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Help Desk > Tutorials > Personal and Group Web Accounts |
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We are constantly evaluating new web technologies and will attempt to make available on webpub those technologies which we feel are secure, stable and useful to the college community. Students, groups, departments and employees now have access to the following functions on webpub:
Moveable Type is weblog software which allows you to publish on the web without any knowledge of HTML or authoring software such as Dreamweaver. Typical uses include online journals, diaries, and photo diaries. Full details, including how to request a Movable Type account, are available here.
PHP is a server-side HTML embedded scripting language with many powerful features, including MySQL database support. See the PHP website, http://www.php.net/ for an introductory tutorial, a function reference, links to many other PHP sites, and more! Another introductory tutorial to PHP is available on the Webmonkey web site.
To use PHP on webpub, be sure to save your file with a .php extension.
You should note that PHP 5.1.4 is running in safe mode on webpub. This means that certain PHP functions will not be available to you. See the PHP web site for details. If you attempt to do something that you are being prevented by safe mode from doing, you will get a "safe mode" error message.
If you have PHP pages which no longer work after the recent webpub upgrades, please see this page for helpful information.
MySQL 5.0 has been installed on webpub. Before you can use MySQL on webpub you must request that a mysql username and database be created for you. Use this form to make your request. You will be notified when your username and database have been created.
More details on using MySQL on webpub are available here.
If you are having trouble with your MySQL database since the recent webpub upgrades, please see this page for helpful information.
PmWiki has been installed on webpub for those wishing to use a wiki in their academic work. You can either request that we set up a wiki for you, or you can follow our instructions to set one up yourself. Wiki tutorials are available to help you get started using PmWiki.
You can restrict all or some of the pages in your website to viewing on the college and dorm networks only. To do this, open Notepad or any other text editor and type:
AuthUserFile /dev/null
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName myrestricted
AuthType Basicorder deny,allow
deny from all
allow from .allegheny.edu
You can use whatever name you like for AuthName (but don't use spaces). Now save the file with the name .htaccess - it is very important that you use this name, including the "dot" at the front.
Ftp this file to your webpub account, placing it in the folder you want to protect. All files in that folder, and all files in subfolders of that folder, will be inaccessible to off-campus viewing.
Hint: if you have an unprotected page which has links to your on-campus only pages you can use SSI to hide those links from off-campus viewers.
There are currently two CGI scripts which have been placed on webpub for use by students, groups and employees. One script allows you to create an HTML form and have the contents of that form emailed to you when a user clicks "submit". Another script allows you to put a counter on your web page. See the tutorials below for details on using these scripts.
Using SSI you can place code in your web page which the server will process before delivering the page to the browser. Some of the uses of SSI are to insert the contents from another file into your web page, call a script to be executed and have the results inserted into your page (see Putting a counter on your webpage), insert the date your page was last modified and hide parts of your page from off-campus viewers.
To use SSI on webpub the only thing you need to do is save your web page with the extension .shtml. Only those pages which actually contain SSI code need the .shtml extension, so you may have some pages on your site with the .shtml extension and others with .php.
For example, if you wish to prevent part of a page from being viewed off-campus, say you want to hide a link to a page which is restricted to on-campus viewing, use the following code:
<!--#if expr="$REMOTE_ADDR = /^141.195./" -->
The bit you want to hide
<!--#endif -->
and then save your file with the .shtml extension. If you view this page from campus, you should see the whole page. Ask a friend off campus to view your page, though, and they won't be able to see the bit you've hidden.
There are many tutorials on SSI available on the web. Two good starting places are:
Note that many, if not all, of the things you can do with SSI can also be done with PHP.
Web Tools includes Formbuilder, Project Tracker, Rotator Management System, Mail Warehouse, Faculty Database, Web Development Wiki. These tools have been developed via the college webmaster. Contact the webmaster with any questions regarding these services (webmaster@allegheny.edu).