How to Publish a Website

Introduction


Follow these steps in order to publish a website to our UVic web server, unix.uvic.ca.

  • Create a website under a folder on your computer say, lab1. This directory must contain all necessary documents including HTML files, JPEG images and CSS stylesheets, etc.
  • First test your website using your favorite browser locally on your computer. If all possible, use lower-case filenames and file suffixes/types and don't use spaces. For example, use ".html" instead of ".HTML"; use ".jpg" instead of ".JPG"; use "my_csc100.html" instead of "My CSC100.html"; use "human_brain.jpg" instead of "Human Brain.jpg".
  • After renaming your filenames appropriately, test your website again locally on your computer. If everything is working properly, then you are ready to publish your website.
  • Use an SFTP client to transfer (or upload) your website to our UVic web server. On Windows, you may use WinSCP or Cyberduck. On OS X, you may use Fugu or Cyberduck. Since, Cyberduck works for both Windows and OS X. We will show you how to upload your website using Cyberduck below.
  • Our UVic web server is "unix.uvic.ca". If your netlink account name is "johndoe", then login to "unix.uvic.ca" using johndoe. You must use the SFTP (secure FTP) protocol.
  • Once you login to "unix.uvic.ca". You will see a number of directories (or folders) including mail, www, etc. To publish websites under your UVic account, you must publish them under the "www" folder. Upload or transfer your entire website (e.g., lab1) including all your HTML files and image files under the directory "www".
  • If the page "csc100.html" is uploaded into your "www/lab1" directory, then it will be viewable as "http://web.uvic.ca/~johndoe/lab1/csc100.html". To test your website after you publish it, just open your browser and enter the URL "http://web.uvic.ca/~johndoe/lab1/csc100.html". Notice that the hostname is "web.uvic.ca" (not "unix.uvic.ca"), and there is a "~" in front of the netlink ID "johhdoe", and that the "www" directory doesn't appear in the URL.


Using Cyberduck on OS X


Cyberduck is a free secure FTP (SFTP) client for OS X. If you don't have it on your machine, you can download a copy from here. Watch this online video showing you how to publish a website using Cyberduck on OS X.





Using Cyberduck on Windows


Cyberduck is a free secure FTP (SFTP) client for Windows. If you don't have it on your machine, you can download a portable executable here. First, watch this online video showing you how to set up Cyberduck Windows. Then, watch this online video on how to publish a website using Cyberduck on OS X. Although the installation process is slightly different, the basic operations of Cyberduck on OS X and Windows are the same.