WIT Participant Accounts on CUIP Server

CUIP Server

Activities

File Upload and Browsing Paths

Vocabulary

• hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP): The protocol for moving hypertext files across the Internet. Requires a HTTP client program on one end, and an HTTP server program on the other end. HTTP is the most important protocol used in the World Wide Web (WWW).

• file transfer protocol (FTP): -- A very common method of moving files between two Internet sites. FTP is a special way to login to another Internet site for the purposes of retrieving and/or sending files. There are many Internet sites that have established publicly accessible repositories of material that can be obtained using FTP, by logging in using the account name anonymous, thus these sites are called anonymous ftp servers.

• unix: A computer operating system. UNIX is designed to be used by many people at the same time (it is multi-user) and has TCP/IP built-in. It is the most common operating system for servers on the Internet.

• operating system: the basic software running on a computer, underneath things like word processors and spreadsheets

• server: A computer, or a software package, that provides a specific kind of service to client software running on other computers. The term can refer to a particular piece of software, such as a WWW server, or to the machine on which the software is running, e.g.Our mail server is down today, that’s why e-mail isn’t getting out. A single server machine could have several different server software packages running on it, thus providing many different servers to clients on the network.

• (see http://www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html or Managing Use of the Internet Glossary for more terms)

The CUIP Server

Home Directory

As a participant in WIT, you have a home directory on the cuip.uchicago.edu server.

On this server, you have a directory that is your veryown. It is either

/home/username/ (for participants who joined WIT prior to May 2000) or

/home2/username/ (for participants who joined WIT after May 2000)

Within this directory, you have a subdirectory, called "www". Its address is either

/home/username/www/

or

/home2/username/www/

(again, whether your directory is in home or home2 depends on when you got your cuip account)

This subdirectory is your "public WWW directory." Anything you place in the www directory can be seen by anyone on the web who has the following "http" or web browsing address::

http://cuip.uchicago.edu/~USERNAME

• replace USERNAME with your username

• the "http://:" is optional in newer browsers

• the "www" doesn't appear in the "http" address.

• The funny character before "USERNAME" is called a "tilde." It is (usually) on the upper left of your keyboard. This character is also used as the "approximate" symbol in math.

• Open up a new window in Netscape Navigator and look at that address now. You will see an "index," or list of the files in your www directory.

• Once you create your own personal home page (in Introduction to Netscape Composer module), this list of the files will be replaced with your personal home page.

While "www" doesn't appear in the http address, it does appear in the "ftp" address (used for publishing and "fetching" documents to and from the server):

ftp://cuip.uchicago.edu/home/USERNAME/www

or

ftp://cuip.uchicago.edu/home2/USERNAME/www

Guided Activities

• browse to your home web page (http://cuip.uchicago.edu/~username)

• Open new browser window: Click File and then New and then Navigator Window.

  Type your home page address into the "Location" field, then press Enter.

• use "telnet" to look at your home directory and your www directory

• telnet cuip.uchicago.edu

  enter username at prompt

  enter password at prompt

  you are now "in" your home directory

  type ls (that's little LS) to see a list of files in the directory, or ls -l (that's dash-el) to see more detail (a "long" listing)

  the "www" you see is your public HTML directory.

  type cd www to switch to the www directory.

  type ls (that's little LS) again. This will show all your web files. (If it's empty, well, that's what you're here to learn!!!)

  You will learn more Unix commands when you do the FTP module.

Changing your password.

If your account on the CUIP server has been set up within the last week or so, and especially if you received a username and password by email, please change your password.

Instructions for connecting by telnet and changing your password are posted at http://cuip.uchicago.edu/cttap/bbs/posts/29.html and includes a transcript that models the process.

Any of you should feel free to change your password by that method at any time.

Checking your username and password

If you haven't recently been using your cuip account, it would be a good idea to verify that the username and password you have in mind actually do work. Please do this far enough in advance of when you will really need it to give me a chance to set your password to something new and get it to you. (I can't look up what it's currently set to, only change it.)

Because there are a variety of things that can go wrong in uploading or publishing, the best way to isolate a test for correct username and password is not to try to publish but to do a minimalist sort of connection, using telnet. The posting mentioned above http://cuip.uchicago.edu/cttap/bbs/posts/29.html discusses using telnet and has a transcript modeling the process (also showing how to change your password, but you can skip that step).

This advice applies to anybody if you're not certain you know your username and password. Please bear in mind that if you have "save my password" checked on your publish settings or email client, those may be working fine even though you don't actually remember your password!

Paths for uploading and web browsing

See http://cuip.uchicago.edu/cttap/bbs/posts/18.html for information about uploading and browsing paths.

As you read these, mentally substitute your own username in place of the USERNAME variable in the first link or the "droberts" example in the second link.

The "all in one FTP URLs" are for use when publishing with Composer. The separate host and path entries are for use when publishing with Dreamweaver, and also for standalone FTP programs such as WS-FTP, FTP-Explorer, and Cute-FTP.

Where to work

(That's "where in the filesystem" not "where on Earth".)
For *both* DW practice and WIT module development, please work in your personal www area. Those are the areas discussed in the two links above which involve a tilde (~) in the browse URL, and have "/home/USERNAME/www" or "/home2/USERNAME/www" in the upload paths.

If your personal web area is already extensively used, or if you want to keep DW training practice projects separate from your work on a module, you may want to make subfolders within your /home2/USERNAME/www folder. Composer will not create a new subfolder automatically, but you can do it through DW, standalone FTP programs, or telnet followed by some Unix commands. Ask if you'd like help with this.

Mitchell Marks
CUIP Tech Coordinator http://cuip.uchicago.edu
CUIP: Chicago Public Schools / Univ. of Chicago Internet Project
5640 S Ellis Ave AAC-045, Univ of Chgo, Chgo IL 60637
Ofc 773-702-6041 Fax 702-8212 Home (v.m. ok any time) 241-7166
Primary address: mitch@cuip.uchicago.edu
To report problems with cuip.uchicago.edu: mitchell@cs.uchicago.edu andmmar@midway.uchicago.edu
Off-campus (ISP) address: mmarks@corecomm.net