Hosting with Plesk

Each account comes with access to a web based control panel. This utility allows you to manage your account through your web browser. Your control panel is accessible at: https://start.toast.net/tools/hosting/manage.asp?t=y.

Domain: yourdomain.com
Password: yourpassword

Once logged into Plesk, you will find many powerful tools to use for your domain name and hosting account. Each function of Plesk comes with its own detailed help menu.

Learn more about the Plesk CP watching our online tutorials.

Your email accounts are managed through the Smarter Mail control panel. To create your new email accounts, you first need to log in with your admin email account information.

    Smarter Mail Control Panel: http://www.toast.net/mail/
    Email Address: admin@yourdomain.com
    [replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain name]
    Password: Use your domain password

Then click on "Settings" -> "Domain Settings" and then "Users". This function allows you to create, delete, forward and change the passwords of email accounts.

Accessing Email

To access your email we recommend using our Business Start Page at start.toast.net. The Business Start Page brings all of the tools and services you would normally use onto one convenient page.  It features quick access to your email, news, weather, stocks, games, shopping, search, account controls and more! 

Business Start Page configuration instructions: http://support.toast.net/kb/a524/business-start-page-administration.aspx

Set the Business Start Page as your browser home page: http://support.toast.net/kb/a512/business-start-page-set-as-your-home-page.aspx

To setup your devices follow the instructions here.

You will need FTP software. We recommend using the FTP client built into Windows Explorer within Windows XP or greater. To access your website using Window Explorer follow these steps:

1. Right click on your Start button
2. Left click on "Explore" or "Open Windows Explorer"
3. Enter ftp://ftp.your-domain-name.com in the window that comes up.
4. When prompted, fill in your username and password provided for your FTP access
5. Goto the "httpdocs" directory

To configure your FTP client (CuteFTP or WS_FTP) use the information below:

Host Name/Address: <ip address>
The IP Address can be found in your setup information available from My Account.
User Name: <your-username>
Password: <your-password>

You'll want to upload your web site into the "httpdocs" directory. The other directories are for internal use and cannot be accessed by visitors to your site. Note: you will need to put CGI scripts into your "cgi-bin" directory and not the httpdocs directory.

Once DNS propagates your website will be available for viewing. If you are transferring a domain to our servers and wish to upload and preview your site before DNS propagation, our Site Preview feature allows you to do so.

Login to the Plesk Control Panel; once logged in click Websites & Domains tab. Select the first icon in the icon list to the right of your domain name and a preview window will pop up.

Links using absolute URLs will not work, because DNS has not propagated. For example:

This link will not work.
<a href="http://yourname.com/images/yourimage.gif" mce_href="http://yourname.com/images/yourimage.gif">

Relative URLs, however, will work properly.

This link will work.
<a href="images/yourimage.gif" mce_href="images/yourimage.gif">

At this point, your domain name resides on our name servers. The next step is for the entire Internet to recognize the location of your domain name. This process is called DNS propagation, and it typically takes 24 - 48 hours for all of the DNS tables on the Internet to be updated. You may not be able to view your website before this process is complete.

You will need to contact your "Domain Name Registrar" to complete the DNS modification for your domain name.

You will need to point your existing domain to these DNS servers:

• Primary: ns1.toast.net
• Secondary: ns2.toast.net
• Tertiary: ns3.toast.net