Creating your own Home Page

Take the following steps to create your own home page:

1. Create a directory in your home directory named www:

mkdir public_html
      

2. Change the permissions on the directory www so that others have execute permission (ability to change into that directory):

chmod o+x public_html
      

3. Change to your public_html directory:

4. Using your favorite text editor or perhaps an html editor (see the programs available page for more information on what you can use) create a file named index.html that contains the HTML code for your home page. A fairly basic tutorial on the HTML can be found here.

5. Once you have a file named index.html in your public_html directory change the permissions on that file so that others can read it:

     chmod o+r index.html     
      

Your web page can now be accessed by going to the following url in your browser:

http://math.mit.edu/~username 

Replace username with your login name.

If you would like your your homepage listed on one of the links listed on the people web page for the math department, email the webmaster (webmaster@math.mit.edu)

If you are creating a web page for a seminar or course and would like to have that page accessible by typing in for example math.mit.edu/18.03 send an e-mail to webmaster@math.mit.edu

CGI Programs

If you wish to add additional functionality to your site you may want to install some CGI programs.

In order to add a CGI program, take the following steps:

1. In your public_html directory create a directory named cgi-bin

2. Change the permissions of that directory so that it is executable by others.

3. Put any CGI programs you would like to be run from your web site in the cgi-bin directory, ensure they are executable by others and have the suffix .cgi

If you are having trouble getting a CGI program to execute, ensure that permissions on the files and parent directories are not too permissive and are owned by you. There is a security mechanism in place that prevents the program from being run if these conditions are not met.

Please note that while we provide the means for you to use CGI programs, we can not provide any support in installing or configuring them.