WEB LOADING 101

HOW TO LOAD YOUR OWN WEB PAGES ONTO THE CSULB COMPUTER SO THE WORLD CAN SEE THEM

"The Scream"* by Edvard Munch

*believed to have been painted after attempting to learn Windows 95 and Unix on the same day

Okay, admit it. You figured out the Web authoring software. You created your very own Web page and it is gorgeous. You cannot wait to send e-mail to your friends to ask them to take a look at it on line. One small problem: your page looks great when you look at it from your own computer screen, called up from your own hard disk. But for the life of you, you cannot figure out how to get it loaded onto the campus computer so everybody else can see it. You have printed out the Unix manuals. You have read the campus manuals. You have pestered the folks on the "help line" so much they recognize your voice when you call. We've all been there.

Before you throw the computer out the window, try the step-by-step instructions here. After much trial and error and thanks to some patient folks at the other end of the phone on the "help line," I finally figured it out. If a philosopher can do it, so can you. (Sorry - this is written for PC/Windows users. But if you use a Mac, I am told that you do not need instructions for anything anyway, so you probably are not reading this page.)

PRELIMINARIES:

First, you need a campus computer account. If you have a CSULB e-mail address, you already have an account, so you are all set. You do not need a separate "Web account" - there is no such thing.

In your e-mail address, the letters before the @ sign are your account name. That account name will be part of your World Wide Web address. Here is an example:

My e-mail address is: jvancamp@csulb.edu

My account name is: jvancamp

My WWW address is: http://www.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/home.html

The www.csulb.edu tells Web surfers to find the CSULB computer. The ~jvancamp part tells the CSULB computer to send people to my computer account where I have loaded the files for my very own Web pages that I want people to see.

Once Web surfers are directed to my account, I want them to first see my "home page." The file name I gave to my home page is home.html - but you could give yours a different name or you could have people start somewhere else on your Web files. (More later on those file names.)

A word of caution: The campus computer uses an operating system called Unix. Unix has just enough in common with the PC operating system called DOS to completely confuse you. Try to forget DOS for the moment when using Unix. And do not bother with the on-line help manual for Unix. It is written in English, but it is not a version of English that anyone on this planet actually understands.

STEP ONE:

Log into your campus Unix account the old-fashioned, pre-Sprintlink way. If you have a choice, try using Hyperterminal (Windows 95) or Terminal (Windows 3.1). Both have a nice file transfer program that you will use later.

If you do not know how to log in the old-fashioned way anymore, log into your Sprintlink account. Select the telnet button. Then telnet into your campus Unix account:

telnet beach.csulb.edu

Either way, type in your account name when asked. Choose #1. Type in your log-in (account) name and password when asked.

When you get the prompt, you are now in the root directory of your own campus computer account. Just to make sure, type

cd ~

That will always put you into your root directory, no matter where you are in your subdirectories. To double-check where you are, type

pwd

You will see a long string of directories. The last thing on the right will be your account name if you are in your root directory.

STEP TWO:

Next, you need to create a new subdirectory for your Web (html) documents (files). At the prompt in your Unix root directory, type:

mkdir htdocs

To check to see that the new htdocs subdirectory was created, type (still in your root directory)

ls

A list of all files and directories in your root directory will print out. htdocs should be in the list. If it is not, go back to the beginning of Step Two and try again.

STEP THREE:

This is optional, but recommended. You should next switch to the htdocs subdirectory and create new subdirectories for images and sounds. You do not have to do this. You can also just load these files into your main htdocs subdirectory, but it gets pretty jumbled in a hurry. To make the new subdirectories, you use the same procedures from Step Two:

First, change directories so you are in the htdocs subdirectory. From your root directory, type:

cd htdocs

To check to make sure you are in the htdocs subdirectory, type:

pwd

The last think on the far right that prints out should be htdocs. That tells you that you are in your htdocs subdirectory. Now, make a new subdirectory for images, the same way as you did for htdocs. While you are in the htdocs subdirectory, type:

mkdir images

You have now made a new subdirectory called images that branches off the htdocs subdirectory.

If you plan to use sound files in your Web pages, you should also consider making a separate subdirectory for sounds that branches off the htdocs subdirectory. To do this, first go back to your root directory. Type:

cd ~

Now, change directories to get into the htdocs directory. Type:

cd htdocs

Make a new subdirectory for sounds. Type:

mkdir sounds

Now check to make sure the new subdirectories are in. While you are in the htdocs subdirectory, type

ls

You will get a list of all files and subdirectories in your htdocs subdirectory. You should see images and sounds in the list. Nothing else should be on the list yet as you just created the htdocs subdirectory.

CAUTION: Whatever arrangement you have between docs, images, and sounds on your Unix account needs to correspond with the arrangement you have set up on your hard disk. For example, if you have on your hard disk a directory for documents with subdirectories for images and sounds, then you should have a parallel arrangement on Unix, with an htdocs subdirectory for documents, and from there subdirectories for images and for sounds. That way, the coding you put into your web page on your web authoring program will match the coding when it gets into the Unix account. If you lump everything together in the same directory in Unix, you need to lump them altogether in the same directory on your hard disk. By being consistent with the arrangement on your Unix account and the arrangement on your hard disk, you can preview the page on your web browser from the file on your hard disk and know what you will be getting once it is on line.

STEP FOUR:

Now you are ready to load the files for your documents, images, and sounds from your own hard disk into your Unix account on the campus computer. The easiest way is to use the Kermit server on the campus computer. First, you need to get Kermit set up properly on the campus computer to receive your files. Do the following:

In your Unix account, switch to the directory where you will be loading files. If you will be loading htdocs into the htdocs subdirectory, then switch from your root directory to the htdocs subdirectory:

cd htdocs

Now switch to Kermit. At the prompt, type

kermit

Next, set the speed for Kermit to receive the files. At the prompt, type:

set receive packet 100

Now tell Kermit to receive binary files. At the prompt, type:

set file type binary

Then switch to the Kermit server. At the prompt, type:

server

Now you need to get your own computer set up to send your files to the campus computer. On Windows 95, use Hyperterminal. On Windows 3.1 use Terminal.

From the menu selections on Hyperterminal/Terminal, pull down the "transfer" menu. Choose "send file" (NOT text file, as you are sending binary files, even if it is a document -- the text files choice is more likely to be corrupted during the transfer to Unix). Now select "Kermit" as the transfer protocol. Follow the dialogue box from your own computer. It will ask you what you want to send. Type in the file name with directories from your own hard disk or use the "browse" command to find the file you want to send in your hard disk. Click "send."

While the file is transferring, you will see a screen telling you the progress of the transfer. When the screen disappears, the transfer for that file is done.

Repeat this transfer process for each of the files you want to go into the htdocs directory. Pull down the "transfer" menu and select "send file" again, just as you did for the first file you transferred.

The Unix screen will give you instructions for switching out of server but they do not work. When you are finished transferring files into the htdocs subdirectory, just disconnect at that point and log in again to finish.

Repeat this whole process for images, but first be sure you are in the images subdirectory on your Unix account. Go back to the beginning of Step four, set the Kermit switches and your own transfer program as before. Load all the image files from your hard disk to the images subdirectory. Be sure to use "binary" on both the campus computer Kermit setting and the transfer settings on your own computer or the files will come in corrupted onto the campus computer.

If you have any sound files, you need to go through the same process from the beginning of step four. Be sure you are in the sounds subdirectory before you start setting up Kermit. Once you start the set-up you will not be able to change subdirectories. If you discover you are in the wrong subdirectory, you will need to disconnect and log in again.

If you are making this transfer using the Telnet program on Sprintlink, use the pull-down transfer menu, and choose "send file." On the dialogue box, choose Kermit as the protocol. Be sure the "binary" button is on.

STEP FIVE:

The next step is to convert the file names on Unix so Unix can read everything. Windows files end in .htm but Unix only reads .html. The files you just loaded onto the campus computer all have the wrong file extension (.htm) so they all have to be renamed.

First, log back into your Unix account and go to the htdocs subdirectory.

To rename each file on the htdocs subdirectory, type the following for each of the files (substitute the name of your file for filename):

cp filename.htm filename.html

Do that for all of your .htm files.

To see what is on the htdocs subdirectory, type:

ls

You will see that you now have both old .htm files and new .html files in the subdirectory. So, to free up space on the Unix computer, you now need to remove the unneeded .htm files. For each .htm file (substituting the name of your file for filename), type:

rm filename.htm

You do not need to do this with your images and sounds, as they already have file extensions that Unix will recognize (e.g., .gif or .jpg).

HINT: If you are loading revised versions of older files with the same name, you want to avoid being "off-line" any longer than necessary and also avoid deleting the wrong files. So do it in this order:

load your new .htm files

delete old .html files with the same names

rename the new .htm files to new .html files

remove the .htm files

HINT: To further minimize the time that someone could access your web site and get nothing or get incomplete pages, do the images first and then the doc files. A browser would still get all the old files with the old images while you are loading the new ones.

STEP SIX:

Now you have to tell Unix that you want people (other than you) to have access to certain files in your account. You have to put in a code for every file you want people to be able to access through your web address (.html, image, and sound files) to give access to each file. You then will put in a code to give access to the subdirectory:

First, in your Unix account, switch to your htdocs directory, so you can add the code for each file. Type separately (substituting the name of your file for filename), for each of your htdocs files:

chmod 644 filename.html

Do that separately for every file in your htdocs directory.

Next, to give access to your htdocs directory, switch back to the root directory

cd ~

While you are still in your root directory, add the code for access to the htdocs directory. At the prompt, type:

chmod 755 htdocs

If you have a separate images subdirectory, you need to go through the same process. From your root directory, switch to the htdocs subdirectory. Type:

cd htdocs

Now switch into the images subdirectory. Type:

cd images

You are now in your images subdirectory. Add the access code for every file in the subdirectory, substituting your file names for "imagename.gif." Type:

chmod 644 imagename.gif

NOTE: You might have image files that end in .jpg or .gif. No problem - they both will work on the Web.

Now you need to switch back to the htdocs directory and give access to the images subdirectory. First, go back to the root directory:

cd ~

Now change into the htdocs subdirectory:

cd htdocs

While you are in the htdocs subdirectory, provide access to your images subdirectory. Type:

chmod 755 images

If you have a sounds subdirectory, repeat the same process you just went through for images.

YOU ARE DONE! START E-MAILING YOUR FRIENDS TO TELL THEM TO TAKE A LOOK! Your WWW address is the following:

http://www.csulb.edu/~account/home.html

For ~account, substitute your account name

For home.html, substitute the name of the first file you want people to see

Unix is case sensitive, but Windows is not. That means that Windows will recognize file names regardless of whether they are in upper case or lower case. But Unix will not make this adjustment - your file names have to be exactly in the correct case for Unix to recognize them. Your Web authoring program might put in the names of image files, etc. in all caps. When you load the individual image file, Unix will list the file name as all lower case. But the document itself that you load will still have the image file name in all caps. So when you try to load the web page from a web browser, Unix cannot find the image file to load it. The solution: when creating the page, go to HTML source (the page that shows all the HTML codes producing your page) and make sure all the image file names are in lower case. You might need to re-type each one separately on the HTML source page so it is all in lower case.

The Apollo space ship that took Americans to the moon for the first time, in 1969, had an on-board computer with only one megabyte of RAM! (Of course, they were not running Windows. . . )

The binary language that made computers possible was developed by a philosopher, Bertrand Russell, in 1903.

The first user-friendly Web browser (Mosaic) was developed in 1993. In May 1995, Microsoft employed only four staff members developing software for the Web. Today they employ over 600.

If you have found other helpful hints on loading your Web files, please pass them along and I will add them here.

Comments and suggestions are welcome: jvancamp@csulb.edu

Julie Van Camp

Associate Professor of Philosophy

http://www.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/home.html

The Scream (1893) courtesy of Public Maintainers, The Netherlands

Last updated: April 26, 1996