Here is some help on uploading files and creating your own website.
First, you must log into your shell account. This means using a communications package under DOS that knows how to manipulate your modem. The word structure that unix systems use for communications is 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit, with software XON/XOFF protocol. When a connect is established you should be presented with message ending with "login:". Enter your login name (mine is bhammel) followed by hitting the "Enter" key. Then you will see "passwd:"; enter the pass word given you by MAIN again followed by "Enter". If all goes well you should see a shell prompt that looks like
[<your-logname>@graham your-logname]$You are now positioned in your home directory. If I, at this point were to enter the command (followed by "Enter" key), I would get the response indicated by:
pwd -> /home/bhammelHome directories are all subdirectories of the directory "/home", which is itself a subdirectory of the root directory "/". Home directories are named by your login name.
To create the correctly named website subdirectory in your home directory issue the command
mkdir public_htmlAgain, the "Enter" key following; all commands must be followed by "Enter". You will get no response unless the directory public_html already exists. The directory will automatically be created with the read and execute permissions set so that anyone else can read the files. This is necessary for the pages to be "web-accessible". If you don't understand "unix permissions" don't worry about it.
Now, let's say you've completed the entry page for your website
and it is in some file with some simple name say "pg1". Using
the z-modem option for transfer, upload the file. If you must
specify a directory use /home/
ls
You should see at least the entries pg1 and public_html
and possibly other entries as well, like "Mail".
Now issue the sequence of commands
pwd [Displays full pathname of your
Present Working Directory]
mv pg1 public_html [Moves file "pg1" to subdirectory]
cd public_html [Changes your PWD to the subdirectory]
pwd [Displays pathname of new PWD]
ls -> pg1
mv pg1 index.html [Changes name of the file]
ls -> index.html
Now everything is in place and the default permissions will allow
anyone to access your web page.
Remember, if your index.html file links to other text files or includes image or sound files, these must also be uploaded into your public_html subdirectory.
On non-unix systems, DOS in particular, extensions for file names are restricted to three characters: burble.exe, readme.txt, doit.bat are file names with extensions exe, txt and bat respectively. DOS will not allow the file name index.html or any file name with the html extension. This is why the cumbersome renaming of the file when installing the index.html file. Follow the same procedure with all the resource files that you upload to add more links into your various files.
To access my home page from your browser, specify the URL as
http://graham.main.nc.us/~bhammelSimilarly, someone, even you, can access your own webpages with the file index.html as entry point by substituting your login name for mine in the above URL designation.
I will update and expand this page as questions are asked and answered so that it can be used as central growing reference "FAQ" for the creation and maintenance of web pages, as well as for the various concepts and tools for doing so.
Suggestions, questions, complaints and links are very much invited.
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