public_html and student_html folders

Last updated: January 12, 2023
Audience: All UW

Web Publishing Folder Structure

When you first log into your Web Development Server, you will be in your Linux home directory, which contains files that are just accessible by yourself and anyone else with the password to this account. Your home directory is commonly used to store backups, databases, and other information that shouldn’t be public.

If you have Shared Web Hosting activated, you should also see a folder in your home directory named public_html. This is a special link to space on the web publishing servers, and any content you transfer to public_html will show up at your website URL.

Multiple Affiliations

If a user is both a student and employee at the UW, they may be eligible to use both the Student Web Publishing and the employee Web Publishing services. The multiple affiliations page explains more about what occurs for when users are both students and staff.