This is the chapter of the MemberManual that describes how to serve your website(s).

TableOfContents

Static Web Sites

If you plan on having static websites without any CGI such as php or perl, then read on. In your home directory, there is a directory named public_html. By default, you can access this at http://www.hcoop.net/~USER. You will never be able to execute server-side scripts when accessing webpages in that manner. If you're going to use a domain, please read the next section.

Dynamic Web Sites

If you plan on having a website that utilizes CGI such as php or perl, then you must either have a domain or an hcoop.net subdomain (i.e., USER.hcoop.net).

When you have chosen a domain to be hosted by HCoop, you then simply request control of that domain at the [http://members.hcoop.net portal]. Once it is authorized by an administrator, you will be able to utilize DomTool. DomTool will let Apache and other services know about your domain. Please take a look at [:MemberManual/UsingDomtool: using DomTool], [:DomTool/UserGuide: DomTool user guide], and [:DomTool/Examples: DomTool examples] to learn how to do this. Our nameservers are ns1.hcoop.net and ns2.hcoop.net.

As a hint, DomTool configurations are stored in ~/.domtool/. Some users have made their production configurations readable and so you may be able to learn from them. See the bottom of [:DomTool/Examples: DomTool examples] to find out who is showing off their DomTool configurations.

If your web application needs write access to a data directory, give USER.daemon write permission to it and all of its subdirectories. In this example, be sure to replace USER with your username (lowercase):

fsr sa ./webdata USER.daemon write

Alternatively, use only fs if you need to set the ACL for just one directory.

For database help, take a look at this manual's [:MemberManual/Databases: Databases] chapter.

To see how you can transfer files to HCoop, see the [:MemberManual/TransferringFiles: Transferring Files] chapter.

In addition, .htaccess files are not processed on our servers. See [:DomTool/Examples: DomTool Examples] to learn how to use rewrite rules and other features normally provided by .htaccess.

MoinMoin

An example of how to configure MoinMoin may be found on the [:/MoinMoin:MoinMoin subpage].

PHP

We use PHP 4 by default to serve .php files. We also have PHP 5 available for member use. If the script being executed has a .php4 or .php5 extension, then the script will use PHP 4 or PHP 5, respectively. To set the PHP version, use the phpVersion command as follows.

To use PHP 4 in a directory or virtual host:

phpVersion php4;

To use PHP 5 in a directory or virtual host:

phpVersion php5;

Examining your logs

The error and access logs are stored in ~/.logs/apache. They are separated by machine and domain. The logs are updated once every 20 minutes. It is expected that you don't have permission to read your logs in /var/log/apache2.

You can view a graphical representation of your access logs by browsing our webalizer interface at [https://members.hcoop.net/webalizer/]. Its statistics are updated once per day.

Permissions Issues (403 Access Denied)

When you publish web content, it will probably live in your home directory. The web server will need permission to read your files, or it will return "403 Access Denied" errors. Since your home directory is in AFS, normal UNIX permissions are irrelevant.

For instance, if you get a 403 error serving ~/public_html/otherdir/page.html, you might run this to see what's up:

{{{$ fs listacl ~/public_html/otherdir Access list for /afs/hcoop.net/user/y/yo/you/public_html/otherdir is Normal rights:

• system:administrators rlidwka system:anyuser l you rlidwka}}}

Oops! Apache only matches the "system:anyuser" principal, so it only gets the "l" (= "list") permission and can only list your directory contents. Try this to fix it:

{{{$ fs setacl ~/public_html/otherdir system:anyuser read $ fs setacl ~/public_html system:anyuser read $ fs setacl ~ system:anyuser l}}}

The first two give full read permission on the mentioned directories. "l" permission is needed in every parent directory of a file to be able to access it, so the last line makes sure "l" is granted to system:anyuser on your home directory.

When your web content is accessed through your own virtual host, you can also grant read access to $USER.daemon instead of the broader system:anyuser, where $USER is your username. This is your bizarro-world twin, which Apache runs as when serving your content.

Note that your CGI directories and executables should be in the group no-group; if this is not the case you may see cryptic warnings in your error.log along the lines of suexec policy violation: see suexec log for more details.

See [:MemberManual/GettingStarted:the Getting Started chapter] of the Member Manual, in particular the AFS section, for information on how to work with AFS's separate notion of permissions.

Getting HTTPS access working

In order to serve websites over HTTPS, you will need to request an IP address from us and generate an SSL certificate.

1. [https://members.hcoop.net/portal/ip Request an IP address].

2. Either [:/SslCert:generate an SSL certificate yourself], or buy one from somewhere (search for "ssl certificate" using your search engine of choice for a list of popular vendors).

3. [https://members.hcoop.net/portal/cert Request permission to use your certificate for a domain].

4. Add a stanza to your DomTool configuration file. Examples of this may be found at [:DomTool/Examples:].

WebDAV

WebDAV is a set of extensions to the HTTP protocol which allows users to collaboratively edit and manage files on remote web servers. WebDAV is useful when working on a website using systems that cannot mount an AFS share. If you don't need to use your own domain for WebDAV access, take a look at the wiki section [:MemberManual/MigrationGuide:] and [http://research.cs.berkeley.edu/doc/dav/]. These instructions should suffice to help you start using WebDAV at the address [https://dav.hcoop.net].

If you want to be able to use DAV services with your own domain name, you will need to set up a host which is served via HTTPS. The Getting HTTPS access working section above should be of help. Then, you will want to add a stanza to your DomTool configuration to serve DAV. An example follows.

  (* Redirect HTTP to HTTPS *)
  webAtIp "69.90.123.NNN" "dav" with
    rewriteRule "^(.*)$" "https://dav.yourdomain$1" [redirect];
  end;

  (* Serving DAV over HTTPS *)
  webAtIp "69.90.123.NNN" "dav" where
    DocumentRoot = home "dav";
    SSL = use_cert "/etc/apache2/ssl/user/yourdomain.pem";
  with
    addDefaultCharset "utf-8";

    location "/" with
      davFilesystem;
    end;
  end;