Personal Home Pages

Prerequisites:

• You'll need an account on web.math.ucsb.edu. This is created separately from your usual UCSB NetID account, and has its own password. Contact sysadmin@math.ucsb.edu if you need one set up.
• You'll need some familiarity with HTML. Explaining how to create an HTML file is beyond the scope of this page, but you can find lots of information and templates online.
• If you're connecting from off-campus, you'll need to have the Campus VPN set up. (This is to reduce outside password-guessing attacks on the server.)
• You will need an SCP or SFTP program. Your exact options will depend on your OS.
  • Linux and macOS both come with command-line clients built in.
  • If you prefer a GUI client, one good option is FileZilla which is available for Linux, macOS, and Windows.
• You may also want an SSH client. This is useful if you want to do command-line work on the web server, and is necessary for changing your password.
  • Linux and macOS both have command-line SSH clients built in.
  • Windows users will want to grab PuTTY. The installer package contains a GUI client, as well as command-line tools.

Connection info:

• Host: web.math.ucsb.edu
• Port: 22 (this is the default)

The first time you connect you'll be asked to verify the server's authenticity. Most clients will give you a fingerprint of some kind. If it matches any of these, the key is correct:

4c:8f:80:e6:35:d5:1b:56:c9:f3:f2:64:cb:d1:d9:59

SHA256:7erGHVbfVms8ireXswg+R1oG/ig7fPlefvNsLxVxX7M

SHA256:1/1tMVVNlpVOcEKY+q5B1J8YsrgVSqeR7W9nyiG8H6s

xovim-recit-nyrod-kahif-zynop-denev-selet-rutyr-pekal-vacud-duxex

+--[ RSA 2048]----+
|        .. o..   |
|     . .  + +   E|
|    o + .. o o .=|
|   o . = o. . =oo|
|    .   S .  * o |
|              +  |
|                 |
|                 |
|                 |
+-----------------+

Connecting:

FileZilla:

1. At the top of the FileZilla window, put "web.math.ucsb.edu" in the Host box, your username and password in the appropriate boxes, and "22" in the Port box. Then click the Quickconnect button.
2. Assuming the connection was successful, you'll have two directory trees. The one on the left is your local system, the one on the right is the server. You can browse around using these panes, and drag and drop files from one side to the other.
3. For your website, you'll want to open the public_html folder on the server side. This is where your HTML files will go.

Command line:

Open a terminal window. On macOS you can do this by going to Applications, Utilities, Terminal, or by pressing ⌘-Space and typing "terminal" in the search box. On Linux it will vary a little depending on your distribution, but you want something called "Terminal", "germ", "xterm", "uxterm", or something along those lines.

You now have a couple options.

scp:

You can use scp to copy files to the remote server, much like you'd use the cp command to copy them locally:

scp *.html brodbeck@web.math.ucsb.edu:public_html/

You can also copy directory trees by using the "-r" (for "recursive") option.

sftp:

Run the sftp command:

sftp brodbeck@web.math.ucsb.edu

After logging in, you'll see an "sftp>" prompt. This works like the old command-line FTP program. Since FTP has not been commonly used in at least a decade, I realize this is not the most helpful description, so I'll give some example commands.

• ls - list files in the current remote directory.
• lls - list files in the current local directory.
• cd - change the remote directory. (You will probably want to start your session with "cd public_html".)
• lcd - change the local directory.
• put - transfer a file from the current local directory to the current remote directory. For example, "put index.html".
• get - transfer a file from the current remote directory to the current local directory.

For more, type man sftp at your terminal prompt, then read the INTERACTIVE COMMANDS section.

Index page:

The index page is the default page the web server sends, when a client requests your directory but doesn't request a specific file. In other words, it's the default page.

The server will look for a file called "index.htm" or "index.html". If it doesn't find one, it will instead display a directory listing. If you don't want someone to be able to browse the contents of a directory, be sure to put an index.html file in it. Even a blank one will do.

URL:

The URL for your page will be https://web.math.ucsb.edu/~netid/, where "netid" is replaced with your UCSB NetID. You can also use http instead of https, but https is preferred.

Password changing:

To change your password, connect with either the command-line ssh client, for example ssh brodbeck@web.math.ucsb.edu , or with PuTTY. You'll get a prompt ending in "$". At that prompt, type passwd (note the abbreviated spelling.)