Department Mail Server - Frequently Asked Questions

WEB Frequently Asked Questions

Transition Related:

Q: I thought all my data was going to be moved over? I just see public_html and mail folders on my mail.math.ucsb.edu account.
A: The reason public_html was the only folder to be moved over was because we simply moved over web services, not all files. This includes only the public_html folder since it is your only folder for web pages. Your old files can still be accessed in there original location on henri until such time that they are moved to a possible future applications server.

Q: When I try to go to my web page at www.math.ucsb.edu/~userid I get a file not found error.
A: Please contact us about this, include your user account name and a few details about the problem, we will try and correct it as soon as possible.

Q: Q: (Macintosh Users, similar for others) When I open my home directory icon on the desktop and make changes to the files in the public_html direcotry the changes do not show up when I try and view them at www.math.ucsb.edu/~userid
A: Please contact us about this, include your user account name and a few details about the problem, we will try and correct it as soon as possible.

General Questions:

Q. What's the Department Web Service? Am I eligible? Is it free?
A. The Deparment Web Service is a service for publishing department web pages. All faculty, staff, visitors, and grads with Department Mailaccounts are eligible to use their web service. And yep, it's free. For further information, check out our Service and Mission page.

Q. How much space do I have to for my web site?
A. This is currently under discussion and will be announced at a later date.

Q. What's the address (URL) of my web site?
A. Any page you publish on the Department Server will be accessible at

http://www.math.ucsb.edu/~[userid]/[name_of_page.html]
where [userid] is your Department user identification and [name_of_page.html] is the file name of the page. All of your HTML file names must end with the .html, .shtml, .php, or .htm extension to be properly recognized by the web server. Your home page (the main page in your web site) should be named index.html, index.htm, index.shtml, or index.php. The URL for your home page will be
http://www.math.ucsb.edu/~[userid]

Q. How do I upload my web pages to the server?
A. Detailed instructions on sending your pages to the Department server, check out our Publishing Your Web Pages site.

Q. Do all the pages I create have to exist in a single directory?
A. No. You may create subdirectories within your public_html folder using your FTP program.

Q. How do I delete pages I don't want anymore?
A. You may delete files using the File Manager program under MyAccount or using your FTP program.

Q. Are there CGI programs I can run from my web page?
A. No. At this time we are not offering CGI programs with U-Web. We hope to offer this functionality in the not-too-distant future; check the Departmental Mail Server System News for updates.

Q. How can I find someone's departmental site?
A. Functionality for searching through the departmental webpages should be implimented in the not too distant future.

Q. Will my page be found by web search engines?
A. Your page may be listed with several of the major search engines, though it will not automatically be done so. The search engines work by doing what is known as "crawling," where they will follow links on other web pages and index as they go. You can have your web page added to a particular collection by going to one of the appropriate "Add-A-Link" pages at InfoSeek, AltaVista, Yahoo, and Excite.

Q. Where can I get further help?
A. Check out both our Creating Web Pages and Help pages for information on page design and publishing. In addition to the information provided here, the Computer Systems Manager is availible on a limited basis to answer questions. We can offer no assistance with HTML coding or page design.