CSL Environment Web Hosting

Purpose

If you need the webserver to write to files inside your home directory (ex: wiki, blog, feedback form), you need to request your own Web Hosting Site. Please email lab@cs.wisc.edu so that we can initialize your directory, create the DNS address, and load up the webserver.

Location and ACLS

Your website URL will be based completely on your user name. The website name is http://<username>-www.cs.wisc.edu/.

For example:

http://bbadger-www.cs.wisc.edu/

The location of the files is very similar to your existing website area. Files need to be placed in ~/public/html-www instead of ~/public/html. The webserver will run all webpages as your UNIX user and the AFS user <username>.www.

For example, the minimum acls you need on your html-www directory for the webserver to be able to read it are:

% fs la ~bbadger/public/html-www
Access list for /u/b/b/bbadger/public/html-www is
Normal rights:
  system:administrators rlidwka
  bbadger rlidwka
  bbadger.www rl

In order for the webserver to write to a directory, you must add <username>.www write acls.

See Also: AFS File System

General Environment

The CSL Environment Web Hosting is set up exactly the same as pages.cs.wisc.edu. It has the same modules (including php and perl) with the same default config. You will be able to use .htaccess files and connect to postgres through kerberos.

Redirecting pages

If you install an .htaccess that redirects all traffic, you must create an exception for /status. All webservers in the department require that http://<hostname>.cs.wisc.edu/status returns necessary monitoring information. If you create a RewriteRule, you must make sure that the following line is present below the RewriteEngine On and above the RewriteRule definition:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/status

SSL

SSL (https) is also available as a self-signed certificate. The source directory for https://<username>-www.cs.wisc.edu is the same directory as the http site (~/public/html-www). If you want to force users to the https site, you can put the following data into an .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/status
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}