Understanding your personal share on Datastore

Your personal share on Datastore allows you to privately store files as well as host a personal web page.

All students, faculty, staff, and retirees are allotted 1GB of disk space on Datastore. For more information, see 1127: What is my disk quota on Datastore?.

How to Access Datastore

To access your personal share on Datastore, you must map network drives. For more information, refer to:

You can access your personal share on Datastore from any computer with an Internet connection. When you are using a computer off campus, you must first establish a VPN connection.

Store Files on Datastore

You may use your personal share on Datastore to store files or documents or to host a personal web page. You must comply with the University's Appropriate Use Policy. You may not store copyrighted files if doing so would constitute copyright infringement.

Acceptable content

A research paper from your class
Pictures from your vacation
Online portfolios and/or résumé
A web project for your class

Unacceptable content

Pornographic images or video
Copyrighted images, music, or video that you do not legally own
Anything from which you financially profit

You are the only person who can create and modify files in your personal share on Datastore. Files stored on your share that are not in the "web" directory are private and can only be accessed by you. Files stored in the "web" directory on your personal share are publicly accessible via your website.

Your Personal Website

Your personal web address is http://my.ilstu.edu/~yourULID. For example, Reggie Redbird's ULID is rrredbi, so his website is located at http://my.ilstu.edu/~rrredbi. (The little squiggle before your ULID is called a tilde and is located to the left of the 1 key on your keyboard.)

Files placed in the "web" directory of your personal share on Datastore are publicly accessible via your web address. Any files not located within the "web" directory are private and cannot be accessed through the Web.

How do I create a web page?

Use an HTML editor to make web pages. If you are a novice, we suggest using a program like Microsoft Web Expressions or Adobe Dreamweaver. These applications have tools and options similar to those found in Microsoft Word.

Your home page file must be named index.html (recommended), welcome.html, or default.html. After you create your web page, copy your web files (including images) into the "web" directory in your personal share on Datastore. Your website will be available immediately thereafter.

Why do I get a "404 Not Found" error on my website?

The "404 Not Found" error is caused by one of two problems:

Your home page is not be named correctly.
Your website files are not be located in the "web" folder on your Datastore share.
Refer to 1147: Error: "404 Not Found" when viewing personal web page.

What web technologies are available for my personal website?

You can host web page files that are created using HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). These types of files have a .html file extension. You can also display picture files like .jpg, .png, or .gif. You can link to any type of file.

You can also use any language the runs client side, like JavaScript. Server-side scripting languages like PHP, ASP, CGI, etc. are not enabled on personal shares. Personal shares do not have access to any databases.

Article Information

Article ID: 1469
Last Review: Jan 10, 2009
Type: Article