How To's

House Website Server

ResCom will host a static HTML website for each house. For security purposes, no server-side scripting or databases are installed. Webmasters may find these free services useful: photo hosting by Flickr, collaborative document editing by Google Docs, video hosting by YouTube.

Resident Heads, Resident Masters, and IHC/HARC advisers may nominate a webmaster with this PDF form.

Server Information

The ResCom houses.rh webserver is a Redhat Linux machine accessible through SSH and SFTP. ResCom recommends these secure protocols over telnet, rsh, and ftp.


  • domainname --fqdn
    • houses.rh.uchicago.edu
  • domainname --ip-address
    • 128.135.221.234
  • uname --kernel-name --kernel-release --machine --operating-system
    • Linux 2.6.18-53.1.14.el5 i686 GNU/Linux
  • openssl version
    • OpenSSL 0.9.8b 04 May 2006
  • bash --version
    • GNU bash, version 3.1.17(1)-release (i686-redhat-linux-gnu)
  • vim --version
    • VIM - Vi IMproved 7.0 (2006 May 7, compiled May 4 2007 05:52:52)

Sorry Emacs fans.

Connection Instructions

ResCom recommends ssh (or scp, sftp, etc.) for all connections, whether or not you handle sensitive data, in order to protect your login information. Do not use telnet, ftp, rsh, or rcp.

*NIX operating systems, including Mac OS X, generally come with a suite of text-mode ssh clients:

  • ssh: secure interactive shell access
  • scp: secure file transfer
  • sftp: secure remote file management, including transfer

For more information on the uses of these programs, type man ssh (scp, sftp, etc.) at the command prompt (Terminal for Mac OS X). Here is an example session:

$ ssh user@houses.rh.uchicago.edu

The dollar sign was not typed; it is part of the command prompt. The syntax is ssh username@hostname, where username will default to your username on the local machine if not supplied, and hostname is only as much as is needed to specify a machine. While logging in from a computer on campus, houses.rh is enough.

The authenticity of host 'houses.rh.uchicago.edu
(128.135.221.234)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is a1:9a:9f:bc:6e:0c:98:07:58:6e:52:ad:37:ba:9f:17.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes

This appears only at the first connection from one computer to another. You must type out yes in full.

Warning: Permanently added 'houses.rh.uchicago.edu' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.

This is usually not a security risk, despite the dire wording. Give your password when prompted. ResCom recommends that your first connection be by SSH so you can change your password with the passwd command.

Windows has no native recognition of these protocols; its users will need to download third-party programs such as the Putty suite or WinSCP.

Shell Access

Webmasters have shell access to houses.rh via their preferred shells. You may change your preference with the chsh command. NSIT's UNIX tutorials may be of use.

"Executable" Directories

UNIX file permissions come in three types: read, write, and execute. For a regular file, execute permission means permission to run as a program, but for a directory, execute permission actually means permission to list the directory's contents.

Do not revoke a directory's execute permission.