Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How long do I have to wait after signing up before my account is activated?

A: For new customers, once payment is received and confirmed, accounts will be activated within 24 hours - although we are usually able to activate most accounts within an hour or two. For existing customers, all shared hosting (shared and reseller) accounts will be set up immediately after receipt of payment. Note that domain registrations can take up to 24 hours to become active (and some domain extensions, such as .co.uk, may take longer, due to registry-imposed processing requirements.)

Please be aware that payments via Direct Debit, bank transfer, cheque and PayPal eCheque may take longer to process. Your account will be set up once funds have cleared. It is possible to pay your initial payment via credit card and subsequent payments via bank transfer or Direct Debit; if you'd like to do this, please sign up and pay by PayPal or credit card and then contact us to switch your account to your preferred regular payment method.

Q: What payment options do you accept?

A: We accept payment by all major credit and debit cards (Visa, MasterCard and American Express). You can also make payments from a bank account or other credit and debit cards (including Maestro) using PayPal. Our UK customers can also choose to pay for hosting via Direct Debit. Bank transfer and cheque payments may be accepted in certain circumstances: click here for more details.

Q: Do your prices include VAT?

A: The prices shown on our web site do not include VAT. If you live in the UK, VAT will be added at the current rate of 20%. If you live in another EU country, VAT will be added at the rate appropriate for your country at checkout, unless you enter a valid VAT number. If you live outside the EU, no VAT will be charged.

Q: What version of PHP and MySQL do you run?

A: We currently run the latest version of PHP 5.5.x, along with the most recent stable version of MySQL 5.6.

Q: Is there a minimum contract length with Zernebok Hosting?

A: No. You can sign up to be billed monthly, and if you decide Zernebok is not for you, you can cancel your account by submitting a support ticket or requesting a cancellation through the member centre. Note, however, that domain names have a one year minimum registration.

Q: How can I upload files to my web site?

A: You can upload files in a number of ways. The simplest way is to use the File Manager built into cPanel, which you can access from your browser. You can also use the Web Disk feature in cPanel, which lets you set up your web space as if it were a hard drive attached to your computer. Refer to cPanel for more information. The traditional way of uploading files is to use an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client. We can recommend FileZilla as a fast, free FTP client.

Q: What are the FTP details for my site?

A: To access your site by FTP, use ftp.yourdomain.com as the FTP hostname. The username you need to enter is e-mailed to you at signup, along with the password you chose when signing up. If you have set up custom FTP users in cPanel, the username will be in the form of user@yourdomain.com. We recommend you enable the secure FTP (SSL/TLS) option in your FTP client.

Q: How can I find out which server I'm on for cPanel?

A: You are e-mailed your cPanel URL when signing up. If you are unsure of the server you should be using, you can check the My Services section of our control panel.

Q: Do you make backups of my data?

A: Each account on our servers is backed up nightly. While backups are primarily made in case of a server failure, we can help you recover data from an account if you have accidentally deleted important files. You can also make backups yourself from within cPanel. Please note that we do not guarantee to be able to provide a backup of your data in the event of an issue with your account, although we try our best to ensure we can provide this service. Additionally, we are not usually able to provide historic backups, so if you accidentally deleted a file two weeks ago, we are unlikely to be able to recover it. We do highly recommend that you keep your own regular backups, and offer functions in cPanel to assist with this.

Q: Is Telnet or SSH access available?

A: Telnet access isn't available due to the insecurity of the protocol, but Secure Shell (SSH) access is available for those who require it. Please contact support for more details.

Q: I'm trying to use OSCommerce and I get an error about register_globals!

A: register_globals is a option in PHP which is well known for creating security vulnerabilities, so it is disabled on our servers. To make OSCommerce work, you need to add the line register_globals = 1 to the php.ini file in the OSCommerce directory. Submit a support ticket if you are unsure about how to go about doing this, and we will do it for you.

Q: I'm receiving an Internal Server Error with my PHP scripts!

A: Please read this support article for more help.

Got a question? Submit a support ticket, or check the knowledge base, where you will find other questions and answers!