*** a guide by pi ***
Step one - Open the terminal / computer console
on linux & macOS there is a “terminal” app - windows is *special*
Step two - Get to know the shell
the shell is a way to interface with your computer and tell it what to do. The basics we will begin with are all the same things we do with our
“File Directory Application” aka File Explorer, Finder, Files etc.
the basic things we’ll need to know how to do include
we can think of our computer like a mansion of rooms with connecting doors. all rooms have at least one door to connect to the next. some are dead end and some have many paths that can be traversed “up and down”.
so to start, lets try typing a command that tells us where we are in our computer
“pwd” short for print working directory,
tells us the directory of our computer that we are currently “working” in
you will see the output will include our username for this computer and will likely also show “/users/” before it, indicating that we are within our own personal folder that is contained within the “users” folder. the “users” folder is located at the root of our computer
next lets see what is around us in this folder.
“ls” will list the files in the current working directory
(i like to think of this a “list system” but that is entirely my own connection and not based in fact)
a couple modifiers to “ls” can be very useful.
to add a modifier/s to a command we can use the dash “-“
for example ls -l will show the the output in a more neat list format
you can use ls -a to show all files including hidden files. you can “hide” files by adding a dot “.” at the beginning of the files name. try out the command with and without the -a and compare the results
what’s great about modifiers on commands is that they can stack. a common command for me is
ls -la
which will both list all files including hidden ones, and format the output nicely. order does not matter so ls -al will have the same function
Okay, so now we know where we are, and what’s around us, now we need to know how to move. when using ls we will see both Files and Directories but it is important to note we can only use the next command on directories
side note: directory / directories is the proper way to describe what are commonly referred to add “folders” on our computers. “folder” is a way to connect our computers to everyday things. Folder is correct when referring to the UI interface of our computer, but technically we are navigating directories on the terminal line. No one will correct you if you just refer to everything as folders, stuck up experienced hackers might scoff, but it doesn’t really matter tho
so once you’ve decided which directory you want to jump into, you will use the command
“cd” or change directory
followed by the directory name you want to go into
Note: any directory name with spaces will need quotes around it or weird special characters. so i recommend against using space in file or directory names, and instead use dashes or underscores
If you are in your users folder you likely have a “Documents” folder. first use ls to make sure that folder exist where you currently are, then use
cd Documents to change to that directory.
okay.. one quick one that is fun and very useful
cat - this command prints the contents a file to your terminal. you can use this to preview any text file. it also works for other files like images files, but you will be give a raw text encoded version of the files, so its more for fun than practical use if you’re using the command by itself
play around with the commands pwd, cd, ls, cat and get familiar with navigating your computer entirely through your command line
Step three - Making directories and editing files
in order to cancelled dot work, we’re going to need to be able to make folders and edit text files on the command line. The way the cancelled dot work server functions, we create a directory in order to establish a page on the website. The server will “serve” a page when you use your web browser to navigate to a directory that contains an index.html file.
Let’s practice on our local computer. First navigate to your Documents folder, or wherever you want to sandbox your webpage. once you’ve changed directories, lets make a new folder. the command for this in the terminal is:
mkdir short for “make directory”
We must follow mkdir with the name of the directory we want to created.
I will title mine g_webpage so the command will be:
mkdir g_webpage
when i use ls i now see the “g_webpage” directory is now in the Documents dir.
next i will change directory to g_webpage with cd
now we are ready to make our index.html file
to do that I will use the nano program
nano is an in terminal text editor. another alternative to look into is vim
vim is often favored by experienced programers for its array of useful shortcuts and efficiency, however I prefer things that are “stupidly simple”.
i like that nano shows clearly the necessary shortcuts at all times, while in vim you are very much on your own. For the sake of keeping this guide a beginners guide, i will continue using nano
so, once we are inside of our newly created directory, we can use the command
nano index.html
for the sake of brevity I will not explain HTML basics here, so if you have not touched HTML, please find yourself a guide (ideally a human one) to get familiar.
I recommend finding someone relatively experienced if you know anyone to show you the basics. For a quick start, you can start by copying an html boilerplate and editing as you see fit.
Here is a boilerplate to work off of:
_______________________________________
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>CHANGE YOUR DAMN TITLE</title>
</head>
<body style="background-color: black; text-align: center;">
<div>
<a href="https://cancelled.work/"><--- back to cancelled.work</a>
<p>you’re cancelled!!!</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>
_____________________________________________
Once copied into nano, lets save the file
you’ll see the nano commands at the bottom of the window. to save we must first exit with control + X (may vary system to system)
It will then ask if we want to save.
if we press Y it will save and quit,
N it will quit without saving,
control + C will cancel / resume editing
Two other commands I use often in nano are:
control + K - copy and delete (cut) the current line
control + U - paste the copied text
what’s cool about this cut and paste feature as that if you cut multiple lines without moving your text cursor, you can then paste all those lines at once.
I have found this to be a quick way for me to cut and duplicate blocks of text quickly without using a mouse
before moving forward or making more edits, lets test if we can open this page.
To do this navigate to this file using your GUI file explorer
Right click the html file and open with whatever browser
(you can launch a browser from the command line, but this is much simpler)
Note that you’ll need to save the file and refresh the browser page to see changes/edits as you build/edit your page.
If all has gone well you should see you the contents of your html file. if you are using the boilerplate, you should only see a link with paragraph text below
———————————————————
Having Trouble?
If you are seeing a blank white page and you expect to see something else, there may be a small error/typo in the code causing an issue. try opening up the console in your browser and check if there is an error message. it will likely be able to tell you which line the error is in. Don’t be frustrated if its not working, try to find someone with some experience to help troubleshoot. It is often the most simple things that cause the most grief
———————————————————
Once you’ve gotten a basic HTML page to show up as expected, play around and experiment with some HTML basics. try adding a picture! you can do this with the <img> tag in HTML.
and example of that in HTML might look like
<img src=“./filename.png” />
in this example I’m using an image that is located in the same directory as my index.html and the file name is filename.png but this could also be an external link that is publicly hosted. for testing this is fine, but for webpages on cancelled dot work i recommend having the files hosted on the cancelled dot work server.
Once you’ve got your page in a good place it’s time to get something up on cancelled.work for real for real
Step four - SSH into Cancelled Dot Work
SSH or “Secure Shell” is a program used to access computers remotely.
This command is essentially giving us a direct portal into THE computer hosting and serving the Cancelled.Work website. Unlike your personal computer, the only way to interface with the C.W computer is through SSH. We will have all the same commands to navigate and manipulate data as before. Heres a quick guide of what we’ve learned
nano and mkdir both require a file or directory name to be given along with the command i.e.
nano file_name
mkdir new_folder_name
Okay, in order to access the cancelled.work server we will use the command
ssh peterfuller@cancelled.work
if this is our first time connecting it will ask if we want to “save a fingerprint” basically this is a first time meeting of our local device and the server computer, here we will type yes and press enter
Then it will ask for the password - enter the password
you should know the password, but if you don’t ask of the hackers of cancelled dot work!
if all goes well you will be greeted with
____ ____ ___ _____ _____ ____ _____ __ ____ _
/ ___| _ \|_ _| ____| ___| __ ) / _ \ \/ / |___ \ / |
| | _| |_) || || _| | |_ | _ \| | | \ / __) | | |
| |_| | _ < | || |___| _| | |_) | |_| / \ / __/ _| |
\____|_| \_\___|_____|_| |____/ \___/_/\_\ |_____(_)_|
A SERVICE ON THE red eel network - REDEEL.ORG
— and a line that looks something like —
peterfuller@griefbox2:~/cancelled.work$
Congrats! you have gained access to the cancelled.work server and are now able to add your own page to the website.
First, let’s use ls
we will see all the files and directories in the website root.
check to see that the page name you would like to claim is not already taken
if not GREAT! now just make that directory with mkdir
next cd into that directory
use pwd to make sure you are where you think you are
now you can use nano index.html
you should be greeted with a blank text editor.
if there is text already you probably opened someone elses file so proceed carefully, just close the editor without saving and change directories
once you’re in your fresh index.html copy over the page you were testing on your local device, exit and save.
now go to https://cancelled.work/your_directory_name
and if all is well, you should see you page is now live under the name you chose
— quickly written at the firehouse the morning of January 31st, 2025
Last updated 14:36 31-01-2025
If you get stuck at ANY point, have questions etc etc please do not hesitate to reach out on signal : @zzz.314