Networks - Web Policy

Web Policy

1. Web Hosting

ITS encourages departments to host their web content on the centralized www.cwu.edu facility. Content files will reside on the network and will be backed-up daily. URLs are of the form: http://www.cwu.edu/~<youraccount>. Special account names for departments, groups or clubs are available. The content development environment is based on Apache with PHP support.

2. Non-ITS Managed Web Servers

Some individuals or departments have the requirement and the underlying resources (qualified staff, suitable dedicated hardware) to operate their own web server. This is discouraged because the amount of time required to maintain a web server in the age of near-weekly security patches. Departmental web servers are also placed on remote network segments for the purpose of security isolation - making them unusable for normal desktop tasks such as running a web browser, or viewing email.

• Should such a system fail, become infected with a worm/virus, or otherwise malfunction, ITS support will be limited to the suite of desktop applications and operating systems which otherwise would be installed on a standard computer. The department will be responsible to troubleshoot, repair and restore service to any web server they operate.
• If a departmental web server appears to be infected with a worm/virus, or is clearly not being regularly maintained with vendor security patches, ITS will disable network access to the server - regardless of the impact this disconnection will have on the department.
• Mandatory, quarterly security scans of the web server will be performed and results published for the administrator of record.

3. URLs

URLs for departmental web servers can be of two forms - inside and outside of the .cwu.edu namespace.

• Names inside of .cwu.edu will come under .u.cwu.edu, such as "http://mysite.u.cwu.edu". The top-level cwu.edu namespace is reserved for institutional resources such as www.cwu.edu or portal.cwu.edu.
• Names outside of .cwu.edu must be registered by the department making the request, at departmental expense - and must be directly related to university business. ITS will host the domain name, and take the required steps to forward traffic for the domain name to the departmental web server located within CWU's internal network. If a department registered the "chemclub.org" domain name, ITS would configure the name service and IP network such that requests to http://www.chemclub.org are forwarded to the departmental web server. Exercise all acquired external programs on a test machine isolated from your internal network prior to operational use.

4. Renewal of Departmental URLs and Domains

Renewals of departmental URLs and domains are done each September.