How to serve files from your saturn home directory
Skirball
Institute members can use their home
directories on Saturn
to serve web pages. The way it works is that the web pages are stored
in a directory (a.k.a. folder) named html that
is created within the user's home directory
and its access privileges need to be configured properly.
What
can you use your html directory for?
Aside from being able to have your own web page, it allows you to
put files in there and make them accessible to people outside. This
is extremely helpful if you want to send a large file that's too big
to be attached to an e-mail message (over 5MB). Instead, you e-mail
someone just a link (URL) to the file. Neat, huh? The URL (address)
that needs to be typed in Netscape or Internet Explorer is:
http://saturn.med.nyu.edu/~your_saturn_user_name/filename
(this is a dummy link)
For instance, if your user name is smiley and
the file is called presentation.ppt the link
will look like this:
http://saturn.med.nyu.edu/~smiley/presentation.ppt
(this is a dummy link)
The tilde (~) character tells the saturn web server to look inside
the specified user's home directory for a folder called html and to
serve files from there. The instructions below will show you how to
create and configure the folder if you don't have it yet.
NOTE: most of the example links on this page do not
work, i.e. they're not real links but just text.
If you have an index.html file in there it will show up by default
as a web page when you type http://saturn.med.nyu.edu/~your_user_name/
(this is a dummy link)
NOTE: Since Saturn itself doesn't accept filesharing connections anymore you need to connect to Jupiter and copy files to your home directory on Jupiter. It's the same directory since Saturn and Jupiter share the same filesystem basically.
If you want to put a file in there to be downloaded over the Internet
you need to follow few rules:
- no spaces in the names are allowed, replace them with dashes ( -
) or underscores ( _ )
- only letters, numbers, periods (dots), dashes and underscores are
allowed in filenames
- files should be zipped
and have a proper name extension: .zip or .sit
The only exceptions are some graphic formats, such as JPG, GIF and
TIF they may be downloaded as is and the web browser will display
them in its window rather than download it. Also PDF and MS Office formats are safe, don't need to be zipped. They still require proper
filename extension though! Also, keep in mind that if you're sending
a huge TIFF or even JPG image you may not want the recipient's web
browser to open it. Then you need to compress it so it gets downloaded
and then the recipient can decompress it and open it with a program
they choose, such as as Photoshop or some other graphics program.
In order to see a web page you need to have an HTML document in your
home directory called index.html. If you don't, going
to your home firectory with a web browser will return an error "File
Not Found" or "You don't have enough privileges to view
the requested file". Unless, your link points to an actual file
as the example with presentation.ppt file above.
Example. My saturn user name is adam,
therefore, a link to my home directory on the web is: http://saturn.med.nyu.edu/~adam/
This is an actual link, try clicking on it, because I have an index.html
file there, a simple document with few links.
I can create a folder in my html folder within my home directory called
files for the purpose of sharing
files over the web: http://saturn.med.nyu.edu/~adam/files/
(an actual link, try clicking on it)
Note: if this folder is empty or you don't specify exactly the file
name the above link may return an error as said above: "File
Not Found" or "You don't have enough privileges to view
the requested file" as in this particular example.
Now, suppose I have a big InDesign file that I want people to be able
o download called My Cool Poster 02/14/2002.
The first step is to rename the file to My_Cool_Poster_02_14_2002.
Notice that I have replaced the spaces and slashes with underscores
and/or removed all spaces. Then I compress the file into a ZIP file. To zip a file right click on it or Control-click and select "Create Archive…" or "Compress.…". OSX will create a ZIP file in the same location.
My file should have a different icon now and should
be called My_Cool_Poster_02_14_2002.zip.
Finally, I can copy the file into my files folder. The link to the
file looks now like this:
http://saturn.med.nyu.edu/~adam/files/My_Cool_Poster_02_14_2002.zip
(an actual link, try clicking on it)
UPDATE 2007: With recent versions of Adobe applications and OSX it's no longer neccessary to stuff or zip files. You can simply serve InDesign and other files directly.
If you click on the above you will download the file!
I can e-mail this link now to anyone in the world and they can copy
and paste it into a web browser and download it. In some e-mail programs
the link will actually be clickable.
If you do this on a Windows machine you may run into a problem. Windows
will ignore the privileges of your home directory. When you create
or copy a file or folder into your home directory, instead of assuming
the same privileges as your home directory it will set them to be
readable only by you not everyone else. The link will not work because
the directories an files are not readable. In such case you will need
to telnet to your home directory and set the privileges on those files
manually from UNIX command line (chmod 755 filename). Right clicking
and changing Properties in Windows will not work! You can also change
the privileges from a Mac using the procedure described below.
Now, that you understand how wonderfully useful your html directory
can be follow the instructions below to create and/or configure it
properly from a Macintosh.
Creating
and configuring your html directory from a Mac
Your html folder should be configured already but if it's not, follow these directions.
Here is an example of a user's home directory that contains the
html folder. Normally, only the owner
(the user), and sometimes the group the user belongs to, have access
to the home directories and folders contained within.
There are four basic levels of access: read and write (full access),
read only, write only and none. There are three kinds of users:
the owner, the group and others (everyone).
In
order to be able to serve your web pages, your html directory
must be accessible to everyone, i.e. everyone will have a read-only
access to that folder - but not your whole home directory.
Click on your html folder only once - just to select it.
From
the File menu select Get Info
and a new window will open...
This is your Get Info window.
In this window you can assign access privileges for the Owner,
the Group and for Others. Look at the very bottom for an item called Ownership & Permissions. Click the little triangle to the left of ot to access more details...
Here you see additional information available to you now. Make sure that under Others: is says Read only. If not, then select it. This will only make changes to the html directory itself not the folders and files within so you need to click the Apply to enclosed items... button. This will copy the access privileges to the enclosed folders and files.
Your html directory has been correctly configured!
If you add files and folders later on to your html folder and they won't show up in a web browser: you either get "404 Not Found" or "Access denied" errors that means you need to fic permissions on these files. You can just follow the whole procedure for your html folder or just for those files and folders that you have just added.
If the above doesn't work and the files still give you errors in a web browser, please make sure you have followed the file naming requirements!
If you know how to use UNIX terminal you can telnet to saturn and run chmod 755 command on your html directory.
