This page allows you to configure users' public information directories. Users' public information directories are a way to allow all the users on your machine to create their own home pages without your intervention.

An alternate way to do this would be to create a new URL mapping to a central directory, perhaps called users, that all of your users could modify. The easiest way to start getting into the Web is to create your own HTML pages. You may want to allow the UNIX users on your machine to create their own documents and let others see them without your intervention. One of the easiest ways to do that is through Users' Public Information Directories.

With this system, clients would access your server with a certain URL, and the server would recognize this URL as a public information directory, and respond accordingly. For example, suppose you choose the prefix ~, and specify the directory public_html. If a request comes in for: http://yourserver.subdomain.dom/~bob/aboutbob.html, the server would recognize that ~bob refers to a users' public information directory (namely, bob). It would look up bob in the system's user database, and find their home directory, let's say it's /users/bob. The server would then look for the request in the directory /users/bob/public_html/aboutbob.html.


First, you should choose a user URL prefix. The usual prefix used is ~. Next, you should choose the subdirectory the server will look in within a user's home directory. The usual directory to look in is public_html. The server needs to know where to look for the user's list on your system, in order to determine valid user names and to find home directories. You can use the system password file for this, which means the server will use standard library calls to look up users. Or, you can create another password file the server will use to look up users instead. You can specify that password file with an absolute link.

You also have the option of loading the entire password file on startup. If you choose this option, when the server starts, it will load the password file into memory, making user lookups go much faster. On the other hand, you may have a very large password file. Finally, you can choose a configuration template the server should use so that you can control what is allowed from public information directories.