When your account at lsyf/yoa is
activated, we assign space for you on one of our servers, and configure the web, ftp and
email servers , to use the files in this space. This space is your home directory,
and is where your web site files and other items are stored.
N.B.: Another term for
a directory is 'folder' - however, since this term is only used under microsoft windows,
this manual will use the traditional term 'directory'.
Your home directory also holds many of
the configuration files for your site. Whenever you telnet or FTP into your account, you
will be initially placed in your home directory. Initially you will see only a handful of
files in your home directory, but these will grow over time and as you use more features
of your account.
Generally speaking you will be most
concerned with two directories in particular. public_ftp and public_html ;these directories are the 'root directory' for your
FTP and HTTP [i.e. web] servers, respectively. It is important to quickly grasp the
relationship between files placed in these directories, and how they will be accessed by
visitors to your site.
The two primary methods
people will be accessing your site, are through HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) and FTP
(file transfer protocol).. You have encountered these before in URL's (web address) in
your browser, written like this in the address bar:
http://
ftp://
The directories
'public_ftp' and 'public_html' , each point to the top-level directory for files to be
accessed through FTP and HTTP respectively.
To illustrate - when a visitor to your site points their browser to
http://www.yourdomain.com/index.html - they will receive the file 'index.html' from the directory
'public_html' in your home directory
ftp://ftp.yourdomain.com/pub/somefile.zip - would
serve up the file 'somefile.zip' from the directory 'pub'; itself a sub directory of your
public_ftp directory
This presents another notable fact here, there is no way for anyone to access
files directly within your home directory from the internet. The 'highest' they can
access is one of the two sub directories [public_html or public_ftp] This is known as the
servers being 'rooted' in those directories.
example: The HTTP server is rooted in your public_html directory; the ftp
server is rooted in your public_ftp directory. If you imagine the layout of the
directories and sub directories beneath each of these two main directories as being like
the branches of a tree, splitting off and branching into many sub directories, it becomes
easy to see why the term 'root' directory makes sense here
This being the case, it means you can leave private and work-in-progress files
in your home directory itself, without them being accessible publicly. A useful thing to
note, especially when creating password files for web pages, databases of credit card
orders, and other such sensitive information.
When you log into your account [through telnet or FTP -(MS
Front Page does not give you access to your home directory) you will be located in
your home directory. Take note of this, as files uploaded directly into your home
directory will not be available to anyone but yourself over the internet - instead they
must be placed in the public_html or public_ftp
directories
Depending upon your mode of access to your home directory, you will see a third
directory - 'www'. A special
note of warning is in order regarding this. The 'www' directory is a link to your
public_html directory. This is present as some elements of our web server's access your
web pages through this link. Entering this directory will place you into your public_html
directory. Please note, the www directory is not a duplicate of your public_html
directory, and occupies none of your quota of space on the server. Please do not delete it
or otherwise alter it, or several aspects of your web site may cease to function.
