BCSWebCo Manual

1.1) OVERVIEW

• 1.1.1) Definition of terms
• 1.1.2) Support contact
• 1.1.3) Billing contact
• 1.1.4) Manual feedback
• 1.1.5) Sales contact

1.2) WHAT DO YOU OFFER?

1.2.1) Web space

• 1.2.1.1) MS-DOS Terminal Access
• 1.2.1.2) UNIX Shell Access
• 1.2.1.3) MS Windows Access
• 1.2.1.4) The "home" page and HTML

• 1.2.2) Ftp space
• 1.2.3) Telnet account
• 1.2.4) Listserver
• 1.2.5) Domain name
• 1.2.6) Cgi-bin access
• 1.2.7) Redirection capability
• 1.2.8) Emergency assistance
• 1.2.9) 9+ character names
• 1.2.10) RealAudio
• 1.2.11) VocalTec Internet Phone
• 1.2.12) TrueSpeech Digital Audio
• 1.2.13) Capture mail for domain
• 1.2.14) Power PlusMail(tm)
• 1.2.15) FTP Logging

1.3) HOW DO I USE THIS PROGRAM?

1.3.1) Mail related items

• 1.3.1.1) mail
• 1.3.1.2) pine
• 1.3.1.3) Eudora (windows mail program)

1.3.2) Managing the Linux Account

• 1.3.2.1) ln (redirecting file access)
• 1.3.2.2) passwd (changing your password)
• 1.3.2.3) zip/unzip
• 1.3.2.4) du (disk usage)
• 1.3.2.5) locate (find files)
• 1.3.2.6) Controlling finger

1.1) OVERVIEW

1.1.1) Definition of terms

Once your domain name is activated, you will be able to use your-domain-name.com instead of BCSWebCo.com. We highly recommend that you use your-domain-name.com instead of BCSWebCo.com. As our customer base grows, it is very possible that your domain might be moved from one machine to another.

1.1.2) Support contact

For support questions, contact support@BCSWebCo.com.

Please include the login name and/or domain name you are referring to when you write to support. We can't yet tell from your e-mail address, unless we happen to remember working with you before, and we may need to know in order to help. If appropriate, tell us exactly what file(s) you are referring to.

Please use support@BCSWebCo.com, which will be answered by the first availible, qualified representative, in favor of our individual addresses for new problems.

1.1.3) Billing contact

For billing questions, contact billing@BCSWebCo.com.

1.1.4) Manual feedback

Send comments on this manual to manual@BCSWebCo.com.

1.1.5) Sales contact

For sales questions, contact sales@BCSWebCo.com.

1.2) WHAT DO YOU OFFER?

BCSWebCo offers storage space for web pages with global public access to those pages over the Internet. We also offer a limited form of program execution known as "cgi-bin". Our computers are Pentium-class machines running Apache over Linux. Apache responds to web page fetch requests from remote browsers while Linux is one of several variants of the Unix operating system.

1.2.1) Web space

Every customer gets his own password protected userid under Linux. By logging in to his userid, the customer gains access to his web storage space. Every userid "owns" a structure of disk subdirectories in the Linux file system. The "root" of this structure is the "home" directory, found at path "/home/userid". Note that this is somewhat similar to the MS-DOS directory structure, except that there is no drive letter and forward slashes are used instead of backward slashes.

Inside the home directory is a subdirectory named "www". Every customer has his own separate "www" subdirectory. Files placed in "www" are visible to remote browsers over the Internet.

For example, when a browser asks for URL http://userid.com/page.html, Apache looks for the file /home/userid/www/page.html and sends it out. If you have not registered "userid.com" with InterNIC and specified BCSWebCo as its domain server, then the remote browser must ask for URL http://BCSWebCo.com/userid/page.html to get the page.

Now that we know where the files have to be located in order to be visible from the Internet, just how do we put the files there? There are several ways, depending on the local computer.

For the MacIntosh, a program called "Fetch" is used. Documentation on Fetch is not yet available. However, note that the binary mode referred to throughout the manual corresponds to the 'raw' mode in Fetch.

For MS-DOS systems, communications programs such as ProComm emulate dumb terminals for connection to Linux. (See 1.2.1.1.)

For UNIX systems, use rlogin to connect. (See 1.2.1.2)

For Microsoft Windows systems, use FTP (See 1.2.1.3). This is the easiest method.

1.2.1.1) MS-DOS Dumb Terminal Access

Set up your dumb terminal program under MS-DOS to connect to your local access provider. Log into your UNIX shell account and the use rlogin to get to your BCSWebCo userid.

Now follow the procedures under 1.2.1.2 immediately below.

1.2.1.2) UNIX Shell Access

After you have used rlogin to get to your BCSWebCo userid, you should be at the shell prompt in your home directory. Type cd www to enter your www directory. Then use rz to upload files into your www directory. Please don't upload web files into your home directory!

One way to update pages is to enter your account with the command rlogin -8 -l user BCSWebCo.com where user is your userid. This enables 8 bit access so zmodem can work. (Note this is the letter l, not the number 1.) Then type rz -a to upload a file or files to your directory. Type rz -ao if you wish to overwrite a file that is already there. You can edit files offline using a DOS editor and then upload them and test them before going offline.

The advantage of this over ftping is that you can then immediately run other shell commands after the files have been transfered. For example, you may wish to use lynx to test them or mail to send someone mail.

Note that the sequence rlogin -8 -l user BCSWebCo.com plus typing in your password SHOULD be done via a modem script. You really don't want to be typing this stuff on a daily basis. Name your script BCSWebCo.

(Just be sure that the disk where your script is kept is physcially guarded.)

1.2.1.3) MS Windows Access

This method is nearly intuitive and almost idiot-proof. You need a program called Winsock to connect to your local access provider. Double click on the Trumpet TCP icon in the usual Windows manner, and type in the password for your local access account when prompted.

Then double-click on the FTP icon. This will bring up a "session profile" form. Under hostname, fill in your domain name (userid.com, for example). Under userid, fill in userid. Under password, put in your BCSWebCo password. Make sure the checkbox for "Anonymous Login" is CLEARED.

At the bottom of the form, under "initial directories", you may specify which directories you want to work with on your local system and on your BCSWebCo system. Under "remote host", specify /home/userid/www. Under "local PC", specify the DOS path where your web files are located.

Hit the OK button. This will cause you to be connected to your BCSWebCo userid. The right side of the screen will show the files in your www directory while the left side will show your local PC files. To send a file from your local PC to your BCSWebCo www directory, click on the file you want to send and then click on the right arrow button. To send a file the other way, click on the left arrow button.

You will see two option radio buttons under the right window labeled "ASCII" and "Binary". For all text files, including html files, and perl cgi programs, be sure to select "ASCII" so the end-of-line conventions are handled correctly.

1.2.1.4) The "home" page and HTML

The filename of your home page should be index.htm. The web server will automatically send the file at path /home/userid/www/index.htm when a browser specifies http://userid.com.

To learn how to write HTML, get Laura LeMay's books "Web Publishing with HTML in a Week", and "More Web Publishing with HTML in a Week" . Both are published by SAMS. Then find out about the latest Netscape extensions.

To count accesses install wusage which is available at http://siva.cshl.org/wusage.html. This is preinstalled for you and run weekly.

Log files are stored at /www/logs

1.2.2) FTP Space

If we have set this up, it will appear as the 'anonftp' directory in your home directory.

"So what's the ftp directory?"

Prepare for confusion. We make an ftp link in everyone's home directory when the account is created, and make it the same as the www link. Our FTP server checks for the existence of this link when you log in, and if found, does a chdir("ftp"). What that means is that when you log in with FTP, you do not end up in your home directory, but in your WWW documents directory.

This is convenient for most people, but be aware that if we tell you to put a file in your home directory you must give the command cd /home/your-login before uploading. People who have used *nix systems before may wish to telnet in and remove the ftp link to save their sanity.

1.2.3) Telnet Account

A telnet account is just another name for Unix/Linux userid. You need at least one to be able to upload/download your html files. When you sign up with BCSWebCo, you get a userid and password. You may ask for more than one such userid. Regular accounts include one, Additional setups are available for a 10.00 one time setup charge. Each telnet account has its own separate home directory but shares the same www and ftp directories.

Multiple telnet accounts are useful when more than one staff member will be working on the domain. You may wish to set it up so that different accounts have different security levels. For example, you could make it so only one telnet account could access your listserver data. For those of you wishing sophisticated access control, we will be happy to create additional groups for your domain. That may not make sense to those of you who are not Unix veterans, but it can allow you to have one account able to access only one directory while your others can access all directories, including that one.

Some of the programs available at the shell prompt are mail, a primitive email program, pine and elm, more powerful email programs, ftp, to FTP onto other sites, telnet, to telnet onto other sites, lynx, a text-only WWW browser, pico, an easy to use text editor, vi, a not so easy to use (but standard) text editor, and in general a pretty complete POSIX environment.

At the shell prompt, type man and the name of the program to get instructions for that program online. If your problem is not knowing the name of the program, try apropos subject. (i.e. apropos mail.)

1.2.4) Listserver

We use a customized version of majordomo, an unbreakable version of this listserver that was written in Perl. It has undergone multiple changes to both make it more secure and more powerful. Our version allows users to enter commands on either the subject line or in the body of the message, to subscribe without using their full name, and to subscribe from World Wide Web pages.

1.2.5) Domain Name

Domain names are being processed Usually within 5 business days: send us e-mail if your domain isn't activated within 10 days. We'll take care of the problem.

If you want a domain name with a foreign extension, such as .it for Italy, we can do it! Ask for details...

Note that InterNIC charges $50/year for every domain. When you first apply for a domain, InterNIC will bill $100 for the first two years.

1.2.6) Cgi-bin Access

"CGI" stands for "Common Gateway Interface", a fancy name meaning computer programs running on the web server that can be invoked from a WWW page at the browser. The "bin" part alludes to the binary executables that result from compiled or assembled programs. It is a bit misleading because cgis can also be Unix shell scripts or interpreted languages like Perl.

A typical use for cgi is the processing of online forms. When the user fills in the boxes on the form and hits the SUBMIT button, the cgi program specified in the html will be run at the server, and the information in the boxes become available to the program as parameters. The program, being a program, can then do anything the programmer wanted it to do.

"cgiemail", for example, is a canned program written in C that gathers up the contents of the boxes on the form and emails them to a specified destination, then sends a WWW page confirming the action.

"imagemap" is another common use for cgi. Here, the X-Y coordinates of the pointer on an image are correlated with a specification table, so that clicking on different parts of the image will result in different links being followed.

Other cgis might ask for a password, check the password, then access a database for requested information. What it does is up to the programmer, but we do ask that the cgis are reasonable in their usage of CPU time and memory. While we do not require that they be submitted for approval first, out of control programs that hog the CPU will be hunted down and killed by our death robot.

Standard cgis reside in the BCSWebCo cgi-bin subdirectory. Your cgis reside in a web subdirectory named cgi-bin directory under your www directory. If your domain is named company.com, you would then access your scripts as /cgi-company/

See chapter four for more details on CGI.

1.2.7) Redirection Capability

Normally, a reference to http://your-domain.com calls up the index.htm file. With redirection, index.cgi, if it exists, is executed instead. Instead of sending out a canned html file, this runs the program index.cgi, which constructs a page on the fly and sends it out.

This is one method that may be used to implement home page counters and clocks (on-the-wall type that tells time) for any time zone on your main page.

1.2.8) Emergency Assistance

If the web server goes down, we want to know! email emergency@BCSWebCo.com

If support@BCSWebCo.com has not answered your e-mail within 24 hours, we also consider this to be an emergency. Send such emergencies to emergency@BCSWebCo.com.

1.2.9) 9+ character names

A name of anywhere from 3-16 letters is legal for e-mail accounts, ftp accounts, and telnet accounts.

1.2.10) RealAudio

RealAudio is a real time audio transmission/player system. A digital audio stream is transmitted from the server over the internet to the destination and played immediately, rather than being stored to disk first and then played.

Each audio clip requires two files: a metafile with extension .ram, and the digital audio clip itself, with extension .ra. The .ram file holds one or more lines of ASCII text, each of which references the .ra file to be played when the .ram file is accessed by the browser.

Entries in .ram files have the form:

pnm://your-domain.com/rafiles/your-domain/name-of-clip.ra

Place your .ram and .ra files in the realaudio subdirectory under your web directory. Contact support@BCSWebCo.com if you have not been supplied with the realaudio subdirectory. (note this account carries a extra charge)

.ram files must be uploaded in ASCII mode while .ra files must be uploaded in BINARY mode.

You may then access these files at realaudio/file.ram under your www directory.

1.2.11) VocalTec Internet Phone

BCSWebCo has updated its mime.types file to support VocalTec Interent Phone.

1.2.12) TrueSpeech Digital Audio

BCSWebCo has updated its mime.types file to support TrueSpeech Digital Audio.

1.2.13) Capture mail for domain

At your request, we will redirect all mail for a domain to one email address. This service is free.

1.2.14) PowerMail(tm)

INFOBOT EXAMPLE

Example:

File in your home directory is named help and says:

We offer you help.

These messages can be any size, even 100K!

REDIRECTION EXAMPLE

File in your home directory named .redirect says:

fred                  73452.452@compuserve.com
susan                 susan.simpson@mci.com
kim                   goddess@afterlife.com
default               arthur@bob.com

Mail to a user that was not in this list would be sent to the default user, arthur@bob.com

1.2.15) FTP Logging

This feature enables you to track how many people access your site via FTP and which files they decided to download. A seperate log file is created for each domain.

Let us know if you want us to add FTP logging to your site for free!

1.3) HOW DO I USE THIS PROGRAM?

Note that with the exception of the description of using Eudora, the commands you are told to type in this section assume you have logged on to the BCSWebCo server with telnet or rlogin.

1.3.1) Mail related items

1.3.1.1) mail

READING Type mail to see if you have any mail. If you have any mail hit enter multiple times and all your messages will be displayed.

SENDING type mail -s "juice" BCSWebCo@BCSWebCo.com<juice.msg to send the message juice.msg with the subject juice to BCSWebCo@BCSWebCo.com.

Type

    mail -s "juice" BCSWebCo@BCSWebCo.com
    juice is good
    .

Type

    mail BCSWebCo@BCSWebCo.com
    juice is good
    .

1.3.1.2) pine

Type pine to enter a more advanced mail program.

Type L to select Folder List and then inbox to see what messages that you have received.

The rest of this program is quite easy to use. Why use mail instead? Mail has the advantage that it is easy to send files that you composed off line plus it is easy to read many files at once into a log file that you then read off line.

1.3.1.3) Eudora is a mail program that runs under MS Windows.

Eudora connects to the mail server over the Winsock. Mail may be composed and read offline, but make sure that Winsock is running before attempting to send or receive mail.

After Eudora has been installed, it must be configured to point to the BCSWebCo mail server. To do this, start Eudora and select "Special" from the menu bar. Then select "Settings". Most of the options are self explanatory.

• Leave the entries for SMTP, PH, and Finger blank.
• Fill in userid@company.com for your POP account (with userid replaced with your userid and company.com replaced with your domain name).
• Under advanced network features, select 90 seconds for your network timeout.
• The option save password should be checked.
• The authentication style should be password option.
• Under connection method, do not check the offline option.

Eudora "Light" is freeware offered by Qualcom and can be downloaded over the net. Eudora "Pro" must be purchased. Search for Eudora under Yahoo for details on how to obtain a copy.

1.3.2) Managing the Linux Account

1.3.2.1) ln (redirecting file access)

Type ln -s fred.htm index.htm to redirect all file accesses from index.htm to the file fred.htm.

1.3.2.2) passwd (changing your password)

Type passwd to change your password.

1.3.2.3) zip/unzip

Type zip to zip files and unzip to unzip files. This program is compatible with the zip program for DOS. For example:

$ zip myzip file1 file2 file3

This puts the files file1, file2, and file3 into a new zip archive called myzip.zip. On the other hand, if you had the archive myzip.zip and wanted to get back the files:

$ unzip myzip

Typing zip or unzip by itself will give you a usage summary, showing nearly all the options availible.

1.3.2.4) du (disk usage)

The Unix command

du -s directory

du -s /www/htdocs/domain

If you have an anonymous FTP area, also check

du -s ~ftp/my.domain

du -s /www/htdocs/snoopy
du -s ~ftp/snoopy.com
du -s $HOME

1.3.2.5) locate (find files)

The normal Unix methods of locating files have one thing in common, they are slower than molasses on a winter night in Alaska. So instead, we use a powerful program called locate. Type locate file_name and BCSWebCo will immediately locate all files that contain the file_name. (Provided such files have been on the machine at least one day.)

1.3.2.6) Controlling finger

(For anything in this section to have effect, your home directory must be world executable. chmod o+x ~ to effect this. If you can't telnet in but can FTP in, the commands would be cd /home followed by chmod 0711 your-login.)

If you wish to make information availible via the finger service to the world, put it in one or more of the following files, any of which would go in your home directory: .plan, .project, .pgpkey, .xface. If you don't know which one to use, use .plan.

If you do not wish the usual information (last login, last mail reading, etc.) availible, create a .nofinger file. The contents of this file will be displayed in leiu of anything else.

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