Frequently Asked Questions

JSTOR is a library database and can be accessed here

Please see the following page regarding the universities policy on the use of access counters: http://www.dur.ac.uk/its/services/web/publishing/policy/counters/

It is not possible for users to make their own CGI files, for security reasons the University does not install user CGI scripts. For more information please see:

• http://www.dur.ac.uk/its/services/web/publishing/policy/cgi/

Microsoft® Active Server Pages (ASP) is a server-side scripting environment that you can use to create interactive Web pages and build powerful Web applications. When the server receives a request for an ASP file, it processes server-side scripts contained in the file to build the Web page that is sent to the browser. It is not possible to publish such pages in public_html, as the web server is not configured to process such scripts.

We do not offer the facility for student societies to restrict access to WWW pages.

All journals are now accessed through the libraries OPAC system in conjunction with an ITS username and password, we no longer use Athens. As soon as you enter a vailid ITS username and password you are identified as a Durham user and will be able to access any journals as though you were based in Durham. More information can be found here: http://www.dur.ac.uk/library/inf/ejournal.htm

The way that the University ftp servers are configured requires that the IP address of the machine trying to connect and the hostname of the machine trying to connect match. This configuration is to prevent users trying to access our servers using spoofed IP addresses. When a connection is attempted our ftp server will attempt to do a reverse lookup of the IP address to ensure that the hostname matches that assigned by the ISP. If this lookup cannot take place because the IP address and hostname do not appear in the ISPs reverse dns lookup table then the FTP server will reject the connection.

One method of connecting to your J drive that is not affected by this problem would be to map your J drive:
http://www.dur.ac.uk/its/lan/connect_jdrive/

In order to speed up web browsing, web browsers are designed to download web pages store them locally on your machine in an area called "cache". When you visit the same page for a second time, the browser speeds up display time by loading the page locally from cache instead of downloading everything again.

This can cause problems when trying to register for our En Suite Online Service (ESOL) as the registration page may not appear.

To clear the cache in commmonly used browsers:

Internet Explorer

1. Open Internet Explorer
2. Click on Tools | Internet Options
3. Click on the General tab
4. Under Browsing history click the Delete button and choose what items you would like to delete
5. Click the Delete then the OK button

Chrome

1. From the Menu Toolbar select History or press Ctrl + H on your keyboard
2. Click the Clear all browsing data button

Firefox

1. Click Firefox | Options
2. Click the Advanced tab
3. Click on the Clear Now button
4. Click Ok
5. Exit and relaunch the browser

Safari

1. Open Safari
2. Click on the Safari menu
3. Select Empty Cache
4. Click Empty on the Are you sure message box
5. Exit and relaunch Safari

The Library have produced an online guide on printing, viewing and saving the exam papers online. It is available at: http://www.dur.ac.uk/library/use/guides/exam.pdf

The OCLC Firstsearch database can be accessed via the Library Website: http://library.dur.ac.uk/record=b2044227a

For each access to our WWW server, an entry is written to a "log file" which grows to about 90Mb (approximately 900 000) lines each week. Although each line contains the IP address of the computer accesssing the server, the WWW server does not know the username of the user accessing the server. This log file is not visible to users because of concerns about privacy. Each week, a summary of the data in this log file is written to a "summary file". This file includes information about how many times each page has been accessed. Following suggestions that this file has become too big, we now split the summary file into a separate "weekly file" for each user.

There is general information about these weekly files at http://www.dur.ac.uk/Admin. The weekly files are indexed at: http://www.dur.ac.uk/Admin/userlogs/mailname. To see the weekly files of pages belonging to the username dxy3abc, access: http://www.dur.ac.uk/Admin/userlogs/~dxy3abc

To create a WWW home page at Durham please refer to the following web page: http://www.dur.ac.uk/its/services/web/publishing/ and also to ITS Guide 171 - Introduction to Dreamweaver

Please refer to the following web page http://www.dur.ac.uk/its/services/web/publishing/utilities/restrict/

In Mozilla mail under the list of mail folders, right click the news host "nntphost.dur.ac.uk". Chose the option - "subscribe...". In the dialogue box which appears you will see is list of newsgroups to which you can subscribe, it can be quite difficult to find a particular newsgroup so there is a search box to help locate the required newsgroup. Select the required groups and click subscribe.

There are some FAQs set up by the Library for distance learners and remote access: http://www.dur.ac.uk/library/faq/?faqcategory=115

A selection of the more popular guides and info sheets can be obtained from the IT Service Desk, all of the documents are available online:

• Guides
• InfoSheets

We do not permit users to run their own CGI scripts.

Running CGI scripts on a WWW server can lead to security and resource problems. The resource problem is that a CGI script could consume large amounts of CPU-time, or eat up space in /tmp. And, unless the CGI script is written with security in mind, anyone visiting a WWW page could fill in responses that allow the visitor to run their own Unix commands on the WWW server, and possibly compromise the machine.

If we were to allow CGI scripts, this would require a member of the ITS to vet scripts, and to see whether they would cause problems. We do not have the resource to do this.We do have a script for collecting information from a user. ITS information regarding WWW publishing can be found at: http://www.dur.ac.uk/its/services/web/publishing/ while material on web forms can be found at: http://www.dur.ac.uk/its/services/web/publishing/utilities/forms/

There you will find a link to a page which tells you about the template.