FTP & Remote Servers

1. The first thing you will need to upload files to a remote server is a FTP client program. They are free to download from Auburn University (AU Install) or you can download a free one from http://www.download.com. I recommend installing WS_FTP. To download from AU Install, browse to http://www.auburn.edu/download/ and have your AU username & password ready to use.

2. After you successfully download and install a FTP client program, you will need to use the following information to connect to your Auburn personal web space:

a. Host: Dr. Wu Assigned I.P. Address

b. Username: Your_team_name

c. Password: Your_team_password

3. Open WS_FTP LE and the following screen should pop up. Click on the NEW button and enter the above information. This is what your screen should look like (Figure 4.1).

Figure 4.1

4. Click the OK button to log on.

5. On the left hand side of the screen will be your local computer that you are using. On the right hand side of the screen will be the remote server (in this case, Dr Wu’s Apache web server).

6. On the remote (right) side, double click on the public_html folder. All files that you want visible on your website MUST be located in this directory or one of its subdirectories.

7. On your local (left) side, browse to the folder on your Hard Drive where you saved your .html and .php files that you wish to upload. Highlight (single click) any file on the local side and hit the arrow pointing to the right to upload the file. Figure 4.2 shows an example of what this will look like

Figure 4.2

8. The file that you just uploaded can now be accessed online by going to:

http://Dr._Wu_Assigned_I.P._Address/~your_team_user_name/your_file_name.html

9. If want to be able to browse to http://Dr._Wu_Assigned_I.P._Address/~your_team_user_name/ without having to type out the file name, you MUST upload a html file called either index.html or index.php.

10. If you get an error “403 forbidden” message, then you must upload a file called index.html or index.php.

11. You can repeat the above steps for a new site by click on the Close button in the bottom left hand corner of the screen. This button will change to say Connect and click it again. To create a new site click the New button and enter the host, username, and password. You should ready to transfer files to and from your web server.

12. CGI/Perl scripts must be put in the cgi-bin folder. When you upload the files, remember to chmod 755 the files so they will execute correctly. Directions for doing this are given in steps 14-15.

13. To call a cgi-script that you have uploaded to your cgi-bin folder, use the absolute pathname of http://Dr._Wu_Assigned_I.P._Address/~your_team_user_name/cgi-bin/your_file.cgi

14. If you need to change the file permissions on a UNIX/Linux server, you can right click on the remote file name and click on chmod. Then use the screen to change the permissions. An example figure is show below.

Figure 4.3

15. To change the permissions to "755" graphically choose the following as shown in Figure 4.4:

Figure 4.4

On Your Own Exercise 1

Copy and paste the following code into any simple text editor. Be sure to replace your_team_user_name and your_team_password with the username & password that you received from Dr Wu. Also replace Dr. Wu Assigned I.P. Address and your_database_name with the database that the system administrator assigned you. Save this file as connection_test.php and upload this file to your public_html folder on the server. Then browse to http://Dr._Wu_Assigned_I.P._Address/~your_team_user_name/connection_test.php to see the file and test the connection to the mySQL server.

<?php

echo "<html><head><title>Database Connection Test</title></head><body>";

$dbcnx = @mysql_connect("Dr. Wu Assigned I.P. Address", "your_team_user_name", "your_team_password");

if (!$dbcnx)

{

echo "Unable to connect to the database server at this time.";

exit();

}

else

{

echo "Succesfully connected to the MySQL Database!";

}

if (! @mysql_select_db("your_database_name"))

{

echo "Unable to locate your database at this time.";

exit();

}

else

{

echo "Successfully linked into the database";

}

echo "</body></html>";