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Mason Account

In this tutorial you will learn how to set up your free Mason web space.

Setting up Mason Account:

All Mason faculty, staff, and students are automatically given accounts on the Mason system (osfl). These accounts have 20 MB of storage space and can be used for class assignments, personal Web space, and for certain programming functions. They cannot be used to receive e-mail (this is a separate account from your MEMO email account). You will need your Mason password if you wish to log-in to the Mason server. To get your Mason account online, go to http://mason.gmu.edu and click on the link "Obtaining Your Mason Account." Follow the instructions.

Once you have your account set up with a username and password, you will need to set up your folder if you wish to use the web space for a web site. The University now recommends using SSH Secure Shell for both telnet purposes (which allows you to set up the web folder and activate it) as well as for transferring files from your desktop to the Mason web space (ftp). SSH is currently on all computers in Innovation Hall. If you need to download SSH at home, see How to Get and Install Secure Shell.

Setting up Your Web Page

ISPs (Internet Service Providers such as AOL and Erols) have different requirements as to where they want you to put your Web pages. At George Mason University, it is set up so that you must create a directory called public_html in your account and, you must put an HTML file in your public_html directory called index.html. This is done so that the path to everyone's Web page is similar. For example, if user jsmith properly created a Web page and she wanted to give out the Web page address, she would give the following address: http://mason.gmu.edu/~jsmith

Using Secure Shell to set up public_html folder

1. Log into Mason (osf1) using the SSH Secure Shell Client.
   • Double-click the SSH Secure Shell Client desktop icon (or from the Start menu, select Programs, then select SSH Secure Shell).
   • When the SSH Secure Shell dialog box appears, press < ENTER >.
   • In the Connect to Remote Host dialog box, type the following:
     In the Host Name field, type osf1.gmu.edu.
     In the User Name field, type your osf1 usemame.
   • Click Connect.
   • If the Host Identification dialog box appears, click Yes. (Note: This dialog box will only appear if you have never logged into osf1.gmu.edu before.)
   • In the Enter Password dialog box, type your osf1 password.
   • Click OK.
   • In the next dialog box, you should see the osf1 prompt (osf1.gmu.edu) and can now work with your account.
2. Create the appropriate directory. At the Mason prompt (osf1.gmu.edu>) type:
   mkdir public_html
3. Make your public_html directory accessible to everyone, type:
   chmod 755 public_html
4. To change permissions on your account so that the directories you create will be visible, type:
   cd (to get to your home directory, it won't change visibly). Then type: chmod 711 . (Yes, that's a space and a period after the chmod 711.)
5. As you add pages to your public_html directory you will need to change permissions on those files so finish by typing: chmod 755 public_html/*