Uploading Files:
One of the most basic tasks you will need to
perform as a Virtual Server Administrator is uploading files to your
website(*). In most cases you will upload your content using File Transfer
Protocol or FTP. You can alternatively upload content using Telnet, Windows
95/NT File Sharing, the Virtual
Administrator, or by using a web content publisher.
Many web content authoring programs include
built-in web publishing capability. In some cases this involves installing
proprietary extensions on the Virtual Server, i.e.( Microsoft FrontPage*),
other packages use the HTTP "PUT" method, but more commonly
publishers will provide support for simple FTP. It is not necessary, however,
to rely on your web content authoring program to publish to your site. You can
compose your web content using any program and then FTP the content to your
Virtual Server manually.
There also is more on this subject in our web
hosting section under Uploading
with FTP
Using FTP
You will need an ftp client for your local machine. You can find many free and
useful clients on the Internet. We have listed several places to download FTP
clients in our Resources
section. Also you may search for "FTP client" in your favorite
search engine. You will likely be overwhelmed by the amount of FTP clients
available.
If you use Windows, we have found Leap
FTP, Cute FTP, or WS
FTP to be very useful.
For the Macintosh OS, Fetch is the
most popular (and friendliest) FTP client available.
Connect to your Virtual Server via FTP using
your login id and your login password that you received in your E-mail
Configuration Letter. Do not login as anonymous, as you will not have access
to the directories and files you need.
When you login to your Virtual Server, you will
be placed in your home directory. This is the same directory you find yourself
in when you telnet to your Virtual Server.
All html documents and graphics should be
uploaded to the /usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs
directory. Here you will find a file titled "index.html" - this is
the default page that is displayed when you access your web site with a
browser. You will want to replace this with your "index.html" file.
You may upload your html documents and graphics to the usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs
directory, or into any subdirectory under the htdocs directory.
If you transfer a file named info.html to your
htdocs directory, you can access that file using the following URL: http://www.your-domain.name/info.html
If you make a subdirectory titled "sales" in your htdocs directory,
and then transfer a file called info.html to that directory, it can then be
accessed by the URL - http://www.your-domain.name/sales/info.html
NOTE: If you do not want to use the filename
"index.html" as your your default page you can do one of three
things:
1.) Upload your home page file (e.g.
default.html) into the htdocs directory, and then rename it to
"index.html"
2.) Establish a symbolic link to the file you uploaded to the htdocs
directory (e.g. default.html) by typing the following command:
ln -s default.html index.html
3.) Change the DirectoryIndex definition in the srm.conf file from
index.html to the new name (e.g. default.html).
IMPORTANT:
Be sure you ftp all your HTML files, as well as any text files such as cgi
script source code in ASCII format! All your image files need to be
transferred in BINARY format. Your FTP program should allow you to select the
file transfer mode, either ASCII or BINARY. Most FTP clients have an
"Automatic" transfer mode option that can be set - when this option
is selected the FTP client will automatically determine which file transfer
mode to use when you upload or download files. For more information on this
see our F.A.Q.'s
on CGI Section.
Uploading Files Using
WS_FTP (MS Windows)
Establish a connection to your Virtual Server by selecting the
"Connect" button.
Specify your company name as the "Profile Name", your domain name
(or temporary domain name if your domain name has not yet been registered) as
the "Host Name/Address", your login name as the "User ID",
and your login password as the "Password".
Once a connection is established, two columns
will appear on your screen. The column on the left displays files on your
computer while the column on the right represents directories and files on
your Virtual Server.
You will want to navigate to the "www/htdocs"
or "usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs" folder on your Virtual Server (the
right side of the dialog). This is the directory where you will store your web
content.
Select the appropriate files or directories
that you want to transfer from your computer (the left side) to your Virtual
Server (the right side) by selecting them with your mouse. You can select more
than one by holding down the shift key.
Once these files are selected you simply hit
the arrow "-->" pointing toward the right or toward the Virtual
Server directory window. Be sure that all HTML documents and cgi script are
transferred in ASCII mode. Graphics should be transferred in Binary format.
The latest versions of WS_FTP provide an "Auto" toggle button you
can select- WS_FTP will then automatically determine which mode to transfer
the file
Uploading Files Using Fetch
(Macintosh)
If you are using a Macintosh, Fetch is probably
the most popular FTP program available and is quite easy to use.
Establish a connection to your Virtual Server
by selecting the "New Connection" button under the "File"
menu. Specify your domain name (or temporary domain name if your domain name
has not yet been registered) as the "Host", your login name as the
"User ID", and your login password as the "Password".
You will want to navigate to the "www/htdocs"
or "usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs" folder on your Virtual Server. This
is the directory where you will store your web content.
To upload content to your Virtual server you
can either drag files and folders from your desktop to the Fetch window or
select the "Put File..." button and select files and folders.
Be sure that all HTML documents and cgi script
are transferred in ASCII mode. Graphics should be transferred in Binary
format. Fetch also has a setting, "Automatic", that you can select-
Fetch will then automatically determine which mode to transfer the file
Using a Console FTP Client
Most operating systems (UNIX, NT, Windows 95)
are shipped with a built-in FTP client that is accessed from a "console
window". Many people don't use a console FTP client partly because they
don't know one exists and partly because console FTP clients have a steeper
learning curve.
To use a console FTP client you will first need
access to a "command prompt". This can be gained by opening a
console window. You can do this in Windows 95/NT by looking in your
"Start->Program" menu for "MS-DOS prompt" or
"Command Prompt". You can also "Run" the command prompt
executable by selecting "Start->Run" and entering the executable
path "c:/windows/command/command.com" or "c:/winnt/system32/cmd.exe"
if using Windows NT.
Most UNIX environments use console windows and
command prompts quite extensively and UNIX users are already comfortable using
them (or should be). When you Telnet or SSH to your Virtual Server you are
effectively open a command prompt remotely on your Virtual Server. So you can,
in effect, use FTP from a command prompt on your Virtual Server to download a
file from another remote host directly to your Virtual Server.
To open up an FTP session at a command prompt
simply type "ftp [remote host]", where [remote host] is the site you
are attempting to contact (i.e. ftp.xyz.com).
When you open an FTP session with a remote
host, you will be prompted for a username and password. After you have logged
into the remote ftp site, you can navigate around using the "cd"
command to change your current working directory on the remote site. Type
"ls" or "dir" to list the files in your current working
directory on the remote site.
To upload from your local machine (or the
machine from which you initiated the FTP session) to the remote host, you use
the command "put". For example, to upload a file in your local
working directory named "index.html" to your current working
directory on the remote site, you would type "put index.html test.html".
This will transfer the file "index.html" to the remote host and
store it under the name "test.html". If you would like to store the
local file as the same name on the remote host simply type something like
"put index.html index.html" or simply "put index.html". To
upload multiple files, use the command "mput" using wildcards such
as "mput *.html". You may want to turn off the confirm prompt by
typing the command "prompt" before you upload multiple files.
To download content from a remote host (or the
machine to which you opened the FTP session) to your local machine, you use
the command "get". For example, to download a file to your local
working directory named "test.html" from your current working
directory on the remote site, you would type "get test.html
index.html". This will transfer the file "test.html" from the
remote host and store it under the name "index.html" on your local
computer. To download multiple files, use the command "mget" using
wildcards such as "mget *.html". You may want to turn off the
confirm prompt by typing the command "prompt" before you download
multiple files.
It is important to upload and download ASCII
text files such as HTML content in ASCII mode. Likewise, binary content such
as gif or jpg images should be uploaded and downloaded in BINARY mode. To
change your upload mode to ASCII simply type "ascii". To change your
upload mode to BINARY simply type "binary". Other important FTP
commands are summarized in the table below. Arguments for commands are
indicated using brackets [ ]:
ascii
Set the file transfer type to network ASCII.
binary
Set the file transfer type to support binary image transfer.
bye
Quit or terminate the FTP session with the remote server and exit ftp. An end
of file will also terminate the session and exit.
cd [remote-directory]
Change the working directory on the remote machine to remote directory.
delete [remote-file]
Delete the file remote-file on the remote machine.
dir [remote-directory]
Or
Is
Print a listing of the directory contents in the directory, if no remote
directory is specified, a listing of the current working directory on the
remote machine is shown.
get [remote-file] [local-file]
Retrieve the remote-file and store it on the local machine. If the local file
name is not specified, it is given the same name it has on the remote machine.
help [command]
Print an informative message about the meaning of command. If no argument is
given, ftp prints a list of the known commands.
lcd [local-directory]
Change the working directory on the local machine. If no directory is
specified, the user's current local working directory is displayed.
mdelete [remote-files]
Delete the remote-files on the remote machine.
mget [remote-files]
Expand the remote-files on the remote machine and do a get for each file name
thus produced.
mkdir [remote-directory]
Make a directory on the remote machine.
mput [local-files]
Expand wild cards in the list of local files given as arguments and do a put
for each file in the resulting list.
prompt
Toggle interactive prompting. Interactive prompting occurs during multiple
file transfers to allow the user to selectively retrieve or store files. If
prompting is turned off (default is on), any mget or mput will transfer all
files, and any mdelete will delete all files.
put [local-file] [remote-file]
Store a local file on the remote machine. If remote-file is left unspecified,
the local file name is used.
rename [from] [to]
Rename the file from on the remote machine, to the file to.
rmdir [directory-name]
Delete a directory on the remote machine.
Uploading files via
Windows 95/NT File Sharing.
This is explained in our On-line Users Guide, Win95/NT
file sharing
*Warning
If you are using FrontPage to build your web pages and have the Front Page
extensions installed to your site, and you use a ftp program to upload your
site - ONLY upload images and "html" or "htm" files
DO NOT upload any "_vti" "_hidden" or "_private"
files or you will corrupt the Front Page extensions and possibly
"crashing" your virtual server.