These instructions are meant for a novice, however, please read them completely to get all the information about where to upload your web pages, and where to get more information on available options for your web site.

How do I telnet into my Web site?

If you are asking the question, then you probably realize that being able to telnet into your website is a powerful tool for keeping your web space organized and working.  If you have never operated in a shell environment before and have always relied on your FTP client to move files around, you will find that with practice, using your telnet access to your domain is preferable to constantly uploading your files time and time again just to change a handful of settings changes or a minor edit to the page's html.

This discussion on telnetting into the web space will focus on use of Microsoft Windows' default telnet client.  If you have access to another telnet client, use it.  For Windows, CRT from Van Dyke Technologies, Inc. is very good.  For MacOS 9 or earlier, NCSA telnet is a sufficient medium.  MacOS X should include its own telnet.

In order to get your telnet session started, you will first need to already be on the internet.  Clicking on the Windows Start button, click on the Run option listed.  This will launch a window that will require you to type into it (clear out any text that may already be there):  telnet www.[domain.com], where [domain.com] refers to your domain with the proper ending (.com, .net, .org, etc).  Clicking OK will launch a new window.

Once a connection is established, you will be prompted for a username and a password.  This will be the same username and password combination as used for your FTP access, and should be in the welcome email you received when you first signed up with us.  Be careful when using the backspace or delete key - their functions are not always predictable.  Generally, in the windows telnet client the backspace key will create a command symbol such as ^H, and the delete key will delete the previous character.  So if you make a mistake in anything you type, get into the habit of using the delete key.

Once you are online, you will need to become comfortable with a few shell commands.  Some shell commands will be reminiscent to DOS for some computer veterans, while others are unique to the Unix operating system the shell is based on.

At the beginning of each line will be a prompt, which will be followed by a blinking cursor.  In this example, the prompt is s0%, which does not stand for anything in particular.  (Actually, the %-sign is used to indicate that you are logged into a user level.  There are other levels of access possible on shell servers, which determine the level of access an account has).

Before starting anything else, let us note here that even if you do not use the shell for anything else, you have the power here to change your telnet/ftp password.  To do this, simply use the command passwd. After hitting enter, you will be prompted for the current password, then the new password twice (second time for verification).  The password change should take place immediately.  Here is how it will look.

s0% passwd
Changing password for [username]
(current) UNIX password:
New UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully
s0%

Note that you will not be able to see what you are typing.  This is a measure to teach those who may read over your shoulder a lesson in manners.

Now let's get back to focusing on navigating around the shell environment.

First, take a look around at what is in the directory you occupy.  The command for this is ls, for list.  You should get the output of your domain.

s0% ls
www.somedomain.com
s0%

The ls command, in this instance, does not indicate if the item listed is a directory or a file.  In this case, the www.sampledomain.com is a directory.  You can navigate into that directory by using the cd command (for Change Directory).  You can move into a directory by indicating exactly what directory you want to move into after the cd entry.  For example,

s0% cd www.somedomain.com
s0%

You will note there is no fanfare once you have moved into a directory. You can always see where you are by entering the pwd command (Print Working Directory).  Executing that command now shows us the entire path to where we are.

s0% pwd
/u/home/0/00/uname/www.somedomain.com
s0%

The stuff in front there seems like nonsense.  It simply shows what the directory names are leading up to your web's directory.  In this case, zeroes were used, but you will find them to be hexadecimal digits (digits 0-9 and/or letters a-e).  The "uname" entry will be your login name.  Finally, the last entry in this case is the directory you moved into.

Try running the list command, ls, again.  You will find you get different output this time.  A list that looks like this should appear.

s0% ls
cgi  log  pw  www
s0%

Again, these happen to be directories.  A discussion on their function can be found <here>.

Let's say you want to know if files are files or directores.  You can layer options onto the ls command, the most useful being the "long" modifier.  The syntax of the command looks like ls -l.  You will notice a different kind of output when you run that command.

s0% ls -l
total 4
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root           40 Sep  6 07:37 cgi -> /u/web/http/cgi/0/00/www.somedomain.com
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root           31 Sep  6 07:37 log -> /u/log/0/00/www.somedomain.com
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root           39 Sep  6 07:37 pw -> /u/web/http/pw/0/00/www.somedomain.com
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root           40 Sep  6 07:37 www -> /u/web/http/www/0/00/www.somedomain.com
s0%

As you can see, asking for the long version of the list reveals a much deeper story.  The thing to pay attention to in here is the first cluster of letters.  The first character in that cluster of 10 characters will be a letter l, a letter d, or a hyphen.  If it is a hyphen, it means that it is a file.  Directories are marked with d's, and l refers to a symbolic link (symbolic links are like shortcuts in Windows), which function as directories in this environment.  You'll also note that the date is listed in there, as well as the time of creation.

While just navigating around is not so exciting, and really does not begin to take advantage of the power shell access can afford you.  However, these commands should be mastered before it is safe to go further.  To get the hang of them, repitition is the key.  To get the hang of them, repitition is the key.  To get the hang of them, repitition is the key.

It is beyond the scope of this document to go into any further detail about Unix commands and their use (the topic has filled many books!).  The following links are useful to help get you on your way, though.

The next set of commands you should work on learning, if you're new, are mv, cp, cat and less, as well as learning about a text editor like emacs, vi, pico or jed.  You should look for details on these at these sites:

This site from Canada is pretty good, eh?
http://www.ualberta.ca/HELP/unix/TOP_.html

This site is pretty thorough on the topics, if you are patient enough to click several times before you get to the meat of what you are looking for.  They are getting their search feature working.
http://www.geek-girl.com/Unixhelp/

For users already familiar with Unix and who need a good resource for specific questions:
http://wwwhost.cc.utexas.edu/cc/services/unix/index.html

If you are more of a bookworm, we recommend O'Reilly's Unix in a Nutshell, which you should be able to find easily online or at a book store near you.