CIS105 Fall 2003 H05

50 pts Create a personal web page on the composers (strauss/copland). You can do this on either system (strauss or copland; it's all the same in terms of web pages.) If you already have one, then all you need to do is mention CIS105 somewhere on your page (e.g. by putting a link to the course web page at http://udel.edu/~pconrad/cis105) and you are done.

If you don't have one, creating one involves the following steps:

  1. You should already have a directory in your main home directory called public_html. If you don't, create one with the command mkdir public_html.
  2. Create a file called index.html in that directory that contains the HTML code for your web page. There are several ways to do this. Instructions on that are below, as well as a list of the things your web page should contain.
  3. Change directory back to your home directory. Then, to make your web page available to users, use the command
    chmod -R a+rx ~/public_html
    .
  4. To verify that your web page is accessible, use a web browser to go to the URL
    http://udel.edu/~userid
    where userid is your Unix username on strauss and copland.
  5. If you have already done the chmod step above, and your website still shows "access denied" or "no permission", try the following additional command, which opens up your home directory only a "little bit"
    chmod a+x ~

    Ways to create your index.html

  1. The simplest easiest way is to just use the commands
    cd public_html
    vi index.html
    to go into the vi text editor and create the index.html file directly. A sample html file is included with this assignment (called "sample.html"). You can download this into your public_html directory, use the mv command to rename it to index.html, and then use vi to edit it and change the content.

  2. For the time being, your file needs to contain, at a minimum, the document elements in the sample file: the html tag at the beginning and end, the head section with a document title, a body section with a heading with the h1 tag, and some actual body text (the stuff in my file that is not tagged.) Be sure your body text mentions CIS105 (however you should not use the exact words in my sample.html file... come up with your own content! Points will be deducted if you don't.)
  3. Another way to create your index.html file is to use a software package that creates web pages, such as Microsoft Front Page, Netscape Composer, Dreamweaver, etc, and then upload your content to the public_html file on strauss. If you choose this route, you are on your own for help; neither I nor the TAs will promise to assist you if you run into trouble. However, there are many good sources of help available to you, including the http://www.udel.edu/help page, which has some advice on creating web pages on the local systems.

  4. To Turn In: Upload a copy of your index.html file. The TAs will also look up your web page sometime after the due date, and give a grade based on what they find.
    Phillip T Conrad
    Last modified: Wed Nov 5 16:28:06 EST 2003