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CSG FAQ

Q: How do I control the content of the auto-generated people pages on the web?

Every user with a CS account has an auto-generated web page with some basic information in the IUCS People Directory. This includes various bits of information about the user garnered from a variety of sources. Please see the note at the bottom of the page if you would like to have yourself excluded from this system.

Here are ways you can control this information. Keep in mind that the people pages are auto-generated nightly so changes will not go into effect until the day after the change.

  • Photo - If you have a picture in the department photo database, it will appear on this page. If you want to submit a photo, or update your current photo, please see the photo FAQ.

  • Real Name - Your real name is obtained from what is called the finger information (or gcos field) in your unix passwd file entry. In order to change this, you will need to use the web-based account management page.

  • Hyplan/Homepage Link - If you have a hyplan/homepage on the CS department web server, the link to this page will be listed. Please see the hyplan information page for more information.

  • Résumé Link - If you have a résumé on the CS department web server, the link to this page will be listed. Please see the hyplan information page for more information.

  • Position - Your account has what is called a primary group that is used to classify your account into a number of high-level categories such as faculty, staff, and student. There are also listings of current students that are used to further classify the students into graduate and undergraduate students. This information is not changeable by the user so let us know if this information is not correct.

  • Office - Your office number is also part of your finger information so use the web-based account management page to change it.

  • Address - Members of the faculty and staff groups will have a mailing address listed that will be, by default, the mailing address of the CS department. If you want a different address listed, just create a file in your unix home directory called .web.address that contains your address. The address should be on a single line and the file must be world readable.

  • Office Phone - Your office phone number is also part of your finger information so use the web-based account management page to change or remove it.

  • Fax Phone - Members of the faculty and staff groups will have a fax number listed that will be, by default, the fax number of the CS department. If you want a different fax number listed, just create a file in your unix home directory called .web.fax that contains the fax number. The fax number should be on a single line and the file must be world readable.

  • Home Phone - Your home phone number is also part of your finger information so use the web-based account management page to change or remove it.

  • Email Address - By default, your email address will be of the form username@cs.indiana.edu. Note, however, that we are using techniques in encoding the email address to prevent spammers from easily obtaining your address. If you want to change the listed email address just create a file in your unix home directory called .web.email that contains the email address you want to use. This file should contain just a single line with the email address of the form username@domain and the file must be world readable. If you don't want an email address listed, just put the word "unlisted" in your .web.email file.

If you want to have yourself completely excluded from this system so that you don't have an auto-generated people page, you can do this by simply creating a file named .web.exclude in your CS home directory. Not that in order for this to work, the web server must be able to read your home directory to see that this file exists. This can be done most simply by making your home directory what is called world-searchable. So, for example, you can have yourself excluded from this system by running the following:

touch ~/.web.exclude
chmod go+x ~/.

Please note that this has the potential to open up your home directory to other users. See the Understanding Unix File Permissions Help Page if you need help understanding the implications of doing this.




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