Set up your public_html directory

Once you have activated your Mason account, you can set up space for your web site.
All web sites on Mason reside in a special public_html folder in your home directory. (In Unix, folders are called directories).
Your public_html directory (folder) will go in your home directory on the Mason server.

• Telnet or SSH to mason.gmu.edu
• Enter your mason username and press enter. (Your username is the part of your GMU email address before the @).
• Enter your mason password and press enter

Now you can create your public_html directory:

• At the mason> prompt, type cd and press enter
• Type mkdir public_html and press enter
  • On Unix systems, a successful command simply returns you to the system prompt. If you get no error message, the command was successful.

To allow everyone to access your webspace, you need to set permissions:

• At the mason> or osf1> prompt, type chmod 755 public_html and press enter. You should see the mason> or osf1> prompt again. Remember, Unix doesn't tell you if a command was successful, only if it failed.
• Type cd and press enter.
• Type chmod 711 . and press enter. (Note: there is a space and a period after "711")

Permissions set who can read, write, or search (execute) your files and directories. There are three categories of users: the owner or user(you), the group, and others. There are two ways to directly set permissions in UNIX: "absolute" numerical codes (711, 644, etc) and "symbolic" letter codes (o+r, etc). The methods are functionally equivalent, though the numerical codes are more efficient. The "absolute" numerical codes allow you to set all the permissions at once. The letter codes allow you to add or remove a specific permission. More on Unix permissions in the troubleshooting permissions section.

You're now ready to create and upload content to your new webspace.

---

Dean Taciuch
GMU English Department

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.