Do you charge for bandwidth, hits, or flat rate?
We charge for bandwidth in 200MB/per day increments. Please see our price listings for more information in out pricing document. (http://www.best.com/prices.html).

Do you bill by invoice or credit card?
We bill our customers by a postal-mail sent invoice and credit card.

Announcements pertaining to rules changes, upgrades, and system problems are made to the best.announce newsgroup. It is best for our customers to subscribe to this newsgroup for updated announcements, along with answering or suggestion questions that may not have been addressed with the system announcements.

Sometimes, "the message-of-the-day "(MOTD), which you see when you log into to your shell account, will contain a reminder regarding an event currently occurring or previously occurred (or already posted to best.announce).

Scheduled Downtime

Regardless of any processes running on both the news and shell machines, these machines will go down for maintenance every Tuesday night / Wednesday morning from 12:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. Wednesday. Depending upon the user-load average, or types of processes currently running at this time, the current Web server may also be down for service. Please be reminded that the best.announce newsgroup along with the MOTD will be contingent upon the status of the Web server and other machines

Best INTERNET-specialized Newsgroups:

• best.announce - Read-only; announcements concerning system status
• best.general - General BEST-related postings
• best.test - A place to put test posts to check and for correct posting of headers
• best.www - WWW and FTP related postings
• best.majordomo - Postings concerning Majordomo (mailing list manager)
• best.winsock - Windows (3.1 +)TCP-related postings
• best.mactcp - MacIntosh TCP-related postings

  There are many other BEST-specific newsgroups that you may want to browse as well. For the latest list, please click.

Disk Quotas

Disk quotas exist to partition the amount of space available, in the case that any user may infringe on the amount of space allocated to their specific directory. The amount of space available for our customers is 25Megabytes for FTP/WWW capabilities, 10Megabytes in the home directory, and 10 Megabytes allocated for the mail spool. Excessive usage beyond the set disk quota parameters requires a charge at $0.50/MB per month.

Disk quotas extending outside of the current realm of disk space, requiring the extra charge per Megabytes per month, cannot exceed 50Megabytes, and in the /tmp directory, cannot exceed 100Megabytes. Exceeding the current (25Megabytes) limit of diskspace receives an automatic charge. All charges are included in the proceeding invoice, billed to the customer by Accounting.

WWW/FTP Material

In accordance with the Bill of Rights pertaining to the First Amendment, granted the rights to a user for freedom of expression, freedom of speech, material pertaining to extraneous events, concepts, et. al., is not to be discriminated by the Company. Therefore, with relation to the Bill of Rights the content is permitted, concerning the rights of other peers, and considering abstinence from inciting the violation of the Bill of Rights, as they pertain to the Internet. The following list must be considered in publicizing content:

• Bandwidth - Adhere to the Bandwidth Policy for WWW and FTP capabilities
• CGI and PERL Scripts - These scripts accumulate a considerable amount of process time, therefore weighing down the Web server. More information on writing CGI scripts is at our CGI FAQ.
• Content - Regard other customers browsing the content; Adult material must be considered with respect to other users on the Internet.

Enabling WWW Direct! For Custom Domain Registration

To enable WWW Direct! Custom Domain Registration, contact Best INTERNET Corporate Sales for information on how to enable WWW Direct! for custom domain registration. Best INTERNET Corporate Sales can be emailed at: netsales@best.com.

Bandwidth policy (WWW and FTP):

All basic accounts come with 200MB/day in WWW+FTP bandwidth. Each additional 200MB/day of bandwidth is an additional $20/month. If the current bandwidth limit is exceeded for 3 days, or if the weekly average for that current bandwidth allocation is exceeded, users will be required to pay for a account with a larger amount of disk space.

Exceptions:

• Cool site of the day users chosen on the Internet are allowed 3 days, a grace period, prior to Best tracking their bandwidth. Therefore, contingent upon the status of the user(s) as a Cool site of the day, that user(s) excused for three (3) days of excessive bandwidth with regards to the amount of traffice that site may receive.
• Frame-Relay and T1 customers
• Public services

Logging of WWW transactions:

Accesses to web pages are automatically logged and are available in a file located in the user's public_html directory. This file is called httpd_access:0 in the public_html directory, and are update daily. The time of when the file is update is early morning (ei. 5am) every day. In creating a file in your public_html directory called .logctl, containing a single line with the number of days preferred to be logged. This file can be automatically compressed with gzip, if the extension is renamed to the file: .z. For example:

---------------------------------- # of days, uncompressed -> 3 ---------------------------------- ------------------------------ # of days, compressed -> 3z ------------------------------

Note - in part as the disk space accumulated by non-compressed (or sometimes compressed) log files, the log files will be counted as a subset of your FTP/WWW disk usage. To cease the tracking in the log file, edit the .logctl file in your public_html with the number 0 to indicate that logging will not active.

Running Simple Stats on Your Logfile:

The htcoll program may be used to generate simple statistics of the user(s) WWW usage. htcoll indicates the total number of hits and bytes transferred.

------------------------------ uncompressed ---> cat ~/public_html/httpd_access.0 | htcoll ------------------------------ ------------------------------ compressed ----> gunzip < ~/public_html/httpd_access.0.gz | htcoll ------------------------------


The -s option may be used with htcoll to split the logs up on a "page-by-page" basis:


cat ~/public_html/httpd_access.0 | htcoll -s

Other users, serviced by Best INTERNET have written more customized, sophisticated stat-tracking programs. Inquiries about these programs can be made on the best.www newsgroup.

Accessing User FTP/WWW directories using FTP

User FTP areas can be accessed in the following ways:

• Anonymous FTP - Any user outside of the Best domain can access files according to their permissions settings (example)

  ftp ftp.best.com

  Login as anonymous with the user password as the user's email address (ie. user@best.com)
• FTP Direct! Custom Domain Anonymous FTP - Users with registered FTP Direct! domain names can be FTP'd to/from by typing in the following: (example)

   ftp ftp.mydomain.com

• Directory Access - User directories, WWW and FTP directories, on the Web server are accessible via Netscape and other miscellaneous web browsers.
• Accessing WWW Directories on shell1 - To access the public_html directory where all Web documents are kept, the following can be typed at the unix prompt: (example)

   cd ~/ftp

• User Modifications to FTP Files on shell1 - To access the public_html directory where all FTP files are kept, the following can be typed at the unix prompt: (example)

   ftp ~/public_html

The permissions set on a file are given specific numbers. These number are relative to the type of permission allowed. The following is a list of what the numbers assigned when setting permissions and the recommended file permission setting for WWW/FTP file access:(example)

Permission Type	Unix Command	User Only	Within the Best domain	Public outside of Best domain
Readable	chmod	4	4	4
Writeable	chmod	2	2	2
Executable	chmod	1	1	1
Total	chmod	7	7	7

• File Accessible via FTP and WWW - Recommended permissions setting for files FTP Accessible: (example)

  chmod 755 filename 

• File Accessible via WWW - Recommended permissions setting for files WWW Accessible, but NOT by FTP: (example)

  chmod 640 filename 

  chmod 710 directoryname 

  
  
• Executable CGI Files - Recommended permissions setting for files WWW Accessible: (example)

  chmod 750 filename.cgi 

• Overwriting Errors in Permissions Settings - To fix the permissions settings from the home directory in shell1, type the following, successively:

  cd ~/public_html  

  chmod 710 .

  To check the permissions setting for their correct default permissions setting, type the following:

   ls -al

  These files should have a reading like the following example:

  -rwxr-xr-x  1 user  mosaic    9258 Jun 20  1995 plans.html
  -rwxr-xr-x  1 user  mosaic    2897 Nov 21 10:42 politics.html 	
  

  Changes to these files are made restricted to FTP accessibility ONLY by changing permissions settings in the user's public_html directory.

• Download the recommended imagemapping software - MAPEDIT
• Create a file with the .map extension that relates the the image being mapped by the imagemap software
• FTP both the .map and image to the public_html directory (files must be transferred ASCII encoded)
• To reference the imagemap to the .map file processed by the imagemap software via a web page, the following is to be typed in that specific web page containing the image:

  <a href="[unarchived-link]" border=0  src="[unarchived-media]" ISMAP></a>
  
  
  <a href="[unarchived-link]" border=0  src="[unarchived-media]" ISMAP> </a> 
  

• For a customized, registered WWW Direct! domain, the following should be in this format of the .map file, generated by an imagemapping software: (example)

  default http://www.yourname.com
  circle http://www.yorname.com/nameofpage.html 106,75 165,108 
  rect http://www.yourname.com/anotherpage.html 225,165 259,216 
  

• Non-registered WWW Direct! customers' imagemap software-generated files should look like the following: (example)

  default http://www.best.com/~yourlogin
  circle http://www.best.com/~yourlogin/nameofpage.html 106,75 165,108 
  rect http://www.best.com/~yourlogin/anotherpage.html 225,165 259,216 
  

Installing the Best INTERNET User Counter

• Rename the file that will contain the counter from filename.html to filename.shtml
• Telnet into shell1 - login and password are the same as logging in under a dial-up and telnet account: (type the following, followed by the [enter] key)

   telnet shell1.best.com 

• Change directory into the public_html directory:(type the following, followed by the [enter] key)

   cd ~/public_html

• At the unix prompt: (type the following, followed by the [enter] key)

   touch mycounter

• Setting permissions to mycounter: (type the following, followed by the [enter] key)

   chmod 660 mycounter 

• To include a tag to reference the counter to the page that will contain the counter: (type the following in that page)

  You are the <!--#counter file="mycounter"--> Person to visit my home page.
  

• In counting visits to more than one page, the file containing the tracked visits will differ in names by typing different filenames where these visits will be tracked: (type the following in that page, and repeat the steps above to create more files to track "counting" on the web page that will contain the counter)

   <!--#counter file="any_filename"-->

Logging Page "Hits" to a Text File

This program tracks the visitors, visitor URL locations, date and time of visit to the page this program is set to track user-visitations: (These files can be downloaded and viewed)
• Rename the file that will be user-logged from filename.htmlfilename.shtml (example)

  cp filename.html filename.shtml

• Telnet into shell1 - login and password are the same as logging in under a dial-up and telnet account: (type the following, followed by the [enter] key)

   telnet shell1.best.com 

• Change directory into the public_html directory:(type the following, followed by the [enter] key)

   cd ~/public_html

• At the unix prompt: (type the following, followed by the [enter] key)

   touch hits

• Setting permissions to mycounter: (type the following, followed by the [enter] key)

   chmod 660 hits.txt 

• To include a tag to reference the log file to the page that will contain the counter: (type the following in that page)

  <!--#exec cmd="echo $DATE_LOCAL -  $REMOTE_HOST - $HTTP_REFERER >> hits.txt"--> 
  

Installing a Feedback Form

• FTP the CGI script to the public_html directory. This script will be processing the feedback form contents to an email address modified by the user in the CGI script. At the unix prompt: (type the following, followed by the [enter] key)

  ftp ftp.best.com

  Login as anonymous and enter the user email address as the password.
• Change directory to pub/jh to ftp the file form.cgi and cgi-lib.pl: (type the following, each line followed by the [enter] key)

  cd pub/jh

  a

  get form.cgi

  get cgi-lib.pl

• Edit form.cgi with a text editor, and change the following fields: (excerpted from form.cgi)

  Form Field	Current Field	Change To
  Change 1	$recipient = 'login@best.com';	Change'login' to user's login
  Change 2	open (MAIL, "|$mailprog $recipient") || die "Unable to send request\n Please send e-mail to login@best.com, Thank you\n";	Change 'login' to user's login
  Change 3	print "Your request has been sent.";	Change to preferred response

• Save the form.cgi file
• Set the permissions setting to the form.cgi and cgi-lib.pl files: (type the following, followed by the [enter] key)

  cd ~/public_html

  chmod 750 form.cgi

  chmod 640 cgi-lib.pl

• Reference the web page with the following tag that will contain the feedback form: (type the following in the web page)

   <FORM method="post" action="[unarchived-media]"> 
  

Step 1
 
   Telnet into shell1.best.com (with your login and password). 

   Type: cd public_html (enter)
   Type: mkdir restricted (enter)
   Type: chmod 750 restricted (enter)
   Type: cd ~jh/ftp/ (enter)
   Type: cp password ~your_login/public_html/restricted/ (enter) 
         Make sure and replace your_login with your actual login name
   Type: cd ~your_login/public_html/restricted/ (enter)
   Type: tar -xpvf password (enter)
   Type: cd passw (enter)

Step 2

   Type: htpasswd .htpasswd name_of_user (enter)
     IMPORTANT: replace name_of_user with the name of the user you will
     be allowing access under password protection.
   It will ask you to enter the password - enter it twice.
  
   Repeat Step 2 for every user you want to give access for your 
   restricted section.

Step 3

   Put all the pages you want to password protect in the 
   directory "restricted"
   The URL for the restricted section of your site will be 
      http://www.best.com/~your_login/restricted
   or http://www.your_name.com/restricted (if you have your own domain)
  

If you want to remove accesses to your restricted directory you need to 
telnet into your account, type: cd public_html/restricted/passw/
Type: pico .htpasswd (enter)
Remove login names and corresponding encripted passwords you no longer 
want there.

OPTIONAL: 

You can change the word "administration" on the window that comes up 
asking for a password by editing file .bthaccess in your "restricted" 
directory. 
Change the word "administration" to something else.
Use ls -al to look up your files.

UNIX Shell policies

Cron and at jobs:

Our rules concerning cron or at jobs (which allow you to run a script every so often on an automatic basis) are relatively simple. You may not run jobs any more often then once an hour. You may run CPU or I/O intensive jobs only in the early morning (between 1:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m.).

Background processes (Bots, Servers, etc...):

Each user is allowed to run one background job while not logged in. These are usually in the form of an IRC bot. We reserve the right to kill off IRC bots during heavy load periods. Background processes MUST consume less then 10 second of cpu per hour, may not be disk intensive, and must consume less then 300K of active memory.

Any user found running a nasty bot for the purposes of interfering with another user (inside or outside of BEST) will be thrown off the system.

Users may NOT run MUDs or other servers at this time unless given specific permission by the staff.

Heavy jobs:

Running extractors on large numbers of files, whether in the foreground or not, is forbidden during the day. Extractors take USENET postings and uudecode them / munpack them, etc. An example of an extractor would be something like AUB or one of the emacs-based extractors. You may only run extractors between 12:00 midnight and 7:00 a.m.

Restrictions on the screen program

Those of you who use the screen program to setup multiple virtual consoles need to be considerate of others and not detach sessions so you can log out and pick them up where you left off later on. Screen eats pseudo terminals and many users have a tendancy to leave detached IRC processes running, which take cpu and memory. Your help with this is appreciated.

Temporary files:

Please use /tmp to hold temporary files. Each user gets 100MB in /tmp. Users should delete temporary files after they are through with them. The daily admin scripts will clean out temporary files over a day old. BEST does not charge for /tmp usage, and any user found abusing the privilage (i.e. trying to store files in /tmp permanently or repeatedly not cleaning out old temporary files after being asked to) will be thrown off the system.

Please do NOT use your FTP/WWW area to store temporary files. Your FTP/WWW area (~/ftp and ~/public_html) resides on a different machine and all disk accesses to it must go over the network. Additionally, the WWW server needs as much disk bandwidth as it can get, and heavy NFS usage interferes with that.

Please address comments about this page to www@best.com.