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Building a Custom Webpage

This is a question we see a lot, so this is a brief overview of the web hosting services Clarkson provides to Students, Faculty, Groups, and Projects. This is not a definitive list, but it covers the locations most likely to be used for website hosting.

Option 1: Sites

Sites is a managed Wordpress instance for hosting and running a Wordpress site. This is considered the most secure and reliable method, as the entire site is taken care of by the Clarkson web team. Backups, upgrades, support, and more are all handled as part of having a Sites site.

Pros

  • Managed, upgraded, and monitored by Clarkson
  • Support available from Clarkson and hosting provider
  • Tutorials and basic information provided by the web team
  • Security provided by the Clarkson web team and hosting provider

Cons

  • Managed Wordpress only
  • No custom scripts, extensions, or other more advanced features

Option 2: Webspace/AD-Web

Webspace is a web server hosted by Clarkson's Network Services explicitly for hosting custom websites. This service serves files hosted on your U:\ Windows drive, available from most Clarkson machines. This option is also available for groups upon request, and is considered the most flexible. This service is a Bring-Your-Own-Code environment, meaning the web services team will be limited in their ability to help should something go wrong.

Pros

  • Bring-Your-Own-Code allows extreme customizability
  • Files can be managed from any Clarkson computer, and are backed up as a part of the Clarkson user shares

Cons

  • Limited support from our web team for custom webpages and scripts
  • Security beyond the basic filesystem and firewall are not covered by Clarkson
  • Database access may be limited

Option 3: People/Lin-Web

People is very similar to Webspace, except that its filesystem comes from Polaris. This allows more flexibility for those who might need access to more advanced features, such as cron scheduling, or scripting behind the scenes.

Pros

  • Bring-Your-Own-Code allows extreme customizability
  • Scrtipting from the Linux CLI may be more desirable for some users

Cons

  • Limited support from our web team for custom webpages and scripts
  • Security beyond the basic filesystem and firewall are not covered by Clarkson
  • Database access may be limited
  • Storage is limited based on your quota on Polaris

Option 4: CoLo at Old Main

Co-location hosting is for those with dedicated physical servers who need to host their own services. While this option is the most open for user modification, it is restricted to Faculty, Research Groups, and customers. CoLo is intended for those who need to place a physical server somewhere, and guarantees datacenter reliability and a public IP address, with no intervention from Clarkson's firewall.

Pros

  • The most open option
  • Grants access to a public IP with no restrictions

Cons

  • Clarkson only guarantees hosting the physical machine, and access to the network. No backups or firewall are provided.
  • You must provide all hardware and software support
  • You must secure your own machine
  • CoLo is considered external to the University, so some Clarkson services may behave differently than they would on the rest of campus
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