New User FAQ

The purpose of this FAQ is to describe the basic things most users will need to do, and how to do them. Advanced questions will be handled in the Advanced FAQ. If either of these FAQs does not fit your needs, please do not hesitate to email the team and get help from us, we're more than happy to answer your questions.


Q: How do I change my password?

A: Currently you may change your password by logging into travisbsd.org via SSH. Once you are logged in, type "passwd" without the quotes and it will request your old and new passwords, and your password will be changed. The other option is to email team@travisbsd.org and request a password change, however this may become involved as we will need to confirm you really are who you claim to be before changing your password. Currently there are plans for a web interface to do this at a later time.


Q: How do I receive email?

A: There are three ways to access your travisbsd email account. The first is via webmail, simply point your browser to http://mail.travisbsd.org and login, and you're done. The other two methods is by using either POP3 or IMAP4 with an email client that supports it. To use POP and/or IMAP be sure to set your servers to pop.travisbsd.org and/or imap.travisbsd.org respectivley. If you need additional email help or services such as forwarding, filtering, mailinglists, etc, please consult the Advanced FAQ.


Q: How do I send email?

A: To send email you either use webmail by going to http://mail.travisbsd.org and logging in, or using SMTP. To use SMTP you must have a mail client that supports it, and it also must support SMTP Authentication. SMTP Authentication lets us be sure you are who you claim to be, and allows us to let authorized users send mail from anywhere in the world, and block unauthorized users entirely. This means that you need to set up authentication. If offered an option; login type is PLAIN and SSL _is_ supported but not required. If these options are not offered to you, then your client should automatically detect settings. If you have any problems use webmail to email us at team@travisbsd.org and we will help you setup your client to send mail


Q: Where do I put my pages, and how do I access them?

A: Put all content within your pubhtml folder on the server, anything outside of that will be on our server, but it will NOT be available to web visitors. Once it is within this folder it will appear at [username].travisbsd.org without the brackets of course. If you use special services such as DNS hosting etc, this may not always be true. See the Advanced FAQ for details about DNS hosting.


Q: Why doesn't my website show up!

A: There are a few things to check before assuming the server has a problem. First, please be sure that everything you're trying to view IS in the pubhtml folder. Once this is done, see if you can access your page and it is giving an error, or just not showing any files, or just doesn't show up at all. In either of these cases, write down the error code and output given and email it to team@travisbsd.org and we will be more than happy to diagnose and help solve the problem be it a mistake on our end, or something going wrong somewhere else.


Q: What protocols may I use to upload files to you in?

A: We currently support SFTP, FTP, and SCP (WebDAV available for special projects or upon request). We suggest you use SFTP or SCP due to security, but we also understand that it's not always easy to get client that work properly. To upload files simply set the hostname to travisbsd.org, standard ports, and you'll be in. Should you have any issues transfering or receiving files via any of these protocols please contact us and we will work to resolve the problem as soon as possible.


Q: What is SSH, why should I use it?

A: SSH stands for Secure SHell. It is a protocl which replaced telnet as the primary way to connect to a remote server to administrate it. It uses very high strength encryption, and has two versions. Our server currently only supports version 2, as version 1 has several shortcommings which we wish to avoid. SSH should be used mainly by those who are interested in messing around with or have dealt with unix before. SSH gives you a direct terminal to a machine, as if you were logged in phyusically, so there is almost no limit to what you can modify via SSH. More information on SSH is in the Advanced FAQ. The only reason that non-advanced users would need to use it is to change passwords. A good windows client for SSH is PuTTY. All other major operating systems vendors include a client. If you have problems accessing SSH or need a client, please email us and we will be more than happy to help you either find a client or resolve an issue.