Webmaster Guide

This guide is intended for organizational webmasters, principally, those who work in our academic departments. Other webmasters may include those in college research and administrative units.

Webmaster Role

The webmaster is the principal requestor of department web lockers at http://www.eos.ncsu.edu/lockers/request/. ITECS requires someone at the department level reviewing and authorizing requests for web resources. The webmaster also:

• acts as the intermediary between ITECS and the department so there is a single point of contact for (1) the allocation of web resources, and (2) communication with locker owners.

• clarifies processes and procedures for building and maintaining college web sites.

• works with the department to organize lockers into a department web site.

• helps to deploy web technologies to department staff and faculty.

The following provides information to assist the webmaster in performing these duties.

Course Lockers

Course web lockers and course-management software are provided by the university, not the college. However, the college does provide non-web AFS course workspace lockers for students in specific classes (Wolfware locker required).

Web Lockers and Sites

Groups within the department with web content to deliver can have the webmaster request lockers for them. Each locker has its own access control list and quota, which is managed through the locker portal at http://www.eos.ncsu.edu/lockers/portal/.

The webmaster requests a locker at http://www.eos.ncsu.edu/lockers/ and provides the following:

• name of locker, e.g, marsmission, grad, etc. The locker will be created as an AFS volume and mounted under the department, e.g., /afs/eos/engrwww/sites/vhost/locker/ with the URL of http://www.vhost.ncsu.edu/locker/.

• Unity ID of locker owner (must be full-time staff or faculty). This will be the only Unity ID explicitly listed on the locker ACL.

• Unity IDs of locker administrators, those who can edit the locker's web content and also add/delete people from the access groups below (rlidwk). These Unity IDs will be held in the pts group, locker-www.

• Unity IDs of those who write and edit files in the space (rlidwk). These Unity IDs will be held in the pts group, locker-www:wwwedit.

• Unity IDs for those with read access in the space (rl). These Unity IDs will be held in the pts group, locker-www:wwwread.

With the locker portal tool at http://www.eos.ncsu.edu/lockers/portal/, the webmaster and all users with access to engineering web lockers can use a web tool rather than the command line to check group membership and add/delete people to/from groups.

Organizing and Developing the Department Web Site

Each locker that is created is an AFS volume mounted in the "sites" path, /afs/eos/engrwww/sites/vhost/locker/. The locker owner and editors access the locker at this location. These lockers are also mounted under the vhost in the webmaster path, /afs/eos/engrwww/vhost/locker/. Only you, as webmaster, can go through this path; everyone else uses the "sites" path.

Lockers mounted in this standard way get the shortest URL under the department domain, http://www.vhost.ncsu.edu/locker/. A short URL is often what groups want most for their sites, one that is memorable and fits easily on a business card.

However, as webmaster, you can create other directories and files under the vhost to build your department site. These files and directories will not show up in the sites path at /afs/eos/engrwww/sites/vhost/, only in the webmaster path. Some webmasters will find that they have too many files, directories, and volumes to deal with at one level and will want to organize the site with volumes mounted under specific directories.

For example, if you have a number of research groups in your departments with their own lockers, you may wish to mount them in a subdirectory called "research" to unclutter the root of your site. If you do, make sure to request the location of the mountpoint for the volume at /afs/eos/engrwww/vhost/research/ The URL in this case will be http://www.vhost.ncsu.edu/research/locker/. If you don't mind having these sites in the root, then the site gets a shorter URL.

The access path for owners and editors does not change from /afs/eos/engrwww/sites/vhost/locker/, no matter how the vhost locker is organized. The department site itself is served from the vhost path, not the sites path, so the organization in this location is what ultimately determines addressing and department site organization. This is something you and your department groups will have to negotiate because of the importance of addressing.

Of course, not all department units need their own lockers (AFS volumes). Lockers are mainly for "standalone" units that have their own staff and organization, quota requirements, and mission. For example, if a group like undergraduate programs maintains only a few pages of information, do not request a locker for it. Simply make a directory under the vhost at /afs/eos/engrwww/vhost/directory/.

If you need others beside yourself to edit in the vhost locker, add these people to the edit pts group via the locker portal. Membership in this group gives these people access through the webmaster path to any files and directories not in separate lockers. However, the webmaster remains the only one with ownership and permission-granting capability. Just remember that these people have edit rights to all the content in the vhost locker, so assign rights with some care.

If you need additional help with administering and developing your department web site, contact or eoshelp@ncsu.edu.