A Self-Managed website is one that is not maintained and supported by OIT. When choosing to build a website on your own, you'll need to take into account development and design standards, hosting, and maintenance.
Development and Design Standards
The person(s) building your website should follow:
Hosting a Self-Managed Drupal Site
There are three options for hosting a Self-Managed Drupal website at the University.
- Acquia Cloud Hosting Provider
Host your website with the cloud hosting provider. Read more about an Acquia Self-Managed Cloud-based option for a website. - OIT Departmental cPanel
Host your website on Departmental cPanel. This service is not intended for high-traffic websites. OIT cannot assist with Drupal-related configuration issues. You must apply security upgrades on your own, as they are released by Drupal, to your cPanel site. - OIT Virtual Hosting Service
Host your website on the OIT Virtual Hosting Service. This service includes both a self-managed mode where customer completely builds the server and would be responsible for all security as well as a managed mode in which OIT would build the server and patch the OS while leaving application security and configuration to the customer.
Launching a Site
- Before launching a website, you should contact the OIT Help Desk at least 10 business days in advance of your planned launch date so that URLs and domain names can be coordinated (if needed).
- Follow the documentation for launching a site hosted by a third party service.
SSL Certificates (Digital Certificates for Web Servers)
Your website will need to work for site visitors who attempt to access your site with an HTTPS address.
- OIT can issue a digital certificate for your website through the InCommon Federation. The OIT Knowledge Base provides more information about digital certificates, and there is an SSL Certficate Request form for sites on University-authorized hosting platforms.
- Acquia provides an online tool for generating a Certificate Signing Request and instructions for managing SSL certificates on the Acquia Cloud Hosting platform.
- The OIT-managed cPanel environment also has a web interface for generating a CSR and managing your SSL certificates.
Security and Maintenance
- Security of your site is your responsibility.
- You should have a maintenance contract or plan in place to ensure that your website's core Drupal code, modules, and system are patched.
- To enable CAS-authentication on your site, follow the instructions at: Princeton CAS Implementation (Princeton login required).
- Use the Drupal Administration and Security Guide for more instruction.
Need Additional Help?
WDS offers a Vendor Consulting Service to help you manage out-sourcing your Drupal project. This is a for-fee service.