In order to run a website, you need web hosting services, which will give you access to a server to upload the website, so that it is accessible from anywhere in the world 24/7/365.
What is Shared Hosting?
Shared hosting gives you a portion of a server to use so that you can publish and run your website. You share the resources of the server (CPU, RAM, disk space, network) with other users and websites. That’s why shared hosting is the least expensive type of hosting in the world.
At the same time, it is an ideal solution for personal websites such as blogs, portfolios, or forums. Shared hosting is also easy to manage since no technical skills are required.
Activation of Your Account
Your shared hosting account will be automatically activated upon receiving payment and you can immediately start using the service. A very tiny amount of the orders get flagged for manual verification where action on your behalf is required before we can activate the service.
Accessing Your Control Panel
The login details to access your shared hosting control panel are provided in the Welcome email, which we send to you right after your service gets activated. That admin panel is the place where you manage your hosting account and where you can:
- add/remove emails, databases, or domain names
- create/remove email forwarders and autoresponders
- generate/restore backups or just get information about the account such as disk usage
Log in to your Control Panel
- Go to the Login URL from your Welcome email
- Type the username from your Welcome email in the Username field
- Type the password from your Welcome email in the Password field
- Click Log in.
- You will be redirected to the control panel interface.
Set up Your Domain Name
The domain name is the address of your website which people type in their web browser in order to visit it. Each website needs its own domain name.
The set-up of your domain name generally includes the action of pointing the domain to your server. That is done by setting the proper name servers for the domain name at your domain registrar and allowing up to 24 hours of technical time for the change to take effect globally.
The name servers are included in the Welcome email of your hosting service and you need to set them to your domain. After you do that, each time someone types in your domain name in the browser’s address bar, they’ll actually load the website from the right server (your server).
If you ordered your domain name from ScalaHosting, you don’t need to do anything, as we have already set the correct name-servers for it. If you ordered your domain elsewhere, you need to log into your domain registrar’s control panel to set the name-servers, which we provided in your Welcome email. If you are migrating an existing website from another server, you may want for the migration to be completed first and then you can change the name servers.
Create a New Website or Transfer an Existing
If you are creating a new website, you must make sure that your domain is set up as per the instructions in the previous step. Then, you can proceed with the development of the website and publish it online on the server.
If you are uploading your website manually via FTP, you need to upload the files in the public_html directory. Alternatively, you can use the 1-click Script Installer in the control panel to install your desired application such as:
- WordPress
- PrestaShop
- OpenCart
- Magento
If you want to transfer an existing website, you should be aware that we can do that for you at no extra cost, without downtime. The only thing you have to do is to provide us with the login details to your old server via a ticket to technical support.
We’ll use this information to copy all the data including files, databases, and emails. Then we’ll also verify that your website loads correctly from the new server. After that, you can change the name-servers to the ones provided in your Welcome email and allow some hours for the changes to take effect globally, so that your website is served by your new server with iVPS.
To request the migration of an existing website you simply open a ticket with the Technical Support Department, including the login details to your server, and specify the date and time when you want the migration to take place.
Set up Your Email
Before you can start sending and receiving emails, you need to create an email box and configure it on your favorite email client. Alternatively, you can use the RoundCube webmail that is accessible from any browser.
To create an email box, simply log into the control panel, click on the Email manager – Email accounts + Create Account button and follow the on-screen instructions.
To configure your email in your mail client, use the information below:
- POP3/IMAP/SMTP server: mail.yourdomain.com (the option “My SMTP server requires authentication” must be enabled)
- Username: enter the whole email address e.g. john@yourdomain.com
- Password: the password you specified when you created the email
- Ports information
- SMTP: 465 (with SSL), 25 (without SSL)
- POP3: 995 (with SSL), 110 (without SSL)
- IMAP: 993 (with SSL), 143 (without SSL)
We recommend configuring your email client with the SSL encrypted ports for maximum security.
You can access your email box via webmail at yourdomain.com/roundcube.
Getting Support
iVPS provides round-the-clock technical support via two channels:
- Live chat with instant response
- Ticket system with 15-minute average response time
Any issue can be resolved on the live chat, however, we recommend opening a ticket for issues that require something more than answering a question. For example, if you want to get more information and need to speak to someone, the live chat would be the fastest and most efficient help channel for you.
If your website is showing an error, a ticket would be better as the technician will need to log into the server, investigate, and if needed make changes. The aforementioned will require 15-20 minutes of time which you can use to do something else while we are working on your ticket.
On both live chat and tickets, your issue will be looked into immediately. On the live chat, you instantly get connected to a technical support representative who will receive and answer your questions. The average response time to tickets varies between 5 and 30 minutes depending on the complexity of the issue.
