Overview

Research groups and student organizations affiliated with the ECE Department can leverage an enterprise web hosting platform maintained by the department's IT group. By opting-into said hosting, the group or organization, including its content maintainers, agree to follow the University of Texas at Austin Acceptable Use Policy.

Setup

Enabling webspace for a research group or student organization is very simple. Send an email to help@ece.utexas.edu containing the following information:

1. Request Namespace. If research group XYZ wishes to have web presence, they can simply request this namespace (xyz.ece.utexas.edu).
2. Specify Maintainers. Include one or more ECE LRC account holders who will be responsible for maintaining web-based content within the virtual host. At this time, the environment does not allow for persons lacking an ECE LRC account to access the group web hosting environment. Account overrised will not be provided to external parties for the purpose of maintaining web hosting within a virtual host.
3. Disclose Special Requirements. Will your group need a database provisioned for your web presence? If so, let us know in the intial request. Databases are not automatically provisioned to virtual hosts. Given demonstrated technical need, they can be provided on a per virtual host basis.
4. Add Content. By leveraging an SFTP/SCP client, designated maintainers should then have the ability to upload files into the virtual host.

Frequently Asked Technical Questions

Q: What drives the platform?

A: The web hosting platform is a fairly standard LAMP stack. As of November 2007, this includes:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS release 4
• Apache 2.0.x
• MySQL 4.x
• PHP 4.x

Q: Does the platform support wikis, content-management systems, and the like?

A: At this time, nothing is officially supported. We can work with you to make a good-faith effort to get your desired software functioning on the hosted platform. Provided enough interest, we would like to select a one or two widely-adopted wiki and CMS software titles to support.

Q: Does the platform support SSL via HTTPS?

A: Yes. All virtual hosts are provisioned to provide clear-text HTTP and endpoint-encrypted HTTPS.

Q: Does the platform enforce disk quotas on a per-virtual host basis?

A: At this time, no. The service was launched without any quotas, and has yet to be a cause for concern. However, we certainly do not look forward to groups wishing to long-term host several gigabytes of binaries in our environment.

Q: Does the platform allow for customer access to the webserver logs?

A: Yes. Located at /misc/wwwhost/$virtualhostfqdn/logs/, customers can find two sets of access logs. One notes all cleartext requests, the other all ssl requests.

Q: Does the platform cost?

A: No. This service is provided free of charge to qualifying research groups and student organizations.

Q: Why wouldnt I want to continue hosting my research group's web presence on the non-warrantied, non-enterprise dinosaur computer under my graduate student's desk?

A: We can think of a couple of good reasons why:

• Security: The department takes proactive measures to ensure the platform is secured from third-party intrusions. That Red Hat 9 box of yours is probably already hacked.
• Enterprise Storage: Storage of user content is done via the department's enterprise network attached storage environment. Much better than your Maxtor from Fry's.
• Backups: The department's NAS environment is backed up regularly for disaster recovery purposes. When's the last time you backed up your data?
• Load Balancing: The web serving environment is load-balanced in the event of hardware or software failure. Takes a lickin', keeps on servin'.

Q: So groups really use this service?

A: Indeed. Below are just a few of our customers:

• Austin Conference on Integrated Systems and Circuits
• Computer Vision and Research Center
• Edison Lecture Series
• Empirical Software Engineering Laboratory
• Hydra
• Laboratory for Advanced Semiconductor Epitaxy
• Nanowire Growth, Device, and Integration
• Signal Processing Advances for Wireless Communications
• Software Verification Validation And Testing Group
• Wireless Networking and Communications Group

Q: I'm sold. How do I sign up again?

A: Email help@ece.utexas.edu and request group web hosting.