Skip navigation

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Table of Contents

Home Pages


Groups, Classes, and Departments


Server Functionality


Miscellaneous

Home Page

How do I set up a home page?

Follow these step-by-step instructions.

Do I need an AFS account to deliver my home page through this server?

Yes. Depending on which on the following categories you belong to, you'll need a directory called WWW in one of the following directories:

  • User: /afs/ir/users/y/o/yourname
  • Department: /afs/ir/group/yourdepartment
  • Group: /afs/ir/group/yourgroup
  • Class: /afs/ir/class/yourclass

Does my home page have to be in a file called index.html?

Sort of. The server looks for your home page in index.html by default. If it doesn't find it, the server returns a list of all the accessible files in your WWW directory, which may not be what you want it to do.

Why can't my home page be accessed?

First of all, you'll need a file called index.html in the appropriate directory:

  • User: /afs/ir/users/y/o/yourname
  • Group: /afs/ir/group/yourgroup
  • Class: /afs/ir/class/yourclass

Next, you'll want to make sure that your AFS file permissions are set up correctly. Your home directory will need at least "l" access for at least system:www-servers or system:anyuser, and your WWW directory will need at least "rl" access. Check the instructions for more detail.

Whose home pages can I get by using a ~ (tilde)?

Anyone with a SUNet ID. That includes Stanford people with home pages on www.stanford.edu, and people with SUNet IDs who have registered home pages on different servers.

What happens to someone's home page when they graduate?

Some time after a person leaves the University, their AFS account (where their web pages live) is removed. At that point their web pages become inaccessible.

How do I disable my home page?

All you have to do is make sure the server can't read anything in your WWW directory. You can do that by setting the permissions to exclude the server, or by renaming it to something else so the server can't find it.

Groups, Classes, and Departments


Can groups have home pages?

Yes. Please see Stanford groups for detailed instructions.

Can classes provide documents through this server?

Yes. Please see Stanford classes for detailed instructions.

Can groups, classes, and departments use forms?

Yes. But if you want your forms to do anything worthwhile like sending mail or writing to a file, you will need to use the CGI service.

What kind of department is eligible for a home page?

Both academic and administrative departments can have home pages served through the Stanford web services. Please see Stanford departments for detailed instructions.

How do I transfer and/or share ownership of my organization's web pages?

You need to add the new owner to the administrators list for your organization directory. Follow the instructions below:

  1. Run the unix command fs listacl [/afs/ir/...] where the [/afs/ir/...] is the path to your group directory.
  2. From the list that the previous command prints out, you should be able to find a name that looks like [groupname-admins]. This is the name of the administrator group.
  3. You can see the current list of administrators by running the command pts membership [groupname-admins].
  4. You can add a new user to the list by running the command pts adduser [username] [groupname-admins].
  5. You can remove a user from the list by running the command pts removeuser [username] [groupname-admins].

How do I move or rename my organization's top-level directory?

For example, say you'd like to change your group's home page from /group/schlemiel to /group/schlmozzle. The easiest way to do that is to ask the AFS folks to move your volume (by submitting a HelpSU request); that way you won't have to copy your files from their old to their new location.

Server Functionality


Can I run scripts from my directory?

Yes. But you must have a CGI account. Please visit the CGI Service page to learn about the service and request an account.

How can I get feedback from other users?

Using your CGI account, you can write your own fill-out form and have it mail the results of your form to you, or append them to a file in your Web hierarchy. Your form can be anything from a simple comment area to a survey.

Please visit the CGI Service page to request an account, view documentation on the service, and see some example programs.

How do I implement clickable image maps in my pages?

See the Image Map documentation for instructions on how to create an image map.

Can I restrict access to my pages?

Yes, you can restrict access in three different ways. You can limit access at the host/domain level such as only allowing computers from the stanford.edu domain. You can limit access using WebAuth to Stanford users and groups. You can also limit access using a set of usernames and passwords you can control yourself. Please see Limiting Access documentation for instructions.

Can I provide searchable indexes to my personal web pages?

Yes. See the search instructions for details on how to put a search box on your site and how to include (or exclude) your pages in the Stanford Google search index. Note that personal pages (those beginning with www.stanford.edu/~ or www.stanford.edu/people) will not be indexed.

What is "fancy indexing", and how do I use it?

Fancy indexing is a way to display the contents of a directory that has no index.html. It will provide information about each file, as well as links to them. See the explanation to find out how to set up header and readme files for the directories you'd like indexed.

Can I get access statistics for my own pages?

You can request raw server logs for your web site and run the logs through the statistics generator of your choice, let IT Services' Analysis Service perform the analysis for you, or both. If you need cumulative reports on more than one directory or reports on a proxy, you can use the Compound Requests Form.

In my file statistics, what's the difference between "/%7Euser" and "/~user"?

'%7E' is the "encoded" version of '~'. Some special characters such as ~ get encoded (as a % followed by the character's ASCII value) when they come from a form. They're the same as far the server is concerned. The encoded version of accessing your home page is probably being generated by a script somewhere (for example one that goes looking around for home pages).

Can I use server-side includes?

Yes. But you can't run scripts or commands from them. See Server-Side Includes documentation for more information.

I need a MIME type added to the server

You can add it yourself by putting AddType directives in an .htaccess file in your web directory.

Are Microsoft's Front Page extensions installed?

Nope. They're notorious for their security holes (including FP98). Plus, we don't currently have the resources to vet/install/support large third-party packages.

Miscellaneous

Can I make symbolic links in my web tree?

Yes, but you can only link to files/directories that you own.

Are there guidelines as to what I am allowed to put up?

Yes. Check the policy statement for usage guidelines.

I'm trying to use an .htaccess file for web authentication, but I get the error message "500 Server Error".

It could be a problem with carriage returns. The server looks for a Unix newline (line feed) at the end of each line in your .htaccess file. There are two ways your returns could be confusing the server:

  • Missing a return for the last line (often the closing </Limit> directive). Edit the file and add a return.

  • Wrong type of returns. A file imported from a Mac will often have ^M's (a carriage return without a line feed) at the end of their lines. Edit and save the file in a Unix environment.

All of a sudden I'm getting "403 Forbidden" errors. What's going on?

One of two things has probably happened to the page you're trying to get:

  1. It's now protected through web authentication.

  2. The AFS file server it sits on has gone down. There are several of these AFS file servers, and one goes down from time to time. Wait a little bit later and it will comes back up.

How do I download a file/image through the Web?

It depends on the browser you're using. It will provide some sort of "Save As" feature, then ask you where (locally) you want to put the saved file. Depending on the type of file, it may also ask in what format you want to save it.

Note: Make sure that what you're grabbing is public. If you're not sure about its copyright status, send the provider a note asking if you can copy her stuff.

How do I find someone's email address?

Usually it's on their home page somewhere. If it's a personal home page, then there's a decent chance they get their mail via the @stanford mail system. A URL of

http://www.stanford.edu/~sunetid/

translates into an email address of

sunetid@stanford.edu

And of course, you could always look up their email address via the StanfordWho web page.

I keep getting an error page, even though everything should be fine now.

Browsers tend to "cache" the pages you look at. They save a local copy of each page you get so that the next time you want to look at it, the browser doesn't have to go get it from the server, which might take a while. Generally this is a really good idea, and it speeds things up a lot.

It also leads to some confusion. For example, you might just have made a change to your home page and told your browser to load it. Your browser has its own copy of your home page (before you changed it) and shows you that, making it appear as if you haven't made any changes.

This can also happen with errors. For example, you may sometimes get a "503 Temporarily Unavailable" message when trying to access a page. The next time you ask your browser for that page it looks in its cache, sees that it already has that URL (it doesn't care that there was an error), and gives that to you again, even though the problem may have been fixed.

What to do: Basically, you just need to force your browser to actually go out and get the page. First, try using its "Reload" function. That will usually do it. If it doesn't, clear the browser's memory and disk caches (not all browsers offer this option). That's typically available through an "Options" menu. Then reload the page.

How much disk space do I have?

To learn how to check your disk space, go to the main Disk Space site.

I'm out of disk space. How do I get more?

For more information about requesting additional disk space, go to the main Disk Space site.

How do I check/set permissions in AFS?

Go to the setting permissions in AFS page.

Last modified Tuesday, 12-Sep-2006 08:22:18 AM

Stanford University Home Page