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Web Publishing from MacOS

To manage your web site on the Unix cluster, you need to do the following things:

  1. Connect to files.caltech.edu using samba or sFTP
  2. Create a public_html directory
  3. Add files to your public_html directory.

Any files that you put in the public_html directory will be accessible via the Web. For instance, if you put a file index.html in there, its URL would be:

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~username/index.html

Please note that SMB and sFTP use different hosts (files.caltech.edu vs ssh.caltech.edu) but access the same files.

Connecting to the Unix cluster from a Mac

There are a few choices for connecting to the IMSS Windows and UNIX servers from Macintosh computers. SMB is a way of mounting or mapping a drive or share, and sFTP is a file transfer protocol. Both of those choices may be accomplished via a graphical client or the command line, and both of those choices send passwords encrypted.

IMSS recommends that our users choose an SMB or sFTP connection method, for ease of use and for security.

  • Mounting SMB Volumes on your Mac
  • sFTP Access Using The Command Line

SMB Access

SMB traffic is limited to campus by the campus border firewall. Therefore if you wish to use SMB from off campus, you will need to start the VPNclient before trying to mount SMB volumes.

Macintosh Mounting SMB Volumes

To mount your home directory on the IMSS UNIX/Windows Filer (files.caltech.edu):

  1. Hit Command-K to connect a network drive. (The Command key looks like a four-leaf clover)
  2. Type for server: "smb://files.caltech.edu/username"

Once you have connected, you should see a directory named "public_html". The files for your web site all live in that folder.

Before making any changes, it is wise to make a backup. Right click on the "public_html" folder and choose "Compress public_html". That will create a file named public_html.zip. Rename that file to have today's data in it, e.g. "public_html-2020-01-07.zip"; otherwise your next backup will overwrite this one.

Use normal OsX file manipulation to add, move, or remove files within your web site. When you are done, you can "eject" the mounted disk volume by right clicking on the icon or by dragging the icon into the trash.

sFTP Access using the Command Line

From the Terminal, type:

sftp username@ssh.caltech.edu

Type your access.caltech password at the prompt.

Standard FTP commands apply. You will probably want start by changing directories into your public_html directory:

cd public_html

You may also use a graphical sFTP client to transfer files to and from the Unix cluster.