Why am I getting cgi-sys/defaultwebpage.cgi coming up when I browse my webpage?

Question

I've recently set up a website with a smaller hosting company. The plan has a dedicated IP. They sent me emails to say it's all set up, but now their support channels are all unresponsive even though they say it's open 24 hours.

In the File Manager in the cpanel I've put an index.html file in the public_html directory. But when I point my browser to the IP address given to me, it comes up with the cgi-sys/defaultwebpage.cgi page.

What is the problem?

I haven't set the name-servers for my domain yet, but that shouldn't be a problem because I am using the IP address in the browser.

Note: I don't think I have access to ssh.

Solution 1

It's a bit hard to say for sure, but here's what I guess is going on:

1. Your website is on name-based shared web hosting. You do not have a dedicated IP.

2. The IP address they gave you is the address of their shared webserver. You're meant to enter it into the DNS settings for your domain.

3. Since you're trying to access the server using the IP address directly, the server doesn't know which of the sites hosted on it you want. Thus, it's showing you a generic default page instead.

If you want to test things locally before configuring your DNS, you can add it into the hosts file on your own computer, something like this:

111.22.33.44    yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com

After that, pointing your browser to http://www.yourdomain.com should cause it to request the page from the server at 111.22.33.44, while sending the header Host: www.yourdomain.com to tell the server that it's expecting the content from your domain, rather than from one of the others hosted at that IP.

Solution 2

Unless you plan to use CGI scripts delete the CGI folder entirely, clear your browser cache or view it using the private browsing mode in your browser. You should see your index.html

Solution 3

try editing the .htaccess file... create a .htaccess file if not exists or add "DirectoryIndex index.php index.html" to the existing .htaccess file. i Hope this should solve the problem.

Comments

[paulmorriss]

You can load a site via an IP address, provided the site is configured to work like that.

[row1]

This worked for me. Firefox had some how created a bad cached redirect (www.mysite.com worked, but mysite.com redirected to the cgi), so I cleared my history just for that domain and now it works fine.

[T9b]

So how would you configure the DNS then?

[joosthoek]

@T9b: If you're running your own nameservers, you would edit their config files. If someone else is hosting your DNS for you (more likely), then you'd typically use their config panel. For more specific instructions, first find out which DNS software / host you're using, and look for its documentation.