Lehigh Web Authoring-- Info for SC's

Lehigh's web setup

The RNCI web server for Lehigh: www3.lehigh.edu

The Lehigh main webserver: www.lehigh.edu

Lehigh web pages live on the AFS file servers (like LAN servers for the AIX workstations):
/afs/cc.lehigh.edu/home/userid/public/www-data/

(anyplace in this document were userid is used, it means the account's Lehigh username)

That directory can be accessed through the Network server or Compute Server as:
/ahome/userid/public/www-data/
If the W3setup procedure has been run on the account in the last couple of years, there's a symbolic link (sort of a directory alias) from the Network Server (ns.cc.lehigh.edu) to the webspace, via the directory named webspace

On the web, people's webspaces are accessible as
http://www.lehigh.edu/~userid/
also: https://www.lehigh.edu/~userid/

Most people's webspaces (if they ran W3setup in the last couple of years), have a default web page that comes up when you go to that directory with a web browser. The real name of that page is userid.html (it is created by the W3setup process), but there is a symbolic link called index.html. The server looks for an index.html file to display when a browser asks for a 'naked' directory name (one without a filename attached). If there is no index.html (or no file with the alias index.html), the directory listing will be displayed.

In order to use/access/publish to the webserver, users must run W3setup on their account, from the Account Maintenance webpage (www.lehigh.edu/account). W3setup does four things:

Sets up the web page directory (/afs/cc.lehigh/edu/home/userid/public/www-data/)
Creates the main/default web page userid.html
Creates a symbolic link, index.html to the file userid.html
Creates a symbolic link to the web page directory in AFS space, from the Network Server-- a 'directory' called webspace

Note that in order to get a departmental or group webspace, they will have to request an account for the department or group -- send them to Kelly Decker (FM294) or Margaret Petrovich (FM392) for the form.

There are two ways to put material up on the web page from a local computer (ok, three, but FTP is going away)

If you use Netscape Composer, you can publish to https://www.lehigh.edu/~userid/
Otherwise, you should use SSH's File Transfer Client to connect to ns.cc.lehigh.edu and go into the webspace or /ahome/userid/public/www-data/ directory. Then you can either use the Upload command from the Operations menu or drag and drop your files in the the SSH window to upload them.

Web page editors

There's about a million ways to edit HTML files (web pages). Here are some:

vi on the server
emacs, either on the server, a workstation, pc, or other
Notepad, Wordpad, or other editor or wordprocessor on the PC
BBEdit or other editor on the Mac
Netscape Composer (Netscape versions 4 and up) * supported at Lehigh & includes publishing functions
Macromedia Dreamweaver * supported at Lehigh
Microsoft FrontPage-- this has problems interacting with our Lehigh Server -- the extensions are not loaded on our server-- so it is not recommended
HomeSite
GoLive
others

Frequently asked Questions:

Where do Lehigh personal web pages live?: They live in the user's AFS space (like LAN space for the AIX workstations), in a special directory: public/www-data/; They can be viewed from the www.lehigh.edu server at www.lehigh.edu/~userid/ where userid is the person or group's userid.
How do you start editing your web page?: Begin by running W3Setup from the account web page (http://www.lehigh.edu/account); this will create the directory, create a sample homepage (userid.html which is aliased to index.html), make a shortcut to that directory from the network server. Then you can use Netscape Composer to edit/publish pages to the site; or upload pages to the site with SSH.
How do I edit pages with Netscape?: Bring the page up in Netscape. Then choose Edit Page from the File menu. When you've finished making your changes, click the Publish button. Change the 'Publish to' location to https://www.lehigh.edu/~userid/whatever so that you can publish it.
I'm trying to publish a page and I'm giving the right userid and password but I get an authentication/permissions error.: Assuming the web space exists... if someone has published once using one userid and password, before they can publish again with a different userid and password, they need to restart Netscape. (Netscape stores the original userid and password and helpfully provides them instead of the ones you are typing in.)
What's https?: There are two servers living on the machine at www.lehigh.edu. One is 'insecure', http://www.lehigh.edu; one is 'secure', https://www.lehigh.edu. Both servers access the exact same files in the webspace/AFS space. If a web page is asking for a userid and password, or if you are using Netscape Publish (which requires a userid and password) you need to use the https:// server so you don't spread the password over the Net!h

The I-can't-publish-to-my-webspace checklist

Have they ever run W3setup? If they aren't sure, have them run it again.
Do they know where to publish to?

https://www.lehigh.edu/~userid/

Do they have the right userid and password?
Are they actually trying to publish the page, or do they think merely editing and saving the file should make the page change on the server?
Have they exceeded their AFS disk quota? Have them check the Disk Quotas section on the Accounts page. The forms for increasing AFS space are available from Kelly Decker.
Have they published to another directory with a different userid and password previously? If so, have they shut down and re-opened Netscape? (You can have them try ftp://ns.cc.lehigh.edu/ahome/userid/public/www-data/ , at least for now.)
Are they using Netscape? If not, they will have to use SSH and connect to ns.cc.lehigh.edu, and change directories to webspace or /ahome/userid/public/www-data/
If they say the page uploaded but they can't see the changes, have them refresh the page. (If they changed the file name of the page and changed a link to reflect that, they need to refresh the LINKING page, not the page linked to.

What to do if 'my link doesn't work'!

Get the URL of the web page (if they have published it)

If they haven't published it, they may still be editing it. In that case, clicking on the link in Netscape Composer or Dreamweaver certainly won't work.

If they have published the page, look at the offending link.

The most common problem is omitting the http:// part at the beginning, which makes the browser treat it as a relative link, and so try to find a subdirectory by that servername (www.mcall.com causes it to look for http://www.lehigh.edu/~userid/www.mcall.com/
Check to see that the link doesn't go to file:// -- that would be on the local Hard Drive of the computer. If so, they need to change the address to point to a file on the web server. (They may need to publish the file or image before they can do this.)
Try right-clicking and copying the link address. Paste it into the Location bar of your browser and check for:

Punctuation mistakes. Do they have the colons, tildes, periods, etc. in the right place? Are the slashes in the right direction?
Server confusion: are they trying to point to www.lehigh.edu when they really mean www2.lehigh.edu or vice versa?
If it's to a local file, check to be sure the file exists, and it's in the directory they think it is in.
Capitalization matters, especially on the Lehigh server. So does .html vs .htm. Links.html, links.html, Links.htm, links.htm can be FOUR DIFFERENT files on our server.
If it's local, did they rememeber to publish the file before they used it?
If they are linking to a target in a particular file, there should be a # in the address. If they aren't linking to a specific place in the page, there shouldn't be a #.
See if they published their page to http://www.lehigh.edu/userid (no tilde).

Checking out what they really have in their Webspace

Because webspace is in the public area of people's AFS space, you can view directories and files by ssh'ing to the Network server (ns.cc.lehigh.edu) and log on as yourself. You can then type shell to get to the UNIX prompt, and then cd /ahome/userid/public/www-data/ to see a file listing. You can also do this by using SSH File transfer to login to ns.cc.lehigh.edu, then choose 'Go to Folder' from the Operations menu, and go to that directory. If you use File Transfer, you can then look at files by clicking on them.

Getting pages from 'yesterday' directory

AFS accounts include a 'yesterday' directory' which is an complete copy of everything that was in the account as of 2:00 am. If someone accidentally overwrites or deletes a file from their webspace, it can be retrieved from their yesterday directory as long as they don't wait past 2:00 am. To do this:

Use SSH File Transfer to connect to ns.cc.lehigh.edu (using the account where the file is missing)
Choose 'Go to Folder' from the Operations Menu. Go to /ahome/userid/yesterday/public/www-data/
Find the file.
Download the file. (click on it and choose Download from the Operations menu.)
Choose 'Go to Folder' from the Operations Menu. Go to /ahome/userid/public/www-data/
Upload the file from the hard drive (Choose Upload from the Operations menu and choose the file)
Check to see that the file has been replaced (they'll need to reload it on their browser)
Choose Disconnect from the File menu, then choose Close from the File menu.

Or, you can do it all from the command line.

Have them use SSH Client to connect to ns.cc.lehigh.edu and login as themselves.
Have them type shell to get to the UNIX prompt.
Have them type cd webspace to get to their webspace
Have them type cp /ahome/userid/yesterday/public/www-data/filename filename
Check to see that the file has been replaced (they'll need to reload it on their browser)
Have them type exit, then logout.