How to set up your personal web space

Bowdoin provides all faculty, staff and students space on our web server for your personal pages.  The instructions below explain how to activate the space for your use. 

You can copy web page files to the "public_html" folder (that gets created in your private folder on the microwave during the activation process) or you can "SFTP" your pages to that folder.

Bowdoin IT does not provide support on building your pages or trouble-shooting your web site.  Using the server space requires that you are familiar with the basics of building web sites.

To begin building your personal web page, you must first log into your account through an SSH  application such as PuTTY on Windows (you will need to install this) or the Terminal application on Mac OS X. 

Getting your Web Site Started (Windows):

1. Click your Start menu and choose All Programs. (PuTTY does not have a true installer so if you downloaded it from above it may be in your Downloads folder or wherever you told it to download to.)
2. Click on the "PuTTY" icon.
3. The PuTTY configuration window will open.
4. Type shell.bowdoin.edu into the hostname box.  Make sure the SSH radio button is checked.  Click Open.
5. At the prompt for "login as:", type your Bowdoin username.  Press Enter.
6. At the password prompt, type in your email password.  Press Enter.
7. At the prompt, type in "websetup".  Press  Enter.  (This will create a directory (folder) named public_html in your "home" directory and adjust permissions on your home and home/public_html directories).  A file named "index.html" will be added to the public_html directory and become the homepage for your site.
8. Type in "logout" at the prompt to exit.
9. Open up a web browser and type in your home page address. (e.g.http://tildesites.bowdoin.edu/~username )
10. A welcome page will appear confirming that you have run the web setup program successfully.
11. You can now edit your home page and add other pages to your site.

Getting your Web Site Started (MacOS):

1. Locate the Terminal application in Applications/Utilities and double click  to open it.
2. A blank terminal window opens.
3. Type "ssh yourusername@shell.bowdoin.edu" where "yourusername" is your Bowdoin username and press Return 
4. At the password prompt, type in your Bowdoin password.
5. At the  prompt type in "websetup".  Press  "Return".  (This will create a directory (folder) named public_html in your "home" directory.)  A file named "index.html" will be added to the public_html directory and become the homepage for your site.
6. Type in "logout" at the prompt to exit.
7. Open up a web browser and type in your home page address. (e.g.http://tildesites.bowdoin.edu/~username)
8. A welcome page will appear confirming that you have run the web setup program successfully.
9. You can now edit your home page and add other pages to your site.

Adding PHP functionality to a personal web site:

For security purposes, we don't allow php to be used by default. In fact, when it is enabled, those personal sites are actually served up by another server (p-tildesites-a.bowdoin.edu) and proxied through www. If you would like to use PHP on your personal web pages, please contact the Service Desk.