On this page:

• Changing File Permissions
• Fixing 404/File not found errors
• "500" or "Internal Server" errors

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Changing File Permissions

If you receive "403" or "Forbidden" errors when you try to look at your Web page, your Web browser does not have permission to access your Web pages. To change the permissions, follow the appropriate steps based on where your page is hosted.

Before starting, check the Web page's URL to make sure all of your files are where they are supposed to be, and have correct names.

Mypage

If your Web pages are on Mypage , log into your account and, at the Unix prompt, enter:

  chmod -R 755 ~/html

Return to the page that was causing the error, then click the Refresh button in your browser window.

Alternatively, you can type spinweb at the unix prompt to correct permission errors.

athos

If your Web pages are on a university Web server (athos), log into your account and enter:

  chmod -R 755 ~/www

Return to the page that was causing the error, then click the Refresh button in your browser window.

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Fixing 404/File not found errors

If you receive a "404" or "File not found" error message when you attempt to look at your Web page, the Web browser has not been able to locate the page you are trying to access. Check the URL to make sure it is correct.

There are a few things to consider when searching for Web pages:

• URLs are case sensitive: Hobbies.html is different from HOBBIES.HTML, hobbies.html, or hobbies.HTML.
• Names of files must match exactly: hobbies.html is not the same as hobbies.htm, nor is home.html the same as home.htm.
• For personal home pages at IU South Bend, if your home page is not named index.html, index.htm, HomePage.html, or HomePage.htm, you will get an error. For example, unless you have a file in the html directory with one of the previous names, the following URL will return an error (where username would be replaced with your username):

    http://mypage.iusb.edu/~username/

  For Web accounts on athos, if your home page is not named index.html, home.html, index.htm, home.htm, index.shtml, index.cgi, index.php4, or index.phtml, you will get an error. Note: files on athos must be placed in the www directory.

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"500" or "Internal Server" errors

In most cases, when you try to look at a Web page, a "500" or "Internal Server Error" is not generated as a result of problems with the Web server itself, but is usually a problem with the code or program you are calling. Typically, this error gets generated when users are working with CGI applications that are not returning properly formatted information to the browser or an error has occurred within the CGI application.

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