Issue with creating a website

Question

I recently just wrapped up the "How to build a website" track with Nick Pettit as the course instructor.

I followed everything to a T. I used all the links, websites, and suggested criteria to create my website portfolio; however, I am stuck.

I downloaded CyberDuck for my Mac and I noticed a few differences in the process from the video and my experience. The main one being when I unzipped CyberDuck, no bookmarks appeared. I'm not quite sure if this could have anything to do with it or what but I just wanted to let that be known.

The second difference is NameCheap.com has been updated quite a bit since Nick posted the video. When Nick "Manages his domains", it takes him to a screen that is no longer available. I'm sure the same page is somewhere on the website, but I haven't been able to find the same exact content on a single page.

I entered all the information into CyberDuck that Nick prompted for including the STFP setup, all of my user credentials, and my port number. I hit run and it takes a few minutes and keeps spitting out the same message "Connection Failed".

I think the main issue spurs from the fact that whenever I type in my domain name, an ad for NameCheap pops up and tells me that "My domain was recently registered with NameCheap" instead of the error message that appears in Nick's video. I don't know how to fix this issue but any help would be much appreciated!

Answer 1 · 2015-11-18T01:28:54Z

November 18, 2015 1:28am

OK hopefully I can try to help you a little. When you purchased your domain name through NamesCheap, you purchased only the name. That name has to point to a server somewhere so that you may find your site. Right now your domain name points to an ip address where the index.html is the default that NamesCheap has set up for you to verify that the domain name is functional.

The next step for you would be to stand up a server where you will have an ip address of your own that you could point the domain name to. This is done through something call a DNS ( Domain Name System). This is what lets browsers and search engines know where to find your server. all domain names point to a server that then tells the browser/search engine what the ip address is (for example http://google.com/ = http://74.125.224.72/). So you can stand up a server locally or you can purchase on from a hosting service. If you choose the latter then i would suggest DigitalOcean (https://www.digitalocean.com) the offer SSD hosting starting @ 5$ a month. You can easily setup servers with just a selections and your browser and everything will be pre-configured (start with LAMP would probably be easiest).

everything up to that point is easy. The next steps aren't to difficult but it will require some googling and reading documentation. If you do choose to go with Digital Ocean then your in luck because they have a lot of great resources. You will need to then set up the DNS for you server which is done in the browser on your hosting providers interface as well as NamesCheap site. Once this is complete it will take some time for all the DNS servers to know domain address is pointing to a new ip address so don't freak out if it doesn't work right away.(you can still search your ip address to test when you move your files)

while you wait you will want to set up your SSH and you SFTP on you server as well as your Mac. all of this should take you like 3 hours to learn and get through and don't be discouraged. .

Then all of the info needed for cyberduck should make sense:

protocol: SFTP Server: YourDomainName.com Port: 22 Username: root (the server user name) Password: **** (Whatever password you set on the server)

Also look into setting up a MAMP server on your Mac for local development. Treehouse offers a course on MAMP. This makes testing a small site a much easier process. Hope this helpoed

Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Looking to learn something new?

Caleb Davis

Caleb Davis

Issue with creating a website

1 Answer

Jordan Rasch

Jordan Rasch