Student Sites

Creating a personal web page at University of Nevada, Reno consists of four steps:

  1. Create your website on your local machine
  2. Test your website on your local machine
  3. Publish your website - upload and set file permissions
  4. Test your uploaded website

Step 1 - Create your website on your local machine

Successful web pages must follow a few simple rules:

  1. Store all files in a single folder.
  2. The initial web page must be named index.html.
  3. Each web page is stored in a unique file.
  4. Each graphic is stored in a unique file.
  5. Each pointer, tic mark and image is stored in a unique file.
  6. "Relative" vs "Absolute" addressing. Web pages are linked together by links.
    1. "Relative" addressing is used to reference "user-supplied" items (other pages, graphics, animations). Use only the name of the item and its relative location to the active page. For example, you want to display a photo (name photo.jpg) on your main page. Both the index.html file and the photo.jpg file are in the same directory. In the link (see one of the tutorials above for command syntax), refer to the image as "photo.jpg". Be SURE you do not reference the local hard drive (for example: "c:\My Pictures\photo.jpg") because that reference will not exist on the server.
    2. Absolute" addressing is used for linking to other locations on the World Wide Web. "Absolute" addressing is used to identify sites over which you have no editorial control. Links should appear in the form "http://www.sitename.org/pagename". For example, if you want to refer to a great search engine on your main page, you could generate a link to http://www.google.com.
  7. File names must be UNIX-compliant. UNIX limits file names to the 8.3 format (8 characters for a unique file name, followed by .typ where .typ indicates the file type). No spaces or special characters (#,&,*,!, etc). Long file names will be truncated so make sure the first 6 characters of each filename are unique. For example, if a file is named "reallylongfilename.doc," your HTML code sees the filename as "reallyl~1.doc." A link pointing at the long filename will not succeed.
  8. Review your links in the HTML code. Each of the WYSIWYG software editors (including the freeware) allows you access to the "source code" for the page.
    1. Locate and confirm all links. Links to user-supplied objects (other pages, images, graphics) should reference only the filename (which should be stored in the same directory).
    2. Remove any reference to disk location (for example, if you link to a picture called "myphoto.jpg" make sure the link does not reference the absolute location on your machine such as "c:\mywebs\currentweb\myphoto.jpg ")
    3. UNIX is case-sensitive, a link to a file named BIG.jpg is not the same as a link to a file named big.JPG. Filenames and link references must match.

Step 2 - Test your website on your local machine

Once all pages of your web have been created, make sure all the pages and related objects are stored in a single folder. Close the editor used to develop the pages. Open your "web" with your favorite web browser. For example: Assume you have saved all the pages and files associated with your personal web site in a directory named c:\myweb on your hard drive. Follow the instructions below to view your web.

Microsoft Internet Explorer:

  1. Open Internet Explorer (big blue "e" icon).
  2. Select File from the Command Bar at the top of the window.
  3. Select Open from the dropdown menu.
  4. Click the Browse button. Locate your web folder.
  5. Select your index.html file.
  6. Click Open, making sure the file name is transferred to the File Name: box. Click OK.

Netscape Navigator:

  1. Double-click the Netscape icon.
  2. Select File from the Command Bar at the top of the window.
  3. Select Open Page from the drop-down menu.
  4. Click the Choose File button. Locate your web folder.
  5. Select your index.html file.
  6. Click Open, making sure file name is transferred to the File Name: box. Click the Open button.
  7. Make sure the Navigator button is highlighted and click the Open button.

Examine your web pages: look at their ,spacing, orientation, font size and readability. Are images visible? Does your commentary make sense? Do your links to other pages really work? Have you provided follow-up links to get you back to the home page? Return to your HTML editor for modifications, if needed.

Once you are comfortable with your design and implementation, you are ready to "publish" your website to a server.

Step 3 - Publish your website; upload and set file permissions

To make your web site available to browsers on the World Wide Web, you must upload it to a web server. There are many web servers on campus, however, for "personal" web pages for students, the primary server is Fallon.

Simple instructions to help you upload your personal webpages to the Fallon server are available at the following links:

Commercial web packages provide a "publish" function to transfer information from your local computer to the Fallon server. Using the "publish" function from a commercial package (such as MS FrontPage or Macromedia Dreamweaver) will default to a basic file transfer protocol (FTP) such as that used by WS_FTPLe or Fetch. The Fallon web server does not support any advanced features (automatic link maintenance, backgrounds, themes, sharing, etc) of commercial packages. The software may be used as WYSIWYG editors for basic HTML code.

Personal pages on Fallon are stored in different locations relative to user's home directories. The instructions for each package give detailed instructions on the creation of a target directory and a method of assigning the appropriate "permissions" for web access to both the directory and files. There are other methods for issuing these commands (via a secure shell telnet connection), but they are even more complicated.

Fallon Personal Web Pages are stored as a subdirectory of the user's home directory named /public_html. For example, a web site for Elizabeth Soph, username esoph, would be accessible at http://www.unr.nevada.edu/~esoph/. Default permissions are appropriate for web viewing. Both directory and files need to have full user privileges and execute privileges for group and world.

Step 4 - Test Your Uploaded Website

Once you have transferred your website to the Fallon server, test the files for functionality:
  • Connect to the Internet via Ethernet (on campus and ResHalls) or an independent ISP.
  • Start up your favorite Internet browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape Communicator).
  • Using the URLs listed at the end of Step 2, try to access your website.
    • If you have followed the basic instructions, your web pages should be visible.
    • IF something didn't work quite right, a few troubleshooting items are listed below.
    • IF you continue to have problems, contact the Help Desk at 784-4320 for help in correcting the problems.
  • Error message text or symptom:
    • Forbidden, you don't have permission to access /~username/ on this server.
      • If you cannot see your homepage, check that the name of the file is index.html. You may rename the file if necessary. Note: index.html is not the same as INDEX.HTML.
      • If you cannot see linked pages, check the names of the webpage file names. You cannot have spaces in the file names. Files starting with the same 8 characters will be indistinguishable.
      • Check the permissions on your web folder and the files within it. You will need to change permissions via an SSH/Telnet command line session.
    • Web page appears, but images are missing.
      • Open the source code file either online with a UNIX editor or on your local machine and review addresses for linked images.
      • See section on "Relative" vs "Absolute" addressing in Step 1 above.
      • You must be sure that the referenced file is located in the web folder.