Websites hosting#

Website hosting is historically the first service made available to CLUB1 members.

Important

The freedom to experiment is at the heart of CLUB1’s principles: A CLUB1 member account is not limited to a single website! There is no limit to the number of web projects to host as long as it does not saturate the server 😄.

Types of sites#

There are two main categories of Web sites: the static sites, made of files which contents will not change until it’s modified and the dynamic sites, whose files are executed and can thus produce different results.

Static websites#

This type of website consists only of files that the server will serve based on requests. It requires almost no “work” from the processor because there is no calculation to perform. Static sites are an interesting way for anyone looking to offer more energy-efficient sites.

To create a static website, you can write HTML code yourself, associated with images, sounds or videos. This is the most artisanal way to make a website. It guarantees unique and original styles and is very efficient to learn how the web works.

Tip

But this can become complex when you have a lot of content to manage. For that it is advised to turn to static site generators These tools can generate the HTML files of a site, for example from Markdown files, on your personal computer. Each time an update is needed, you just have to run the process again and copy the created files to the server.

static/ folder#

The personal space has a special static/ folder at its root. All files and folders that it contains are automatically published on the Web at https://static.club1.fr, for instance:

https://static.club1.fr/nicolas/test.html → /home/nicolas/static/test.html

This folder is served by the HTTP server Apache. It is configured to automatically generate an index displaying the list of files and folders it contains.

To avoid displaying this index, it is possible either to create an index.html file which will contain the page to be displayed instead, or to add a hidden Apache .htaccess configuration file containing at least the following line.

Options -Indexes

See also

The tutorial “My first steps on the Web!” to learn how to make your first website with the folder /static.

Dynamic websites#

This type of website uses logic code that runs on the server. This can be via a C.M.S. And may in particular require the use of SQL databases For these websites, you must go through the creation of a domain name. Because there is no preconfigured automatic folder.

Domain names#

The question of the domain name is a major issue for the Web.

Important

There is a difference between hosting and domain name rental! Hosting stores a site’s files and publishes them on the Web to a specific IP address, while a domain name is a more human-friendly interface that is supposed to point to a server’s IP address.

Yes! These are two different notions, even if a large part of mainstream hosts will often offer the rental of the domain name at the same time as the rental of space for files (hosting).

domain name#

Internet domain identifier, easy for a human to read and remember.

For example: club1.fr, impots.gouv.fr, and fr are domain names.

A domain allows to associate information with a name. Among this information the most important is the IP address of the computer associated with this domain. A domain name is therefore often used as an alias for an IP address.

In addition to this information, a domain can also have subdomains.

registrar#

Domain name registrar. Company or association managing the Internet domain name reservation. — Wikipedia

TLD#

Top level domain name. For example fr, com or org are TLDs. — Wikipedia

Comme le dit Stéphane Bortzmeyer dans son article sur son blog :

On entend parfois le terme de « sous-domaine ». Malheureusement, il est souvent utilisé en supposant qu’il y a des domaines qui sont des sous-domaines et d’autres qui seraient des « vrais » domaines. Mais ce n’est pas le cas. Tous les domaines sont des sous-domaines d’un autre (à part le cas particulier de la racine, le début des domaines). Ainsi, signal.eu.org est un sous-domaine de eu.org, lui-même un sous-domaine de org, lui-même sous-domaine de la racine.

Use a subdomain of club1.fr#

To facilitate the creation of projects and help spontaneity, the use of subdomains of club1.fr by members is encouraged!

This has the advantage of being free, and of requiring no maintenance, unlike renting a domain name. The disadvantage being to depend on club1.fr. This also leads to a visible relationship with CLUB1, which can be bothersome or interesting depending on the project.

Tip

It is possible at any time to redirect a subdomain of club1.fr to any other domain of your choice. This allows for example to start via this method and later, to rent a domain name without breaking any links!

To request a sub-domain of club1.fr, it is necessary to contact the system administrator, by specifying towards which folder in its personal space will have to point the domain.

Warning

Remember to check that the subdomain is available before sending a request! 😉 It must only consist of lowercase letters, numbers or hyphens -.

Have sub-subdomains#

C’est effectivement possible de descendre encore un niveau dans la filiation de domaine. Par exemple, si l’on utilise déjà yaourt.club1.fr, on peut aussi demander à créer fraise.yaourt.club1.fr. Cependant, cela nécessite actuellement la création d’un certificat Let’s Encrypt supplémentaire par sous domaine, ce qui n’est pas anodin. Donc pour l’instant, mollo sur les sous.sous.domaines 🐌 !

Rent an external domain name#

It is possible to rent a domain name from a registrar. This often costs about ten euros per year but it can vary depending on the TLD chosen.

We recommend Gandi.net, for its support to various free projects.

Before buying your domain name, take the time to discuss it! There will be a small series of adjustments to make and it’s worth talking about so that everything goes smoothly.

Management#

None of these actions are automated or accessible via a web interface. It is therefore necessary to discuss it between humans 🍺! This is part of the artisanal aspect and the deliberately human scale of the server management.

To ease the task, scripts are there to facilitate the technical implementation.

It is Nicolas that you must contact for the association of domains with your site folders.

It is possible to reach him:

Software#

Nginx#

HTTP server primarily focused on performance. At CLUB1, it is mainly used as a “TLS endpoint” and “reverse proxy” in front of the various Web services, including the Apache server. — Wikipedia, Sources

Apache#

Very popular HTTP server, distributed under free license. HTTP being the protocol of Web we also often speak of “Web server”.

Apache is attractive for hosting personal web pages because it can be configured at runtime and by end users through .htaccess files.

At CLUB1, the Apache server is behind the “reverse proxy” Nginx. — Wikipedia, Sources

PHP-FPM#

PHP process manager, allowing a Web server to execute PHP code in a high-performance manner. It is also able to run PHP with different users. — Sources