Webserver use, configuration and management
Unit WUCM1
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Webserver use, configuration and managementUnit WUCM1 |
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The exam this year was generally done well with an average mark of 58% and only 3 people failed out of 45 who took it. In 2 of the failures, ability with English was clearly an issue.
There is a clear correlation between lecture attendance and results. People who attended 9 or more lectures averaged 8% more than those who did not.
A nice easy question about requirements to start off!
A small number of people who answered this question displayed an inability to distinguish between "identify that requirement" (which is what was asked) and "implement that requirement" (which wasn't asked).
Some answers related specifically to the requirements of the website. In this scenario, it is much more likely that the customer's requirements relate to their business.
Another problem was giving a non-functional requirement when the question specifically asked for a functional one.
Q2 was about corporate style sheets.
In part b, many students misinterpreted the question as being about what should be in the "style" of the site. It actually wanted some thoughts about the "profile" of the users – what age, gender they might be, what motivations they might have to visit the site, what they might expect to find, etc.
Similarly, anyone who answered about the specific requirements of a group of users had misread the question.
This was about the DocumentRoot and ServerName directives.
An occasional mistake was to misread the latter as ServerRoot.
Many people didn't know what the ServerName directive is for.
This was about security policy.
There were some obvious but good answers to this, but a few people talked about implementation mechanisms rather than policies.
In the second part, the most common problem was not giving specific examples, as required by the question.
This question was about error management, and specifically how you would design a good scheme. Many students ignored the bit about design and simply specified the default response that a server would typically give.
Another aspect to note here is that it is usually not possible for a server to know whether a user has requested a page not in its correct directory, or whether a URL has been mistyped. Suggestions that different error messages could be given in these situations are a bit optimistic!
Although this was apparently a question in three parts, careful reading of it showed that it really only needed one integrated answer. Only 1 student did this!
Q6 was about broken links.
Several people believe that when you click on a broken link, the web server delivers a blank page (try it and see!).
A common answer was just to describe what the user sees. As IT specialists, you ought also to be thinking about what happens behind the scenes to cause that.
The second part asked for a discussion of the tools and techniques used to address the issue. Needless to say, there were some answers that did not refer to any tools or techniques! The question asked for specifics, but the majority of answers were generic.
This question was about setting up Apache configuration to restrict access to a particular folder to authorised users.
This should have been free marks to everyone, but common problems included:
A significant number of people scored 0 on this. Perhaps they had neither attended the relevant lecture, nor attempted the relevant practical.
Virtually everyone chose this as one of the optional questions to answer.
Most people who answered this question said that emailing a new password to the user was the best way of solving the problem of forgotten passwords. The discussion of whether this was a good approach or not, and whether other information should be used to verify the identity of the user, was variable.
Some completely infeasible solutions were suggested – I rank having a user ring a call centre to have their password reset as among these: how many e-commerce sites do you know who do this?
Also, asking the user to give their mother's maiden name isn't very useful. Since this is not one of the pieces of information the website holds on its users, how would they know whether the answer was correct?
Only a minority of people attempted this question.
In the first part, there was considerable confusion between the ways of passing data and the HTTP methods that use them (i.e. GET, POST, etc.).
In the second part, the most common fault was not providing the steps in sufficient detail.
In the third part, we had some novel and innovative environment variables mentioned that are not part of CGI. Some from PHP crept in here!
This question was about log files.
The first part was about using tools as a substitute for manual inspection. Most answers were reasonable except for those that didn't mention tools!
The second part was about misuse of log files. Some of the abuses suggested here were quite imaginative in that they used information that couldn't possibly be in a log file!
The third part was about using log files as evidence in legal proceedings. The question asked for an answer that outlined an example situation where this might sensibly occur. I'm pleased to report that most examples were "sensible".
Question 11 tackled domain names from two perspectives.
Generally the first part about choosing and registering a domain name was answered well, though a few people skipped detail about the registration process.
The second part asked for the typical series of steps associated with DNS lookup. This was answered very badly with only one or two students able to provide the level of detail that was in the lecture notes.
Poor handwriting. A few scripts had sentences that were illegible. Fragments that couldn't be deciphered with normal effort were marked as 0.
Only a minority of students followed the instruction on the answer book to commence each question on a new page.
Many students ignored the instruction on the answer book to insert the numbers of the questions answered on the front cover.
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Last updated by Prof Jim Briggs of the School of Computing at the University of Portsmouth |
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