Web Server Directory Usage

ACP's web server normally stores its content files in the Public or Shared Documents folder, under ACP Web Data\Doc Root. Stated another way, the web document URL root / is mapped to Public or Shared Documents folder, ACP Web Data\Doc Root. You can change this document root in the Servers tab of ACP Preferences (for more info on this see Custom Web Content).

File and Directory Handling

The browser display of lists of files and folders is provided by special documents whose names end in .asp. These are Active Server Pages which contain a mixture of HTML and Windows Script, and which are interpreted by the server to produce the final HTML sent to the browser. All of the browser user's file and folder handling is provided by these special documents, not by the web server itself.

Unless you are an advanced web content developer, all you need to know is that these ACP documents must be present in directories that contain images, logs, etc. in order for browser users to see the directory lists and manipulate the files and folders.

Special Active Page Updater

The program cupd.exe is a tool which assures that the special active server pages described above are the most current. The ACP\WebMaster directory contains master copies of these pages, and these are updated whenever an ACP upgrade is applied. As part of any ACP installation or upgrade, this tool is activated at the end of the process to upgrade all copies of these special documents in all relevant web content directories.

The special pages that are used to create new folders for browser users automatically place the correct set of special pages into newly created directories. If you manually create a subdirectory under Doc Root\images\username, Doc Root\logs\username, or Doc Root\plans\username, you must run cupd.exe to propagate the special pages into the newly created directory.

You can run cupd.exe at any time if you have any doubts about the integrity of the special documents.

Common Folders

Under Doc Root there are two folders that are accessible to all browser users:

files	Files provided by the staff. They cannot be deleted. No uploading is permitted. Folder creation is not permitted.
uploads	Common area where authorized users can upload and download files of any type. They can be deleted. Folder creation and deletion is permitted.

Common Scripts Folder

This is actually a third folder accessible to all users. The web server has special-case mapping for the URL path /scripts. Rather than mapping it to DocRoot\scripts, it is mapped to the Scripts folder in the ACP installation folder. This allows web applications and users to share the same set of scripts with the ACP engine itself. It also avoids the need to keep multiple copies of the same script synchronized.

User Content

Under Doc Root there are three folders which contain private files that belong to each user. Under each of these three folders, there are subfolders for each user, and within these subfolders are the private files for that user. These three private area root directories are:

images	Images for downloading that are acquired using the standard web interface or via uploaded plans. They can be deleted. Uploading is not permitted. Folder creation and deletion is permitted.
logs	Run logs that result from using the standard web interface or running uploaded plans.
plans	Observing plans that can be run via Multiple Objects (observing plan) feature

The web server automatically maps the Doc Root\Images\username directory to the URL path /images for the current user. Thus, the browser user sees an images directory in the URL and is unaware of the physical directory structure that underlies this. The same goes for the plans and logs directories.