mysite.du.edu Websites

Personal Websites on the DU Mysite Server

Every current student, faculty and staff member is eligible for space on the mysite.du.edu web server. Personal Web sites are used for various non-commercial content — everything from class projects to galleries. If you are current student, faculty, or staff, you can request personal web space on mysite.du.edu.

Please note: Mysite is not configured for server side scripting. If you attempt to install WordPress, Drupal, or any other enterprise platform, it will not run on mysite.du.edu. DU Mysite is intended for HTML, CSS, XML/XSLT, and JavaScript based content.

You can request an increase to your mysite quota by creating a new incident on the Technology Services support site. Please include your short user name (the characters after the ~ in your mysite address, https://mysite.du.edu/~username) and allow 24 hours for requests to be processed.

Login And Passwords for the DU Mysite Server

Your user name/login on the du.edu web server is a unique alpaha-numeric identifier that has up to 8 characters

  • If your DU email address is in the juser@du.edu format, your user name on the mysite server is the same as the first part of your email address before the @ sign.
  • If your email address is in the firstname.lastname@du.edu format, the firstname.lastname part of your email address will NOT work as your user name.

Your password for personal sites is your DU password. Please verify you can successfully login to MyDU before you attempt to connect to your mysite.

If you do not know your mysite user name or mysite password, call the IT Help Desk (303.871.4700) between 8am and 5pm Monday - Friday.

Accessing Your Personal Web Space

Access to update mysite.du.edu accounts is only available to on-campus, DU network users.

In order to access your personal web space from off campus or from a non-DU network, a VPN Client is required. The recommended VPN Client for DU users is GlobalProtect VPN. For more information, visit  Off-Campus Network Access (VPN).

You must login to the DU network via VPN before your FTP client will connect to your mysite.du.edu account. If you are attempting to connect to your mysite.du.edu account on a DU wired or wireless connection, a VPN should not be necessary.

You will need to use a file FTP client of your choosing. Your options include, but are not limited to, such clients as FileZilla, SmartFTP, DreamWeaver, etc. Please note that you will need to use a client that supports SFTP. FTP is no longer a supported protocol for file transfer to the mysite.du.edu webserver.

URLs for personal websites always take the following form:
https://mysite.du.edu/~username

To create a personal site, the pages must be published to the public_html folder that was automatically created in your personal directory (path) on the server. However, as you can see above, the public_html folder is not part of the URL of your site. The server has instructions to look in this folder for index.html or index.htm and deliver it as your home page.

SFTP setting for personal sites typically take the following form:

Protocol
SFTP*
Host or server
mysite.du.edu
Directory (Path)
/mysite/username/public_html/
User name/login
username
Password
DU password (same as used to log into MyDU )


FileZilla clients: use sftp://mysite.du.edu in your Host connection setting.

All other clients: please consult the documentation for your SFTP client to find out where you may enter in this information.

*Note that Secure FTP (SFTP) is file transfer over SSH (Secure Shell). FTP is no longer a supported protocol for file transfer to the mysite.du.edu web server.

Frequent Issues

  • DO NOT DELETE YOUR PUBLIC_HTML FOLDER - this is your home directory for your website.
  • "Forbidden" error - Create an index.html page and upload it your public_html folder

    If you do not have a public_html folder at your /mysite/{your user name}/ directory, you MUST create one.

    Until you see a listing for /public_html/index.html file when viewing your remote site files through your FTP client, you will get a "Forbidden" error.

    After successfully connecting to your site via your client, in order to see anything when you visit your mysite address you MUST publish an index.html file to the root public_html directory in your site. This will be the page you see when you visit https://mysite.du.edu/~username/index.html; this allows you to view https://mysite.du.edu/~username.

    When viewing the server files in your FTP client, you need to see the following:
    /mysite/{your user name}/public_html/index.html

    Your public_html directory is what the public sees when visiting your mysite.du.edu/~username address. The /mysite/username/public_html/ directory is the FTP root of your https://mysite.du.edu/~username address. Whatever you upload to this folder is then available at your mysite address. 

    If you upload a folder (eg a folder called "site") that contains your index.html page to your public_html directory that you intend to be your home page, you will still get an error message when you visit https://mysite.du.edu/~username. This is because the index page is within the folder you just uploaded to your public_html directory on the server. If your index.html is in a folder called "site" and your index.html page is in that folder, you can view this page by going to https://mysite.du.edu/~username/site/index.html.
  • Knowing what your URL is: Alternatively, when you upload a file to your public_html folder, it will become publicly available at your mysite.du.edu/~username/ address (eg uploading document.pdf or home.html to your public_html directory will become available at mysite.du.edu/~username/document.pdf and mysite.du.edu/~username/home.html, respectively). If you upload a folder of files to your /mysite/username/public_html/ directory, it will then be available at mysite.du.edu/~username/foldername.
  • Can't upload additional files or modify existing ones - Quota restrictions will cause FTP errors: You can put up to 50MB in your mysite web directory. Once you reach this limit, you will no longer be able to FTP files.
  • Increasing Quota: If your site requires more space, you can request to increase your quota. Please make sure you don't have any assets you don't need for your website on the server as this takes up unnecessary space.

Password protection is currently available for personal websites only.

Modifying Your SFTP Settings To Manage Htaccess

  • Check your SFTP settings to ensure you can reach the files required to manage or set up password protected folders for your site.
  • Your host and path settings should be as follows:
    • Host or server: mysite.du.edu
    • Directory (Path): /mysite/[username]/
  • If you were using .htaccess for authentication prior to the mysite.du.edu migration, you should see your public_html folder as well as a ".webpass" folder when you view your remote files.

Maintaining Your Existing Htaccess File

  • If you were using password protected folders prior to the mysite.du.edu migration, your password files have been moved with your mysite.du.edu website and should continue working.
  • Your .htpasswd file is located at:
    • /mysite/[username]/.webpass/.htpasswd
  • If you want to move your .htpasswd file out of the .webpass directory, reflect this location change in the .htpasswd path in your .htaccess file (or files). Its recommended that you keep your .htpasswd file above the public_html folder.
  • When adding users to your existing .htpasswd file, you must use either DES or MD5 encryption for your passwords. A useful tool for creating the contents of .htpasswd files can be found at http://www.htaccesstools.com/htpasswd-generator

Setting Up A New Htaccess For Basic Authentication

  • Create a file called ".htaccess" inside the folder you want to protect. This is the entire name of the file including the extension. Use a text-only editor such as notepad to create this file. You can also use your web editor if it supports working in plain text mode.
  • If you want your entire site protected, create your .htaccess file inside public_html. If you want to limit access to a particular subdirectory of your site, create the .htaccess file in that folder.
  • An example of the contents of an .htaccess file:
    • AuthType Basic
    • AuthName "Password Required"
    • AuthUserFile /mysite/[username]/.htpasswd
    • Require valid-user
  • You'll also need to create a file called ".htpasswd" for the .htaccess file to check when someone attempt to access the protected directory. The .htpasswd file contains the names and encrypted passwords for the users you granted access to. This file should be placed in the directory above your public_html directory. Please note the "AuthUserFile" path to the .htpasswd:
    • AuthUserFile /mysite/[username]/.htpasswd
  • If you put the .htpasswd file in another folder in the same level as public_html, you'll need to reflect this in the path within your .htaccess file, for example:
    • AuthUserFile /mysite/[username]/[foldername]/.htpasswd
  • Passwords within .htpasswd must be encrypted either using DES or MD5. A useful tool for creating the contents of .htpasswd file can be found at: http://www.htaccesstools.com/htpasswd-generator/

Restrictions

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