Modifying Websites-Digital Media WorldWide, Inc

Modifying Websites

DIGITAL MEDIA SUPPORT DOCUMENT
 
MODIFYING AND OR UPLOADING YOUR WEB SITE FILES

If you want to change your web site, we will do it for you for a modest fee, or you can gain access and make the changes yourself.  If you wish to modify your site yourself will need FTP  Access to your website to modify and/or change a web pages.

Below is the information that you will need to proceed. If you do not have this information contact us.
Note that when you receive FTP access to your website files, you will be responsible for any and all changes to your site.

Domain Name
FTP user name and password
FTP Host Name/Address (same as either of above)
Host Type: Automatic Detect or Unix
User Name: (you need your user name provided by us)
Password: (you need your password provided by us)
Account (same as User Name)

IMPORTANT NOTE: We use UNIX servers and all filenames are case sensitive. This means that index.htm (the correct filename) is not the same file as INDEX.HTM, nor is it the same as index.HTM. We suggest that you use all lowercase file names. You must make sure that all of your html links point to the correct path and filename.

Unix Hosted Sites File Structure
When you log into our server you will be in your home directory. This directory will be
/home/<username> where <username> is your log on name. For example,
home/dmwne6 is my home directory because I log on with the username of "dmwne6." From within the /home/<username> directory there are subdirectories that have specific uses.  They are explained in the following:
public_html - /home/<username>/public_html is your web root directory. This means that all of your files for your web site start in this directory. The URL for this directory is "http://www.yourdomain.com" The index.htm or index.html file has to be HERE along with all of the other files that are part of your web site including the images (*.jpg and *.GIF files).

You can create sub-directories in this directory by using the mkdir button on WS_FTP. Or (Fetch (for Macintosh users) has a similar command. 

cgi-bin - /home/<username>/cgi-bin is your own cgi directory.

public_html - /home/<username>/public_html is your secure web root directory.  It is configured the same as the public_html directory except this directory is for secure (SSL) transactions. Remember that it's directory encrypts data and is therefore, slower than the public_html directory files.

ftp - /home/<username>/ftp is your anonymous ftp directory. Anonymous FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is used to upload and download files without a username and password.

log - /home/<username>/log is your log directory for your web site. This directory contains your error_log and access.log files. The latter contains all of the raw data for the amount of hits, data transfers, what domains have hit your site and what pages they visited.

mail - /home/<username>/mail is your mail directory. All of your mail is stored here.

Like the other directories within your root directory, a password for that specific user  is required to view this data.

1. Uploads can be done through FTP (File Transfer Protocol).

2. Since many sites are created with WordPress or Dreamweaver. We recommend you use them to modify your site. We also suggest that you first open the site on the web, and publish it to your local computer with a different name such as local_web. Then modify this site and make sure all is working correctly, then publish this site back to the internet site. You may also use other HTML editors to work on individual pages.  If you use other editors and plan to FTP your results you may use FTP to download the original page and upload the changes.  Any other File Transfer software program will also work well for transferring modified files and graphics to the server.

3. There are many FTP programs available to download, some have fees and some are free.  We use ws-ftp or WS_FTP Pro, however it is not a free program.
 
4. Mac users can use fetch.

5. All .html, .gif, and .jpg type files go into the public_html/ directory or subdirectories that you create under that directory. The root file in the public_html directory must be called index.htm or index.html (remember case sensitivity).

6. All cgi scripts must go into the public_html/cgi-bin directory. These files usually have the extension of .pl or .cgi. All of these files must be executable (set rights permissions to 755).

7. If you are using a Web Publishing program that required you to enter ftp://www. yourcompany.com, you can enter your IP address after the ftp:// or your domain name if you have been registered and propagated through the Internet when you are using this program.
 
CGI/Perl Scripts
All customer perl scripts are to be located in the following directory:
/home/<username>/cgi-bin/ 
The /cgi-bin directory itself and the cgi/perl scripts within must all be owned by the user and have the following rights: 755 - (rwx r-x r-x)
CGI/Perl Resource Paths
Digital Media World Wide, Inc. allows all users to implement their own CGI/Perl scripts. There are a few common parameters that most scripts will require to execute, they vary depending on the configuration of the host. Below are some of these parameters that you may need to know when installing your own CGI/Perl scripts.
Perl Path - /usr/bin/perl/
Sendmail Path - /usr/sbin/sendmail
Date Path - /bin/date
 
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