10. Using The Web

You can use the CIS Unix systems to surf the Web. And, as a CIS Unix user, you can set up and maintain web pages viewable by anyone in with a web browser in the Whole Wide World. This section discusses how to do that.

10.1. World Wide Web

The World Wide Web (WWW) is the part of the Internet that uses hypertext to link documents and share resources on computers all over the world to one another. Hypertext allows any part of any document to be linked to any other document, no matter where it is, allowing for intuitive, concept-based navigation. (Unless you've been living in a cave for the past few years, you may know this already.)

All systems offer the lynx WWW browser. It is easy to use and has built-in help. There's also a local Lynx Information web page. To try it out, give the command:

% lynx

Lynx is a text browser, so it's more appropriate for viewing sites that don't use graphics/multimedia features available in browsers like Firefox or Internet Explorer.

You can use your account on the Unix systems to set up your own personal web page visible to the Whole Wide World, or at least the fraction thereof that can use a web browser. See the Pubpages web page for complete information.

10.2. Your Own Website

As a CIS Unix user, you can create your own personal website for viewing by anyone in the world equipped with a web browser. The name of our server is pubpages.unh.edu. People use their “pubpages” website for nearly everything imaginable: resumes, pictures, opinions, etc. Some courses also require you to create a web page.

Some things to note before you get started:

The CIS Unix web server is meant for individuals. Campus organizations and departments should use the UNHINFO server. (Although the pubpages server is good for testing such pages before they go “live” on UNHINFO.)
Of course, any files you put on your website will count against your total disk quota. To check your current disk usage against your quota:
```
% showquota
Used 2.5M; Quota 256.0M
```
You might want to review the parts of the CIS Unix Acceptable Use Policy (Section 4, “CIS Unix Systems Acceptable Use Policy”) that concern websites.

We'll outline the steps involved in setting up a web page here. They assume you've set up a login session (see Section 7, “Logging On”) and are using the shell interface (see Section 7.5.2, “The Shell”) for giving commands.

The web server looks for files in a subdirectory of your Unix home directory called public_html. So first you need to create that directory if it doesn't already exist:
```
% mkdir $HOME/public_html
```
It's normal for Unix commands to have no output unless there's some sort of error.
The web server software needs to be able to “look into” the directory you just created. You need to give a couple commands to allow that to happen. We recommend:
```
% chmod 711 $HOME
% chmod 755 $HOME/public_html
```
By default, the web server assumes the primary page on your website (your “home page”) is named index.html. An easy way to get started is to create a simple page with an editor, for example:
```
% pico $HOME/public_html/index.html
```
In case, you're not familiar with Pico: you can pretty much just start typing; keystroke menus at the bottom of the screen can help. Here's an example to get you started (but you can, of course, type whatever you want).
Once you're done typing, exit from Pico, being sure to save your file.
Finally, make the file you just created readable by the Whole Wide World:
```
% chmod 644 $HOME/public_html/index.html
```

That's it! Pointing your web browser to http://pubpages.unh.edu/~joe/ (substituting, of course, your own username for joe) should display the web page you just created.


	The squiggly `~` character in the above URL is a tilde. It's usually found in the northwest corner of your keyboard; typing something else will only lead to disappointment.

If you have an e-mail alias of the form first.last@unh.edu pointing to your CIS Unix account (or Exchange account, if you have one), then an alternate URL should also work: http://pubpages.unh.edu/first.last/ (for example http://pubpages.unh.edu/joseph.englebart/). The trailing slash is required. This should take effect the day after you set up your web page or obtain your alias, whichever comes later.


	It's normal for Unix commands to have no output unless there's some sort of error.


9. Using CIS Unix E-Mail		11. Usage