How to Install Pages in the Production SLAC Web

SLAC 18 Jul 1998


Contents


This document is aimed at people wishing to install production Web pages on the SLAC WWW UNIX server. Its Internet domain name is www.slac.stanford.edu. Production pages are ones that are at least moderately polished to be shared across groups for some at least moderately long time. See Web Definitions. You should also look at WWW Policy and Resources and its subsidiary pages, along with the SLAC AFS Users' Guide.

For information about developing and installing production pages on a Windows NT server, e.g., www-group.slac.stanford.edu or www-project.slac.stanford.edu, see WWW Policy and Resources, especially the FrontPage links. Then contact the Web Information Manager via the mailing list, www-admin@slac.stanford.edu.

Creating Your Group's Home Page

Before putting any pages on the Web, consider the implications of making your information potentially available to the world via WWW and AFS. Take a look at the memo " Privacy and Confidentiality Issues in SLAC WWW Information" to learn about many of the issues.

A quick, no-frills way to provide information is to place pre-existing plain-text, Postscript, or even PDF documents in your WWW groupcode directory or its subdirectories. (See the next section for obtaining a groupcode directory.) If the server doesn't find a file called index.html in your groupcode directory, it will display a navigable list of all the files it finds there. For example, here's what's currently in the Accelerator Department's directory.

If, on the other hand, you'd like to give your pages a more Web-like look and feel, create regular Web pages using the HTML formatting language. Usually, you will want to create a main or "home" page for your group:

Setting Up Subdirectories

First, you must obtain a UNIX account that is privileged for AFS. Get an account form through the online request or from the Help Desk in the lobby of the Computer Group Building (Building 50). See, too, the SLAC AFS Users' Guide.

Then you need to send email to www-admin@slac.stanford.edu to obtain production AFS WWW disk space for your group's pages. The space will be usually be named /afs/slac/www/grp/groupcode where the last part, groupcode, is your group's code, e.g., ad.

You should let www-admin know who should be authorized to write into this and any subdirectories your group establishes and who should be able to control that list. For backup, provide at least two usernames. If you expect to install files that total more than 5 Megabytes, let www-admin know that, too, for space planning purposes. If you do, you will generally be allocated space on your own AFS volume.

Someone in www-admin will setup two AFS privilege groups and their initial membership and associate them with your space via its Access Control List (ACL). These groups are g-www:g-groupcode and g-www:owner-g-groupcode, where g-www:g-groupcode is the AFS group of usernames that may write into your group's directory(ies) and g-www:owner-g-groupcode is the AFS group of usernames that may change the names in g-www:g-groupcode.

From your group's directory, use the fs listacl command to see what groups are in your ACL. Use the pts member groupcode command to see who's in a particular AFS group in your ACL, e.g., pts member g-www:g-ad. Use the fs listquota command to see what AFS volume you are on and how much of its space is used. (The main volume currently shared by those with small space requirements is www.)

To start learning about managing AFS Web space, see "Introduction to AFS Duties and Powers of WWW Space Owners." For more aspects of AFS, check out "AFS Information."

Once your group's directory is set up, login to the SLAC UNIX system and put your home page and the other documents you choose into this Web directory. Or you may create subdirectories and put documents there.

Use the mkdir command to create the subdirectories. For example, to create a new subdirectory addo for group ad:

	cd /afs/slac/www/grp/ad
        pwd
	mkdir addo
        ls -l
	

If you want WWW access to the documents to be restricted only to those logged in to the SLAC domain (actually IP number 134.79), put the files in a subdirectory named slaconly. But see AFS Considerations below.

Your group's home page can now be accessed with the URL address, http://www.slac.stanford.edu/grp/groupcode/homepage.html, where homepage is usually groupcode, home, or index. Or if you do not have a specific home page, you may access a list of all the files in your group's home directory with the URL, http://www.slac.stanford.edu/grp/groupcode/, if you lack a file named index.html.

To understand more about the naming conventions and other aspects of WWW space at SLAC, read the document, "WWW URL and File Naming Scheme".

AFS Considerations

Your Web pages are visible not only through the Web, but also through the AFS file system.

By default, your AFS directory at SLAC and any of its subdirectories are set up so that (a) anyone at SLAC and (b) anyone in the world who is authenticated to AFS within the SLAC cell can:

through just a simple ls /afs/slac.stanford.edu/www/grp/groupcode, cat, or other system command.

This means that by default the files are not readable by anyone in the world with AFS privileges.

N.B.: Files restricted in WWW to people logged on to a host in the SLAC domain (actually to an IP address beginning with 134.79) via a slaconly subdirectory are readable, not only to anyone at SLAC, but also to anyone in the world authenticated to the SLAC AFS cell. The files may even be displayed through Web browsers by using a file: (rather than http:) URL.

Referring to Your Group's Production Web Pages

When providing links to your group's Web pages (or pictures, Postscript files, etc.), refer to the files in terms of how the server may find them. Generally, this means using relative addressing, that is, relative URL, which is usually more robust over time than fully qualified URL--and shorter. Fully qualified URL contains the domain name and may have more of the path name.

To specify the URL for your group directory, /afs/slac.stanford.edu/www/grp/groupcode, use /grp/groupcode. For example, if you want to provide a link to the file /afs/www.slac.stanford.edu/www/grp/ad/AD.html, use /grp/ad/AD.html for the URL. If you want to link to another file in the same directory as, say, your group's home page, use a format like another-page.html substituting your specific file name.

For more information on relative URL, check out the source for a page like "SLAC WWW Resources." Or take a look at the Internet standards document, RFC 1808.

Creating Web Pages Elsewhere and Transferring Them to UNIX

You may create your Web pages on a non-UNIX platform such as a Windows NT machine using FrontPage or a Macintosh and then transfer the pages to UNIX to be served by www.slac.stanford.edu.

If you are on a Mac:

Other Places in UNIX for SLAC Web Pages

Sometimes you may create production pages of "publication" quality for a broad spectrum of the SLAC community. These may be appropriate for installation in SLAC's "functional" production Web space. See the "SLAC WWW URL and File Naming Scheme," especially Naming Files and Subdirectories.

At the other end of the spectrum, you may also create pages of interest to yourself and a few colleagues. If you work on UNIX and especially if these are test versions or transient pages, you should put them in a subdirectory named public_html under your home directory.


The original version of this page was adapted in May, 1995, from the Stanford University page, "Instructions for Classes," on how to set up home pages for classes.

Joan Winters, Les Cottrell