About the SRCF
What is the SRCF?
The SRCF is the University of Cambridge's Student-Run Computing Facility. We provide web hosting, shell accounts and various other computing services to members of the University and groups such as University societies. We are a University society, registered with the Junior Proctor. As such we are not formally supported by the University Administration in any way; instead the service is maintained by a group of volunteers.
Who are the SRCF?
The SRCF executive — the committee and sysadmin (system administration) team — consists of current and former University of Cambridge students. We hold elections for the committee positions every year at our AGM, according to our constitution. Any member of the University (staff or student) can register to become a lifetime member of the SRCF, and so use our services. We do not charge any membership fees, or require anything from our members beyond that they abide by our Terms of Service.
Why does the SRCF exist?
The SRCF was formed in 1999 to provide services which the University Administration could not, including web hosting, standards-compliant email, shell servers, mailing lists, and other computing resources for student societies. The UIS simply does not provide or has decommissioned their similar services, such as DS-web, in favor of paid solutions. Nowadays, many external hosting providers also offer similar services, but at a cost and with nowhere near the full suite of ready-to-use of SRCF services
Our sysadmins volunteer due to their interest in the GNU/Linux operating system and related software, current server technologies, and to gain valuable experience administering large, multi-user, networked systems. The SRCF also effectively functions as the Linux Users Group (LUG) of the University.
What sort of systems do you run?
We maintain and manage all of our own hardware (physically located in Cambridge) and software. We primarily use Ubuntu Linux as it is free (in all senses), stable and relatively easy to maintain.
You guys are doing a great job. How can I help you out?
We always welcome donations — as we don't charge for our services, the future of the SRCF depends on the donations it receives. If you want to make a donation, please visit this page
If you want to donate some time and experience to help us out, then why not join our support team? This is an email-based help list for problems not requiring administrative access to the SRCF server. If you have experience of using a website or other services on the SRCF, and want to help out, then send an email to sysadmins@srcf.net to be added to the list. Many thanks in advance to all who volunteer!
We are also always recruiting new sysadmins. If you have experience administering Linux systems, or are willing to learn, please send an email to the committee at sysadmins@srcf.net. We will invite you to meet the sysadmin team in person, and discuss where you can help out.
Statistics
There are currently 3205 users (members with active shell accounts).
There are currently 12167 members of the society (membership is for life).
We currently host 2180 group accounts, of which 1356 are no longer maintained.