Web/FTP server for students
BI/NSM is from April 8, 2002 offering all students an opportunity to create their own website on this server. Your unique URL will be http://home.student.bi.no/~username where "username" is the same as you use for checking email and logging on to the Novell network.
To upload/change files you should use a regular FTP-client. Examples for the Microsoft Windows-platform are WS_FTP and CuteFTP. A connection-window with WS_FTP typically looks like this
After logging in you will enter your own home-directory on the server. You may also use the "Publish Web" in Frontpage, which should look like this:
You should also check whether you want to publish only changed pages or all pages. After pressing "Publish" you have to enter your username and password, just like with any other ftp-client.
Due to the nature of a webserver - all files you upload will be visible to everybody, so don't put any sensitive information on this server. We do not provide any opportunity of password-protecting your files or directories.
We do not offer any online support for creating web-pages. Most computers at campus have Microsoft Frontpage installed, which is an easy way of making HTML-pages. Please note that the server does not support any FrontPage extensions (or ASP). This means that if you use the FrontPage "Wizard" to create your own homepage certain functions will not work (like counter and guestbook). Other recommended HTML-editors may be found under the HTML-editors section at http://www.download.com or http://www.tucows.com.
Some of you probably want to use scripts on your pages. The most popular script-types are ASP, CGI, Perl and PHP. We only offer the latter, and currently PHP 5.0.4 is installed. If you want an editor which is compatible with PHP we recommend to have a look at http://www.itworks.demon.co.uk/phpeditors.htm or PHPcoder.
Currently we don't have any standard guestbook or counter-script available, but there are quite a few PHP-based versions available on the net. Remember that you must use one that does not require database-support!
Restrictions and supported filetypes
The webserver supports most filetypes, but we have made a couple of restrictions - we do not allow MP3, Mpeg, AVI or Ogg files to be uploaded. These are the major filetypes used for "illegal activities/trading", and are in general not needed to create a website. No exceptions will be made, even if you have created these files yourself. You are not allowed to upload password-files for your website either. The standard message for blocked files is something like this:
550 testfile.mp3: Permission denied
A similar result will be shown if you try to rename a file and then access it through your browser.
By using the web-services you accept the general terms of IT-regulations. Put shortly this implies that you are not allow to publish any material which is considered illegal according to Norwegian law and student/IT regulations. Examples of illegal use of this server are distributing copyrighted material such as music, movie-clips, pictures and software created (and copy protected) by others. You are not entitled to use this site for commercial activity.
We monitor the server-activity closely, and if we have reason to suspect the rules outlined above are not followed you will be notified on your BI/NSM mail-address (which you are required to read!). If you then do not remove the material within reasonable time your account will be permanently deleted (with no exceptions made). Any backup of the material removed will not be provided.
If you have any questions or comments regarding this service - please send a message to postmaster@student.bi.no . In order for us to process your inquiry as fast as possible - please include all the relevant details of your problem. Remember that we do not provide any support for general questions about HTML/PHP-coding.
If you have special requests please give us a note about this. We will generally not add any features unless it is required and useful for a large number of users.