In Dedicated Server Hosting or actually in many forms of shared web hosting as well, oftentimes customers need to specify where and how email should be routed. MX Records do just that!

An MX record stands for Mail exchanger record and just specifies exactly how the email is routed using SMTP (or simple mail transfer protocol). Each MX record has a priority and host name – that way the entirety of the record for your domain name will point the servers to the right places.

In layman’s terms, all domains are assigned several DNS (domain name servers) records upon registration. These DNS settings allow you and others to locate the website online through the Internet. These DNS settings includes MX records. Each record points to a specific email server so that your email can be efficiently processed on that domain name.

Learning how to use your dedicated server’s monitoring services can be very useful.

Here is how you would monitor your dedicated server using Web Host Manger (WHM).  The first thing you need to do is login to your WHM account, then find and click on the link for Server Status.  On the Server Status screen you should see two options.  One to go to Service Status and the other to go to Server Information.  For now, let us check out Service Status.

Server Status

You can check to see that everything is running properly on your server.  If there is a problem, the green balls will turn to red.  All of the services are listed on the left side of the page while all of the statuses are listed on the right side of the page.

Server Information

Now lets go back, and then click into our Server Information page.  Here, you are able to see the vital information of your particular server such as:

• Processor
• Speed
• Type
• Cache
• Memory
• …and more!

Check on Bandwidth

To see how much bandwidth you are using, login to Web Host Manager (WHM) and then click on the Account Information link.  From there you can click on the link for View Bandwidth Usage.  This will show you bandwidth usage per account as a total.  You can toggle back and forth between months as well.

Check on Disk Space Usage

Now let us check on disk space usage.  To see how much bandwidth you are using, login to Web Host Manager (WHM) and then click on the Account Functions link.  From the Account Functions page, click on Quota Modification.  Again, you will see it broken down per account as well as a total with all of your account listed down the page.

If you have a dedicated server or are looking into purchasing one for an affordable price, you will likely need to consider how you are going to monitor that server. You have two main choices:

1. Purchase a Managed Hosting Option – these can be fairly affordable and will let your host monitor your server for you. The only downside is that you have to pay a monthly fee and you don’t have access to these monitoring tools.
2. Self-Manage Your Server – Download a server monitoring tool and self-manage the server by checking every so often for server errors, etc.

Here are some of the recommended server monitoring tools for your dedicated web server:

1. Nagios – The most popular server monitoring tool that is even used in the web hosting industry for web hosting clients on dedicated and shared servers alike. Nagios offers amazing tools that are literally unsurpassed in the industry, such as: monitoring of network services (like email, PING, etc), host resources (CPU, disk usage, logs, etc), environmental factors; simple plugin designs; contact notifications via email, pager, or user-defined methods; scheduled downtime to suppress notifications; and more! This is the most highly recommended solution available on the market to help you see what your web host sees.
2. SiteUptime – Choose from 3 different levels of server management: the free account offers more than enough for basic users, while the $5 or $10 per month option offers more features. The free level allows you to monitor in 30 and 60 minute intervals for one site and receive email notifications, monthly reports, online stats, and more.
3. Host-Alert – Check your server’s uptime and errors in increments of 5, 10, or 30 minute intervals, and have these error notifications sent via email, SMS text messaging, or both. Each notification is only sent once, so there’s no need to worry if something goes down about your inbox getting spammed. Plus you can check the status on unlimited databases, pages, and websites.

Though at times your web hosting provider can assist you in rebooting your dedicated server, you should also know the proper way to schedule these kinds of tasks yourself. With Windows, these kinds of tasks are often laid out very simply and clearly for your convenience, but for rebooting it requires the PsShutdown command-line utility.

First, download PsShutdown from their website.

Once downloaded, you are ready to open your Windows command prompt via Start > Run > cmd and enter the following command to schedule your reboot properly:

c:> at TIME c: \FolderName\psshutdown.exe –r –f –c –t 10 -accepteula

Replace TIME with the exact time you want to schedule the reboot: i.e. if you wanted to reboot at 4am, you’d enter: c:> at 4:00am …

Replace FolderName with wherever you stored PsShutdown.

The –codes are as follows:

-s shuts down your Windows server
-r reboots your Windows server
-f forces all applications to exit even if they are running in the background, etc
-c allows your shutdown or reboot to be canceled
-t specifies the countdown in seconds until the machine reboots or shuts down

Using Apache for your dedicated web server is one the best choices you can make as a webmaster, but if you’re unfamiliar with the modules that can be configured alongside it, you may run into trouble down the road. So here are some of the most well documented modules and a brief definition and description to assist you in your dedicated hosting atmosphere.

core – These are what are known as the ‘core Apache features’ and are pretty much required for every Apache install

http_core – This one’s required for every Apache 2.0 install and includes core http support.

prefork – This module implements a non-threaded pre-forking web server on an MPM or multi-processing module but you can also use worker or threadpool instead, though some kind of MPM is required for Apache 2.0

mod_access – You should always keep this module enabled, as it is one of the most helpful Apache modules. You can control the access to your site with mod_access based on the hostname, IP address, as well as use the order, allow, and deny directives, which are great for SSI.

mod_auth – This module controls user authentication using HTTP Basic Authentication.

mod_dir – If you need to search and serve directory index files like index.html or default.htm, you’ll need this.

mod_log_config – You’ll need this to log any and all requests made to the Apache server.

mod_mime – Sets characters, content-encoding, handlers, content-language, and MIME types.

It is important to keep your eye on your resources when you have a dedicated hosting plan so that you know when and if something is about to or has gotten out of hand.  Here I hope to give you a few handy tips when it comes to monitoring your site resources and statistics in Plesk.

First thing you need to do is login to your Plesk control panel, and click on Limits.  As you can see Limits displays the resource limits allocated to your account.  It lists such details as:

• Maximum Number of Subdomains
• Disk Space
• Bandwidth
• Maximum Amount of Traffic
• Maximum Number of Web Users
• and more…

Now click on Up Level at the top of the Limits window for your domain, and click on Report.  The Report will show you all account resource limits & usage, as well as users and a full list of all available scripts, utilities and resources.

FTP Stats will show you a history of FTP activity on your site – both in upload as well as download. 

Traffic History will display information on traffic usage by Months and Years on your dedicated hosting account.  To view the detailed traffic statistics used by various services at the domain, click on the Traffic button.  The page will open displaying the traffic usage table.  You can send a copy of the report to an e-mail address you specify too at the bottom of the Report screen.  You can also set up a schedule for automatic delivery of the reports. 

The last detail about monitoring dedicated resources inside of Plesk is the Web Statistics Preferences screen.  From here you can set some of the preferences that will dictate the display of refers in your stats.

Now you should be a little more handy when it comes to stats and resources inside of your Plesk control panel via your dedicated web hosting account.

As you may have already read in our previous article on What Are SSI?, SSI can really assist you in self managing your dedicated web server on your own. But if your server isn’t already equipped to permit SSI, then you cannot take advantages of the benefits of this easy management tool.

Configuring Your Server to Permit SSI

First, ensure you have mod_include installed and enabled and that you have Options +Includes in your httpd.conf or .htaccess file. Having these things already working will alert Apache to the SSI directives so that you can use them easily.

Secondly, remember that not all files parse for SSI directives and you may have to actually tell Apache which files it needs to parse for you. You can do this in one of two really easy ways:

1. Tell Apache to parse files with the extensions you require. For example, you can make Apache parse all .shtml files by using the AddType text/html .shtml and AddHandler server-parsed .shtml directives.
2. You can use XBitHack on to tell Apache to parse SSI dreictive files only if they have the execute bit set. To set an existing page to be executable, you can use chmod +x pagename.html and you’ll be set.

Please note that on Windows, you can really only use method #1, as Windows doesn’t use execute bits.

Dedicatedserverhosting.com was designed to give you an in-depth look at managing your dedicated server, along with helpful resources to purchase servers, upgrade, or decide what kind of server is right for you. That often includes defining lesser known dedicated server terminology that you are probably unfamiliar with.

One such term in the server realm is “SSI”, which stands for Server Side Includes.

What are SSI?

SSI are directives that are placed inside normal HTML webpages and which can be evaluated on the physical server as your website loads and serves the pages.

What can SSI Do For Me?

SSI can add another layer of dynamic content to your existing HTML pages without having to go through the serving process via CGI or other dynamic website technology. This eases the strain on your website, allowing for faster loads and more dynamic retrieval.

One word of warning about SSI, though – it is best used for loading small pieces of your site, like the current time, etc. However, if you are looking for a solution that will assist with larger portions or applications, SSI will not really do the trick.

Overall, SSI can help balance your dedicated server hosting by easing the load of running small parts of your site.

Have a trouble maker in your dedicated server?

Now we will explain how to suspend a user account in Web Host Manager (WHM).  Now there are a variety of reasons you might need to temporarily suspend an account.  Examples would be non-payment, breach of your own TOS, overages in bandwith and more.  Now lets say you have a trouble maker your hosting on your dedicated account and you want to suspended him.

Login to WHM, then click on Account Functions.  From there, click on Suspend/Unsuspend an Account.  Now you should see a two columned list of all the accounts your hosting on your dedicated server.  Select the account you wish to suspend.  Now you need to enter a reason for the suspension (keep it short and sweet) and then hit the suspend button.  Now if you want to unsuspend an account go into:

Account Functions > Suspend/Unsuspend an Account

Then click on the account you wish to unsuspend, and hit the unsusupend button.  Your done!  Now you can have a little more control using WHM with your hosted accounts under your dedicated server.

Via Web Host Manager (WHM), upgrading and downgrading a package or site you have installed is an important aspect to master.  To start off, login to WHM.  Occasionally, you will want to upgrade or downgrade your hosting packages inside.  This is how you get that done.  Click on “Account Functions” and then go to “Modify an Account”. 

From the Modify an Account page you can select the exact account you wish to modify.  All you have to do is click on the domain for the package and click the “Modify” button.  Here you can see several things you can change. 

You can change the domain name, the cPanel theme, the language, the user name, the max e-mail accounts, the max ftp accounts, the max mailing lists, the max subdomains, the max SQL databases, the max parked domains, the max addon domains and if you can, you can add or remove shell access.

Once you are done changing the settings, hit the “Save” button on the bottom of the screen and you should be all done.  Now you can login to the cPanel for the account you edited to confirm all was changed correctly.