I had wordpress set up using their cp, I clicked install it worked, I was impressed. Then I noticed that the upgrade feature wasn’t working, I tried even chmoding recursively to 777 (publically writable), no dice, it kept saying I had to ftp the upgrade. Unfortunately you can’t create an ftp directory that points at the folder of one of the cp installed web applications so that wasn’t an option. So then I tried moving the directory to the website root and removing the application because I had it setup on ‘/’ (http://www.lacy.ie/). Of course what is the first thing you forget to do when you delete something, that’s right backup! Miracle of miracles I actually remembered, funny thing is, the database names of the cp created web applications are restricted and so I couldn’t restore the database once it was deleted by the web app uninstall because I couldn’t recreate the database, oh and I forgot to mention you can’t choose the database you want to restore to. So my blog was down for at least a day while I waited for BK to get back to me and fix the problem.

Eventually they did and it was all fine, they even explained to me that the problem with permissions was actually that I had it set to php4 as well as php5 and php4 was used by default. The reason php 5 handles this better than php4 is probably something to do with how php5 is running, what should be happening is that the script is being run by the script owner but what was actually happening under php4 was that all php processes were being run as the same user. Now imagine my surprise when I couldn’t find php4 control panel. All I could find was “PHP Support” and “PHP5 Support”. Ok I want php, and I want php5, its just php4 I don’t want. But wait, I said to myself, this control panel wasn’t designed to make sense, and so I unchecked the php support option and my php based application worked fine. If you are looking for hosting, come down the rabbit hole at blacknight

See PHP Support AND/OR PHP5 Support

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Right, I’m going to assume that you are nothing like me and actually went searching for an article like this before you dived in head first. Either that or you are making use of the restore function and shock and horror its actually working.  I recommend you follow this to the letter, I’m not going to try it a couple of different ways because I have neither the time nor inclination, the first time everything worked I breathed a sigh of relief and returned to some work that actually makes money.

First off you’ll want to install MSSQL, you’ll need x64 version. You’ll need to go into iis and on your default ftp site enable writing to the home directory before you can upload the installation files. Make sure you upload both the server and the tools into the ftp site, I’d recommend zipping them beforehand and I’d recommend using 7z to do it. It has an x64 version, its free and its on sourceforge. So once you have the two folders on the server sitting side by side called SERVERS and TOOLS then you need to download the native client from the following URL: http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=50B97994-8453-4998-8226-FA42EC403D17&displaylang=en, put it in the same directory. So that you have SERVERS TOOLS and the native client exe all sitting in the same folder. Click on the native client exe and install it. Then you can click on the setup in SERVERS, install everything bar reporting services which won’t install because you are running 32 bit IIS on x64 windows. Yes there is a way around reporting services breaking by preventing 32 bit from running as x64 but that will break plesk and probably other stuff.

Next you’ll want to install .net. There are two ways you can do that, either you download the stand alone installer from microsoft.com or you use windows update. Now if you have delved a little into the machine you’ll have discovered windows update is disabled. This is because Blacknight handles all the updates themselves (apparently). To start windows update you will have to go to the start menu, click run, type services.msc and hit enter.
Right click on automatic updates, set to automatic, click apply, click start then ok. Right click on Background Intelligent Transfer Service, do the same. Open your browser, go to http://update.microsoft.com You don’t need IE 7, so select the other priority update option and clear selection. Then go to optional updates and install 3.5.

Next you want to tell plesk to add your www subdomain when you add a domain.
Do the following:

To set this up automatically for any new domains you add to your Windows Plesk VPS go to (in Plesk):
# Server >> DNS Settings >> Add new record
# The record you are adding has to have the following details:
Record Type: CNAME
Domain name: www
Canonical name: <domain>

Next go to the blacknight domain control panel and add your domain using Plesk as hosting. Once that is complete you should have the domain listed in plesk. You’ll need to add physical hosting for it. I’m not going to tell you how to do that but you will probably notice that you aren’t able to run .net 3.5 apps yet. You’ll need to do the following to get that working on whatever site you have.

To change over an IIS website (even if you created it in Plesk you are going to have to follow the following instructions)

Firstly you will need to find what folder the version of .net you want to use is located and you will need to know what number IIS has assigned the domain you want to change.

For example if you wanted to set up .net 2.0 and configure a domain to use it the folder is most likely the following (though you will need to verify):
C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727

If you look up the domain in IIS Manager you should see what number it is using*

Once you have confirmed the directory you can open a command prompt in Windows:
Start >> run >> type in ‘cmd’ and press enter

In here you can change to the directory in question:
cd C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727

If you run the following command you can see the different vhosts (domains) on the server and what version of .net they currently have installed:
aspnet_regiis /lk

A sample output of this would be (please see below for how to tie these numbers to a domain name*):
W3SVC/14382/ROOT/ 1.1.4322.573
W3SVC/17058/ROOT/ 1.1.4322.573
W3SVC/17090/ROOT/ 1.1.4322.573
W3SVC/17123/ROOT/ 1.1.4322.573

To add .net 2.0 to a vhost we run:
aspnet_regiis /sn *vhost*

where *vhost* is the vhost name taken from the above results.

For example to set W3SVC/17058/ROOT/ to .net 2.0 we do:
default path> cd C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727
then:
C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727> aspnet_regiis /sn W3SVC/17058/ROOT

If you run the ‘aspnet_regiis /lk’ command again it will look something like this:
W3SVC/14382/ROOT/ 1.1.4322.573
W3SVC/17058/ROOT/ 2.0.50727.0
W3SVC/17090/ROOT/ 1.1.4322.573
W3SVC/17123/ROOT/ 1.1.4322.573

*You can find out what the number between W3SVC and ROOT is through the IIS Manager on the server.

Hope it all works out for you.

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I’ve been using blacknight for a week or so at this stage.

My first encounter with them was in my search to for a host that would provide .Net 3.5 support. As always hosting companies are reluctant to do anythign that might add to their downtime and .net 3.5 can be quite difficult to install. To cut a long and uninteresting story short, they fitted the bill in terms of the technical requirements for the project. They also met the client’s requirement for it to be hosted with an Irish provider.

At 5 euro a month with a 5 euro set up fee they are by far the cheapest hosting package I’ve ever had, they must have about half a million clients all packed onto each server. In terms of performance, I’m not noticing much of a difference (our application is a small one); in terms of functionality I’m really noticing a difference.

I am quite used to plesk, on my dedicated server I use it to manage DNS, firewall, database and a few other things. I like plesk, its simple, it works, I feel that lack of frustration is worth paying for. However the recesion has hit, and we’re all looking at the bottom line a little more closely these days. So I’m currently sitting staring at Blacknight’s version of plesk which is buggy but its usable. Perhaps plesk licenses cost too much when each user of the system is only paying 5 euro a month for the privilege of hosting 30 domains on the minimus shared hosting option but you can’t help but think that they could be the holy grail of hosting if only they got some license agreement with a company that’s far more specialised into this area.

My second gripe with the blacknight is access to the mssql server. I’m not sure what the issues are with mssql but either it hasn’t been written with shared hosting in mind or blacknight are paranoid but having to use mylittleadmin rather than Microsoft Sql Server Management Studio feels like trying to operate with one hand tied behind my back. Where is my graphical sql builder? Where is my export data? etc etc. All of which is available if you go with Host Ireland (who oddly enough seem to have their servers in Britain) but then again you don’t want to go a month with them telling you they will have .net 3.5 “you just have to wait until tomorrow, definately tomorrow!”.

Now before you begin saying, but Stephen, if you want a better hosting package, then pay for it, particularly given that you are spending valuable time on this! Keep your dedicated server and ditch blacknight or get a virtual private server. I am finding something about the blacknight, I’m getting used to the way they do things. Their system could be better, it could make more sense in general but the more I use it the more sense it makes to me. I’m finding ways of getting things done quickly, I mean everything I want to do is in that control panel… somewhere, all I have to do is find it.

If you are considering getting hosting with blacknight it may be worth doing some calculations in your head. If you are going to start migrating all your clients onto it, then go for it, you’ll get used to how they do things and massive amounts of money will be saved. If you want a simple blog site, and don’t mind spending a day setting it up, go for it. If your time is expensive and you want something quick, simple and you will only want it once, look elsewhere.

Its been a while since I wrote a blog entry, sorry if it hasn’t been the most coherant, I’ll get better

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