The FTP service allows any active user to log in and upload files to the server.

An FTP client must be configured to access the server. There are many good graphical ftp clients available which display the folders on the remote server in a graphical representation similar to Windows’ Explorer. We recommend an FTP software program called CuteFTP. This is freely available on the web. Click here to Download CuteFTP. Alternatively, running ftp from the command prompt (by entering ‘ftp’) will start a textual ftp client on most platforms. The following information will be required regardless of the client used to access the ftp server:

Clicking the FTP menu option shows the status of the FTP server on the appliance. This can only be changed by a system administrator. If the FTP server is stopped, no access will be possible using an FTP client.

Microsoft FrontPage 2000 is a web publishing application. As well as allowing users to generate web files within a WYSIWYG environment, it can also interface directly with web servers, removing the need to FTP files up to the web site to make them ‘live’. In order to do this, FrontPage requires server-side files to be present in order to work properly.

All these requirements can be set up automatically by enabling FrontPage through the web interface. Above the folder permissions table on the permissions screen is a form allowing FrontPage to be installed. Simply choose a username and password for FrontPage administrator access to the website, and click the ‘Create’ button.

Set up ODBC datasources from the ‘Databases’ option in the menu bar. From this screen, the required database type can be selected. Once ‘Add>>’ has been clicked, further options, dependant on the datasource need to be filled in correctly. The ‘Name’ field needs to be provided for all datasources, as it is the identifier used to access the datasource from applications. Once all fields have been provided, clicking ‘Create’ will actually create the datasource and return the screen to the available datasources list. A warning is displayed if the path to the database does not exist.

ODBC datasources can be accessed by name using shtml and other scripting languages. In addition, most modern complied languages have code libraries facilitating access to ODBC datasources.

As this server is based on a Windows 2000 server, full support for ADO (Active Data Objects) comes as standard. ADO provides a COM interface to databases, and can be used to access ODBC datasources. ADO objects are accessible within compiled web applications as well as scripts such as shtml.

ODBC datasources can be used to authenticate access to certain folders of websites, this topic is covered in the next section ‘Password Protected Web Folders’.

• Read – allows files from the folder to be sent to the web browser. If this option is not set, then no documents can be downloaded from the folder.
• Write – allows files to be uploaded (through the web browser) to the web site.
• Execute – allows scripts and CGI applications to be run from the folder. This option should not be used in conjunction with Write permissions, as this could allow web users to upload unscrupulous files to the folder, and then execute them.
• Browse – if a default document (see next) for the web folder is not found, then with Browse permissions, the web browser will display a listing of the folder contents instead of a ‘file not found’ error message. If ‘Browse’ is to be used, read permissions must also be enabled.

The folders shown are those of the default domain configuration. FTP must be used to add and remove folders from the table. FTP publishing is covered later in this section.

The checkboxes indicate which permissions are set on each folder. Permissions can only be changed one folder at a time. Once the appropriate check boxes have been set, the ‘Change’ button should be clicked to apply the settings for that folder to the web server.

In the example, \_hide\ is shown to have no folder permissions. Anything placed within the _hide folder will therefore be inaccessible to web browsers. Databases or other reference material for scripts can be placed in such folders, so that they are inaccessible through the web browser, but can be accessed by scripts/programs running on the server.

The example shows the \cgi-bin\ folder with execute permissions. The ‘cgi-bin’ is traditionally the folder used for all applications running on a web site. Notice that read permissions are not necessary for folders with applications producing the content. The asterisk and ‘greying-out’ of the check boxes next to the \images\ folder denotes that the permissions are inherited from a parent folder. In this case the parent is the root directory \. As such, changing the permissions of root would also change the inherited permissions of images. If the permissions of such an inherited folder need to be set independently, then ‘Release’ can be clicked.

The remaining button ‘Settings’ is covered below, in ‘Default Documents’.

By default, the following documents are ‘default’ in the root directory of a Matrix Windows web site:

index.htm, index.shtml, index.wml, index.shtml,
default.htm, default.shtml, default.wml, default.shtml

The first document found by the web server matching one of these file names will be shown by default if no document is explicitly requested.

The default documents for each web folder can be changed by clicking the ‘Settings’ button next to the required folder (see Figure 1). Having selected ‘Settings’, forms allowing setup of a web application and the default documents for that folder are shown. The default documents can be ammended by editing the text field in the ‘Default Documents’ form and then clicking ‘Apply’. There should be only one file name per line.

A web application can be created by typing an identifying name into the Application Settings form and then clicking ‘Change’. An application will be created if necessary.