Your agora password

Your password for the system that supports students' webpages may be different from your password for myWeb. If you don't know your agora password, you can get a new one from UTS. Call their help line: 303 871 4700.

Log on to agora with telnet

  1. Get the necessary program:
  2. type: "telnet agora.cair.du.edu" (without the quotes, naturellement)
  3. a new window will open; at the prompt, type your username (most likely the same one you use to log into your webmail)
  4. type in the password obtained from UTS
  5. you will now see a prompt that looks like a dollar sign; to see a list the contents of your folder (called "directories"), type: "ls"
  6. if you see a folder called "public_html", you're good to go.
  7. if you don't see a "public_html" directory, type "webprot" - this is a program that will automatically create the "public_html" directory for you. Just type "Y" twice when prompted to do so.
  8. type "ls" again to see if you now have a "public_html" directory.

After all this you're basically free to go into your "public_html" directory by typing "cd public_html" at the prompt. Once there, you can create files using a Unix editor, for instance by typing "pico index.htm" (this will open the PICO editor and will allow you to start typing html code into the newly created index.html file... PICO is like Notepad, only quite a bit LESS flashy. When you are done editing, you hit CTRL-X, enter 'y' to save your changes, and hit 'ENTER' to confirm the file name.) You will probably want to write an index.htm page, because it functions as your home page.

One option to avoid extensive use of PICO is to copy a file developed on your computer to the file opened with PICO by copying and pasting.

File Transfer

With a little more software, you can log on to agora, or other networks on which you have accounts, and transfer files directly from your computer to your account and back. The Computer Science department recommends using a Secure Shell connection. To install a SSH, go to the CS technical support page that follows:

http://www.cs.du.edu/support/connectivity.html

Under the "SSH for Windows" section is a link to download a SSH program. There is another link for Mac users futher down the page.

Though trial period is listed, as nonprofit users, we can keep using this software indefinitely. At least, it has worked for me so far.

Description of SSH file transfer for PC's

Once you've downloaded and installed the SSH software, you will have an icon for the file transfer program that looks like a manilla folder with blue dots, and one for the SSH login that looks like a monitor with blue dots.

When you open the SSH file transfer program you will be presented with a login screen. Once there, select "File" then "Connect". Simply fill in the values above. So, "agora.cair.du.edu" for the server, your login name for your login name (um. yes.). Select "password" for the verification type. Then click "connect". A box requesting your password appears. Once you provide it, you see the folders (or "directories") on your remote webserver. To move a file from your computer to the webserver, bring up the folder containing the file in the usual way on your computer. By navigating throught the directories in the webserver window, open the destination directory. Click and drag the file to the destination. To move files from the webserver to your computer, just drag the other way.

Viewing Your Webpage

Once the file is on the server, you must set permissions correctly to allow others to view but not change it. To do this, log on to your account, either with telnet or SSH. Use the "cd" command, described in the UNIX commands summary provided, to get to the directory containing the file. Once there, type "chmod 755 YourFileName".

You may now see your work on the Internet. The URL for your homepage, provided in your index.htm file, is

http://www.du.edu/~YourLoginName

This will take you to your index.htm file. There you may provide links to other files. Users may also access files directly by going to

http://www.du.edu/~YourLoginName/YourFileName
where the file name is specified relative to the public_html directory.