Information Technology

Students using laptop computer

Overview

The College of Chemistry no longer has its own Information Technology unit. Desktop support, Campus accounts (bMail/bCal/Box, etc), Telecom and device support are available from Campus Shared Services (CSS). Software licenses are described below.

Contact CSS IT via email, web, or phone

CalNet ID Activations & Cards

If you need help with your Calnet ID or need to make guest accounts, see https://calnetweb.berkeley.edu/

If you need a Cal1Card, see https://cal1card.berkeley.edu/

Molecular Graphics and Computation Facility

The College of Chemistry has a scientific computing facility called the Molecular Graphics and Computational Facility  (http://mgcf.cchem.berkeley.edu)

Many scientific software packages are available to MGCF users along with HPC servers, training and consulting. The MGCF also has a poster printing service.

Network

Campus WiFi (wireless) options

Please review the following information concerning day-to-day WiFi and Campus guest WiFi options: http://ist.berkeley.edu/airbears

Campus DHCP service

To connect to the Campus wired network, the Ethernet address for the device must be registered via the Campus DHCP service, which requires an active CalNet ID & pass-phrase. Follow the steps below to obtain the Ethernet address and to register your device:

How to obtain the hardware address for your computer

Windows Vista/Win7/Win8/Win10
From a DOS prompt >ipconfig /all
Physical address: (xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx)

Mac OS X 10.10/10.11
From Finder >Apple Menu >about this Mac >Click More Info >System profiler:
Network, Built-in Ethernet (en0), Ethernet address. (xx.xx.xx.xx.xx.xx)

How to register Devices

Review information at  https://security.berkeley.edu/services/netreg/documentation/register-dev...

Contact netreg@berkeley.edu for any questions, or additional support.

Computational Chemistry

See the Molecular Graphics and Computational Facility website.

Policies

Minimum standards of networked devices that are connected to the Campus network

      • All accounts must have strong passwords. Strong passwords should have at least 8 characters and include at least 2 character types (e.g. lower case letters, capitals, numbers, punctuation). This is particularly true for "administrator", "root" or other system level accounts.
      • All Windows PCs and all Macs should be running current anti-virus software and the virus definitions should update daily.
      • All systems should be updated regularly. This applies to the operating system and applications.
      • Peer to peer file sharing is not allowed in the College.

Campus Policies

Licensed Software

Software licenses for many programs are available. Many of these are paid for by UC Berkeley, or by the College of Chemistry or College of Engineering, and some are paid for by other consortia of researchers and departments. Depending on the funding structure, some of the programs listed below will require contributions from researchers.

Adobe

ChemDraw
This software is paid for by the College of Chemistry on behalf of campus users. It requires a yearly renewal, usually in May/June. http://mgcf.cchem.berkeley.edu/mgcf/chemdraw.html

LabVIEW
The College of Engineering has paid for a site license. However, they expect College of Chemistry users to contribute to that cost. If you download from this link, then your research group will be asked to contribute a cost share proportional to the number of downloads made by members of your group. Do not download unless your research group is willing to contribute to the cost share. This cost share is accounted annually. Currently, only the Leone and Yang groups are contributing to this cost share. Other research groups in the College of Chemistry have licenses for their individual groups but are encouraged to join the College of Engineering consortium when they are due for renewal since it is more cost effective for everyone.

Microsoft Office

Matlab

How do I get Matlab? See http://software.berkeley.edu/matlab

Do I have to pay for Matlab? Matlab licensing is paid for by a consortium of campus units. Undergraduates using Matlab for coursework are not required to pay for Matlab when used on their personally-owned computers. The College of Chemistry expects researchers to pay for their share of the cost of Matlab. These costs are prepaid by the College of Chemistry to the consortium. Campus will notify the College of Chemistry Recharge Team of any researchers downloading Matlab, and then the Recharge Team will contact the PI to recover that cost.

Mathematica

See: https://software.berkeley.edu/mathematica

Research Group Websites

PASSWORD RESET

If you need to reset your research group site password please send a request to: kmcd@berkeley.edu     

Research Group Websites

There are many options for developing websites, and it is up to each Research Group to decide which direction is best for them. Listed below are some of the most common choices made within the college. 

College Hosting for research group websites

The College server provides hosting for Research Group websites, however each group must design, develop, and maintain their own website.  Anyone within the research group can take on the webmaster responsibilities, or the group can hire their own web developer. Due to security concerns, the college server cannot host Drupal, WordPress, Joomla, etc. If you would like to use a CMS site see suggestions below.

To get set up with a college web server account, contact research systems support at kmcd@berkeley.edu before you begin development to make sure there are no conflicts with the web technology you want to use. If you have an account, please read the next section on how the stage server functions.

College Staging Server info for research groups (cchem)

If you have set up a hosting account with the college, the following is a quick guide to get you started:

      • Example stage server url: (use prefix http://) stage[dot]cchem[dot]Berkeley[dot]edu/~XXX (~, 'XXX' is your account name)
      • Example production server url: (use prefix http://) cchem[dot]berkeley[dot]edu/XXX (no ~, 'XXX' is your account name)
      • use SFTP to connect to the stage server (FTP will not work)
      • web pages should be located in a subdirectory called public_html
      • be sure to designate your home page as index.html within the public_html folder
      • files on the stage server will be synchronized automatically to the College production web server (LIVE site) every half hour

Development with Adobe Creative Cloud

Dreamweaver & Photoshop from Adobe Creative Cloud are good options for designing and developing websites that will be hosted on the college servers. Adobe CC is available for UC Berkeley students, staff, and faculty for both personal and institutionally-owned computers. For more info on obtaining Adobe CC visit the UC Berkeley Software Central website. To learn how to produce websites with Adobe Dreamweaver visit the Dreamweaver CC tutorial page. Berkeley branded dreamweaver templates* are available. (*Be advised the college server may not be able to support placing your site in a webroot directory, therefore you may need to modify the template links, if you need help contact chemweb@berkeley.edu.)

recommended hosting & Site building options for berkeley.edu and berkeley affiliated sites

Berkeley Technology Overview of Campus Website Options

An overview of Web Tools and services for publishing and managing online content.  A variety of free and for-fee options allow the UC Berkeley community to create and administer a dynamic, secure, and recognizable web presence.

Info can be found at: https://technology.berkeley.edu/web

Open Berkeley

Open Berkeley is a turnkey web platform solution for UC Berkeley campus websites. Campus employees with no prior web experience can use Open Berkeley's powerful toolset to easily build sophisticated websites, and customers can rely on Open Berkeley to provide critical solutions to ongoing Security, Accessibility, and Maintenance issues. This is a recommended platform if you intend on connecting a berkeley.edu domain. For more information visit the Open Berkeley website.

Rates: Open Berkeley rates can be found at https://technology.berkeley.edu/services/web-development-and-hosting/ope...

Pantheon Hosting (Wordpress & Drupal)

Pantheon Hosting: Drupal/Wordpress Pantheon provides powerful, easy-to-use tools for building and maintaining Drupal and Wordpress websites and applications. IST has partnered with San Francisco-based Pantheon to provide free state-of-the-art development tools and affordable hosting plans with 24/7 support. This is a recommended platform if you intend on connecting a berkeley.edu domain.

Rates: Pantheon hosting rates can be found at https://web.berkeley.edu/web-hosting-pantheon

UC Berkeley Wordpress Theme

The Berkeley Brand WordPress Theme is a stand-alone package comprised of a WordPress theme and plugins. The theme contains accessible, https-compatible, branded styling. The plugins provide functionality to create your site and to organize content.

Theme instructions: https://brand.berkeley.edu/web-design/wordpress/

Theme download (CalNet authentication required): https://gallery.berkeley.edu/

UC Berkeley Dreamweaver Template

Template download: https://brand.berkeley.edu/web-design/dreamweaver/

Google Sites

Google Sites is now available via bConnected*. Google sites allows you to create a simple personal website, wiki, or project site without any prior programming or design skills. With an intuitive drag & drop interface, you can work alone or collaborate with others to build your site in a short amount of time. There are limitations, refer to documentation for more info.

Rates: Google sites are free via Berkeley bConnected.

*Pointing a custom.berkeley.edu domain to a Google Site is not currently supported.

IST Web Hosting 

IST offers UNIX and Windows hosting.

Other Hosting Options

If you choose a different hosting service other than those listed above, be sure to  read the UC Berkeley Guidelines for Berkeley.edu websites and review the message below regarding non-compliance of no-code websites:

IMPORTANT POLICY FROM MARC FISHER, VICE CHANCELLOR, ADMINISTRATION (02/05/2021)
All UC Berkeley websites, those in the berkeley.edu domain and any website affiliated with the University, must comply with both campus and UC-systemwide policies. Third-party "no-code" web hosting services are not suitable for UC Berkeley websites because they do not make it possible to comply with Privacy, Brand Protection, Security, Accessibility, and other applicable policies. Examples of these hosting services include Squarespace, Weebly, Wix, and Webflow.

Wordpress.org allows downloading the open source wordpress package for installation on your own designated server. Berkeley branded wordpress templates are available.

GoDaddy. Options include one-click hosting/installation for Wordpress,  and a WYSYWIG  Website Builder.

Bluehost. Options include one-click hosting/installation for Drupal, WordPress, and Joomla.

Academia.edu. Academia.edu is a place to share and follow research. An account allows you to share your papers, see analytics on your profile and papers, and follow other people in your field. Sign up at http://www.academia.edu/.

Drupal download and host with any 3rd party ISP that supports Drupal.

independent design firms

Drupal consultants in the Bay Area

If you still have questions regarding the various hosting options please contact chemweb@berkeley.edu.

Berkeley Domains

Berkeley Domainname Registration Service: Hostnames are assigned by IST-CNS only for "berkeley.edu" domain locations. Hostnames are generally registered on a first-come, first-served, basis. Requests will be granted within two (2) business days. See the IST Domain Name System (DNS) Service Policy webpage for more details.

*Sites hosted on the college server (cchem) CANNOT be configured with berkeley domains configured as: xxx.berkeley.edu

Use NetReg to Request a Berkeley Domain: Offsite hostname registration is available through NetReg.

In NetReg you can:

  • Request hostname(s)
  • Identify Resource Proprietor, Data Protection Levels, etc.
  • Provide DNS details for DNS Administrator, pending approval
  • Once the hostname is approved, NetReg will make a request to DNS Administrator on your behalf.
  • Additionally, Offsite hostname de-registration requests to the DNS Administrator will send a request on your behalf to the DNS Administrator to remove the hostname’s DNS record.

All UC Berkeley websites, those in the berkeley.edu domain and any website affiliated with the University, must comply with both campus and UC-systemwide policies.

Third-party “no-code” web hosting services are not suitable for UC Berkeley websites because they do not make it possible to comply with Privacy, Brand Protection, Security, Accessibility, and other applicable policies. Examples of these hosting services include Squarespace, Weebly, Wix, and Webflow.

Visit NetReg for more detailed information and to request a domainname.

Resetting Dreamweaver SSH HOSTS

New Research website servers may cause SFTP issues with dreamweaver

The server hosting many of the college's research group websites has changed in 2020. If your site has 'cchem.berkeley.edu' in the url you are likely affected, and you may run into issues with SFTP using Adobe Dreamweaver. For confirmation of what server you are on  email leighm@berkeley.edu and/or kmcd@berkeley.edu.

If you are use Dreamweaver to update and SFTP your site you will likely have to reset your SSH Hosts file. Below are two methods to accomplish this.

METHOD #1

  1. Close Dreamweaver.
  2. Open Finder
  3. In the Finder search box look for the file: ssh_hosts
  4. If that files appears then right click and make a duplicate of the file.
  5. Open the file ssh_hosts in a text editing program.
  6. Delete everything inside the ssh_hosts file then save it.
  7. Open Dreamweaver and try to connect via SFTP.
  8. If that works you can delete the backup copy.

METHOD #2
Taken from this Adobe help article: https://helpx.adobe.com/dreamweaver/kb/troubleshoot-javascript-errors-dr...

Recreate the Dreamweaver user configuration folder.

MAC OS

  1. Quit Dreamweaver.
  2. Find the Dreamweaver configuration folder:
  3. The configuration folder is hidden on Mac OS X 10.7 and later. To reveal it, open the Finder and press Cmd+Shift+G.
  4. Type /Library/Application Support in the dialog box, and click Go.
  5. In the Application Support window, browse to /Adobe/Dreamweaver [version]/[language]/Configuration.
  6. Note: For earlier versions of Mac OS, in the Finder, browse to the following folder: /[user]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Dreamweaver [CS4 or CS5]/[language]/Configuration
  7. Rename the folder Configuration Old.
  8. Restart Dreamweaver to see if the problem persists.

WINDOWS 8, 7, VISTA

  1. Quit Dreamweaver.
  2. Find the Dreamweaver configuration folder:
  3. The configuration folder is hidden on Windows. To reveal hidden folders, see Show hidden files and folders.
  4. Locate the configuration folder at this path: C:/Users/[user name]/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Dreamweaver [version]/[language]/Configuration
  5. Rename the folder Configuration Old.
  6. Restart Dreamweaver to see if the problem persists.

College of Chemistry Website Requests

College Website

To request  updates to the college website:

Send an email to:

leighm@berkeley.edu

Please include the url of the page that you want updated, as well as details of the changes you would like made.