Setting Permissions For Your Webpage Files

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Setting permissions for your webpage files

Now that your file is on the server, you may be tempted to view it, but this would be premature. If you tried to view it in your browser at this point, you would get the following message:

This may initially seem confusing because you have already given permission to both your Netlink ID folder and your "www" folder. You have yet to give permission, however, to the individual files you transfer to the server space. While the Netlink ID and "www" folder permissions are set only once, permissions have to be set for each new file you place in the "www" folder. This doesn't apply when you are overwriting a file of the same name, however.

Remember that you should name your homepage either "index.htm" or "index.html" if you want your webpage to be viewed when only the folder name is given (i.e., http://web.uvic.ca/~virvine). If no file is named "index.htm" or "index.html," then what will be viewed when no file is specified and the http://web.uvic.ca/~virvine hyperlink is entered? The answer is displayed below:

When no file is named index.htm or index.html and your www folder is given public permission, then an index listing all files in your "www" will be displayed. The world will be able to see, what I call, your "messy bedroom."

Set permissions for your webpages and images as you have done previously, but note that the permission settings will be slightly different. In the Remote System screen of the FTP window:

Select the HTML or image file by clicking on it once. The file should appear highlighted as it does in the following window:

Right click once to get the following pop-up menu:

Select "chmod (UNIX)"
The following "Remote file permissions" window will appear. This time you will set the permissions as follows:
- Owner (i.e., you): Read, Write
- Other/Everyone (i.e., the people who visit your site): Read

Click OK.
Please note that when setting permissions, the above permission box will not reflect the permissions a folder or file currently holds. It only remembers the last settings you applied. To find out what the permissions are for files and folders, click on the "DirInfo" button. The following letters are shown: r = read, w = write, x = execute. A file with rw-r-r will have read/write for Owner, read for Group, and read for Other/Everyone. This way, you can check to see that your permissions are set correctly.
Close the UVic connection by clicking the "Close" button.
Shut down the WS-FTP program by clicking the "Exit" button.
The bookmark.htm file should now be visible at http://web.uvic.ca/~virvine/bookmark.htm - the webpage is now "live" for all to see.

If you accessed this tutorial from the "Uploading Your Site" section of the Webpage Construction module, you may return to that section by clicking here. To return to the WS-FTP tutorial page or the Helpful Links page, click on the link at the top of this page.