User Guide/Web Hosting

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This information contained may not be entirely accurate

• User Guide
  • Web Hosting
  • VPN
  • Shell
  • SQL Database
  • Python

All accounts include hosting with a web address at:

• https://sites.ugcs.caltech.edu/~user

where user is the account name.

Group accounts may also request a doc services/vhost for another domain (e.g., group.berkeley.edu).

Uploading Files

Upload files to your web space the same way you doc services/shell (typically SFTP if used remotely). The only difference is that files for your web space are placed in your public_html directory.

Additional details

The web server runs Apache 2.4 with FastCGI (mod_fcgid), suEXEC, and suPHP. Access and error logs are accessible in /opt/httpd using doc services/shell.

The web server itself runs as a dedicated user. If your .htaccess file is not world-readable (e.g., chmod 644), the web server will return the error “401 Forbidden”.

PHP/CGI/FastCGI scripts are executed as your user, so they do not need to be world-readable. If they contain sensitive information (such as database passwords), you should make them private (e.g., chmod 600 or chmod 700).

Both individual hosting and student group hosting are done entirely over HTTPS.

Supported languages

• PHP 5.6
• Perl 5.20.2
• Python 2.7, and 3.4; Django 1.7.7; Flask 0.10.1
• Ruby 2.1.5; Rails 4.1.8

Other flavors of the day may work but are not currently supported. We may be able to install additional packages on request, but will generally advise you to use alternatives instead (such as installing in a virtualenv or inside your home directory).

FAQ

My public_html directory is missing, how do I fix that?

just recreate it