Newie Q: Can I use BH as backup / storage for non-web related files?

[michael p]

So can or should I use BH as a backup for non-web related files, such as documents, calendar or address books? What would be the pros and cons? Would this violate some terms of the service agreement? Wouldn't be a lot of stuff.

And if so how would you recommend one sets this up so that the files cannot be randomly accessed by the web at large?

Newbie and a mac user, if that matters.

TIA

Mike

[PaulC.]

I haven't read the TOS, but I can't imagine that it would violate it as long as you didn't store pornography or illegal/copyrighted materials. You could even use a program like Web Drive or Novell's similar program:
http://digg.com/software/Map_a_windows_drive_via_FTP_or_WebDav
Paul C.

[areidmtm]

You could even use a program like Net Drive or Novell's similar program


I used both of those and since that Windows is case-insensitive and Linux is case-sensitive, it really messed things up with files and directorates.

Try it at your own risk.

[Early Out]

Besides my web stuff, I also use my BH space to store backups of all my financial records. I zip them, encrypted, into files that have names that won't louse up the Linux file system (I just stick to short names, all lower case, no spaces or other special characters, like "taxes2006.zip" ).

Then I stash them (with a simple FTP client program) in a subdirectory, like www.mydomain.com/archives, and password-protect the archives subdirectory. I've turned off indexing at the top level of my domain, so no one can even find the files, to say nothing of accessing them.

[PaulC.]

Good point. hadn't thought of that. Very good to know since I have considered using it on our webdav/sftp server for off-site employees.

[michael p]

Besides my web stuff, I also use my BH space to store backups of all my financial records. I zip them, encrypted, into files that have names that won't louse up the Linux file system (I just stick to short names, all lower case, no spaces or other special characters, like "taxes2006.zip" ).

Then I stash them (with a simple FTP client program) in a subdirectory, like www.mydomain.com/archives, and password-protect the archives subdirectory. I've turned off indexing at the top level of my domain, so no one can even find the files, to say nothing of accessing them.

This is good stuff, thanks. I've fiddled with the cpanel and all its options for a bit and this is what I gather from your comments. I like step-by-step help so please bear with me...

I can create a new folder(s) in my BH account using the cpanel, and I can also turn off "indexing" using the cpanel. This will prevent the more ambitious web users from somehow finding it. I assume people surf websites and add random folder names just for fun.

-> this will still allow public access to my website?

I call the folder something like "backup" or whatever floats my boat. I can probably do subfolders like /backup/email or /backup/documents if I felt like it. Probably don't feel like it though.

Put a password on it, just to be safe, using cpanel again. Good idea since I might be putting privileged materials there such as memos or client correspondence.

-> password just the top level folder?

Take the files I want to archive, compress them (the purpose of which is to reduce the storage used and I assume speed up transfer) and I can also password protect them just as another layer of security using something like Stuffit.

Using an FTP client (I just installed FireFTP on Firefox, but was using Fetch before - those are FTP clients, right?) I can transfer the files from my laptop up the pipeline to my BH account and into those special folders, for a job well done.

Good stuff, good stuff.

I appreciate all the help.

Mike

[Early Out]

You've got it, completely.

In my case, it's even tougher for folks to poke around, since I have no index.html at the top level of my domain. Unless I tell people where my web pages are, they can't be found (it would take a spectacular amount of guessing). Anyone going to www.mydomain.com just gets a "welcome to BH" default message.

Of course, if you're running a website where you actually want to attract viewers, that's a bad idea! In my case, my pages are only for friends, neighbors, and family, anyway.

[michael p]

Thank you my friend.

Mike

[michael p]

Follow up:

Did all the above, but I created the archive folder not under public_html but on a level with public (bear with me please), that is, on the level that automatically comes up first under file manager. Again, on the same level so that my archive folder and the public folder are both shown on the screen.

It does not show up under mydomain/[name of folder] when I type that path into the browser. Also, when I use password protect directories it does not appear - only my folders in "public" appear.

Anyway, did a test run using FireFTP for firefox and it went well, all the xferred files show up in the cpanel file manager.

Am I missing something? I'd feel better if I could password protect that folder too.

thanks

[Early Out]

I had never fiddled with it before, but it does appear that the Password Protect Directories routine in the Control Panel lets you apply passwords only to directories that are within public_html. I put my "arch" directory in there, and password-protected it.

[Schelly]

That would make some sense, since nobody can reach directories that aren't in public_html unless they have your ftp info.

[michael p]

Man, you guys are FAST on the reply, I appreciate it.

I just real quick created and password protected a folder in the public_html just for kicks and transferred a file there. putting the url into the browser with the /testfolder path, then a prompt for username and password comes up, type it in and it shows the contents of that folder.

So I think I'll just keep the first one I tried - not in public, as I don't need to access the files from a browser but rather, as backup/storage, using an FTP client is more appropriate for downloading.

I can imagine uses for password protecting directories in public_html then allowing only certain people to access them remotely through a browser, but that's not what I was looking for - the more secure the better.

Thanks for all the help. Come a long way since that COBOL class back in the '80s. I'm quickly becoming a master webmaster.

Mike

[alligosh]

Please do keep in mind that copyrighted material cannot be stored on the server. This includes "backups" of your microsoft office application, your mp3 library, or any files that may be questionable.

[Early Out]

If the copyright laws permit me to make backup copies of something - software, music, whatever - then I don't see how you can prohibit its storage. I copyright my own photos - are you telling me I can't store them on your servers?

[PaulC.]

You own the copyright to those photos. The copyright on your office CD and your Micheal Jackson Thriller CD don't belong do you.

[KenJackson]

I appreciate this thread because I have occasionally thought of doing this very thing. Though all I've done is to put copies of all my SSH pub files on my site so I can get them anytime I setup a new PC and want to use SSH to get home.

[Early Out]

You own the copyright to those photos. The copyright on your office CD and your Micheal Jackson Thriller CD don't belong do you.That's not what I meant. We have a blanket statement that "copyrighted material may not be put on BH servers." But some copyrights explicitly allow me to make copies for my own use. If the copyright actually gives me that privilege, may I not exercise it?

Clearly, giving someone else access to that copy is rarely (if ever) permitted by the terms of the copyright, but that's something different, and is not what I'm referring to here.

I tossed out the example of my own photos as hyperbole, simply to illustrate how the total prohibition of copyrighted material, as stated, makes no sense. It needs to be qualified.

[Dormouse]

We have a blanket statement that "copyrighted material may not be put on BH servers." But some copyrights explicitly allow me to make copies for my own use. If the copyright actually gives me that privilege, may I not exercise it?

It needs to be qualified.

You may exercise your right to make a copy, but you are not allowed to store those copies on a BH server. Hosts are not in a position to judge whether you have a right to have copies of copyrighted material and would be vulnerable legally if they allowed users to store copies on their servers as they could then be downloaded by lots of people.

They are really not likely to qualify that blanket statement.

[Early Out]

Hosts are not in a position to judge whether you have a right to have copies of copyrighted material and would be vulnerable legally if they allowed users to store copies on their servers as they could then be downloaded by lots of people.Good point, and I can see that you're absolutely right. Even though anything I don't want others to have access to is in password-protected directory, BH wouldn't be able to police that. After all, I could be giving the password to almost anyone.

I'll concede - I'll settle for "no copyrighted material unless you are the owner of that copyright." :)

[tbeta]

I would like to the exact same thing, but am a tad bit more lazy. Is it possible to do some sort of drive mapping? I use various Windows machines at different locations, and it would be great if I could just "map" a drive on each of them to a shared/mounted drive under my Bluehost hosted account. Being able to edit them remotely would be great. NFS sounds like it might be leading in the right path, but I don't know much about it.

Is this possible?

Thanks

[Schelly]

Good point, and I can see that you're absolutely right.

I really do like you. Great discussion!

[Early Out]

Is it possible to do some sort of drive mapping? I use various Windows machines at different locations, and it would be great if I could just "map" a drive on each of them to a shared/mounted drive under my Bluehost hosted account.I would have thought that was possible, but I can only get partway there. Launch Windows Explorer, and go to the address bar (if you don't see it, right-click in a blank area in the menu bar, and choose it). Enter ftp://bhuserid@bhuserid.com/public_html (where bhuserid is your Bluehost user ID, which, in turn, corresponds to your domain name). It should prompt you for a name and password - check the "save password" box, so Windows Explorer will reconnect you automatically the next time.

At that point, you can treat your BH space just like any other drive or directory within Windows Explorer. However, the Map Network Drive won't let me choose it for drive-mapping! So close, and yet....

[alligosh]

Good point, and I can see that you're absolutely right. Even though anything I don't want others to have access to is in password-protected directory, BH wouldn't be able to police that. After all, I could be giving the password to almost anyone.
I'll concede - I'll settle for "no copyrighted material unless you are the owner of that copyright." :)

I am all for personal rights, including the right to make backup copies of any licensed software. The issue here does involve the ability to police who gets access to what, and if you even have the license to begin with. Even more, I don't think the ISP should even have to police anything, and in an honest and perfect world, we wouldn't have to.

In my opinion (and not that of Bluehost), the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a terrible piece of legislature that aims to protect the owners of copyrights (software, music, video, etc), but treats everyone as guilty before proven innocent. In effect, we have to become even more heavy handed, and appear somewhat sinister in order to comply.

That is why copyrighted material is generally not allowed on the servers. And yes, there are exceptions, like if you are the copyright owner, or if it is licensed to be run on the server (professional web packages, etc).

I just want everyone to be aware that storing backups on the servers can be tricky (legally speaking) where copyrights are concerned.

[alligosh]

Also, please be carefull with backups. I had a customer once (at a previous company) that archived his entire hard drive, them split it into small files and emailed them to himself. He then reinstalled windows (and completely wiped his hard drive), then expected to just get his email and restore all his data.

The issue he experienced is that the mailbox only had a 10 MB quota, and bounced the rest of the email, which ended up getting "cleaned" by the spam and virus gateway.

He lost everything.


The point of this story is to just be careful, and never completely depend on a remote service to care more about your data than you do.

Storing data on the server isn't a bad thing, but you should make sure your truly critical files have multiple backups in multiple mediums. CDR, second hard drive, hardcopy, etc.

[kaskudoo]

as for a neat email backup idea, gmail always came in handy.
i use bluehost as virtual drive, but larger files sometimes timeout and thats just a headache. i have this network drive on 2 pcs (win2k) and my mac (osx) and it works fine for everything <10MB .....

as a general backup i use several harddrives (cd's and dvd's just age too fast)

[tbeta]

I would have thought that was possible, but I can only get partway there. Launch Windows Explorer, and go to the address bar (if you don't see it, right-click in a blank area in the menu bar, and choose it). Enter ftp://bhuserid@bhuserid.com/public_html (where bhuserid is your Bluehost user ID, which, in turn, corresponds to your domain name). It should prompt you for a name and password - check the "save password" box, so Windows Explorer will reconnect you automatically the next time.

At that point, you can treat your BH space just like any other drive or directory within Windows Explorer. However, the Map Network Drive won't let me choose it for drive-mapping! So close, and yet....


I have tried this, and have the same problem. In addition, I would prefer to be able to edit files on the sever, i.e. not just FTP protocol. Does anyone know how to do this?

[egtech]

I have tried this, and have the same problem. In addition, I would prefer to be able to edit files on the sever, i.e. not just FTP protocol. Does anyone know how to do this?

Novell has released a utility to public domain called netdrive.exe. They do not support the program, so you will have to do an internet search, and download the last version: 4.1 for Windows. Next you need to setup an ftp user/password on Bluehost. Then config netdrive to go to ftp.yourdomain.com; choose the ftp protocol; then enter the ftp user name and password in the netdrive config, and map it to a drive letter.

You are all set. Remember, ftp is not secure, so your password will be floating around the internet in clear text. Also, I would not directly edit the files on the mapped netdrive, as you are working on a low bandwidth connection, and files are easily corrupted - edit them locally, then drag and drop to update the netdrive copy.

[charlesgan]

So can or should I use BH as a backup for non-web related files, such as documents, calendar or address books? What would be the pros and cons? Would this violate some terms of the service agreement? Wouldn't be a lot of stuff.

And if so how would you recommend one sets this up so that the files cannot be randomly accessed by the web at large?

Newbie and a mac user, if that matters.

TIA

Mike

as i understand, you can use it for your website content or media that you might need. even rarely using media.

as long you not use it to store site backup copy, for sample cpanel site backup tar.gz. etc. that will consume up lots of space

[verifone411]

Sorry to update this older thread. A great free windows program that I have seen is cobian backup. This will allow you to specify ftp upload speed, archive to zip with a password, copy to mapped drives and cdrs and more

http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm

[ofer4]

Hi, folks -

I realize that this is an old thread, but it appears to be on-topic. Bluehost has changed its Terms of Service (without notice) to specifically ban use of accounts for storage purposes. You can read more details here:
http://bluehostforum.com/showthread.php?t=15396

Suffice it to say that I am unhappy about this change, and it has definitely changed my (otherwise rosy) view of BH.

If you are thinking about using your space for backup purposes, look elsewhere. If you are currently using your space for these purposes, you've been warned!

[felgall]

Any web host that offers "unlimited" space has to impose such a restriction on what the space is used for as otherwise 99.9% of web servers would be filled with things that do not belong on a web server.

While a web host that offers a limited amount of space per account can control the amount of non-web related material that is on their hosting due to the space limits that they allow per account that is not possible once they offer "unlimited" space and so every web host who starts offering "unlimited" space will have altered their ToS accoudingly when they commenced that offer.

The type of software that needs to be running on an online backup service is totally different from that which is needed on a web hosting service and so if you require an onlie backup service you are much better off purchasing such an account rather than trying to use an account intended for a totally different purpose.

[Valdeam]

That would put a big strain on their computers.

Valdeam

[Early Out]

I realize that this is an old thread,...
There is no reason to keep updating old threads that happen to mention the same topic. You've posted about this once, and that's sufficient.

[gingerwave]

Besides my web stuff, I also use my BH space to store backups of all my financial records. I zip them, encrypted, into files that have names that won't louse up the Linux file system (I just stick to short names, all lower case, no spaces or other special characters, like "taxes2006.zip" ).

Then I stash them (with a simple FTP client program) in a subdirectory, like www.mydomain.com/archives, and password-protect the archives subdirectory. I've turned off indexing at the top level of my domain, so no one can even find the files, to say nothing of accessing them.

Great infor. thx. http://imagepot.info/img/502/w08q1028hnzf/biggrin.gif

[krock]

Any web host that offers "unlimited" space has to impose such a restriction on what the space is used for as otherwise 99.9% of web servers would be filled with things that do not belong on a web server.

While a web host that offers a limited amount of space per account can control the amount of non-web related material that is on their hosting due to the space limits that they allow per account that is not possible once they offer "unlimited" space and so every web host who starts offering "unlimited" space will have altered their ToS accoudingly when they commenced that offer.

The type of software that needs to be running on an online backup service is totally different from that which is needed on a web hosting service and so if you require an onlie backup service you are much better off purchasing such an account rather than trying to use an account intended for a totally different purpose.

We know all about that stuff--just dont promise something you cannot fulfill. In my case, I could have opened more accounts to spread the traffic, if I was informed. The problem is the admin that made the decision was incompetent, in that he didnt care about shutting 6 commercial websites down or even why the problem was happening--it could have been a problem with the server in a loop, how do I know. If you cant handle the traffic, dont sell it like you can.

[Early Out]

I should point out that my zipped non-site-related files consume a very small amount of space. Technically, they shouldn't be on there, but the stuff is too small to become an issue (we're talking a few MB, compared to GB for my web site).

[Early Out]

This is just turning into a gripe session. Please read the sticky thread at the top titled, "Read Before Posting."

If you're not asking for help, or offering help, then you're in the wrong place. Enough already.

[felgall]

We know all about that stuff--just dont promise something you cannot fulfill. In my case, I could have opened more accounts to spread the traffic, if I was informed.

We are just users like you - we didn't promise anybody anything.