Skip to main content

What is NREC?

warning

This site is still a work in progress, and as a consequence, some information might still be lacking, missing or unclear.

If you have feedback (however big or small) or would like to contribute,it would be highly appreciated, and as such, do not refrain from getting in touch with me on the department Discord server, Teams or at illimar.rekand@uib.no

NREC (Norwegian Research and Education Cloud) is a service which provides the Norwegian higher education sector virtual machine (VM) cloud services. These resources can be used for a multitude of usecases, including computation, storage, HPC and more.

What is the purpose of this site?​

This website was created by Illimar Rekand in the Didactics group at the Department of Informatics at the University of Bergen to serve as a tool for getting started with self hosting web sites using NREC servers.

This website aims to provide simple guides and reseource to how you can

  1. Use NREC services to serve simple static or dynamic websites
  2. Guidelines and resources for how you can develop such websites.

In fact, in the following guides we will look at how to set up a website like the one you are currently reading from scratch and host it on a NREC instance.

The role of a NREC VM is outlined in the scheme below:

The scheme above is how this website you are currently reading is set up.

Essentially, the NREC VM serves as a computer (hence, "Virtual machine"), which will run any necessary scripts which can serve the content of a website you have created. In the above scheme, the VM is running a website using Node.js locally on port 3000.

With the right configurations, any computer in the world with an internet connection is able to connect to the VM instance and access the website content. If you need to maintain the website or if its under construction, you can set up the VM to track recent changes from a Git repository, from where you can push changes into from a "real" physical computer you are doing development on.

When and why should I use NREC to host my own website?​

In the case that a typical uib.no or UiB wordpress website might not satisfy your needs, you might want to consider using NREC resources to host your website. This could for example if you want to perform a student project, develop webtools for research or teaching or similar.

info

In 2025, websites on the uib.no domain which are not created through the w3/w4-services or hosted on NREC instances will be removed. One of the aims of this website is to aid UiB employees (both inside and outside of Department of Informatics) to set up/migrate their web sites to NREC

What to keep in mind when using NREC to host your own websites?​

When using NREC resources for hosting a website, keep in mind that you will not be able to get any support from the IT department related to your website.

Furthermore, you should keep in mind University of Bergen's guidelines for web design, including:

Also keep in mind UiB's guidelines for its graphic profile. Logos can be downloaded here.

Check out this section for more tips when it comes to website development and tools.