Creating a Personal Web Page

Steps for setting up a basic web page

• Make a directory named public_html in your home directory
• Make certain your home directory and ~/public_html
  are at least world searchable (711).
• Place the documents you want to serve in this directory. They should be world readable (644). All HTML documents should have filenames ending in .html.
• The URL for files in this directory is

            http://code.ucsd.edu/~username/filename
  

• The URL http://code.ucsd.edu/~username/ (i.e. no filename) is the same as

            http://code.ucsd.edu/~username/index.html
  

  So if you put your personal home page in ~/public_html/index.html, people can access it with the short URL. (Note: it's a good practice to use the trailing slash on directories in URLs. Some servers can get confused otherwise.) If there is no index.html, the short URL will generate a menu of all files if public_html is world readable (755) or an error message if it is only world searchable (711).
• For security reasons, symbolic links under ~/public_html, except to files or directories that you own, generate an error message. Please let me know if you find a case otherwise.
• You can also limit access to a directory by listing allowed hosts in a file named .htaccess. See the documentation on the apache server for details on the syntax.
• Send mail to www@code.ucsd.edu when you are ready to link your web page with the communication group page.

Other Tips and Notes

• You can test if things are working the way you want by using the Mosaic Open... button or File menu item. Under netscape use Open File... under the File menu.
• You can inspect the HTML used for any document you find on the Web with the Document Source item on the File menu. Furthermore, you can save the HTML version of any document with Save As...
• If you are using netscape the source of a document can be viewed by selecting Source... under the View menu. Also keep in mind that netscape has some HTML extensions that other browsers may not have. If you are viewing one of the netscape enhanced web pages with another browser you will not see these features. See the section below for a link to a description of the extra netscape features.

Learn about HTML

• A Beginner's Guide to HTML - NCSA
• HTML tutorial - Dennis Horn - Clarkson University
• WWW & HTML Developer's JumpStation - Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab
• HyperText Markup Language (HTML): Working and Background Materials
• Programming Netscape