How to Create a Kettering University Homepage

Logging in to UNIX

Kettering homepages are a part of the University UNIX system. In order to publish a page, some basic understanding of this system is necessary. To log in, you will need the following:

  • Your username: (This is also your e-mail address). For students, this is the first four letters of your last name, followed by the last four digits of your student ID number. For faculty and staff, this is the first letter of your first name followed by up to seven letters of your last name.
  • Your password: This password is the password for your unix account on nova.kettering.edu.  It was initially the same as your e-mail password but it does not synchronize with LDAP password changes (LDAP is used for Blackboard, Banner Web, E-mail, and Wireless Login). If you have changed your E-mail password and don't remember what your initial Unix password is, it can be reset by IT. This will require photo identification. If you are not able to visit IT in person, you may request a password change by phone at (810)237-8324 by answering some identifying questions. Please do not request a password change over e-mail, and never send a password over e-mail.
  • An SSH client: This client is available in the Kettering computer labs, or you may download and install it from http://www.kettering.edu/it/SSHInstall.jsp.
    Once you have the above items, you can log into nova.kettering.edu using the SSH client and begin publishing your homepage.  

Directory and File Permissions

For your homepage to be viewable from the web, your home directory has to be "searchable." This means that another user may not be able to read the contents of your home directory, but subdirectories can still be accessed. To verify that your home directory is searchable,  once you have logged into UNIX, enter the following command:

chmod 711 . (the "." is part of the command)

The Kettering server will look for your homepage in a directory called public_html. To create this directory, use the mkdir command:

mkdir public_html

This directory also needs to be readable by all. To make the directory available, type:

chmod 755 public_html

Your home page is now available to be published on the web. When you are ready to start uploading files, you can use the graphical file transfer capabilities of the SSH client to copy the files to the web server. The directory structure is up to the user, but all files should go under the public_html folder. Once the files are in place, you will need to make them writeable. You can do this through the GUI, or through the text mode of the Unix shell. If you use the shell, the chmod command is used as follows: chmod mode filename where mode is the permission mode (755 for directories and 644 for regular files) and filename is the name of the file. In the graphical mode, you can right click on the file and click properties. Regular files should be writeable by the user, and readable by everyone. Directories should be writeable by the user, and readable and executable by everyone.

Things to be aware of when publishing homepages

Every web page should have a main entry point. Kettering personal homepages begin at http://www.kettering.edu/~username/.

The main entry point is actually your public_html directory. The server will look for pages named index.htm, , Welcome.html, Welcome.htm, welcome.html, welcome.htm and start.htm in that order

Filenames are case sensitive. Links should take this into account.

HTML does not allow spaces in file names. (It is possible to cheat and use spaces, it is not advisable).