Business Information Systems
DSC340
Domain Names &
Webserver administration
DSC 340
Mike Pangburn
Agenda
 Understand how the domain name system functions, and
how to acquire a domain name
 Register your own domain name
 Investigate webserver administration
 Hosting account
 Configure domain name to hosting account
 Configure email addresses in hosting account
 Install database-driven web application (ex.: Wordpress)
 File management and database admin tools
What is a domain name?
 As far as the Internet's machines are concerned, an IP
address is all that you need to talk to a server. For
example, you can type in your browser the URL
http://72.21.211.176:80
 …and you arrive at ?
 The number sequence 72.21.211.176:80 is a substitute for
amazon.com, and the :80 means that you wish to
contact the server using port (channel) 80, which is the
default for web page traffic
 Domain names are strictly a human convenience, like
maintaining a cell-phone contact list with names and
their associated phone numbers.
What is an IP address?
 The IP address specifies a network device’s (e.g., a laptop
computer, or a server) “location” on a network.
 One way to look up your IP address:
http://whatismyipaddress.com/
 Two types of IP addresses:
1.
Public IP: Addresses accessible via the Internet.
2.
Private IP: Any address in the ranges:

10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255

172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255

192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255
Routers on the Internet are programmed to kill data traveling
to a private IP address.
Domain Name System
 The Domain Name System (DNS) is the “phone book for the
Internet”
 Translates human-friendly hostnames into IP addresses
 Every domain name entry within a top-level domain list (e.g., the
.com “phone book”) must be unique
 There is a single organization that controls each top-level list and
makes sure that no duplicates arise
 E.g., the .com list is managed by the firm Network Solutions
 Lower-level domains are controlled independently. For example,
Microsoft “owns” hundreds of thousands of IP addresses and host
names
 e,g,, Microsoft maintains its own list (and DNS) for the microsoft.com
domain name space, e.g., someserver.microsoft.com
DNS – Domain Name “Server”
 There are servers throughout the Internet that keep track of all the
names and their associated “phone numbers” (read, IP addresses).
 Such a server is called a Domain Name Server
 Or, simply: DNS – note reuse of same acronym
 A DNS accepts requests from programs & other DNS to convert domain
names into IP addresses
 Interesting aspect of the DNS system -- it is completely distributed
throughout the world on millions of machines, yet behaves like a
single, integrated database!
 How does it work?
 …How do you lookup a name in this global “Internet phone book?”
 It starts with your local DNS.
 Local DNS: The name server that is your machine’s first contact
when converting domain names to IP addresses.
Your PC’s domain name resolution
process from your apartment
Root name
server
Local name
server
.edu name
server
uoregon.edu name
server
Web server basics
 A standard web-server needs:
1. A public IP address (one outside of the 3
aforementioned private-IP ranges);
…and, assuming the server will be accessible via a
domain name:
2. a corresponding domain name registered within the
Domain Name System
3. software that listens for and responds to requests for
web-page files
Choosing a domain name
 Consider
name…



making your company’s website
“extensible”
 e.g., what does Amazon.com have to do with books?
memorable
Short
 The
top level domain (TLD) is very
significant



Country Code Domains (.uk, .de, .jp, .us, etc.)
Generic Domains (.aero, .asia, .biz, .cat, .com, .coop, .edu,
.gov, .info, .jobs, .mobi, .int, .mil, .museum, .name, .net, .org,
.pro, .tel and .travel)
“the marketplace has spoken” - .com is best
Choosing a domain name
 Generally
people advise avoiding:
Trademarks
 Hyphens
 Numbers

 One

may not be enough
Multiple markets may imply multiple names/sites
 Choose/register
than later

the name(s) sooner rather
It’s a global market, with lots of names, but lots of interested
parties as well
Buying the name



Buying a domain name is referred to as “registering
the domain”
 It’s actually a lease, not a purchase
 You register the domain via a company called a
domain name registrar
Lease timeframe generally ranges from 1 year to 10
years
 Price per year ranges from ~$5 to ~$20
Research the registrar before you choose (avoid
scams)
Buying the name

Current lessee has the option to renew name before
end of lease

And, most good names are already being leased!

How do you check if a name is available?


Any registrar’s site will have a “WHO-IS” search capability that
searches the DNS for top-level domains
How do you check details of lessee?


Check registration details within “WHOIS” search
Lessee can pay for private registration, in which case you
won’t see their details
Possible to get already-taken names?
 Option 1: negotiate directly with lessee
 use WHOIS search to make contact
 Option 2: domain name marketplace
 Several varieties: auction style, fixed-price style, makean-offer style.
 Examples: buydomains.com, afterNIC.com, sedo.com
Managing domain names
 When in a company, be aware of who is listed as
the contact person/registrant for the domain name
 What if that person leaves the company or is fired?
 If you don’t managed such transitions well, that person can
make it very difficult for you to get your domain name
back under your control
 If you are thinking about having your own
company, you should registering your domains(s),
not an IT person
Let’s register our own domain names
 We will visit GoDaddy.com to try the name registration
 Reputable, world’s largest registrar
 Good pricing, sometimes discounts are significant
 Aside: Use code LKSRTL295J to get .com name for $3
(normally $11)
 1 year registration is all that is required, no additional
features are needed (although Private Registration is nice $8
option as it hides your details from a WhoIs search)
Agenda
 Understand how the domain name system functions, and
how to acquire a domain name
 Register your own domain name
 Investigate webserver administration
 Hosting account
 Configure domain name to hosting account
 Configure email addresses in hosting account
 Install database-driven web application (ex.: Wordpress)
 File management and database admin tools
Web hosting
 To run a website via some webserver, you need to be able to
put your website files (.html or other) on that server’s hard disk
 So the webserver software can send those files out based on
web-browsing requests
 How do you put your web files on a web-servers hard drive?
 As we have seen with the UofO webserver, there are two basic
approaches:
 1. Use a server-side application (e.g., nano editor we used) to
directly create content on the server, or
 2. Copy content from our local hard-drive to the server’s
hard-drive via FTP
 Either approach will require that you have an account on the
webserver
Web hosting
 The two most popular webserver operating systems are Unix
and Windows
 Unix is most popular
 A web hosting company will give you an account on their
server
 E.g., BlueHost, DreamHost, Arvixe, TMDhosting, many others
 Typical price is around $10/month to get started, prices increase
with additional bandwidth/processing power
 For this term (and up 1yr), I can help provide free hosting on
an external webserver
 No warranty or service plans… but it’s free 
 Your username will be w13duckid
 duckid will be replaced by your duckid
Web hosting
 A web hosting account has several initial key pieces of
information associated with it:




username (in this case, based on DuckID, as per last slide)
password (you will choose, can change later)
domain name with extension (e.g., .com)
email address (for confirmation – UofO address is fine)
 Please clearly write your DuckID, (initial) password, & domain
name on sign-up sheet
 I will use your duckid@uoregon.edu email address for confirmation
 Your username and password will actually be used to create two
accounts (both on the same remote server box):
 A web server account
 An FTP server account
Web hosting
 Once I have your accounts set up…
 …you can log in via FTP (e.g., FileZilla)
 ftp://ceramic.mysitehosted.com
 …you can log in via HTTP (e.g., FireFox)
 http://cpanel. ceramic.mysitehosted.com
 A note about account quotas
 File storage: 250MB
 Bandwidth: 2.5GB/month
 Therefore, audio/video and even large photo files should be stored
elsewhere
 E.g., photos on flickr, video on Vimeo, etc.
 Limits are enough for us to learn about server admin and get a
Wordpress blog going
Web hosting
 Logging in via:
 http://cpanel. ceramic.mysitehosted.com
…shows your webserver
account “Control Panel”
 We will investigate many
of the features as we go
along
 For now, we will leave
this an return to GoDaddy
to point our new domain
name at our new
webhosting account
Agenda
 Understand how the domain name system functions, and
how to acquire a domain name
 Register your own domain name
 Investigate webserver administration
 Hosting account
 Configure domain name to hosting account
 Configure email addresses in hosting account
 Install database-driven web application (ex.: Wordpress)
 File management and database admin tools
Point domain name to web server
 We need to tell our Registrar (GoDaddy, in this case) what
Domain Name Server is the one that knows about our web
hosting account
 The Domain Name Server affiliated with our web hosting
server has the name:
 NS1.CERAMIC.MYSITEHOSTED.COM
 ..and a back-up server: NS1.CERAMIC.MYSITEHOSTED.COM
 Let’s now go into our GoDaddy account and configure our
new domain name with those two DNS server names
 In GoDaddy, we go to:
 All ProductsDomainsDomain Management
 Click on your Domain Name and then click on
“Set Nameservers” near lower left
 Then enter the two name servers listed above
Point domain name to web server
Point domain name to web server
Point domain name to web server
 It will take a while (sometimes a few minutes, sometimes a
few hours) for the change to propagate throughout the
world-wide Domain Name System
 Once the happens, you will be able to use your acquired
domain name to browse to the hard-disk folder for your
new web-hosting account
 Not much will be there…
Recall: 3 ways to view files in web server
folders
1. Via public web browsing (no account required) – prior slide

Note: you won’t be able to see the contents of a folder if some
one (e.g., you) puts a file called index.html in the folder

Recall that that the web-server provides the file index.html to
the browser (e.g., Firefox), if the browser tries to view a folder
without specifying a particular file name in that folder
2. FTP client, such as FileZilla (requires FTP user account)
3. Website user login (requires webserver user account)

Can login via basic SSH text-driven Unix command interface, but
that requires looking up Unix commands like: cd, ls, mkdir

Most Unix servers support the cpanel “Control Panel” mouse
driven interface commands for common server administration
tasks
Agenda
 Understand how the domain name system functions, and
how to acquire a domain name
 Register your own domain name
 Investigate webserver administration
 Hosting account
 Configure domain name to hosting account
 Configure email addresses in hosting account
 Install database-driven web application (ex.: Wordpress)
 File management and database admin tools
Managing email accounts
 Use cPanel to manage email accounts
 You can create multiple email accounts affiliated with your
domain name

The cPanel app we will run will create these accounts on an email
server (another big software app., separate from the web server
app but potentially running on the same hardware box)
Agenda
 Understand how the domain name system functions, and
how to acquire a domain name
 Register your own domain name
 Investigate webserver administration
 Hosting account
 Configure domain name to hosting account
 Configure email addresses in hosting account
 Install database-driven web application (ex.: Wordpress)
 File management and database admin tools
Install database-driven software app: WP
 cPanel includes some convenient scripts (coding) for
installing large software applications within your account

Wordpress is one popular app that can be installed easily by
running one of these convenient “Softaculous” scripts

A “manual” install of Wordpress is said to take only 5 minutes,
but it usually takes longer, so let’s use the more automated
approach via the cPanel Wordpress installer
 To begin the Wordpress install, click on Wordress icon
under the Scripts heading
Install database-driven software app: WP
After WP install script runs…
 To see you blog running, go to
 As end-user: http://yourdomainname.com/
 And specifically, within that domain, your Wordpress
folder
 E.g., if you specified your Wordpress folder as wp, then
you would go to: http://yourdomainname.com/wp
 As administrator: visit the wp-admin folder within your
Wordpress folder
 E.g, http://yourdomainname.com/wp/wp-admin
WP admin interface
Agenda
 Understand how the domain name system functions, and
how to acquire a domain name
 Register your own domain name
 Investigate webserver administration
 Hosting account
 Configure domain name to hosting account
 Configure email addresses in hosting account
 Install database-driven web application (ex.: Wordpress)
 File management and database admin tools
cPanel file and database management
 An FTP app such as
FileZilla provides the
fastest approach to
managing your files on a
server
 If you have a web hosting
account with cPanel
access, then the cPanel
File Manager app
provides a nice
alternative (via an HTTP
browser, e.g., Firefox)
cPanel file and database management
 cPanel also has great
apps for managing
relational databases
 To create databases and
database users, use the
MySQL Databases app
 To perform detailed
administration and
querying of existing
databases, use the
phpMyAdmin app
cPanel file and database management
 This screenshot
from the MySQL
Databases app
shows that the
prior WP install
has indeed
created both a
corresponding
database and
database user
 All Wordpress
configuration
details, users,
pages, posts,
and comments
are stored in the
database
 uploaded
videos, songs,
and pictures
are stored as
normal harddisk files