Once you have designed and tested your Web pages on your local system, the next step in making those pages accessible to the Web world at large is to post them on a Web server. This process will differ from server to server, due to the connection mechanism, the server platform, and several other factors. This pages describes the specific steps required for an cstel.net user to set up a Web directory and post their Web files there.

The key point to emphasize is that these files must be copied to a specific directory, which must be created prior to copying the files. Furthermore, the directory cannot simply be created by the user, but must be set up using an automated process that runs on the host system used by cstel.net, which is hosted by InfoAve.Net. This process not only creates the appropriate directory, but also assigns its ownership and access permissions so that the Web server can serve your Web files to other users.


Creating the WWW directory

Your Web files must be stored in a special subdirectory of your account on the host system. This subdirectory must be named /WWW. Once it has been created, you may then create subdirectories of /WWW if you wish. These subdirectories can be created in any manner you wish, including using FTP.

To create the /WWW directory, you will need to log directly into the host system. The simplest way to accomlish this, using the software distributed by cstel.net, is to select the Telnet application, which has already been configured for our host system (PACS). If you are using another Telnet application, the server you need to connect to is cstel.net

After connecting to the PACS host, either through a separate terminal emulator or via a Telnet session, you will see the Info Avenue Enhanced Terminal Services Main Menu, illustrated here.


Terminal Services main menu

This menu is the primary interface for users connecting directly to our host system (including those users without a TCP/IP account).

From this Main Menu, select the TOOLS option. (Options are selected either by moving the arrow in the left column up and down using the arrow keys on your keyboard, or simply by typing in the option word -- such as TOOLS. In either case, press the Enter key to invoke the option.) From the subsequent screen (see below), select the WWWDIR option. You will be prompted for a Personal name, which will be used as a header on the template document that is created in your new WWW directory (see below). The creation process will display a series of brief system messages regarding the creation of the new directory, and then return you to the menu. At this point, you may exit from the Info Avenue Enhanced Terminal Services Menu and terminate your Telnet session.


Terminal Services TOOLS menu


Testing the creation of your WWW directory

When the above procedure creates your WWW directory, it also places a single HTML file into that directory. This file can be used as a template for your home page, or simply to test that the directory got created successfully.

To test your directory using this template file, start your browser and point it to http://web.infoave.net/~username, where username should be replaced with your actual login account name. (Don't forget the tilde character [~] before the username.) Your template file should appear; this completes the testing of your Web directory creation.



Moving files to the Web server

Now it is time to copy your Web files -- all of the HTML files, as well as any graphics or other related files -- to the
newly-created directory. The easiest way to do this is with FTP. The steps are as follows (this example uses the
FTP application distributed with the Internet Tool Kit software kit, and illustrated below.

Using FTP, connect to ftp.cstel.net but not via an Anonymous login. Instead, disable the Anonymous login button, and enter the Username and Password you are currently using for your own account. When FTP makes the connection to Info Avenue, you will be placed in your top-level directory. There will already be one or more subdirectories shown on the Remote host side, such as WORKSPACE. One of these directories will be WWW. Change to that subdirectory (most simply by double-clicking on the WWW directory name).

    You will see that a file called index.html has already been created for you, as a boilerplate HTML file. This is the template file used in the above testing of your new WWW directory. If you have a file by the same name, copying it to your new WWW directory will overwrite the template file. You may wish to rename one or the other before doing the file transfer.
    Copy all relevant files from your system to your new WWW subdirectory. (This would include all of your HTML files, as well as any graphics or other files that are referenced within those HTML files.) Be sure to copy all HTML files in ASCII mode! You can now access these files across the Net using any WWW browser.
IMPORTANT!!

Accessing your files from the cstel.net Host

The URL for your new files is:
http://web.infoave.net/~username/filename.html
where username is your Username and filename.html is the name of any HTML file you wish to access.
**Note that if your "home page" file is named index.html, you do not need to specify the filename; you may simply open the following URL:  http://web.infoave.net/~username