Publishing Student Personal Web Pages

USC students can now publish personal pages on the World Wide Web. At some point, in the near future, you will also be able to have your home page included in the USC Directory of Personal Web Pages.

Be aware of your responsibilities

You are responsible for the content of your pages. The University reserves the right to cease publication of any documents which violate the law, contractual agreements, or University policies and standards. There may be additional consequences: Violations of the law may be reported to the appropriate authorities, while violations of University policy and standards will be processed through the cognizant office of the University.

How it works

In order for your pages to be accessible on the World Wide Web,

You must register using the "requestwww" program (see below)
You must follow these configuration rules:
- your HTML documents must be located in a subdirectory called public_html in your home directory
- The public_html directory must be world-readable and executable
- The primary page in your public_html subdirectory must be named index.html
- All of your HTML documents must be world-readable; subdirectories must be world-readable and executable

You can prepare your public_html directory and index.html file before you register, or you can register first and let the requestwww program create them for you.

How to register

While logged into your Student UNIX account, type requestwww at the system prompt. The program will display a summary of university policy related to publication of web pages. You will be asked to assert that you have read, understand, and agree to abide by these policies. If you do not agree, the program will exit.

The requestwww program will then ask for your

last name, then first and middle (optional) names
your major or University department
whether you are faculty, staff, or student
whether you want to appear in the directory of personal home pages on USCweb

The program will then display what you have typed and allow you to correct any mistakes you have made. Once your information is correct, your request for publication is submitted.

The program will then look to see if you have a public_html directory in your home directory. If not, it will create one with the proper file permissions. If the directory already exists, requestwww will just check the file permissions and correct them if necessary.

Next the program will check for an index.html file in your public_html directory. Again, if it exists, requestwww will make sure the file permissions are correct, but otherwise leave it untouched. If there is no index.html file, the program will create a very basic one for you, containing only your name and e-mail address. You can use it as a template to start building your home page.

Finally the program will inform you of the URL for your home page. Within 24 hours the URL should be active and your name should appear in the USC Directory of Home Pages if you requested it.

Capabilities and Restrictions

You will be able to use most, but not all, WWW capabilities on your personal pages:

Image Maps: Yes.
CGI-bin Scripts: No. However, we will be providing a multi-purpose feedback script which you can use on your pages.
Server-Side Includes: Yes, with the exception of "exec". To use these, the document must have the extension .shtml

Getting Help

University Computing Services is pleased to offer the University community this opportunity to publish on the World Wide Web. Unfortunately, we do not have the resources to provide consulting support for this activity. Although this may change in the future, at this time you are on your own when creating personal web pages.

Fortunately, creating HTML files is really very easy, if you will take a little time to read some of the excellent documentation available on the Web. Several excellent references are:

If at first you have difficulty with your pages, READ the above manuals, or ask a friend or colleague for help.

More questions? check out the USC Home Pages Frequently Asked Questions.

Louise Marks, <marks@ucs.usc.edu>
Last modified Wednesday, 31-May-1995 15:37:44 PDT