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Computing  File Distribution Using the Web Server

You can use your personal web space to make files available to others. This can be better than using email attachments since it doesn't fill up your Sent Mail folder with copies and is good for distribution to lots of people. The downside is that anyone can download your file (although it is possible to restrict access to groups of machines using an .htaccess file in your web folder.)

Go to your home directory on the main file server: if you are using a PC this is the "P: drive"; if you are using a Mac this is the "Home Directory" volume, which you can access on the file server "Willis", via the Chooser; if you are using a Unix workstation then you should change directory to "/home/willis/username".

Create a subdirectory or folder called "public_html" (this is longer than eight characters, which will present problems for DOS users; email computing@physiol.ox.ac.uk if you have problems and we'll create the directory for you).

The Departmental web server fetches files from your "public_html" directory whenever it sees a reference to a directory of the form "~username". So, if your username is "abc" and you have just placed a file called "example.pdf" in your "public_html" directory then it can be accessed by anyone on the web using the URL:

	http://www.physiol.ox.ac.uk/~abc/example.pdf

You can place your file(s) in the web folder as above, then email your colleagues a link or links as above. Most modern email programs will allow your colleagues to click on the link(s) you have mailed and retrieve the file(s).

If you want to keep your file download separate from your web pages and you would like people to be able to browse your collection of files, create a folder below public_html, for example one called files. If you do not provide a web index file (index.html or index.htm) then people can browse your collection of files using the URL:

	http://www.physiol.ox.ac.uk/~abc/files/