file. NOTE: make sure you either use the correct filename path or are CD'd to the directory where the file you wish to create/edit exists.
How do I use
Page Counters?