You can publish files in your File Storage area on the web to let others access your files. The domains you can use include 'yourusername.yourmail.domain', any aliases you have (except those with .'s in them, see below for why), and anything you like inside your own domains (if you have any).
However, it is possible that you would prefer NOT to do this, as in theory a spammer could deduce the existence of your email by trying random web addresses until they found one that gave a response.
So, to protect your privacy, we require that you explicitly create each website through the 'Websites' screen, and choose which folder is displayed at that site. You can get to the websites screen by selecting "Files" from the top menu, and then clicking the "Websites" button on the top right above the listing of files and directories.
If you have an alias that you are prepared to tell others about, you can keep your username and domain secret and still make files available to others. If you have any aliases, they will appear in the drop down list in the 'Create Website' section of the Websites screen. If you only create websites with the alias in them then your username and domain will not be shown through the web.
You can create many different websites by adding extra leading sections to the hostname (e.g. http://photos.youraliasname.youraliasdomain/) or by adding extra path sections to the website (e.g. http://youraliasname.youraliasdomain/photos/).
If you are not hosting the domain's DNS records with us you will need to have the appropriate DNS records pointing to FastMail.FM servers. You need a CNAME record pointing to web.messagingengine.com for the name you want to use. If your DNS is hosted with us then this is already configured.
Note: It can be tricky to set up CNAME records properly. It is probably preferable to host your DNS with us, unless you thoroughly understand DNS, and know what you're doing.
Make sure you have the appropriate website name created, and then you should be able to access the site.
Note: Even though you have updated DNS records, you still need to configure the website on the 'Websites' screen, otherwise the server will return a 'page not found' error.
In the past if you used a 'catchall' mail alias for your domain your public folder was available at 'anything.domain.com', no matter what you substituted for 'anything'. This is no longer the case, you need to create an explicit website entry for each site you wish to use.
You can have a default page that visitors will see when they view your folders. The file must be called 'index.html', and it must be lower case, (neither 'INDEX.HTML' nor 'index.htm' will work).
The website hosting facility is only designed to host simple static webpages. For scripting and database functionality, you should use a full web hosting provider.
In the old filesystem, a folder could be shared as 'private' and you would have to use your email username and password to view it. This functionality is now provided by the DAV server. Just go to https://dav.messagingengine.com/ with your web browser and log in with your username and password. Your '{My Files}' directory is at /yourusername.youruser.domain/files/ - this allows you to see your filestorage with your username and password.
Some of the things this accommodates:
- Use your file storage area to publish files as a website, either in your own domain if configured through the Options -> Virtual Domains screen, or to http://yourusername.fastmail.fm (docs). Just login to your account and go to the Options -> Websites/Redirects screen
- Use your file storage area to publish a directory of photos as a photo gallery either in your own domain, or to http://yourusername.fastmail.fm (docs)
- Change the DNS for your domain to point to other servers. For instance, make http://blog.yourdomain.com point directly to a blogging service, or http://wiki.yourdomain.com point to a wiki service, or http://mail.yourdomain.com point straight to the FastMail.FM login screen (actually this is already the default for all virtual domains who use the DNS at FastMail.FM). Just login to your account and go to the Options -> Custom DNS screen
- Maybe the service you want doesn't support domain mappings, so just use a redirect instead to redirect users who go to http://blog.yourdomain.com to http://yourblogname.yourbloggingservice.com. You can even "cloak" the redirect so people still see the URL http://blog.yourdomain.com rather than http://yourblogname.yourbloggingservice.com. Just login to your account and go to the Options -> Websites/Redirects screen and in the Create Website section at the bottom, make sure you choose Redirect to external site or Cloaked redirect in the Pushlish as section (docs). You can even do this for your FastMail.FM username, so http://blog.yourusername.fastmail.fm can be redirected to your blogging service
You can place different 404.html files in different file storage folders, corresponding to the top level folders pointed to by the websites screen entries. So you can customize these error files as needed between different sites you have created.
Also, you can use a redirection script in your 404.html file. This will cause any incorrect page references to be redirected to the target you set (such as the home index.html file for the site). This might be a good idea for a simple website where you don't want the user to see error messages.
If you have an alias with a . (fullstop) in it, then you won't be allowed to use it to create a website. The reason for this is around "namespace" management.
Basically we are trying to map all email addresses (usernames and aliases) to URLs. We're doing this mostly by converting name@fastmail.fm to http://name.fastmail.fm. In general that's simple and works well, but there are slightly different implications with URLs to email addresses.
If you own/control the url http://name.fastmail.fm, then people generally expect that you also own/control any sub-domain of that url, such as http://sub.name.fastmail.fm. The page that lets you create websites also assumes this, allowing you to create any sub-domain of any URL you control.
However in email addresses, the address name@fastmail.fm is completely different to other.name@fastmail.fm, and there's no implied relationship between those email addresses. If someone has the alias name@fastmail.fm and thus the URL http://name.fastmail.fm, in theory the person with the alias other.name@fastmail.fm would be able to create the sub-domain URL http://other.name.fastmail.fm.
That's potentially dangerous, and hard to check for and avoid happening, so we just disallow the use of aliases with .'s in them for websites altogether.