FAQ's

Help:

For general computing help 24 hours a day contact the DoIT Help desk:

For specific questions regarding your web site: rso-webadmin@www.wisc.edu
To set up a new site: cfli@studentlife.wisc.edu

Getting Started

1. How do I obtain a web site for my RSO?

2. How can I obtain or reset the SFTP password or the Plesk Control Panel password?

3. I have never created a web site - where can I find help?

Publishing

4. Where can I obtain software to publish my web site?

5. How do I publish my content via SecureFTP with the ID/Password supplied?

6. Do I have Telnet access to the server?

7. How much quota does the site have?

Features

8. Does the DoIT RSO hosting service offer scripting such as ASP, PHP or provide databases such as MySQL, MS SQL?

9. Do we have use of Sever Side Includes?

10. Does the server support use of Front Page Extensions?

11. Do you offer use of a hit counter?

12. Can I create web forms that send email?

13. How do I password protect directories for my web site?

General

14. Does DoIT offer personal web site hosting?

15. When was SIT discontinued?

16. Are additional domains available?

17. Can I host my *.rso.wisc.edu domain with another hosting service?

18. Can we also request Email accounts, lists, calendaring, for our RSO?

19. What is the normally reserved time or "maintenance window" for planned outages to the system?

20. Can I redirect my site or redirect a location within my site?

Getting Started

1. How do I obtain a web site for my RSO?

This Fall semester, the Center for Leadership and Involvement will begin the process of transferring all the RSO web sites over to a new hosting environment utilizing a product called CollegiateLink, which will provide a wide variety of services for RSOs.

As a result, no new web sites will be set up on the RSO Web Hosting Service. For more information, you can contact CFLI directly.

2. How can I obtain or reset the SFTP password or the Plesk Control Panel password?

The primary contact for each organization (see RSO directory) can log in to the Plesk Control Panel and reset the SFTP password for publishing to the site.

If the Plesk Control Panel password is also unknown, the primary contact can have it sent to their email address, using Plesk's Forgot your password? functionality.

Note that the security of the SFTP password is the responsibility of the organization's primary contact. Campus guidelines for strong passwords and password security should be followed.

3. I have never created a web site - where can I find help?

DoIT offers many free classes in the latest web development tools.  For  more information please see the Software Training for Students web site.

In addition, the Plesk File Manager, which is accessed via the Plesk Control Panel, provides a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) html editor you can use to edit html documents in design view, which doesn't require a knowledge of html coding.

Publishing

4. Where can I obtain software to publish my web site?

The Plesk File Manager, which is accessed via the Plesk Control Panel, provides a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) html editor you can use to make changes to files already on the site.

Web editing software for your desktop can be obtained from the DoIT Tech Store at reduced rates. There are also several computer labs on campus that provide access to web development software, such as DreamWeaver. However, the choice of software is up to you and many options are available.
Several SFTP applications that do not assist with design but can transfer files to and from your site are free from DoIT, including: SecureFX (Windows), Fetch (Mac) and Fugu (Mac).

5. How do I publish my content via SecureFTP with the ID/Password supplied?

Settings for connecting via Secure FTP (SFTP) can be found on our Publish page NOTE: SFTP access is restricted to the wisc.edu domain. If off campus OR using the UW wireless, please see the Virtual Private Network (VPN) information.

If you need to upload a small number of files or make content changes to existing files, you can also use the Plesk Control Panel's File Manager, which is provided with your account.

6. Do I have Telnet access to the server?

No, server access is restricted to SFTP.

7. How much quota does the site have?

The default quota is set to 500MB and capped at 1GB. If you want to know your current disk space usage, see here.

You can request more space by contacting us at: rso-webadmin@www.wisc.edu

Features

8. Does the DoIT RSO hosting service offer scripting such as ASP, PHP or provide databases such as MySQL, MS SQL?

We do not offer scripting support or databases for the free RSO Hosting Service. Adding these components would place additional support costs and unfortunately at this time the service is not funded to provide these.

9. Do we have use of Sever Side Includes?

Yes, see the Server Side Includes info page.

10. Does the server support use of Front Page Extensions?

No, the server is a Linux/Apache. As such FP Server Extensions are not currently supported (non Windows web server/OS)

11. Do you offer use of a hit counter?

We do not offer hit counters - If you are interested in a hit counter there are many free providers available. However we do provide all RSOs with access to web logs as well as web site usage statistics.

12. Can I create web forms that send email?

Yes, see the CGI-Email info page.

13. How do I password protect directories for my web site?

Please see the instructions for using Plesk Password Protection.

General

14. Does DoIT offer personal web site hosting?

Yes, My Web Space is a Web hosting and file storage system offered to the UW community.

15. When was SIT discontinued?

SIT was no longer available as of October 31, 2004.

16. Are additional domains available?

The free RSO hosting service provides one domain in the form of ORGNAME.rso.wisc.edu

17. Can I host my *.rso.wisc.edu domain with another hosting service?

It is the policy of the Center for Leadership and Involvement and DoIT's RSO Web Hosting Service that the domain name requested through this service cannot be resolved to a server external to UW Madison. However, for RSOs that do decide to host their organization's primary site with another hosting service, we offer assistance in redirecting their *.rso.wisc.edu domain to their external site.

18. Can we also request Email accounts, lists, calendaring, for our RSO?

Yes. Information detailing DoIT support for all Registered Student Organizations can be found in CFLI's guide to DoIT RSO Support.

19. What is the normally reserved time or "maintenance window" for planned outages to the system?

Tuesdays 5-7AM

20. Can I redirect my site or locations within my site?

Yes. See the features page on Redirects.