Web Services

Can I register or transfer a domain name?

Inspire Net is an official New Zealand registrar for Domain Names.

You can now register most types of domain names online by going to Inspire Net Domain Name Registration.

I don’t live in New Zealand now – can I still purchase a domain name through Inspire Net?

Yes, but only if you are already an Inspire Net customer, with existing account details. If you are a new customer living overseas it may be more appropriate to research other domain name providers who may be able to help.

What does a Domain name cost?

Inspire Net charges $45 (inc. GST) per annum to register a domain name. This also includes DNS services for this domain name.

Can you give me an example of how having a domain name works?

John Smith has decided to start his own business named “John Smith’s Really Cool Company”. He wants to establish an online brand, promote his business name in all of his advertising and also protect his online identity.

He chooses to register johnsmithsreallycoolcompany.co.nz as he’s checked out Inspire Net’s domain extension list and .co.nz is most suitable for his New Zealand based company.

John also realises that johnsmithsreallycoolcompany.co.nz is a bit of a mouthful and chooses to also register jsrcc.co.nz as a shorter domain name.

He looks up both domain names using Inspire Net’s domain name checker and finds they are both (unsurprisingly) available. He fills in our web-based domain name form and registers both domain names.

At the same time John also establishes an email mailbox with Inspire Net and associates the following email addresses with his mailbox:

  • john@jsrcc.co.nz
  • john@johnsmithsreallycoolcompany.co.nz
  • info@johnsmithsreallycoolcompany.co.nz

Finally, John sets up webhosting with Inspire Net (a cost of $25 p/m) and contacts a web-developer recommended by a friend to set-up his website for him.

John can now use the following in his day to day business:

  • Promote his business using a website address of www.jsrcc.co.nz (or alternatively www.johnsmithsreallycoolcompany.co.nz)
  • Give out a personal email address of john@jsrcc.co.nz

  • Give out a more generic email address of info@jsrcc.co.nz

John’s total charges with Inspire Net are:

  • $90 per annum for his domain names (2 of them)

  • $25 p/m for his webhosting (will work with both of his domain names for no extra charge)

  • $3 p/m for his mailbox (can work with many different email addresses)

Total per year: $426 incl GST (note, does not include any web-development costs)

Does Inspire offer web hosting?

We sure do.

We can offer either static HTML hosting or we can offer hosting for more dynamic content that can give you access to PHP and also a MySQL database if required.

We offer two main plans for webhosting:

  • For $25 per month you get 1000 megabytes of storage, and 1 terabyte of monthly data transfer, with PHP and MySQL available if required.
  • For $50 per month you get 10 gigabytes of storage, 2.5 terabytes of monthly data transfer, with PHP, MySQL and also allows the use of a unique IP for your site and an SSL certificate if required; annual fees will apply in this case.

We also provide custom hosting solutions - contact us for more information.

To sign up for this please fill out your details online at Inspire Net Webhosting. If you prefer a written form, complete our domain name form available above.

If you need any further details about any of our hosting plans, including what versions of PHP and MySQL are available then please email our Hosting Team.

Do I have to have my domain registered with Inspire Net to use the hosting?

While we highly recommend registering your domain or transferring it to Inspire Net along for ease of management, we can still host for you if you want to keep your domain name elsewhere, or can't transfer it to us. In this situation it will be your responsibility to make sure the domain directs to the hosting IP address we will send you.

Are there any restrictions on content?

Please ensure that the content you intend to host is legal before putting it up on the Web. Take legal advice first if you are unsure.

Adult content hosting is subject to full review of the material in question and must not breach any applicable laws in any of the countries that it may be viewed in.

Do you offer web statistics?

All Inspire Net hosting plans include AWstats for detailed breakdowns of your site's traffic, with reports accessible from anywhere.

Do you offer a web panel for managing sites and databases?

We do not presently offer the use of cPanel or similar panel systems for managing domain names and databases due to low demand. However, our friendly hosting team are always ready to assist you in configuring your hosting so that your sites work the way you need. Sites can be administrated via FTP, FTPS, SFTP, and phpMyAdmin.

Do you offer a secure payment system?

Inspire Net does not allow the storage of credit card information on its shared hosting systems. We highly recommend a payment gateway system like DPS Payment Express for this purpose.

What happens if I go over my disk usage?

If you use more than your allotted usage or bandwidth, Inspire Net may contact you and request you reduce your usage or upgrade your plan. We will allow you time to reduce the usage without penalty, and we will not bill you for the extra usage.

In practice, we do not often contact customers in this way unless system resources are low, or if they are using far more space or bandwidth than normally allocated to them.

What programming languages and databases are supported?

At present new webhosts have available the following major versions of software:

  • Debian GNU/Linux 10 "Buster" (64 bit), with Linux kernel 4.19, on a system with at least 2 cores and 4 gigabytes of RAM
  • Apache HTTPD 2.4, including mod_expires, mod_headers, mod_rewrite, and many other standard useful modules. If we do not support a module you need, feel free to contact us to ask if we can install it for you.
  • MariaDB 10 (MySQL compatible), listening on localhost only
  • PHP 7.3 via mod_php (presently) or PHP-FPM (coming soon), including MySQL interfaces (MySQLi, and PDO), SQLite with PDO, cURL, FFmpeg, GD, and ImageMagick. We will consider extra modules if they are standard and well-supported on customer request.

This software will easily support modern content management systems like WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla, and the vast majority of the plugins/extensions to these systems. If an extension to your system does not work on your hosting, you can always contact us to see if we can sort it out.

Will you tell me if my website is vulnerable to hackers?

Keeping your website’s software—like WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla—up-to-date and secure is the responsibility of you and your web developer, but we might notify you and other affected customers via email if we become aware that a particularly serious vulnerability in popular website software is found on your website. These email messages will also point you in the right direction for getting the problem fixed.

Do you have formal uptime guarantees?

We do not have formal guarantees for uptime for shared hosting plans. However, in practice, our monitoring system shows our shared webhosts are up and responding correctly 99.99% of the time. If upgrades are required for shared hosting servers requiring more than a minute or two of downtime, we schedule these in our webhosting maintenance window from 1am to 3am each day. In practice, these upgrades do not tend to take longer than an hour or two and are not normally required more than once a year.

If you require better uptime than this, or you need to have these necessary outages arranged with you, we recommend one of our colocation or premium hosting plans.

Who is responsible for insurance and maintenance of our co-located servers?

Inspire Net Co-location Service customers are responsible for insuring and maintaining equipment hosted at our premises.

We can help organise competitive quotes from insurance brokers if you need. Please contact us on office@inspire.net.nz.

What sort of content can I host on my servers through Inspire Net’s Co-location Service?

Please ensure that any content you intend to host on servers co-located at Inspire Net is legal before putting it up on the Web. Take legal advice first if you are unsure.

Do you sponsor website hosting?

Here is a link to our main sponsorship page:

https://www.inspire.net.nz/sponsorship

 

We’re proud to help out our local not-for-profit and community organisations, particularly those in the Central North Island area, with sponsored free webhosting. Register with or move your domain name to Inspire Net, complete the Web Free sponsorship agreement and send it to sponsorship@inspire.net.nz.  We’ll get in touch to confirm if your sponsorship has been accepted. Please note that we do not sponsor annual domain name fees.