5. Starting up a Web Site

Now you're ready to start adding pages to your web server. Just move any HTML files, graphics, etc. you want to appear on your server into the /home/httpd/html directory. You can create subdirectories in here as well. Make sure that any files intended for public viewing are set to be world readable:

        chmod a+r (name-of-file)

The file named index.html will be loaded by default if no file name is specified in the URL; that is,

        http://yourhost.com/index.html

is the same as

        http://yourhost.com/

So, you should name the main home page of your server as index.html.

You should be all set to go now; to start up the server, just type as root:

        httpd

(The next time you boot your system, the server will start automatically.)

Try using a web browser to access your server. From X you could use:

        lynx http://localhost/

If you get your home page, you're all set! If not, you may get some errors. These are common:

• ``File Not Found: the file index.html was not found on this server'' means you need to create an index.html file, as indicated above.
• ``Forbidden: you're not allowed to access index.html on this server'' means you need to make the index.html file world-readable:

          chmod a+r /home/httpd/html/index.html