Virtual Host

The vast majority of Songbird's customers get a virtual host. The fees for a virtual host are partially for maintenance of nameservice for the domain, but also they support the many additional services that are technically enabled by a separate domain name and IP address.

In particular, the web server software is designed to to the existence of a separate directory structure, including a 'cgi' directory for scripts, a 'docs' directory where the web pages are kept, a 'logs' directory where the domain-specific web server logs are kept. In addition, if desired we include a 'data' directory for database info, an 'etc' directory for other stuff associated with the site; also one or more user home directories where the web site maintainers log in; multiple email addresses in the domain.

In theory it would be possible to break out these extra services and charge individually for them -- it might be possible to have an option for just a domain name and web site, with no extra services, for example. But such differentiation adds to the cost of administration and billing, and the rates are very low to begin with.