CS 1711 Recitation Laboratory 1: Introduction to Email and Making a Web Page
Must be completed by September 10, 1999

Laboratory 1: Objectives:

Activate your CS Sun Network account.
Send email using the CS Sun Network.
Set up your own web page for the class.
Use ftp to transfer the web page to your Sun account.
Verify that your web page is accessible.

Laboratory 1: Check-off procedure:

You will receive credit for this laboratory after you have sent an email to your lecture instructor and she confirms that your web page is set up. This is the only laboratory during the semester for which attendance is not required as part of check off. During the actual laboratory session for laboratory 1, the teaching assistant will demonstrate the procedures used in the lab and offer help. This laboratory must be completed by September 10, 1999.

Part I: Activate your CS Sun Network account.

The CS Sun Network is a cluster of Unix workstations that is used for the upper division and graduate courses in the Division of Computer Science. This semester, CS 1713 students have accounts on this network. If you are a computer science major, you will be able to keep this account until you graduate. These instructions assume that you will be accessing your Unix account from a PC on the Internet. If you have Internet service at home, you can do this assignment from home. You may also use one of the Student Computing Facilities (1.03.06MS, 2.01.20BB or 2.400FS) or the PCs in the UTSA library.

Log in to your CS Unix account. In order to log in to your Unix account from your PC, you will need to run the telnet program on your PC. From the START menu on your PC, select the Programs submenu. Pick the Command Prompt program. A Command Prompt window will appear. You will enter the remaining commands in this section in this command window. Type the following to start telnet.
```
     telnet pandora.cs.utsa.edu
```
This command allows you to log in to the pandora machine on the CS Sun Network.
You must now enter your user name and password in order to log in. For most users, the user name is first initial followed by (up to 7 letters of) your last name. All letters are in lower case. For example the user Jane Doe most likely will have a user name of jdoe. Unfortunately, if you have a common name, your user name may already be used by someone else. The user names will be given out in class. Your initial password is your social security number entered with no hyphens or blanks.
Change your password. Once you are logged in, the first thing that you must do is change your password. Enter the command:
```
     passwd
```
You will be prompted for your original password (your SSN). You will then be asked for a new password. Your new password should contain at least one number or special character such as an explanation point. You will then be asked to confirm your new password. You only need to change your password the first time that you log in.
Set up a directory for your web page. Execute the following commands from the command prompt on your Sun account:
```
     chmod a+rx ../accountname
     mkdir public_html
     chmod a+rx public_html
```
The first line makes your account accessible to the outside. You should use your login name (e.g. jdoe) in place of accountname. The second line creates the directory for your web pages. The third line opens the directory for access. You will only have need to do this setup step once to prepare your account for your web page:
Log off the account. From the command prompt on the Sun account:
```
     exit 
```

Part II: Send email using the CS Sun Network.

If you are not already logged in, telnet to pandora and log into your account as described above. You can use either pine or mailx to send and receive mail on your Unix account. These instructions assume that you will use mailx. The following sends an email to user krobbins on the CS Sun Network:

        mailx krobbins@cs.utsa.edu

You will be prompted to enter a Subject. After you do so, you can begin typing. To end the message, enter a single period on a line by itself. There are lots of things that you can do to make mailx easier to use. Some of these things will be demonstrated in the laboratory.

To read mail that has been sent to you, enter the command:

        mailx

You will see a list of messages. You can type the number of a message to read a particular message or press the return key to scroll through the messages a screen at a time. Enter the q command to quit mailx. The x command (exit) also works, but it doesn't mark any of the message that you looked at as read.

Part III: Create a class web page.

These instructions assume that you will be using Netscape Communicator. Please do not use Internet Explorer or web editors such as Front Page for this assignment. These packages generate very complex pages that will be hard for you to read and understand.

From Netscape Communicator click on the sample web page http://vip.cs.utsa.edu/classes/cs1713f99/robbins/labs/sampleWebPage.html . On the File menu select Edit Page. (If this page is part of a frame, the menu may say Edit Frame instead.) This will bring the sample page in Netscape Composer where you can modify it. Change the name Jane Doe to your name and make other changes as you wish. Now save the file on your local machine by selecting the Save As option under the File menu bar. The remainder of the instructions assume that you have saved your web page as A:\sampleWebPage.html.

Part IV: Use `ftp` to transfer the web page to your account.

In order to transfer the web page that you have created from your PC to your Unix account, you will need to run the ftp program on your PC. From the START menu on your PC, select the Programs submenu. Pick the Command Prompt program. A Command Prompt window will appear. You will enter the remaining commands in this section in this command window. Type the following to start the transfer process:

     ftp pandora.cs.utsa.edu

Log in as you did with the telnet program described in the first step of the assignment. Now execute the following commands in your PC Command Prompt window:

     cd public_html
     bin
     put A:\sampleWebPage.html index.html
     quit

The first line puts you in the right directory on your Sun account. The second line sets ftp to transfer everything in a file, not just the visible characters. The third line copies the file A:\sampleWebPage.html from your PC to your Unix account under the name index.html. (Naturally you need to have a floppy containing A:\sampleWebPage.html inserted in your A: drive.) The fourth line quits the ftp program.

Part V: Verify that your web page is accessible.

Log into your Sun account. (Run the telnet program from your Command Prompt window as you did in the first step of the assignment.) Execute the following commands on your Sun account:

     cd public_html
     chmod a+rx index.html
     ls -l
     exit

The first line puts you in the web directory for your account. The second line makes your web page accessible. The third line just lists the files in the current directory, and the last line logs you off your account.

From your web browser, open the page http://www.cs.utsa.edu/~accountname . Be sure to replace accountname with your login name. (Jane Doe would have entered http://www.cs.utsa.edu/~jdoe .) If your masterpiece comes up, you have finished this laboratory successfully and are on your way to a great semester! If it didn't work, don't despair. Ask your teaching assistant for assistance during the scheduled laboratory.

Last revision: August 31, 1999 at 8:30 am

CS 1711 Recitation Laboratory 1: Introduction to Email and Making a Web Page Must be completed by September 10, 1999