Create your own web space

How to get it

Before you go to our order form you should be aware of the following aspects:

• You must be a member
• Who (if not you) will be in charge of the website?
  Being in charge means caring about updates and so on. We need some admin that we can contact in case of any security issues/updates/errors.
• How would you like your website to be reachable?
  We need your domain name. If you do not already own a domain please read on in the → DOMAIN section below.
• Which system do you want to install on the server?
  Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress, Drupal etc. need a database to work. By providing us with this information we can already create this database for you.
  Note: For simple static HTML pages you don’t need a database or there are also so called flat file CMS’s which don’t need a database, like Grav, PicoCMS and others.

Once we received your order, you will receive the following access data from us:

• FTP access (username & password), so you can install your own CMS or upload additional files to a pre-installed one
• If required: access to a MYSQL database (username & password)
• HTTPS certificate from Let’s Encrypt

Domain

In order to reach your website via our servers you need a domain, i.e. an address which you call up via your browser. You can choose from a variety of top-level domains (the last section, to the right of the dot). For example, in the domain name www.example.at, the top-level domain is at. Nevertheless there are standard top-level domains most users would like to choose from: .at, .com, .net, .org, .eu, .de.

Our long term partner for domain administration (registrar) is Peter Vratny from the company Proserver1.at.
You can simply order the domain through us and we will take all the necessary steps.

Costs

A domain is charged to you in addition to the membership and separately from Proserver1.at. Due to our long term partnership and their support for the local scene they offer special prices to our members. Depending on the top-level domain you need the costs vary somewhat between 9-22 EUR per year for a standard top-level domain. For more details on prices please contact us.

HTTPS Certificate – we will take care of that

When you visit a website you basically download information (text, images, …) from a webserver over an internet connection. You do this (maybe without knowing) by using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). If someone would have the ability to ‘listen’ to the communication between you and the webserver, they could read which content you are viewing.
Since HTTPS (S for Secure) this line of communication can be encrypted. So, whoever wanted to know which website content you access, would just see encrypted data that does not make any sense.

Since the beginning of 2016 we get the certificates for HTTPS pages from Let’s Encrypt. If you create a new website with us we will provide you with a HTTPS certificate by default.
If you want to use HTTPS with your existing website, send an informal e-mail to office@servus.at with the name of your website and we will create a certificate for you. We also adjust the configuration in the webserver.

Which content management system should I use?

WordPress

For people, who do not want to spend much time and have little experience with tools for the web, we recommend WordPress as one of the most popular CMS.

Drupal

We ourselves have been using Drupal since 2006. Drupal is a more complex content management framework system. It consists of a core and can be extended almost infinitely with modules.
Drupal is basically suitable for everyone who has some experience and is not afraid of dealing with a content management system, CSS and html in depth.
There are numerous tutorials on the net, which offer a good introduction. Once you have overcome the first hurdles of understanding, it is fun to work with. Drupal is well suited to implement more complex structures of organizations with different users. In our case for associations, independent educational institutions, community platforms, etc. But also for your own website as an artist or cultural worker Drupal comes into question.

Flat file CMS

A flat-file CMS is simply a web-platform for files, that represent the pages of your website. It’s very easy to maintain, is resource friendly, loads fast and yet almost as powerful as any other CMS. With a flat-file CMS there’s no need to worry about a database. Although page editing requires a basic knowledge of Markdown syntax for text formatting, adding pages and changing structures is usually very simple and depends mostly on changes in the folder structure.

Some of those open-source flat-file CMS are: Grav, Pico, Jekyll, Hugo, Monstra etc.

Wiki

We recommend Dokuwiki as Wiki. It is easy to use and as a flat-file CMS, it does not need a database in the background. Content is stored as .txt files on the server.

/* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

define('FS_METHOD', 'ftpext');
define('FTP_HOST', 'ftp.dom.ain');
define('FTP_USER', 'xxxxxx');
define('FTP_PASS', 'xxxxxx');
define('FTP_SSL', true);