Fundamental notions about the usage of a web space

A web space hosted by a server (the computer which provides this service and which generally offers one or more domains -- such as www.autistici.org or www.inventati.org) can normallu be reached through a subdirectory in the server domain (www.autistici.org/foo for the 'foo' site) or thtough a third level domain (foo.autistici.org for the 'foo' site).

We have chosen to use subdirectories for hosted sites and third level domains for services (e.g. ftp.autistici.org or irc.autistici.org).

Our servers can also host domains you already own and directly point them to the home page of your site hosted in our server, or even serve as a dns for that domain -- in this case the presence of our logo in your home page is all the more important, because it allows for a correct relation with the projects hosted by us ;)

Important Notes

Very important: about server security

If you are planning to install in your website CMSs such as Drupal, b2evolution, Wordpress or such, first of all ask yourself if you shouldn't better open a blog with Noblogs; after that, if you've really decided that a CMS is the best choice, we recommend you to regularly update this software, carefully checking if new versions have come out.
This is utterly important for your and every other user's security, since in older versions there may be bugs which could be easily exploited to access the server and make a mess.
Since you're not the only one using our servers, but you're sharing a space, we think it is absolutely necessary that everyone be responsible for what they install in the servers, because our boxes are self-managed and based on shared participation and responsibility.
In the website of the CMS you've chosen there will certainly be instructions about how to update your software: usually it's just a question of replacing some old files with new ones, leaving contents as they are.

A few tips:

  • the first page you load when accessing http://www.autistici.org/site/ is index.php or index.html, so give your home page one of these names.
  • remember that each browser displays a web page components in a different way, so you'd better test your sites with several browsers and operating systems.
  • if you want to learn from scratch how to create your own site, you can read a good course by the Milan LOA hacklab.