This document deals specifically with certain issues regarding the creation and maintenance of official web pages (non-CMS, non-MOSS) for schools and admin departments. The reader is also advised to read the General Guide for All Users.
If your school/department's or other official site is or will be done from Microsoft's Content Management Server (CMS) or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS), then this document is not applicable. Please contact NTU webmaster (webteam @ntu.edu.sg) for help.
Web Accounts General
Connection to Web Folder
Multiple Webmasters
Space Quota on Web Folder
Technicals on Web Page Creation
Web Accounts General
The Schools or Admin Departments have to appoint a webmaster to oversee and take charge of their web publication. The webmaster will decide what to put up on their web pages and who are allowed to modify which page.
For many websites, there may be more than one person involved, with each maintaining information in certain sections. To do so, the main webmaster can assign folder permissions to his colleagues. He can use any Windows 2000 and above machine connected to the NTUNET (campus-wide network) to do it. If he needs help in that, see next question.
Each school's/department's webmaster will be given an account for the purpose of gathering feedback and administer their web page. E.g. wwweee@ntu.edu.sg for School of EEE and wwwsao@ntu.edu.sg for Student Affairs Office.
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If your school or department already have a website, go to the website and look around for a Contact Us or Contact the Webmaster link. The email address or online feedback form should then appear. This is a way to get in touch with the webmaster.
If your department does not have an existing website, then someone in your department has to assign one or more persons as the webmaster. Then apply for an email account (for the webmaster) and associated web account. An online application for can be found in StaffLink -> Resource Request -> IT Services -> Computer Account/Additional Quota.
Yes, each school's/department's webmaster will be given an Email and Network account (of the same name) for the purpose of gathering feedback and administering their web pages. E.g. wwweee@ntu.edu.sg for School of EEE and wwwoas@ntu.edu.sg for Office of Academic Services.
To apply for the account, please fill up the online computer account application form in Stafflink. StaffLink -> Resource Request -> IT Services -> Computer Account/Additional Quota.
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Connection to Web Folder
If your school/department's site is or will be done from Microsoft's Content Management Server (CMS) or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS), then the follow is not for you. Please email NTU webmasters (webteam@ntu.edu.sg) for help.
For those editing pages meant for placement onto the WEB server, please do this:
- Get to a PC that is connected to NTUNET (campus-wide network).
- Logon to your the STAFF domain with your Network username and password.
Then follow any one of these methods:
Method 1: Via mapped networked drive in Windows Explorer
- Click on "Start", "Programs", "Windows Explorer".
- Click on the "Tools" on the menu bar and select "Map Network Drive?.
- At the "Drive" field, select "I:".
- Type \\web\<sharename> as the "Path".
Note: Replace the <sharename> with your school's/department's name. This name is the name of the account given to you when you apply for the account.
E.g. \\web\eee for School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering and \\web\sao for Student Affairs Office.
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If you want, you can check the box "Reconnect at Logon". Checking this box will ensure that the drive will be mapped every time you logon to the network.
- After that double click on "My Computer"
- Double click on the icon labelled eee on 'web' (I:) for School of EEE; or sao on 'web' (I:) for Student Affairs Office. (or whatever the case may be for your <sharename>)
- You can manage your files from there, including the sub-directory below it. (E.g. you are free to edit files, create files/directories, delete files/directories, etc.)
E.g. If you are using a text editor for web page creation, to create the index file from Notepad, simply save the contents of your first HTML file as index.htm
Method 2: Via command line in Run... dialog box
Type \\web\<sharename> at the Run... dialog box under the Windows START menu.
(Note: Replace the <sharename> with your school's/department's name. This name is the name of the account given to you when you apply for the account.
E.g. \\web\eee for School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering and \\web\sao for Student Affairs Office.)
Method 3: Via shortcut on desktop
Create a shortcut to the personal web folder. You only have to do this ONCE.
- Right click on any empty area on the desktop.
- Select New -> Shortcut
- Type in the path to your web folder. E.g. Type \\web\<sharename>. (See above steps to see what you should substitute the field for <sharename>). Then click Next.
- Give a name to the shortcut you have just created. You can name it anything you want.
- Click Finish.
A new shortcut icon folder will be created on your desktop. Subsequently to edit files on the web folder, you simply double click on it to open your personal web folder on the Web server. You can edit the files there as per normal. You can also drag and drop files to this folder just as you would for any other folder that resides on your own PC. You can even personalise the look further by changing the icon for this shortcut folder!
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Multiple Webmasters
If your official website is very small, your colleagues may email their files over to you (the webmaster) for uploading to your school/department website.
But if your site is much larger, you can create folders where your colleagues can upload directly to the folder. To do this, you need to assign file/folder access permissions. (See next question.) You may also want to keep track of who has access to which folders for your recording purposes. This will be useful when the persons-in-charge of the folders change over time.
If the webmaster knows how to set folder permissions in Windows 2000, he can do so himself, and set WRITE access rights to his colleagues. Note that certain accounts have to be given access rights for proper system administration. E.g. Helpdesk, System, Web Administrators, Administrators, IUSR_xxxx. Do not modify or remove them. Any queries on these permissions should be directed to the Web Administrators.
However, if help is needed to set the permissions, an email can be sent to the the Web Administrators (webadmin@ntu.edu.sg) stating who is to be given what access rights to which directory in the schools/departments' root directory. If it is a new directory, the webmaster has to create the directory first.
Note: Please include the users' Network username and full name to speed up the process.
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Space Quota on Web Folder
Yes. The defaults are:
- Schools and offices: 500 MB
- Conferences and projects: 10 MB
- Independent research centres not hosted in school's site: 50 MB
But the above only applies for normal, non-CMS-based pages. For sites done up in the CMS/MOSS server, there is no quota limit at the moment. However, the CMS/MOSS server is primarily meant for serving static pages, so if you have a lot of files or large files, please make use of the regular web server account for these storage, and point your CMS/MOSS pages to the location on the web server instead.
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When the quota is exceeded, you will not be able to modify or add in new files until you delete some of the unwanted files. You will get an error message like "There is not enough free disk space" when your quota is exceeded.
Yes, but this is subjected to approval. Please fill up the online form in Stafflink. StaffLink -> Resource Request -> IT Services -> Computer Account/Additional Quota.
Note: For all applications for quota increase, CITS reserves the right to ensure that the current space is well utilised before any increase is granted. Please do not store large backups or Exchange personal folders, and other personal files on the website of your department/school. Such files should be stored elsewhere e.g. your office PC or other backup media. The Web server space is not be used as a storage dump.
Technicals on Web Page Creation
You should consult your school webmasters first. Most of the time, they will be able to help you. If they cannot help you, they will escalate the problem to the Centre for IT Services Helpdesk.
No, CITS does not have the manpower to design web sites for other departments or offices. Any current assistance rendered is purely as a extension of professional courtesy. Each office is encouraged to have its own staff trained to maintain its own website(s). Please refer to the courses available from the Training Management System (under Training & Development Services) in StaffLink.
You can let the vendor know that
- NTU uses Windows 2000 and Microsoft IIS
- We do not provide FTP service.
- We do not run any database servers. If you need to, place the database on your own web space. Make sure that it is small and does not require us to install anything on the server itself. You may however use Microsoft Access on your site. An example of it in use is found in this sample site for a student club: http://clubs.ntu.edu.sg/NTUDemo
- Scripts can be may be run on official websites, but
- We will not install any additional programs on our server as they can compromise security.
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No, videos are strongly discouraged. The Web server is not designed to serve out video streams. It cannot take the load of numerous concurrent accesses of large video clips. If you must put up some videos, make sure that it they are small, and will hardly be accessed. Please also do not use the Web server to house a large collection of video clips either. CITS will not grant disk space for such usage as the Web server is not meant to be a video depository. Please set up your own private server for that.
Scripts (like ASP) can be executed from official websites, but not on personal websites. But CITS will not install special programs on the NTU web server for your site as this can compromise the security and/or stability of our server.
No, we do not support FrontPage Extensions as it does not work well for such a large legacy website such as NTU's. However, we have other scripts that you can use like Counter, Guestbook, Submission Forms (Formmail and Surveymail). See our Web Publishing section in the Getting Help page from the CITS website. At the moment we have no search engine that can search just your site (i.e. search only your site, apart from the entire NTU website).
Even though we do not have FrontPage Extensions, you can still use FrontPage as an authoring tool, and still be able to use the software's Publish feature. Just map the destination to the server. [Note: you must be on the Intranet for this to work.]
E.g. the destination is \\web\dept\sub-foldername
if dept is your home directory (click on My Computer to see which home drive you belong to if you are unsure), and you are placing the FrontPage website in a sub-folder called "sub-foldername".
Note that this FrontPage authoring only applies for normal web pages not done in Microsoft's Content Management Server (CMS) or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). The current NTU homepage portal and many departments and schools are already on or going to switch to CMS/MOSS-based pages.
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Yes you can. To set the upload path, just map the destination to the server.
[Note: you must be on the Intranet for this to work.]
E.g. the destination is \\web\dept\sub-foldername
if dept is your home directory (click on My Computer to see which home drive you belong to if you are unsure), and you are placing the FrontPage website in a sub-folder called "sub-foldername".
Note that this again only applies if your department's pages are not generated by the Microsoft Content Management Server (CMS) server.