Personal Web Server (http://personal.cityu.edu.hk/) serves all staff and students of City University of Hong Kong to publish their own personal Web pages. To use this Personal Web service, you must have a valid UNIX account on the Personal Web Server.

Starting from Semester A 2005, this service is no longer be provided to new students as the related teaching and learning functions of the personal web service can be replaced by the University's e-learning platform, i.e. the Blackboard e-learning environment. However, existing staff and students' personal web are continued to be served by Personal Web Server.
 

All Personal Web publishers/authors must observe and comply with the Web Publishing Related Policies and Guidelines.
 

The diagram below summarizes the overview of Personal Web.

All your web pages should be put in a subdirectory called public_html under your home directory. Your home directory is the  directory right after you logon the server. The default home page of a directory is index.htm or index.html. Please note that all files and directory names are case sensitive. For example, AAA.htm is not the same as Aaa.HTM.

If your username is 50123456 and you have uploaded a web page called index.htm in the public_html directory. Then, other people can view the web page via the browser with the URL address:

http://personal.cityu.edu.hk/~50123456/index.htm   or simply
http://personal.cityu.edu.hk/~50123456/

To set up your own personal web, you should perform 2 steps. First is to upload/create your web pages and second is to change the access rights of your web pages.

i)    Uploading your web pages to Personal Web Server

In the following steps, we will use a secure file transfer software called SSH Secure Shell for Workstations, which helps you to upload or download files to and from the server. The software can be invoked in Staff LAN or Student LAN Windows Vista / WinXP / Win2000, and can also be downloaded here.

If you are an experienced UNIX user, you can create the web page directly in public_html directory in Personal Web Server, skip the following upload procedures and jump to the section for changing the access rights of your web pages.

• Connecting to Personal Web Server.

For security reasons, Personal Web Server allows SSH and SFTP access from campus PC only. Telnet and FTP are not supported any more. If connection are made from Internet (off campus), you have to connect to VPN server first. Please refer to the following link if your home PC had not setup VPN yet. http://www.cityu.edu.hk/csc/deptweb/facilities/ctnet/vpn/winxp/vpnsetup.htm

Host Name: personal.cityu.edu.hk
user Name: <username>
Press the Connect button to proceed.

• Type in your password.
  
  After login, the window as shown below will appear. It is divided into 2 columns, where the left column shows your local hard disk and the right column shows your files and directories on Personal Web Server.

 

• If you do not have the subdirectory "public_html" in your account, you should create it first. On the right-handed column, right click and then select "New Folder", type in public_html, which will create a subdirectory public_html under your home directory.
• Change to the sub-directory by double-clicking the public_html folder on the right column.
• On the Local System left-handed column, Change to the directory containing your Web Pages.
• Select and drag the files or directories needed to be uploaded to Personal Web Server.
• After copying all the files, you can exit by selecting "File" in the menu and then "Disconnect".

 ii)    Changing the access rights of your web pages

In the following steps, we will use a software called SSH Secure Shell for Workstations to connect to Personal Web Server. The software can be invoked in Staff LAN or Student LAN WinXP / Win2000, and can also be downloaded from here.

• Connecting to Personal Web Server.

Host Name: personal.cityu.edu.hk
user Name: <username>
Press the Connect button to proceed.

• Type in your password.

After you log in, you will see a command prompt. The default prompt will look like this:
moscow%

Enter two commands (those in italics), one by one, to change the access rights of your web pages.

moscow% setup_perweb moscow% exit

The first command will automatically change the access rights of your home directory, your web page public_html directories and all other files and subdirectories inside the public_html directories.

The second command will log you out from the server.

After uploading and changing the access rights of your web pages, your web pages are ready to be viewed with a web Browser such as IE. You can test your homepage by entering the URL:
http://personal.cityu.edu.hk/~yourname/
 

You can find more useful information from the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) of Personal Web Server.