If you have an Onyen, you can create a personal web page. For help on creating pages please see our Documentation: [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=108 ] Creating WWW Pages at UNC-CH and [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=110 ] Putting Your Page on the Web.

You can join the campus Webmasters group for informal peer-support. The group has a listserver, a Wiki, and monthly meetings. To join the list, visit the [ http://lists.unc.edu/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=webmasters ] email list subscription page and follow the instructions. The monthly meetings are announced on the list. You can also use the list to ask for help with Web-related issues.

The Webmasters group is open to anyone on campus who is responsible for a Web site including content management, design and layout, systems administration, and other functions.

Your Web pages are stored in AFS space, also known as the H: drive on most CCI computers. There is no separate storage or quota specifically for web pages, so you can fill your AFS space with web pages. Please see our [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=119 ] Data Storage Policy document for more information about the file space allocated to you in AFS.

Web space allocation is a part of the general space allocation on the campus file servers.

Requests to increase this space allocation are addressed on a case-by-case basis. Requests for space increases should be made to the ITRC by submitting a [ https://www.unc.edu/ar-bin/websub/index.pl ] Online Help Request with an explanation of why the additional space is needed.

The first step is to perform an automated audit of your web pages to see how well they follow accepted accessibility guidelines. One application that you might use is the A-Prompt (Accessibility Prompt) Toolkit: http://aprompt.snow.utoronto.ca/

A-Prompt is a web accessibility verifier developed by the University of Toronto and theTRACE Center at the University of Wisconsin. A-Prompt not only flags items that could be accessibility problems, but also suggests and canmake repairs to web pages.

Use of an automated checker such as this one is only the first step in ensuring accessibility of your web pages. Some content, especially multimedia, may require more extensive, human evaluation. For more assistance on making web pages accessible to all users, contact 962-HELP.

Please use the [ https://onyen.unc.edu/cgi-bin/course_space/setup/course.html ] Course Web Space Request tool. For more information, please read the [ http://its.unc.edu/tl/tli/coursespace/ ] detailed instructions.

Detailed instructions on adding or deleting members of a group are available in the [ http://its.unc.edu/tl/tli/coursespace/#addremove ] guide to course web space.

About 99% of all group or departmental web files now reside in the AFS filesystem. If you need to change file access rights or group membership, this is done through the AFS settings on folders and groups. For help changing AFS settings, please see [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=215 ] Introduction to AFS .

Go to the [ http://www.unc.edu/studorgid/ ] Student Organization Group ID Requests site, fill in the requested information, and then submit the form.

In order to create an Onyen, you must be affiliated with the University in some capacity. This is because a personal ID number ( PID) and an active affiliation are required to create an Onyen. PIDs are managed by the [ http://www.pid.unc.edu/ ] PID Office .

Information about UNC affiliation, including a list of affiliation types, is available on the [ http://www.pid.unc.edu/PIDHowToGetOther.html ] PID Office web site . There is a procedure for contract employees that may solve this issue, but this requires that the sponsoring department contact the PID office. See the PID page for [ http://www.pid.unc.edu/PIDHowToGetOther.html ] more details on this option.

If a person does not meet any of the requirements on the PID page, then they will not be given a PID and will not be able to create an Onyen to manage a web site.

The search.unc.edu site is a search engine for finding information on campus web sites. It is powered by a Google search appliance. For more information please see our [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=5893 ] overview document.

If your web page is inside the unc.edu domain, and it is linked to by other pages within that domain, it should be included in the search index automatically.

The search engine has several starting points to find content. The main collection consists of all of every site ending in unc.edu, including virtual hosts and known web hosts across campus. If your web site is not inside the .unc.edu domain (i.e., it's location does not end in unc.edu) and you think it should be included in the search.unc.edu index, please [ https://www.unc.edu/ar-bin/websub/index.pl ] submit a help request. As long as there is a link to your document(s), the search engine should find it. It's also important to use the title tag and keep it consistent as much as possible.

If you are having problems with getting your web pages recognized by the search engine, please [ https://www.unc.edu/ar-bin/websub/index.pl ] submit a help request and we'll look into the problem. It could be a matter of simply adding a "start point" into our collection so our search engine will find it.

Since January 2006 we have used an in house Google Search Appliance at search.unc.edu. This search appliance updates collections continuously. It will discard pages that do not match the crawl or include requirements every 6 hours. Pages that have been removed will remain in the Search Appliance cache for some time. If there is a page or site that needs to be removed from the search index please [ https://www.unc.edu/ar-bin/websub/index.pl ] submit a help request.

Yes! If you need to access to PHP, checkout [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=3136 ] Personal CGI access . If your department or organization already has CGI access, you can use PHP immediately. PHP is installed in AFS package space, so your PHP code will need to use the following interpreter line:

#!/afs/isis.unc.edu/pkg/php/bin/php

If your department or organization has special requirements, please [ https://www.unc.edu/ar-bin/websub/index.pl ] submit a help request and list your requirements.

Web Services has no plans to support ASP as we do not have any resources for running Microsoft Windows servers. We recommend using a free and open source scripting language such as PHP instead.

Rather than using your own cgi script, we encourage you to use UNC supported products for collecting information from form data. Please see our instructions for using mailform at [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=127 ] Web Authoring: Forms and Counters.

We encourage you to use existing supported cgi scripts for form processing. However, if you represent a department and your cgi scripts are not form based, please [ https://www.unc.edu/ar-bin/websub/index.pl ] submit a help request.

Gform is no longer supported. We now support mailform which includes all of the functionality of gform. We suggest that you convert all gform applications to mailform. Please see [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=4975 ] Going from gform to mailform Quick Reference for a quick conversion guide.

ITS supports Java 1.4 development and implementation using the Tomcat Servlet/ JSP container. For details, please see our [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=2932 ] overview of Java services.

Access to CGI for departments and organizations is granted on a case-by-case basis. Departments requesting access should submit an [ https://www.unc.edu/ar-bin/websub/index.pl ] Online Help Request to the ITRC. Individuals who need access to CGI may subscribe to [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=3136 ] Personal CGI access .

Server-side Includes ( SSI) are allowed, but they cannot call external scripts or binaries.

Users may use the protect script to secure their pages with a basic username and password or they may also take advantage of Onyen authentication (Kerberos). Using Onyen authentication allows users to simply make a list valid Onyens (or all Onyens) access to your web pages using their personal Onyen and password. (Onyen authentication is also used to authenticate users of AFS and webmail.)

In the folder that contains documents that need to be protected, create a file named .htaccess (note the first character is a period). Place the following directives in the .htaccess file using any text editor:

AuthName "UNC-CH Onyen Authentication"
AuthType Kerberos
KrbAuthRealm ISIS.UNC.EDU
require valid-user

This allows anyone with a valid Onyen and password to access your web pages. If you want to restrict access to just a few Onyens, replace the "require" line with the following:

require user johnny smith evans

The require line above limits access to the Onyens johnny, smith and evans (provided they enter their correct password).

Another way to grant access to web space is through LDAP authorization. This method can make it easier to manage site access for large numbers of people who share some attributes in the campus LDAP. Please see [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=6365 ] How to Restrict Web Access Based on the Campus Directory ( LDAP) .

There are many reasons that you may get this message, but it is most likely to be caused by some kind of file permission or .htaccess problem.

You can contact a lab assistant or submit an [ https://www.unc.edu/ar-bin/websub/index.pl ] Online Help Request for assistance.

Permissions are set differently in the AFS filesystem and UNIX, which sometimes causes this issue. Try adding read and list (rl) rights for the group atn:webhosts to the access control list ( ACL) of your web directory. For detailed instructions, see [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=215 ] Introduction to AFS and [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=5288 ] Unix: Getting Started.

This error message means that there are problems with the permissions on your webpage. Most likely the problem is that the webserver does not have permission to view your page. There are two ways to remedy this:

You have the option of setting up an alias or a virtual host . A alias is alternate name for a location in the filesystem. A sample alias might be http://www.unc.edu/foobar/. (In this case foobar is an alias that points to a specific directory of web files in a location unknown to the browser.)

Virtual hosts involve setting up an entire sitename like http://www.foobar.org. With a virtual host the whole site's document root is pointed to a specific location in the filesystem. Virtual hosts are helpful for sites that need name recognition independent of UNC.

We offer aliases and virtual hosts to all departments and organizations at UNC-CH. However, we strongly encourage everyone to use aliases under the www.unc.edu host name whenever possible. Aliases are far easier to maintain than virtual hosts. We will not allow aliases and virtual hosts to be linked to personal content.

An alias is a configuration in the web server that maps a web site location ( URL) to a filesystem location where the actual HTML content is stored.

Since new content (and existing content) is always set up in AFS space rather than on the web server, all sites have an alias configuration. An example of an alias is http://www.unc.edu/housing. Here housing is an alias that points to the location in AFS where the web files are really stored. The filesystem location of the web files is unknown to the browser, and the alias configuration is handled by the web server behind the scenes.

If you want your virtual host to be within the UNC domain (i.e. your URL will contain ".unc.edu"), submit a request to the ITRC via [ http://help.unc.edu ] help.unc.edu. Include in your request the desired virtual host name and the filesystem location of your web files.

Virtual hosts within the UNC domain are free. If you want a virtual host that is not within the UNC domain (i.e. without "unc.edu" in the URL), then you are responsible for registering your domain name (such as www.robertsonscholars.org), see the question below for more information.

After you have registered your own domain name, submit a request for the virtual host to the ITRC via the web at [ http://help.unc.edu ] help.unc.edu. Include the virtual host name as well as the location of your web files.

For information about registering a domain name that is outside the UNC domain, see [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=1678 ] Registering a Non-UNC Domain Name.

The best way to redirect web page requests is to submit a help request to the ITRC via the web at [ http://help.unc.edu ] help.unc.edu. Include both the old URL (where the file used to live) and the new URL (where you want browsers to be redirected).

For immediate or temporary redirects, you can set up a redirect using a <meta> tag in the header of your HTML code. A simple html file at the old location with this tag will automatically redirect browsers to another location specified by you. The html file should include the following code:

<html>
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="7; url=http://www.unc.edu/blah.htm#redirect">
  </head>
  <body>The link or bookmark that brought you here is old.  This page will redirect you to the new location in 7 seconds:<br />
    <a href="http://www.unc.edu/blah.htm#redirect">http://www.unc.edu/blah.htm#redirect</a>
  </body>
</html>

In the above example, replace 7 with the number of seconds you want the browser to wait before redirecting. Replace http://www.unc.edu/blah with the new URL. A message in the body tag helps to reminding users to update their bookmarks and links.

To get your own SSL certificate, you need to set up a third party certification authority ( CA) specification in your web configuration. This allows browsers to associate your certificate with an authority it trusts. All that is required for Apache servers is a certificate chain (placed in one file) and one more directive (SSLCACertificateFile) in your httpd.conf.

Finding the right CA can be difficult. ITS Web Systems dropped Thawte a few years ago as they were too expensive. Then we switched to GeoTrust, but they were later bought out by Thawte and their prices became expensive as well. We did some more research and found Comodo Group (aka InstantSSL). Their SSL certs are by far cheaper and recognized by nearly all browsers.

One problem with Comodo Group is payment. They use WorldPay for all financial transactions. This website will not accept purchasing cards. UNC-CH and the bank block these types of sites. However, even if you were to unblock it, the WorldPay site would need to verify each and every transaction with the bank, which isn't very effective.

However, there is another solution. We have discovered this affiliate of Comodo Group:

They sell 3-year certificates for less than $150 (as of April 2003). They do accept purchasing cards. If you wish to purchase a certificate from [ http://www.breakforth.com ] Breakforth, contact them via email (<jonathan.philbin@breakforth.com>) or phone. You will likely receive the certificate within an hour via email.