Personal User Web Pages

EECS recognizes the value and potential of Web-enabled technology as a tool to support its mission of teaching, research, and service. Therefore, faculty, staff, and students are encouraged to take full advantage of the technology available to assist EECS in accomplishing that mission. Any user with an EECS account may create a personal web page. The following information is provided to assist the user in creating a personal web page.

Contents of all personal web pages must be consistent with University of Tennessee policies and local, state, and federal laws. This includes links to other pages or computers. Failure to adhere to these policies will result in the removal of public access to your web documents and possible deletion of your EECS account. See Acceptable Use of Information Technology Resources for details.

EECS personal web pages are not certified for the storage and sharing of sensitive information such as export controlled data, Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), health and medical information, financial and credit card information, and student data (transcripts, grade rolls). See File Storage Options for Sensitive Information, File Sharing Options for Sensitive Information and Online@UT (Canvas) Resources for Faculty for certified options for sensitive data. Contact EECS IT Help if you have any questions about responsible use.

Web home directory: ~/webhome
Web server supports PHP (.php file extension)
Basic permissions: 644 for files, 755 for directories and cgi scripts
The web server runs under the userweb user account and the userweb group if you wish to use ACLs.

You can create a personal web page by uploading files to the webhome directory inside your EECS Linux home directory. This scan be done in a variety of ways:

You can directly upload files using an SCP or SFTP client. Examples include the scp and sftp command-line utilities in Linux and MacOS and graphical clients such as WinSCP (Windows), MobaXTerm (Windows), or CyberDuck (Windows/MacOS). You will need to set the proper permissions (see below) on files and directories so that the web server can read your files.

Alternatively, you can connect to a special Windows networking (CIFS/SMB) shared drive. You can find the proper UNC path (for mapping a shared drive) or URI (for MacOS “Connect to Server…”) by entering your EECS username into the form below.

When authenticating, be sure to use UTK\username as the log in name, not just username. Files uploaded through this method will be readable to the web server because they will be assigned to the userweb group.

Off-Campus Connections

If you are accessing your EECS Linux files from off-campus, you will need to first connect to the UT VPN.

The web server can only read files that have special permissions. Specifically, files and directories need to be accessible either to everyone on the system (by using “other/world” permissions) or they must be accessible to the userweb user or group:

Make files “other/world” readable by running:
```
chmod 644 filename
```
Make sub-directories of webhome “other/world” readable and executable by running:
```
chmod 755 subdir
```
. Be sure to replace “filename” and “subdir” with the appropriate filename(s) and directory name(s).
Advanced Users: You can also set NFSv4 Access Control Lists (ACLs) to allow the userweb user or group to read your files.

Writable Files

If you need any files in your webhome directory to be “writable” by the web server process, please do not make those files “other/world” writable. Please contact the EECS IT Staff and we will help you with the proper permissions.

See our page on Linux File Permissions for more information.

Once your web page has been created and the appropriate web documents put in place (e.g. your index page), open the following URL in a web browser:

http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~username/

where username is your EECS username.