About website registration & the hosting portal
Registration purpose
The information collected in the registry allows us to:
- Communicate upcoming strategies related to web governance and web accessibility.
- Configure campus firewalls to enhance cybersecurity standards at University of Maryland (UMD).
- Notify site contacts about reports of problems, complaints or IT security incidents.
- Automatically provision web accessibility testing tools.
- Better inventory of umd.edu namespace usage.
NOTE: In the future, unregistered websites may no longer be accessible from the Internet.
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Sites that need to register
You must register if:
- If your site ends in umd.edu.
- This includes websites hosted off-campus or on virtual servers hosting multiple sites.
- If your URL is using a UMD IP address. These are the public UMD IP ranges:
- 128.8.xxx.xxx
- 129.2.xxx.xxx
- 206.196.160.xxx
- 206.196.184.xxx
- 206.196.186.xxx
- If your website or application use campus SSO/authentication services
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How to register a website
There are currently two different ways to register your website:
- Use the DIT Website Registry.
- Certain service requests will create a website registration record (or update one) for you, including:
- SSO and Enterprise Directory Integration Request form
- Active Directory Service Account Request form
After completing registration using either method, your entry will be visible from the Hosting Portal. You can update details and request new services from the Hosting Portal.
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Using the website registry form
- The Website Registry form is for websites only. You cannot register a desktop application using this method.
- You should complete one Website Registry form for each environment you host (e.g. itsupport.umd.edu and dev-itsupport.umd.edu would be separate entries).
- Related websites (e.g. Dev, QA & Prod URLs for the same product) can be grouped by using the same name in the "Website Name" field.
- After completing registration, your entry will be visible from the Hosting Portal. You can update details and request new services from the Hosting Portal.
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Using a service requests form (SSO & AD)
- The service request forms allows you to register a new application, or update an existing registration.
- You can also register a desktop application that is using services via these forms. You cannot register a desktop application from the standard Website Registry form.
- The service request forms allows you to register multiple environments (e.g. Dev, QA, Prod) during a single request.
- The authentication protocol you select will generally be recorded and saved as part of your website registry record.
- During an update, any new authentication protocol requested will replace the existing authentication protocol for all environments. If this is not the desired outcome, indicate that in the "Purpose" field of your request.
- After completing registration, your entry will be visible from the Hosting Portal. You can update details and request new services from the Hosting Portal.
- Certain options on each form do not create or update a web registry item:
- On the SSO form, selecting the "Attribute retrieval only, no authentication/user sign-on" option will not create or update a web registry item
- On the Active Directory form, de-selecting the "User Sign-On or SSO for Application" option will not create or update a web registry item
- For more information about using the SSO form, see the article about the SSO and Enterprise Directory Integration Request form.
- For more information about using the Active Directory form, see the article about Active Directory
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Registration & Hosting FAQ's
What is an alias URL (CNAME)?
A Canonical Name Record (CNAME) is a type of resource record in the Domain Name System (DNS), that specifies that one domain name is an alias of another canonical domain name. For example, the website 'coolstuff.com' may have an 'A record' that points to an IP address such as '123.456.789'. The full URL (including the 'www') may be a CNAME record that points from 'www.coolstuff.com' to 'coolstuff.com'. CNAME record aliases do not point to IP addresses directly.
Remember that while www.coolstuff.com and coolstuff.com are the same site, the separate development environment (maybe 'dev.coolstuff.com') is a different site and should be registered separately.
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What is the difference between the Modify Alias URLs and Register Existing Website options?
When adding an alias to an existing website, select the website from the list and click Modify Alias URLs. This adds new alias to the list of existing aliases. All aliases share the same record, including ownership and SSO/authentication information.
When you click Register Existing Website you create a new website record that is separate from the others. For example, a development site (e.g. dev-itsupport.umd.edu) might not have the same SSO/authentication configured as the production site, or may have a different set of owners.
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Do I have to register sites hosted outside of campus by a third-party host?
All affiliated UMD domain names must be registered. This includes websites hosted outside of campus by third-parties, such as DIT's itsupport.umd.edu website.
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I use a domain name to SSH into servers in our department from home, but they don't run websites. Should I still register?
No, only the domain names that host websites should be registered.
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I have servers that run as many as 20 virtual hosts. The hosts may come and go as a research group or student requests a web server for a fixed period. Will registering IP addresses of the servers that handle multiple virtual hosts be sufficient?
Each virtual host that runs a website must be registered individually.
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Renewal FAQ's
Do registered websites need to be renewed? How often?
Yes, many registered websites have an expiration date set that will trigger a renewal process. Sites which do not have an expiration date populated yet will not expire. Most sites need to renewed once per year, renewal reminders will start 30 days before expiration.
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How do I renew my site?
- Approximately 30 days before your site is scheduled to expire, all site owners should begin to receive renewal reminders.
- Any owner can confirm or decline the renewal.
- Renewal can be confirmed via the hosting dashboard, or from following the Renew link on the hosting detail page. Multiple sites can be renewed from the dashboard view. Renewal can also be confirmed from the default My Approvals screen along with all other approval requests in ServiceNow.
- If declined, the site will remain active until it expires. If renewal is declined unintentionally, a service "incident" must be opened to reverse the action of declining. Disabled sites will continue to be displayed on the dashboard page.
- Upon expiration, the site will be disabled. This may not happen immediately, but once the site is expired it could stop working at any time.
- Once the site stops working (expired/disabled), a service "incident" must be opened to reverse the action of disabling.
- Some renewal schedules can have separate deletion procedures configured. Deletion is generally a non-reversible step separate from expiration/disabling. Depending on the configuration:
- The site may not have a deletion procedure configured - it will remain in an expired/disabled status
- The site may be deleted immediately upon expiration - this is uncommon
- The site may go into a waiting period after expiration, but before deletion. If deletion is not desired, a service "incident" must be opened to prevent permanent deletion.
I can't renew my site from the hosting portal?
Some types of sites have their own renewal process that is different from the default hosting portal renewal process, and cannot be renewed from the hosting portal.
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