FAQ

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Contents

Accounts

Am I eligible for a CORE Account?

How do I open a CORE Account?

How can I change my CORE Account password?

  • CORE account passwords can not be changed automatically. You must fill out a [Renewal Form] or come to DOS/the CORE Office in person to have your password changed.

What features do I get with a CORE Account?

Why do we have to renew our CORE Account every year?

Server

Why can't I log on to the server?

There are many possible reasons why a login attempt may fail. If your account is new, we may have made an error during set-up, but here are some things to try...

  • password is case-sensitive, check CAPS LOCK key
  • if you are having trouble with e-mail, try logging in to FTP/web hosting
  • if you are having trouble with FTP, try logging in to CORE webmail
  • maybe someone tried to break into your account; the server completely shuts down accounts after a certain number of failed attempts; contact us and we will re-activate it
  • check to make sure your other internet services are working
  • your session may be cached or corrupted; re-start your computer and try again

Contact or visit us if you cannot access your account.

What FTP options are available?

CORE Accounts does not endorse any particular FTP client to use. We do offer tutorials on how to use some common FTP clients. If your FTP client is not listed and you are unable to get it to work on your own please contact the CORE Office and we will work with you.

What directory/path should be used for FTP?

  • Short answer: Use your home directory's Sites folder
  • Logging in will connect you directly to your home directory by default. Everything in the Sites folder under the home directory is published on the web and should be considered public. Users can use .htaccess for creating restricted access websites if they like.

I can download, but not upload via FTP...what's wrong?

This usually means we did not correctly set up your account and forgot to allow you to read/write to your own home directory. Please let us know and we'll fix it for you ASAP. In-person visits are usually quickest.

Mailman

What's a Mailman mailing list?

  • Mailman is free software for managing electronic mail discussion and e-newsletter lists. Mailman is integrated with the web, making it easy for users to manage their accounts and for list owners to administer their lists. Mailman supports built-in archiving, automatic bounce processing, content filtering, digest delivery, spam filters, and more. See the features page for details.
  • Copied as provided Mailman's website © 1998-2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

How to unsubscribe from Mailman mailing lists

How do you delete all subscribers from a Mailman list?

  • Mailman does not support this feature via it's on-line interface. If you have a mailing list consisting of a small number of users you will have to manually remove them. If you have a list with a large amount of users and want to remove them all you will have to contact the CORE Office and we will take care of it for you.

What's the difference between a CORE e-mail account and a Mailman e-mail list?

  • A CORE e-mail account behaves just like a traditional e-mail account. It behaves just like your normal UC Irvine personal e-mail address does.

Mailman mailing lists usually come in two types. The type you select will depend on your club:

  • Announcement lists are are used so that one person or group can send announcements to a group of people, much like a magazine publisher's mailing list is used to send out magazines. For example, a band may use a mailing list to let their fan base know about their upcoming concerts.
  • A discussion list is used to allow a group of people to discuss topics amongst themselves, with everyone able to send mail to the list and have it distributed to everyone in the group. This discussion may also be moderated, so only selected posts are sent on to the group as a whole, or only certain people are allowed to send to the group. For example, a group of model plane enthusiasts might use a mailing list to share tips about model construction and flying.

How do you make a Mailman e-mail list "Announce Only"?

This has not been fully tested yet, but here is a brief description of settings if you want your list to be ANNOUNCE ONLY, i.e. so only specific individuals can send mail to the list and all other attempts are denied...

(1) Log in to the administrative website for your list... it is accessible from the CORE Accounts home page by clicking on MAILMAN LISTS and then LIST ADMIN OVERVIEW PAGE and then clicking on your list (if publicly visible). Or you can go directly to it in a browser by using an address like...

http://clubs.uci.edu/mailman/admin/nameofyourlist

(2) PRIVACY OPTIONS > SENDER FILTERS

By default, should new list member postings be moderated?

  • YES

(This means when a new address subscribes, should this user's moderation setting immediately set to moderate posts from this address.)

Action to take when a moderated member posts to the list.

  • REJECT
  • and then type a reject notice to your members

Action to take for postings from non-members for which no explicit action is defined.

  • DISCARD
  • and then YES if you want to see what someone tried to send

(You can set this to REJECT instead if you want to tell someone they cannot post.)

(3) Now that you've set the list to not allow anyone to post, you have to decide WHO IS ALLOWED to post. If the address you want to post from is a member of the list, you can go to the MEMBERSHIP setting and change that address's setting to NOT be moderated (uncheck mod box). If the address you want to post from is NOT a member of the list, you can put the address in the PRIVACY OPTIONS > SENDER FILTERS setting for...

List of non-member addresses whose postings should be automatically accepted.

  • yourpostingaddress@uci.edu

I think that's it. If you already have members in the list when you apply these options, you may have to go to the MEMBERSHIP section and check the MOD box next to each of the existing users. (Actually, I just helped a user with this and there seems to be an option to change all users to be moderated all at once... SET button).

You should adjust these (and other) settings to suit your needs, though. For example, instead of REJECTING member messages, you can HOLD them for approval before letting it go out to everyone on the list. There are many, many other settings you should examine as well.

If these instructions do not work or are incomplete, please post the problem(s) and/or fix(es) here and we will edit these instructions for other users.

What settings should be used for the Mailman e-mail list?

  • CORE Accounts does not recommend any particular settings for your mailing list. Your club/org must decide for itself what settings it wishes to use. For more information on mailman's settings please see: GNU Mailman - List Administration Manual

E-mail

What E-mail client should I use?

  • The CORE Office does not endorse any particular e-mail client. We do provide tutorials on how to configure some of the common e-mail applications. If your favorite e-mail application is not listed and you can not figure out how to configure it to access your e-mail please contact the CORE Office.

Can we have our CORE e-mail forwarded to another e-mail address?

  • Yes, this is possible, but we prefer that you set up your other e-mail account to download from the CORE mail server.


How do I check my CORE e-mail?

What is POP and what is IMAP?

What is our club's e-mail address?

  • You organizations' e-mail address follows the format of organization@clubs.uci.edu. You simply replace the word organization with your CORE account name.

How do you avoid junk e-mail and SPAM?

Websites

Can our group be issued a UCI subdomain?

  • No, campus organizations are not allowed to have uci.edu subdomains. Campus organizations do not meed the requirements set by OIT to qualify for a subdomain. For more information please see: UCI Sub Domain Guidelines

Can I purchase a domain name and have CORE support that?

  • We do not have a DNS server that can host your name and do not support direct domain names. You do have a few possible options including:

Domain masking

This is where your domain name (e.g. myclubuci.com) is hosted with your name provider (GoDaddy), but your pages are hosted on the CORE server. When someone types the name into their browser, it will still say myclubuci.com in the address bar, but it will load each page from CORE.

Some hosting providers even let you ask for a specific page with the name. The page is then translated to the web host. For example, you could have a link to http://myclubuci.com/join.php and it would load http://clubs.uci.edu/myclub/join.php.

Domain forwarding

This option will replace the domain name with the true location of the requested page/image. For example, if I type myclubuci.com in my browser, it will forward me to clubs.uci.edu/myclub (and show the clubs.uci.edu address in the address bar).

Can our website display ads or link to external websites?

Can we sell ads or have commercial "affiliate" banners?

  • No, this is a violation of UC Irvine's Computer and Network Use Policy which states "Using an account for any activity that is commercial in nature not related to work at UCI, such as consulting services, typing services, developing software for sale, advertising products, and/or other commercial enterprises for personal financial gain."

Can we link to external websites, commercial or otherwise?

  • This depends on the context and is on a case by case basis. If the links are relevant to the club and are not considered advertising it is allowed. If the link is questionable it is best to contact the CORE Office and have the link reviewed.

Examples:

  • Allowed: A pre-health organization linking to the American Medical Association. A fraternity/sorority linking to it's national organization.
  • Not Allowed: A computer related club linking to a website in which it receives compensation for sales referred to the website.

What is our organizations' website address?

How do you delete stubborn files?

  • Although rare, there have been occasions when an account manager has downloaded something and uploaded it to the CORE server and then can no longer delete it. If this happens please contact the CORE Office and we will remove it for you.

How do I get my club's website up and running?

FTP & Server

Does the CORE server have case-sensitive web addresses and paths?

  • Yes, web addresses and paths are case-sensitive.

Why does our CORE Account password no longer work?

  • CORE Accounts may be shut down if we suspect someone is trying to break into your account. We do this to protect all users because a malicious hacker can potentially wreak havoc on the system and damage other users' files if given access and opportunity. If your password no longer works, just visit or call us and it can be reset after we notify you of the possible attempted attack.

How can we change our CORE Account password?

  • Passwords can be changed in person at the Office of the Dean of Students by the group's sponsor or account manager or fill out an online application form [1]

Is the server always available or are there "down" times?

  • Usually, the server is running 24 hours/day, 7 days/week without significant interruption. From time to time we re-boot the server to re-set memory and install minor system updates. At this time we do not have regularly-scheduled down times but we will try to post a warning on the website and notify users if a significant problem or event occurs and we have to be off-line for more than a few minutes.
  • We maintain 2 mailing lists for outages and announcements. All CORE Account sponsors, managers, and the group accounts are automatically added to these lists. Sponsors and managers can be removed if the person is no longer in the role. The CORE Accounts are required to be on both lists.
    • coreaccounts-announce@clubs.uci.edu
    • coreaccounts-outage@uci.edu

Why won't Frontpage or other FTP applications connect properly?

Some auto-ftp features of web designing software may not work and we're not sure why. Microsoft's Frontpage had a problem with filenames and paths on our previous server but we don't know how different products will work with this new server. Report the problem to us if you cannot figure it out so we can warn other users. We only officially support the dedicated ftp programs in our mentioned in our downloads section.

One user's 3rd party ftp program would not directly replace files but could still delete old files and then upload new files. Another user was behind a firewall that was inhibiting access.

Can our club have Telnet or Shell Access via SSH?

By default, all accounts can connect via secure shell (SSH). Telnet is not allowed.

PHP & MySql

Where can I learn about PHP or SQL?

How are MySQL and PHP related?

MySQL is a database system that can be used for information storage. On the CORE server, a MySQL database is primarily used by advanced web developers to store information from web forms, like sign-ups, rosters, and bulletin boards / forums boards such as this one. PHP, on the other hand, is a scripting language. On the CORE server, it is typically used to process web form information. PHP can be used to take web form data and insert it into a MySQL database, or it can be used to e-mail the information to a specified e-mail address. PHP and MySQL work well together, but they are not dependent upon each other and other technologies can be used for web forms and scripting, too.

Why can't I connect to the MySQL database?

Well, first check to see if you can log in to the MySQL db using PHPMYADMIN from the link on the UCI CORE Server home page. If you cannot log in from PHPMYADMIN, then the login and password you are trying to use is not what we used when we set up the MySQL db for you... please notify us and we will try to correct that for you (in person visit is best, but e-mail from your personal UCI e-mail account is okay).

If you can log in, then your login/password is fine and there is probably an error in your code. I had a problem with invisible characters that was easy enough to fix but took me a long time to figure out that there was nothing wrong with the code, per se, but there were some invisible characters in it that were causing a PARSE ERROR. Look for things like that, too.

Other

Contact Info

Can anyone volunteer to help at CORE Accounts

Yes. Any member of the UCI community can contribute, especially members of clubs and organizations. We need help with correspondence and running this forum, administration (creation/management of accounts, documentation, etc.), and development (new services, updates, cool scripts/web solutions, resource building, etc.). Volunteer web designers can help clubs and organizations with little or no web experience develop their sites. Volunteer commitments are approximately 3-5 hours per week for 1 quarter. Units (1.3 P/NP) are available for those interested.

Active volunteers and independent UCI contributors are always welcome. Projects can be anything of value to clubs and organizations. Below is a list of some ideas on how you can contribute if you do not already have something in mind...

  • active volunteer - assist with the daily operation of the server and accounts
  • developer - help develop new or existing services, e.g. php, MySQL, JavaScript, java, perl, etc.
  • forums moderator - assist with the reading/monitoring/answering of posts
  • resource builder - help build a library of resources for users, e.g. graphics library, scripts library, tips library, helpful site-building links, etc.
  • forums staff writer - write articles, suggestions, and tips for users
  • CORE Website Manager - help with administration of the forums, and maintenance/production of documentation pages, helpful downloads, site organization and maintenance, articles and news, etc.
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