If you've been using web.ics to publish content, you should be aware that we're replacing the old machine with a new one. The software is similar so you may have no problems at all. But it's possible you may be using something we haven't tried yet, so it's important that you test your old pages on the new system.
All your files are accessible from both machines, so you don't need to copy anything from one to the other. That means if your content is just HTML pages and pictures, you're probably all set. You should take a look anyway, but you probably won't see any differences.
The popular scripting languages are there (Perl, PHP, sh, python, ruby) and can be used for CGI. The versions are slightly different, and some add-ons may not have been added-on yet. You should test any CGI you have to look for issues.
The permissions scheme is the same, so if you've done something that affects the access list on a file, you may need to run webfix. But if things are working on the old machine, they should work on the new one too.
The new machine is testweb.ics.purdue.edu and the old one is web.ics.purdue.edu. After testing is complete, we'll change the name of the new machine to web.ics.purdue.edu and get rid of the old one, so don't worry about changing links to your site. For now, they'll still work on the old system, and after the cut-over, they'll go to the new one.
Some software on the two machines are different versions. The main one, which can affect your use of .htaccess, is that the new machine is Apache 2.4 and the old one is 2.2. We've also changed the recommended authentication method if you have any pages that were using TLTlogin.
All connections to the new machine are upgraded to https. That means they're encrypted and can't be spied on. It's a safety feature that many popular websites like Facebook have had for a while, but it's a change that may cause some issues in your site. If you use full URLs for links, you should consider using relative ones (which work better anyway) or changing the protocol from "http:" to "https:".
Here's the basic testing procedure for your web pages:
These files should work the same on both servers. (Make sure you have run webfix.) If things aren't working, it's likely because of your .htaccess files if you have any.
If you've installed an application like WordPress in your account, you probably want to update it on the old server first before trying it on the new one. New versions may deal with the new system better.
If a perl script doesn't work on the new server, we're probably missing an add-on module. If it's one of general interest, let us know and we'll get it on there.
The versions and capabilities of the PHP on both servers are very similar. If you find any new problems on the new server, let us know.
Do you have any .htaccess files? Some directives have changed between Apache 2.2 and 2.4 and may need to be rewritten. You can try commenting things out of the .htaccess file to see if this is the problem. The most common things that will cause trouble are Allow and Deny directives.
Most commonly, these are used to limit access to part of your website to certain people.
If you are using TLTlogin, you'll have a line like:
AuthType TLTloginin your .htaccess file. You should replace that line with these lines:
<IfModule auth_cas_module>
AuthType CAS
</IfModule>
<IfModule !auth_cas_module>
AuthType TLTlogin
</IfModule>
That will make it use the new CAS authentication if it's present,
else, it'll use TLTlogin. Now it should work on both the old and
new servers.