A Home Page in 500 Words or Less


You can easily make your own WWW hierarchy available. Our server will connect to files that individual users maintain. It looks in the user's home directory for a subdirectory named 'public_html'.

You need to set up the right directory, make sure the file protections allow world read access, and learn HTML (HyperText Markup Language), the formatting language used for WWW documents.

Make the directory in your home directory and make it world-readable:

	mkdir public_html
	chmod 755 public_html
	cd public_html
Make sure your home directory will allow access to the public_html subdirectory:

	chmod go+x ~
Now edit the HTML files you want to provide, using whatever text editor you prefer (vi, emacs, etc.). You can learn HTML by looking under the Netscape "Help" menu, at the item named "On HTML," or by opening the following URL:

	http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html
You can also see examples of it by selecting "Document Source" under the "View" menu of Netscape. This will pop up a window showing you the underlying HTML source of the file you are currently viewing in Netscape. Mosaic also has a "View Source" menu item.

Once you have edited and saved the file in your public_html subdirectory, make sure it is world readable:

	chmod 644 foo.html
(where "foo.html" is the filename).

To test it, run your favorite browser, and select "Open". Type in the URL and press return. The URL will look like this:

	http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~your_username/foo.html

It should show you the results, or give you an error message if there are syntax errors.

To make the file your personal "Home Page," name it index.html.

Our server is www.physics.ohio-state.edu. A reference of the form

	http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~user
will look for the file ~user/public_html/index.html, and display it if found. If there is no such file, it will show a directory listing of ~user/public_html (where user is your username).

Once you have created your home page, send mail to webmaster at mps dot ohio dash state dot edu to get a link to your home page added to the department's pages.


Bryan Dunlap / OSU Physics / bcd at mps dot ohio dash state dot edu