Server Hosting

Resnet provides web hosting for various ResLife programs. Hosting services include the Apache server, PHP, MySQL databases, forums, calendars, and FTP access. We currently host websites for the Residence Halls Association (RHA) and the National Residence Hall Honorary (NRHH), and we are currently setting up hosting services for a new ResLife online community.

We utilize these same hosting resources to provide our own community presence and online forums. Our front page news, FAQ, online polls, and support forums are driven through the PHPBB2 software and are the first thing that any user who registers on the network or utilizes one of our labs sees. All of our staff actively monitors the forums for new questions posted by residents and we are quick to respond to any activity.

There to be many benefits to these forums. Foremost, rather than residents getting frustrated that we aren't answering the phones when they call at 1:00AM, they have an outlet to post their issues and our employees will see and respond to the posts any time of the day or night. There have been issues in the past years with residents acting out inappropriately, and since we have setup the online forum things "in the real world" have been quite calm. Now when someone is upset they post a message online instead of vandalizing something or leaving a nasty message hand written and taped to the door.

Typical forum activity falls into three categories: policy questions, network performance, and lab support. People ask a lot of questions about the bandwidth limitation policy of Resnet, which states that residents are not allow to download more than 5GB and upload more than 2GB *per week*. Those limits were originally given to control P2P sharing, and were very effective in identifying abusers, but we have been working with the Packetshaper to actually prevent abuse rather than detect it.

Issues with network performance are usually caused by the Packetshaper not classifying a game as a "good packet" and getting a lower priority, which causes it to be delayed during peak loads. I provide a list of "accelerated games" on the forums and ask that residents report which games they want to be faster in the forum. We then reconfigure the Packetshaper to recognize these new ports and servers as game traffic and the resident is usually much happier.