Your website: web server, files, backups and traffic

Open a website under Websites. At the top are its name and state, below them its sections. Files, backups, databases and the other sections appear once the website is set up on our web servers and running.

Overview: web server and PHP

The Overview shows the state and the main address, and you start, stop or restart the website there. In the Web server & PHP card you choose, for a PHP website, Apache (reads .htaccess in full, the safe choice for sites coming from another web host) or nginx, and the PHP version (8.2 to 8.5). A static website runs without PHP.

• More settings holds the Document root, the folder the site is served from: usually htdocs, for Laravel or Symfony htdocs/public.
• With nginx you choose the redirects from a template (Standard, WordPress, Laravel / Symfony, Single-page app), since nginx does not read .htaccess.
• PHP functions: Standard blocks exec, shell_exec, system and similar, Strict blocks further ones that web shells like to use, Open is for applications that need to start processes. Commands in schedules run without this block.
• A change applies from the next restart; the card offers Restart now for that. Only people who may manage the setup can change it.

The Availability card shows whether each address answers: we call it every five minutes over HTTPS, from our network in Germany. With the switch below it you get a message when an address does not answer, on the channels you chose for monitoring under notifications.

Files and SFTP

The Files section is the same file manager a game server has, with an editor, extracting and a recycle bin; the site itself is in the document root. For large uploads or a whole website, connect over SFTP under Access, with FileZilla, WinSCP or Cyberduck. How both work is in Files and SFTP. Websites have no SSH yet; until then php, composer and wp run through the schedules.

Databases

A PHP website has a Databases section: MySQL/MariaDB for most PHP applications such as WordPress, Joomla or Shopware, PostgreSQL for example for Nextcloud. When you create one you choose who may connect: From anywhere (the password protects the database), Only from the website or Specific addresses. You enter the credentials when you set up the application. A static website has no databases.

Backups

Under Backups you save all of the website's files, restore a backup or download it, as described in Backups. When creating one you can leave out PHP sessions, the WordPress cache and Log files. For now backups are kept on the web server itself; download the important ones as well.

Schedules (cron)

Schedules are your website's cron. The templates are WordPress cron (the due WordPress tasks every 5 minutes, once WordPress is installed), PHP script (every full hour, for example php htdocs/cron.php) and Nightly backup (every night at 3:30). A command runs in the website's console, which knows php, composer and wp. More in Schedules.

Traffic & errors

Traffic & errors counts visits, page views, bots, response times, server errors (5xx) and pages not found (404) over 24 hours, 7 or 30 days. It is counted from our web server's log, with no script and no cookie on your pages.

• A visit is a device's first page view on a day; visits are not people.
• We delete the raw logs after seven days. The hourly figures, without IP addresses, stay as long as the website exists.
• Notify me about many errors: a message when, within an hour, at least 20 requests and every tenth of them end in a server error, or visitors suddenly hit missing pages much more often than usual, at most every six hours.

Activity

Activity shows who did what to the website and when, including our support. You filter by area, person and period, search by action, name or file, and download the entries shown as CSV with Export.

Moving from another web host

1. 1

   Open Move here and enter the SFTP, FTPS or FTP login of your old web host; Check connection shows who answers there.

2. 2

   Sign in and choose what is copied. Move current files to the recycle bin is recommended: what is in htdocs now can be restored for 7 days.

3. 3

   Start by holding. The website stops briefly, our web node copies the files 1:1 into htdocs, then it runs again. The login details are not stored.

4. 4

   Optional: under Bring the database along you import a .sql or .sql.gz file (up to 2 GB) from the copied files or from your computer into one of the website's databases. Delete the .sql file afterwards: in htdocs it can be fetched from the web.

Good to know

• We do not offer mailboxes. For mail sent from the website, use the SMTP login of your mail provider.
• Files, Databases and Backups are those of the live website. Staging's own you open in the Staging tab under Staging's sections; a line at the top then says you are looking at staging. More in Staging.
• While the website is blocked, an invoice is open or the contract has ended, Files, Backups and Databases open again only once it runs. Addresses and settings stay.