Hosting a website

How your site is served

Your website runs nginx, a web server, with PHP behind it. It is reachable at your free address, such as yoursite.pulsedmc.net, over HTTPS. The certificate is handled for you, so you don't need to set up SSL yourself.

It works like your other servers in the panel. You can start and stop it, see its logs in the Console, edit files in the File Manager, and make backups. When the site is stopped, visitors see a short "this site is offline" page.

Where your files go

Everything visitors can see lives in the www folder. Whatever is in www/index.html or www/index.php is your home page. A file at www/about.html is at yoursite.pulsedmc.net/about.html.

To put a site up, open the File Manager, go into www, delete the sample page, and upload your files. You can upload a .zip and unarchive it in the file manager, which is much faster than many single files.

For regular updates, connect over SFTP with FileZilla, WinSCP or your code editor. The address, port and username are on the Settings tab, and the password is your panel password.

PHP versions

Your site runs the PHP version you picked when you ordered. To change it, open the Startup tab and change two things to match:

1. The Docker Image, for example the 8.4 image.
2. The PHP Version setting, to the same number, for example 8.4.

Restart the site afterwards. If the two don't match, PHP fails to start and the console says so. Most current software, such as Laravel and modern CMSs, wants 8.2 or newer.

Deploy from Git

If your site is in a Git repository, the server can pull it for you. On the Startup tab:

1. Set Enable Git Module to 1.
2. Set the Git Repo Address and, if needed, the Git Branch.
3. For a private repository, set your Git Username and a Git Access Token with read access. Never use your account password.
4. Restart. The server pulls the latest code on every start.

If your project uses Composer, set Enable Composer Module to 1 and list the packages in Composer Packages, or include a composer.json in your repository.

Pretty URLs and the nginx config

Many PHP apps want every request sent to index.php, so links like /blog/my-post work. That is set in the nginx config at nginx/conf.d/default.conf. Find the location / block and make its try_files line look like this:

location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
}

Restart the site after editing. If nginx doesn't come back, the console shows the line it didn't like. Fix it or undo the change.

Scheduled jobs

To run something on a timer, such as a cleanup script, set Enable Cron Module to 1 on the Startup tab and add your jobs to the crontab file in the main folder. It uses the normal cron format:

# every day at 4:00
0 4 * * * php /home/container/www/cleanup.php

Leave Enable Certbot SSL and Enable Cloudflare Tunnel off. HTTPS for your address is already handled for you, and turning those on can stop the site starting.

Troubleshooting