The HWG Virtual Web

Note: this is my first attempt at documenting this stuff.
This documentation will improve in the future! -- Gerald

What is the HWG Virtweb?

The HWG Virtweb is a system made to allow multiple people to update files on the HWG Web site using virtual FTP accounts.

How does it work?

The Virtweb Administrator creates a virtual FTP account for each person who needs to update files on the HWG Web site, and grants them access to update specific files or directories.

To update files, the page maintainer opens an FTP connection to ftp.hwg.org, goes into a certain directory and uploads the files they want to update. Within 15 minutes the files will show up on the main HWG Web site, and the page maintainer will be sent e-mail with the results of the upload.

How to Upload Files

To upload files to the HWG Web site, you need a virtual FTP account. If you do not have one, and you need one, please contact the Virtweb Administrator.

If you have a virtual FTP account, you open an FTP connection with "ftp.hwg.org", and enter your login id and password.

You should see a directory called "virtweb" when you log in; this directory has a bunch of empty directories inside it that mirror the HWG Web site.

To update a specific file on the Web site, 'cd' into the appropriate directory within the 'virtweb' hierarchy, and upload the file.

For instance, if you wanted to update the file http://www.hwg.org/lists/archives.html, you would cd to /virtweb/lists, and upload a file called "archives.html".

Assuming that you are allowed to update the file, it will replace the /lists/archives.html file on the HWG Web site within 15 minutes, and you will receive e-mail confirmation for each file you upload.

Why do we have to do things this way?

The e-mail, Web, and FTP services served by "hwg.org" are actually features of a "virtual server" provided by Iserver. Iserver's virtual servers are excellent as far as virtual servers go, but they are still limited by their "virtuality" -- in particular, we only have one "real" user account on the system.

In order to have secure, trackable interaction with the hwg.org server for multiple users, it is necessary to use "virtual FTP accounts". However, with the regular virtual FTP accounts on this server, it is not possible to permit or restrict access to individual files, or to give access to multiple directories in different places on the Web site -- which is why the Virtweb system was born.

A system like this also makes it possible to add new functionality like automatic HTML validation checking, time stamp updates, e-mail notification when pages change, etc.

Why "Virtweb"?

It's the first thing I thought of.