Reviewed: 06/07/2022

It is possible to use your University P Drive at the university to host pages that can be seen on the web. This is achieved by working through the following simple steps.

  1. Go into your P drive and add the files you wish to share into the folder called “public_html” (this should be there automatically; if not, contact IT Services.
  2. Check to see if the folder has a file in it called “default.htm”.
  3. If not, open Notepad, create a new Notepad file, then select the ‘Save As’ option. The file name should be “default.htm” and the ‘Save as type’ should be “All files (*.*). Put this file into your “public_html” folder.
  4. Go to the website http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/ and type in your surname and “Submit” (NOTE: Student names will not automatically appear at this point. You have to wait until you move to the next page, choose your “status” and then search again).
  5. Click your name.
  6. You should see a link under “Homepage”. Copy this link.
  7. At the end of the link add “/” followed by the exact file name and file type. As an example, when linking to a file called “Instructions.pdf”,  http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/Joe.Bloggs would become http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/Joe.Bloggs/Instructions.pdf (Note: when using folders in your public_html folder, you will need to specify the folder names in a similar fashion, i.e.  http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/Joe.Bloggs/foldername/Instructions.pdf).
  8. This is the link to your document on the web. Pasting the link directly into a web browser should allow you connect to your document.
Using your P Drive to host a website