Overview

The Allen School Lab runs a dedicated home page webserver, homes.cs.washington.edu, that supports static (HTML) and active (CGI/PHP) user content.

Topics

Who has a home page on the server?

Home pages are created for all CSE students (all programs), all faculty members (including post-docs), and all staff members. Folks with research guest accounts do not have a homepage.

What is the URL (web address) of my home page?

If your username is <username>@cs.washington.edu, your home page URL is at https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~<username>

How do I access my home page files?

The webroot of your home page is located in the /cse file tree at the following location: /cse/web/homes/<username>

In order to access the /cse file tree, you'll need to logon to a CSE managed server.

Undergrads can use the attu cluster, while researchers could use recylce, bicycle, etc if you have no other options available.

There is no direct logon access to the homes webserver itself.

How much home page storage do I get on the service?

We expect you to stay below 2GB.

This is a home page server; larger files are probably research content that should be hosted on a research server.

Does the service include a database account?

MySQL accounts are available upon request.

Can I run active content on the server?

Yes, you can. The server supports PHP (version 8.1) and CGI scripts, typically written in scripting languages such as perl, python, bash, or ruby.

Files that have a .php extension are treated as PHP scripts. Additionally, files named index.php will be treated as index documents. For example, a file named /cse/web/homes/<username>/index.php will be served as http://homes.cs.washington.edu/<username>/

PHP runs as the web server user, which is called apache at our site.

Files with a .cgi, .cl, .lsp, .lisp, .pl, .py, or .rb filename extension will be treated as CGI scripts using the suexec mechanism. suexec CGI scripts run as the user that owns them.

Who can see my home page?

There are no default restrictions on access to your home page. You can restrict access by creating a .htaccess file.

Why can't I access my Linux home page (/homes/gws/<username>/ or /homes/iws/<username>/) from homes.cs?

Because the CGI scripts you may have on homes.cs are programs that can be run by arbitrary users on the public internet under your user context, it is easy to turn them against the owner. Therefore, homes.cs doesn't get standard file system exports, limiting the scope of a successful exploit to data you have on this server.

I still have questions!

If you have additional questions, please direct them to Support.