Create Your Own Home Page(s) on Mason academic research system (mason.gmu.edu)

There are a few things to keep in mind when you are creating a Web page on the Mason system. These directions are specifically designed to prepare your account so that your Web page will work on the Mason system. You will find out how and where to create a directory for your Web page. If you want your home page listed under your name, you must create a Web page called index.html (see #2 and #3 below). These directions will not tell you how to design a Web page or how to place html files into the directory that you are creating. Check the section on How To Get/Install/Use the Secure Shell (Including Secure FTP) for instructions for using ssh to place your files in the directory.

You have a limited amount of space assigned to your Mason account (10 MB). Html code basically creates text files that do not take up much space, but pictures (files with extensions .gif and .jpg) DO take up a lot of space.

ISPs (Internet Service Providers such as AOL and Erols) have different requirements as to where they want you to put your Web pages. At George Mason University we have set it up so that you MUST create a directory called public_html in your account AND, you MUST put an html file in your public_html directory called index.html. This is done so that the path to everyone’s Web page is similar. For example, if user jsmith properly created a Web page and she wanted to give the Web page address out, she would give the following address: http://mason.gmu.edu/~jsmith.

Files created on Mason are secure, meaning only you and the system administrators have access to your files. Therefore, you must CHANGE the viewing permissions for all of the files you want others to see. Please follow the steps below EXACTLY so that your account will be able to successfully run your html files (Web pages).

Setting Up Your Web Page

1. Log into Mason using the SSH Secure Shell Client. Click here to download SSH.
   
2. Create the appropriate directory. At the Mason prompt (mason.gmu.edu) type the following: mkdir public_html. (For other people to be able to look at your Web pages you must put your html files and images into this directory).
   
3. Make your public_html directory accessible to everyone. Type: chmod 755 public_html.
   
4. Change permissions on your account so that the directories you create will be visible. Type: cd (to get to your home directory, it won’t change visibly). Then type: chmod 711 . (Yes, that’s a space and a period after the chmod 711).
   
5. As you add sub-directories to your public_html directory you will need to change their permissions to 711 using the command chmod 711 public_html/folderpath.

Troubleshoot Your Web Page

Problem - You can’t see your Web page when you put in the path http://mason.gmu.edu/~username.

Solution - The path to your WWW page(s) will be: <http://mason.gmu.edu/~username> (substitute your login name for "username"). Check to make sure you can get to other Web pages. If you can’t, then it is just a problem of getting connected. The default name for a home page is index.html. If yours is not called index.html, you will need to give the filename out along with the rest of the path to your home page or change the name of the file to index.html.

For example: If you create a Web page called fun.htm you would have to tell people to type in the address <http://mason.gmu.edu/~YourLoginName/fun.htm>. If you just want to change the name of your Web page to index.html do the following steps (except substitute in the name of the file you created for NameOfYourFile.html):

1. Log into your account.
2. Type: cd public_html.
3. Type: mv NameOfYourFile.html index.html.

Having Problems?

If you have problems with your Web page, you can contact the ITU Support Center at (703) 993-8870 for basic setup assistance. Contact web*STAR in Johnson Center, Room 311, for assistance in designing and creating your Website. No appointment is necessary. Please bring all necessary files.

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