CHAPTER 8 How to Fix The Web: Obscure Back-End Techniques and Terminal Secrets
According to W3Techs in June 2013, it had a market share of 65.2%.^15
Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS) is second with 15.7%, just in
front of nginx at 14.3%.
Web server software shouldn’t ever stop working. But if it does you
can, hopefully, just restart it again. The quickest way to do this is using
a control panel provided by your server. Windows servers (34.3% market
share in June 2013^16 ) are often managed by Remote Desktop or VNC which
allow you to take control of the server’s screen, keyboard and mouse, and
change settings directly on the server.
The rest of this chapter, however, will focus on Linux and UNIX servers
(65.7%), which are usually managed via a Web interface such as Plesk,
CPanel or Webmin. These management tools are really just websites, but
running on a different port. Plesk, for example, usually runs on port 8443,
CPanel on 2082 or 2083 and Webmin on 10000.
Dig deep into your email folders and look for the URL, username
and password for your control panel. Log in and find the screen which
allows you to restart your Web server software. In Plesk, look for “Services
management” (in Server or Tools & Settings) and press the Play button
next to “Web Server (Apache)”.15 “Usage of Web servers for websites”, W3Techs. http://smashed.by/web-servers
16 “Usage of operating systems for websites”, W3Techs. http://smashed.by/operating-sysRestarting a Web server with Plesk.