Publishing Your people.bu.edu Account

Create the pages for your site

After successfully completing the application, a home page file named index.html will be put in your Web directory. It contains links to other template pages (profile, résumé, etc.). You can copy and use these or create your own files from scratch.

HTML: Most Web pages are formatted with HTML, a simple markup and formatting code that is easy to learn. HTML Editors can help you create Web pages. To learn HTML, you can read HTML guides or attend HTML courses.

Graphics: When creating graphics for your site, consider their size and download times. Find out more about creating and optimizing graphics for the Web.

Put your files on the people.bu.edu server

Option 1 (preferred) - Use FTP to upload your files to people.bu.edu:
Once you configure Dreamweaver or your standalone FTP software and put your new files on people.bu.edu, you can view your pages using a web browser. You can also use Dreamweaver or your FTP software for all your site maintenance, such as deleting files you no longer want to publish, or moving, renaming, downloading, or overwriting existing files.

Option 2 (discouraged) - Use your ACS account to publish your files to people.bu.edu:
If you use this option, you must upload files to your public_html directory on ACS, and you will have to set the permissions of your files each time you upload them. If you don't do this, people will not be able to view your files on the Web. To avoid this burden, use option 1. Your ACS account also supports shell (command-line) access to your files, allowing you to edit your files with ACS text editors like Pico, vi, or Emacs (there is no command-line account access to people.bu.edu). However, you will still need to set file permissions as described below.

Review and preview your web pages

People across campus and around the world will see the pages you put on the Web. Review your Web pages and preview them with both Netscape and Internet Explorer on as many platforms as you can.

Set file permissions

When you FTP your files to people.bu.edu, the people.bu.edu server automatically sets the file permissions to permit viewing to all Web visitors.

If you FTP your files to acs.bu.edu, or you are having trouble viewing your files on the Web, you may need to manually set the file permissions.

To make your files world readable (viewable by anyone on the Web) telnet to acs.bu.edu. By default, your location upon logging in should be your root directory. In your root directory, use this command:

chmod -R og+rx public_html

NOTE: All Web files (HTML, GIF and JPG files) must have read permission to be displayed on the Web.