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FAQ Revised: Friday 28 September 2007 20:14:37

Table of Contents

1. File transfer
2. PHP
3. Email
4. MySQL
5. DNS
6. Webhosting
7. General

1. File transfer

1.1. My FTP-program cannot connect
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) won't work, because we exclusively provide access through SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) on top of SSH (Secure Shell).

1.2. What software for SFTP can I use?

We can recommend the following software SFTP clients:



1.3. My username/password is not accepted
Please double check the documentation you received. Hint: usernames can have a maximum length of 16 characters.

1.4. I get "Connection refused" or a similar error message from my file transfer program
Your IP address probably got blocked by us because of too many invalid login attempts. Please look up your IP address and send it to us, so we can fix the situation.

2. PHP

2.1. What does suPHP do?
The suPHP Apache module makes it possible to run PHP scripts unter different users on the same server. It therefore gives the security, that the PHP scripts are NOT executed with the rights of the webserver. Unfortunately, when permissions are not set correctly on directories and scripts, errors occur. The directories to which PHP shall read/write must have permission set by chmod 755, the scripts themselves have to be chmod 644.

2.2. How do I send email with PHP?
We recommend PHPmailer to send emails with PHP.

2.3. Can I use the PHP5 scripting language?
Yes. This is the default PHP version. Older hostings might still be running an older version.

3. Email

3.1. What settings do I need to receive and send email?
See the "Settings"-section under "My Account"

3.2. What is POP3s?
POP3s is an abbreviation for POP3 and secure. It means that you can use regular POP3, but through an encrypted connection (SSL), which makes your mail retrieval secure in two ways: nobody on the network can see your password and, very important, nobody can read the mail your are transferring. Also, it protects the majimoto.net services (and thus all our customers) from third parties trying to sniff passwords and getting illegitimate access to our server. We recommend that you use POP3s instead of insecure, unencrypted POP3. If your email software does not understand this option, we recommend that you get a different software!

3.3. What is the relaying policy of majimoto?
We only relay mail for our customers. Use SMTP-AUTH for relaying.

3.4. What is the spam policy of majimoto?
We use ORDB and cbl.abuseat.org on the SMTP level to reject connections from known open relays. Additionnally we do not accept incoming messages containing invalid envelope senders. We also tarpit incoming connections that send mail to many recipients (we insert delays between each recipient, so sending gets very slow).

3.5. My Email-Client does not recognize/accept the majimoto SSL certificate
You will have to install the correct root certificate in your mail client. See the next question.

3.6. How do I add the SSL root certificate of CAcert to my mail client?

The mail clients used might not know the CA which signed the certificate. If that is the case, you will be greeted with a message about an unknown CA having signed the certificate.

The CA root certificate has to be made known to the client. If needed the CAcert.org root certificate can be downloaded from their site (for majimoto, choose the Class 3 PKI Key).

To install the downloaded certificate in Mozilla Thunderbird the procedure is this:

  1. Open "Preferences"
  2. Select "Advanced | Certificates | Manage Certificates"
  3. Select the tab "Authorities"
  4. Click "Import" and select the downloaded certificate file.
  5. Click Open

Now restart Thunderbird and the certificate should be accepted without any kind of questions.

To install the downloaded certificate in Mac OS X the procedure is this:

  1. Open "/Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access"
  2. Select the Keychain "X509Anchors"
  3. Click File->Import and select the downloaded certificate file.
  4. Click Open
  5. Done.



4. MySQL

4.1. How do I administrate my database?
An easy way to administrate your database is to use our pre-installed phpMyAdmin.

4.2. Can I connect to the MySQL service from home?
If you have a MySQL account, you will need to connect from localhost, e.g. from within your scripts on the server. There is no possibility to connect to your MySQL account from the outside world.

5. DNS

5.1. Can I use Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) with a majimoto.net hosting?
Technically, we support IDN's, but we endorse our clients to boycott the standard. We want our customers to have the most stable services with a high reliablity. RFC 3490, the document which standardizes IDN's, is a technical abberation. For more information, see:

6. Webhosting

6.1. Can I run CGI software?
Currently, we do not offer support for CGI binaries or scripts. The reason for this is security. We have had a lot of problems in the last years convincing our customers to write secure CGI programs. The overhead of this consulting work is too big to handle for us at the prices we offer.
If you absolutely have to use CGI, tell us exactly for what purposes and under what circumstances your software is being written and deployed. We can surely find an agreement. We can also offer CGI consulting on a commercial basis.

6.2. Where are the access statistics of my website?
To see the access statistics of your website, simply type the domain name of your website into the browser's location bar and add "/stats/" at the end. Do not omit the trailing slash, it will not work without it!
The statistics are updated automatically and incrementally. After one year, the oldest statistical data is discarded, so you might want to save yourself a copy just before the end of the year.

7. General

7.1. How do I find my IP address?
To find the IP address of your computer, as seen by Majimoto.net, open the website checkip.majimoto.net.