Www.case.edu

www.case.edu, also known as Aurora, is the primary web server for Case Western Reserve University.

Contents

[edit] Known Issues

Since the upgrade on May 19, we are aware of a few issues:

  • The archived course evaluations search function is broken. Working to move the search to a less archaic engine. - fixed
  • WebDAV file transfer is slow. We are working to speed this up. - fixed

[edit] History

The Case Campus Web Server first became operational in late 1993 as a proof-of-concept for the "new" way of delivering University information over the network and became the official campus web server in early 1995.

[edit] Aurora Web Server Upgrade

This section is intended to assist existing site maintainers transition to the new campus web server. The new web server will go into production following the end of the Spring Semester, 2008.

[edit] What's Changed

The new campus web server offers a number of changes to better serve both the site's users and maintainers, including:

  • a multiple-machine high availability configuration to provide near-100% uptime
  • integration with the Campus Single Signon environment (CAS)
  • maintainer account security for uploads (using the WebDav protocol)
  • campus network ID-based maintainer accounts
  • a modern web server software platform using Apache, the gold standard for web server software
  • a modernized and improved set of maintainer tools (the APAS toolkit)

[edit] Server Side Include Changes

The web has become a more security aware environment. Certain abilities used with Server Side Includes have been removed. While most of these changes have not affected our environment, one specific change does directly affect pages on the new campus web server.

A number of pages, especially those using earlier versions of the Case templates, will have a Server Side Include that looks like

<#include file="../somefile.html">

This use of '..' is no longer allowed in this way. To fix this problem, replace this line with

<#include virtual="../somefile.html">

If you do have a page that is affected by this, you will see

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

displayed where your header and menus would be located.

[edit] Accessing Your Group Account With WebDAV instead of FTP

Currently maintainer accounts use a single account name that is shared between everyone who modify the site; this is a security problem. On the new system you, as maintainer, will use your Case Network ID to access your group's account. The day of the upgrade only those who are the maintainer of record can access the account. However authorizers and primary maintainers will have access to a tool to allow other users access to modify files. Therefore the upgrade will require all individuals who need access to the group account to have a Case Network ID. If you do not have a Case ID, information for setting one up, including those for affiliates, can be found at https://its-services.case.edu/my-case-identity/activate/.

The new server utilizes WebDAV for file transfer which provides a number of improvements over FTP, including secure/encrypted file transfer and enhanced maintainer account security. Additionally, WebDAV file shares appear on your computer as any other disk drive, allowing better integration with whatever web authoring platform you prefer to use. For users of Macs and Linux-based systems, WebDAV is integrated directly into your operating system so there is no need for a specialized client. While Windows Vista and XP do provide similar integration, connections are often problematic and unreliable. Therefore, we have licensed the WebDrive product for the campus and made it available on the Software Center. In addition Dreamweaver and other web authoring software that has WebDAV capabilities can be used.

To access your maintainer accounts via WebDAV, enter the URL https://www.case.edu:8000/<network_id>/<account_name> into your WebDAV client (not your web browser), replacing network_id with your Case ID and account_name with the account user name you used to upload via FTP. For example, if your Case ID is abc123 and you maintain the origami club website (account name: origami), the URL to enter into your WebDAV client is https://www.case.edu:8000/abc123/origami/. When prompted for a password, enter your Case Network ID and password.

[edit] New APAS Toolkit

The new APAS toolkit is now available. The new toolkit give maintainers and authorizers access to more powerful tools.

[edit] My Account

The toolkit includes the ability for maintainers and authorizers of record to add other members of their group as secondary maintainers in the My Account area. This allows all those listed access to make changes to the group's account. New secondary maintainers will have access within 3 hours of the change being made.

[edit] Access Control

Note: The new server uses .htaccess files. During the upgrade existing .auroraaccess files were converted to .htaccess.

Knowing how to control access to the content of your website begins by understanding how access rules work. Visit the Access Control documentation page for more information.

[edit] Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free web-based analytics tool that shows you how people find your website, how they navigate through it, and how they become customers. Take a tour of the product to view many more features available in Google Analytics.

To implement Google Analytics for your Case site, read the documentation included the APAS toolkit.

[edit] Currently Working On...

We are continuing to work on a few features of the new server, including:

  • Documentation/Help Files
  • Better Error Pages/Messages

[edit] Useful Links

Retrieved from "http://wiki.case.edu/Www.case.edu"
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This page was last modified 10:33, June 11, 2008 by Pamela Hlavin.
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