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Web and Database Development Environment Tutorial

Overview: webdev.cs.uiowa.edu is a web server that can run and serve perl scripts, php scripts, python scripts and java servlets in addition to standard html. In this tutorial, we'll create a simple html file as well as simple perl, php, python, and jsp files. We'll then link them into the simple html file.

Get an ssh client and log in

The first step is to log in to the server via ssh. In order to do that you'll need an ssh client. If you are using one of the DIVMS lab computers, the ssh client is already installed. On linux, open a terminal and type "ssh <username>@webdev.cs.uiowa.edu" where <username> is your DIVMS username.

On a Windows computer in the lab, Start -> All Programs - > SecureCRT 6.2 -> SecureCRT 6.2. You can also use Start -> All Programs - > SSH Secure Shell -> Secure Shell Client. Set the hostname to webdev.cs.uiowa.edu and the username to your DIVMS username.

On a Mac computer, you already have an ssh client installed. Open the Terminal application (Applications->Utilities->Terminal) and type "ssh <username>@webdev.cs.uiowa.edu" where <username> is your DIVMS username.

If you are off campus, you'll need to first log in to linux.divms.uiowa.edu and then log in to webdev.cs.uiowa.edu. You can log in to linux.divms.uiowa.edu using a regular ssh client (see some details here) or you can use NoMachine to connect to linux.divms.uiowa.edu for a graphical desktop environment.

Go to your web development directory and look around

After you've successfully logged in to webdev.cs.uiowa.edu, you should have a shell prompt which looks like this:

In order to get to the directory that holds all of your web development files, type: cd /var/web/user/<divmsid>. By default, there is a single html file as well as directories for the various programming languages. Type ls to see them:

[username@serv08 username]$ ls 
index.html  perl  php  python  tomcat5  tomcat6

Type ls php to see the contents of the php directory:

[username@serv08 username]$ ls php
sample_mysql.php  sample_psql.php

HTML example

JSP/Servlet examples

Perl example

PHP example

Python example

I was working on my files on a computer that isn't managed by CSG, how do I copy them onto the webdev.cs.uiowa.edu server?

You can use any program that can use SCP/SFTP/SSH2 to transfer files. The webdev.cs.uiowa.edu has your regular DIVMS home directory available.

From on campus, you can use your SCP/SFTP client to log in directly to webdev.cs.uiowa.edu and then change to the /var/web/user/<divmsid> directory and then transfer your files.

If you are off campus, you'll need to use your SCP/SFTP client to log in to linux.divms.uiowa.edu and transfer your files to your home directory. Next use ssh to first log in to linux.divms.uiowa.edu and then log in to webdev.cs.uiowa.edu. From there, you can now use the cp and mv commands to copy or move the files/directories from your DIVMS home directory into /var/web/user/<divmsid> as needed.

I can't get my php file to work. When I visit the page, I just see the php source, why isn't it working?

The web server has been configured to only run php scripts out of the php directory in /var/web/user/<divmsid>. Move the php script into /var/web/user/<divmsid>/php/ and then it should work.