Uploading Web Pages

Uploading the web pages

Once you have the server up and running, you need to personalize it; I am sure some of you already have pages designed to upload. If you have pages designed, now is the time to move them into the server.

Copy your files into the default web directory: /var/www/html
Give the files read permissions.

This directory contains the default html files displayed in your browser when you typed in the IP address. You can delete or replace them with your own html files. Do not delete the addon –modules directory.

Here is a simple html page for testing purposes:
Open a file in your favorite text editor and save it as: index.html

$ vi index.html

        <html>
        <head><title>This is my Demo Page</title></head>
        <body>
        <h1> Welcome to:  My First html web page!...</h1>
        </body>
        </html>

Move the file that you just created to the default directory /html; all files in this directory will be served to the public.
After moving this file into the /html directory; try the IP address in the browser again. Refresh the browser's current page and you should be able to see the file you just created.

Forwarding the Registered Domain Name

The next step is, if you haven't done it yet. Go to your registrar (the people where you registered your domain name) and point your domain name to the ISP's DNS Server. Your ISP should have provided you the name servers in the following form:

ns1.yourisp.com
ns2.yourisp.com

They always have a manage account option somewhere on their home page, select it and you will be prompted to enter a user name and password.

Fig 9.11

Some registrars use the domain name as the user name; others use the real user name, which was created when you originally registered your domain along with your password.

Enter your user name and password to get to the administrative page.

Fig 9.12

Have all required information ready; you need to update the Name servers.

Select the option Name servers or DNS to modify or update.

Fig 9.13. Your ISP dns information or yours if you are running your own.

Enter all the necessary information in the fields provided; if your internet service provider has given you more than one DNS use them all. These DNS servers are important; verify them with your ISP to ensure that you have the correct information. If you enter it wrong, your web server will be unreachable.

Note. These DNS servers do not necessarily have to be the ISP's name. Remember they also depend on someone else. The DNS can be you, if you set it up later in this chapter.

As a final step to make your web server available to the public; tell your ISP to add your domain name (yourcompany.com) into their DNS server and make them point it to the web server's static IP (the IP we just configured).

This Process will take approximately 2 to 3 days for the web server to be reachable to the outside world. This may also depend on the efficiency of your ISP, I have seen cases that take weeks; the last one I worked on took a month 1/2 because the ISP updated the IP addresses without acknowledging the customer.