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About External Files Linked From the GPS Lab Website

In the GPS Lab website, the Publications section contains bibliographic information on over 600 published papers, conference presentations, books and doctoral theses. A large percentage of the titles in the Publications section are linked either to PDF full-text copies of the document or to a publisher’s website where the document full text resides.

Furthermore, the Research and Resources sections of the GPS Lab website also have pages that link to PDF, PPTX, KEY, DOCX and other types of document and presentation files. To maintain good response times on Stanford’s Drupal web server, site owners have been advised by Stanford Web Services—the group that maintains the Drupal servers—to store external files linked from pages of Drupal websites on other servers or on web services, such as Stanford Box.

For SCPNT and the GPS Lab, we have addressed this issue by storing PDF publications files and various other files that are linked from pages in our SCPNT and GPS Lab websites on Stanford’s AFS web server—the server where the original SCPNT website was located until August 2016, when the new Drupal version of the SCPNT website was launched.

This chapter has four main sections:

  1. Obtaining the necessary authorization/permissions to access the SCPNT group folder on the AFS server
  2. Setting up an FTP application or web-based AFS file transfer application to access the SCPNT group web folder on the Stanford AFS web server
  3. Uploading PDF and other files to the SCPNT group web folder on the Stanford AFS web server
  4. Creating link URLs for accessing files in the SCPNT group web folder from pages in the new Drupal SCPNT and GPS Lab websites.

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Authorization and Permissions to Access the SCPNT Group Folder on AFS

In order to store and/or retrieve files from the SCPNT group web folder on the AFS server, your SUNet ID needs to be authorized to log into the AFS server, and granted Read and Write privileges for accessing the SCPNT group folder.

As of December 15, 2016 the SUNet IDs for the following SCPNT/GPS Lab website owners have been granted these permissions:

  1. Bob Kahn (SUNet ID = rakahn)
  2. Tom Langenstein (SUNet ID = poiuy
  3. Per Enge (SUNet ID = penge)
  4. Todd Walter (SUNet ID = twalter)
  5. Sherman Lo (SUNet = deadalus)

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Setting Up Secure FTP Access the SCPNT Group Folder on AFS

While there are other ways to access the AFS server—e.g. using a UNIX terminal and SSH—the easiest way for Mac and PC users is to use a File Transfer Protocol or FTP software program.

Stanford Essential Software offers free file transfer software applications for both Mac and Windows computers:

To download and install an FTP software application or set up Open AFS, visit this URL:

https://uit.stanford.edu/software

Once you have installed a file transfer application, you must configure it for accessing the SCPNT group WWW folder on the AFS server.

Below is a typical server configuration panel showing the necessary information for accessing the SCPNT group folder on AFS. (This example server setup form is from Adobe Dreamweaver, but the information it displays is applicable for any FTP software.)

The important fields on the form shown above are as follows:

Often, the FTP server setup form will provide some kind of Test button that will enable you to confirm a secure connection to the server.

In any case, once you have connected to the /scpnt/WWW group folder on AFS, the file tree shown below provides a visual map showing the locations of various types of files stored there.

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Uploading Files to the SCPNT Group Folder on AFS

Now that you know how to connect to the scpnt group folder on AFS and see the folder tree inside the gpslab folder there, you  are ready to upload new files to the AFS server and then provide links to the files you’ve added from pages in the GPS Lab website.

Hypothetical Example #1

Suppose Todd Walter gives a presentation entitled “Satellite Selection for Multi-Constellation SBAS” at the 2016 IONGNSS conference. Now, Todd wants to add a PDF copy of his presentation to the All Publications page and also to the Conference Papers page in the Publications section of the GPS Lab website.

The PDF file is named: Walter_IONGNSS_2016_SatSelection.pdf (Note: A best practice is to use no spaces or punctuation marks other than hyphen (-) or underscore (_) in the names of file stored on a web server.)

With his PDF file readily accessible on his laptop, Todd fires up his trusty copy of Secure FX and logs into the scpnt group folder on AFS. Then using the graphical user interface provided by SecureFX, Todd simply drags his PDF presentation file from its location on his laptop into the /gpslab/pubs/papers folder on the server.

Hypothetical Example #2

Suppose Sherman Lo has been working on JAGER, and he has created a PDF document that he wants to link to the JAGER page in the Research section of the GPS Lab website.

Sherman’s PDF file is named:Lo_IONITM_2016_rv3b.pdf

With his PDF file readily accessible on his MacBook Pro, Sherman fires up Fetch and logs into the scpnt group folder on AFS. Using Fetch’s GUI, Sherman checks the sub-tree of folders inside the website_files folder and notices that there is no JAGER sub-folder.

No problem. Using Fetch, Sherman creates a JAGER sub-folder inside the website_files folder and then drags his PDF file into the JAGER folder he just created.

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Creating URLs for Linking to Files Stored in the SCPNT Group Folder on AFS

We now have two hypothetical examples of uploading PDF files to the scpnt group folder on AFS. The remaining task is generating the correct URLs that will enable these PDF files to be accessed from pages in the GPS Lab website.

Base URL for GPS Lab Files in the SCPNT Group Folder on AFS

The base or prefix URL for accessing GPS Lab website files stored in the scpnt group (WWW) folder on AFS is:

http://web.stanford.edu/group/scpnt/gpslab/

If you enter this base URL into a web browser, you will simply see a list of the pubs, website_files and www folders that are located inside the gpslab folder in the scpnt group folder on AFS. The screen shot below shows this index or directory listing.

Full URL for GPS Lab Files in the SCPNT Group Folder on AFS

Now, using the base URL as a starting point, you simply add any remaining sub-folders in the path to the base URL, and then add the file name at the end of the path to complete the URL.

In hypothetical example #1, Todd’s PDF was uploaded to the papers folder, inside the pubs folder. Todd’s PDF file name was: Walter_IONGNSS_2016_SatSelection.pdf.Therefore, the full path URL for accessing Todd's file would be:

http://web.stanford.edu/group/scpnt/gpslab/pubs/papers/Walter_IONGNSS_2016_SatSelection.pdf

In hypothetical example #2, Sherman’s PDF was uploaded to a new folder named JAGER, located inside the website_files folder. Sherman’s paper was entitled:Lo_IONITM_2016_rv3b.pdf. Therefore, the full path URL for accessing Sherman’s file would be:

http://web.stanford.edu/group/scpnt/gpslab/website_files/JAGER/Lo_IONITM_2016_rv3b.pdf

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Microsoft Excel URL Link Generator Spreadsheet

To facilitate generating these long URLs, we have created a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet that generates the full URL of any file that you have uploaded into a sub-folder of the /gpslab sub-folder on the AFS server. Below is a screen shot of this spreadsheet and a URL link for downloading it.

Click Here to Download the URL Generator Excel Spreadsheet

Using the AFS Web Server GPS Lab URL Generator Spreadsheet

  1. Open the spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel.
  2. Enter the filename with extension (e.g. my_file.pdf) in the Enter Your File Name Below column and in the row corresponding to the 2nd Sub-Folder location where you uploaded your file. For example, if you uploaded a PDF full-text file for a conference paper into the /gpslab/pubs/papers sub-folder, then you would enter the filename in the cell to the right of the /papers cell.
  3. After you’ve entered the filename, its full-path URL will appear in the adjacent URL column to the right.
  4. Select the full-path URL cell and copy it to your computer’s clipboard. (Note: Copy the whole cell; if you select/highlight the cell contents, you will copy the cell’s formula; you want the cell’s value.)
  5. In the Body section of the GPS Lab website page you are editing, make sure that is set in the Text Format drop-down menu beneath the body section text is set to Content Editor Text Format.
  6. Select the text or object to which you want to add a URL link.
  7. Click the Add Link button in the tool bar at the top the body text section.
  8. In the Link entry box that opens, select http:// as the Link Type.
  9. Paste the URL that you copied from the URL Generator spreadsheet into the Link field, and then click OK to close the Link box.
    The screen shot below shows this process.
  10. Click the Save button at the bottom of the Drupal page editing form to save the changes you made to the page.

In the next chapter, we’ll provide more details about Drupal’s web page editing tools.

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