Hi! 

I took over "maintenance" of our school website, so my knowledge of web development and programming are limited.  Any help you could provide will be much appreciated.

I use FP2003 to update the website each week.  I have it set up to only publish the files that have changed.  This week after I updated the website, the publish log reported these errors:

Saturday, February 07, 2009 3:10:44 PM Failed to delete folder "aspnet_client/system_web/2_0_50727".
Saturday, February 07, 2009 3:10:44 PM Failed to delete folder "aspnet_client/system_web".
Saturday, February 07, 2009 3:10:44 PM Failed to delete folder "picture_library".
Saturday, February 07, 2009 3:10:44 PM Failed to delete folder "aspnet_client/system_web/2_0_50727".
Saturday, February 07, 2009 3:10:44 PM Failed to delete folder "aspnet_client/system_web".
Saturday, February 07, 2009 3:10:44 PM Failed to delete folder "aspnet_client".
Saturday, February 07, 2009 3:10:44 PM Failed to delete folder "aspnet_client/system_web/2_0_50727".


When I looked at the Web Directories thru the Plesk account, I noticed several "virtual directories" that I've never seen before.  I don't see the directories when I access the website thru Front Page.

sitepreview
test
plesk-stat
jakarta
cgi-bin
_vti_bin

Each of the directories have several sub-directories and files.  When I try to delete them (thru Plesk account) I get the following error:

Error: Unable to remove file D:\inetpub\vhosts\hightowerpta.org\statistics\anon_ftpstat\index.html: Access denied

My questions are:
What could have caused these virtual directories to be created?  Are they created by FP?
Is there any way to tell when they were created?
How do I get rid of them?

Thanks!




 

Hello,

It's good you are learning about what's on the server and why it's there.

The folders on the server you list are real folders used for various functions on the server. It is not unusual for these to not show up in FrontPage because FrontPage doesn't own them and probably doesn't even know they exist.

FrontPage uses some housekeeping folders on the server that are not normally visible in the FrontPage program because they are not for you to manipulate. The file names usually start with the underscore character, for example _vti_bin. These are normal and should not be deleted.

Other folders are routinely created on the server for server-side scripts. These would include the cgi-bin and some of the others you list. These likewise normally will not show up in FP because FP doesn't own them. These folders should not be deleted unless you know what you are doing and know for a fact they are not needed.

sitepreview and test are possibly left over from experimentation by a prior web master. You can check out the contents to try to see if they need to be kept. The main thing to look for is rouge files placed there by a hacker, but that probably isn't the case here.

jakarta may relate to some open source software used for features on the web site, however it may be usually associated with an Apache web server. See here http://jakarta.apache.org/

If possible, talk to the previous web master to get his or her opinion.

Re the error messages, my opinion is to disregard them if the site is working.

When in doubt, don't delete unless you know why you are deleting.