Finding and Using Free and Easy FTP Programs

Finding and Using Free and Easy FTP Programs

FTP programs are referred to as FTP clients or FTP client software. Whatever
you decide to call it, an FTP client is software that you use to connect to
your Web server to view, open, edit, and transfer files to and from your Web
server.

Using FTP to transfer files requires an FTP client. Many FTP clients are available for download. Here are some good (and free) ones:

 

✦ WS_FTP: www.ipswitch.com/_download/wsftphome.asp

 

✦ SmartFTP: www.smartftp.com/download

✦ FileZilla: http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla
✦ Cyberduck (for Mac users): http://cyberduck.ch

✦ FTP Explorer: www.ftpx.com

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Parameters

7. Set the following settings:

FTP Username, Password, and FTP Server are specific to your domain and the information you entered in the preceding steps.

•  FTP Username: username@yourdomain.com

•  Password: yourpassword

•  FTP Server: ftp.yourdomain.com

•  FTP Server Port: 21

•  Quota: Unlimited MB

Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, the FTP Server Port will be 21 —
be sure to double-check your FTP settings to make sure that this is the case.

At any time, you can revisit the FTP Accounts page to delete the FTP

accounts you’ve created, change the quota, change the password, and find the connection details specific to that account.

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Check the Strength indicator

Check the Strength indicator.

The server tells you if your password is Very Weak, Weak, Good, Strong, or Very Strong (refer to Figure 2-1). You want to have a very strong password for your FTP account that’s very hard for hackers and malicious Internet users to guess and crack.

4. Type the directory access for this FTP user.

Leaving this field blank gives this new FTP user access to the root level of your hosting account, which, as the site owner, you want. So leave this field blank. (In the future, if you set up FTP accounts for other users, you can lock down their access to your hosting directory by indicating which directory the FTP user has access to.)

5. Indicate the space limitations in the Quota field.

Because you’re the site owner, leave the radio button selection to

Unlimited. (In the future, if you add a new FTP user, you can limit the

amount of space, in Megabytes (MB) by selecting the radio button to the
left of the text field and typing the numeric amount in the text box; for
example: 50MB.)

6. Click the Create FTP Account button.

A new screen with a message that the account was created successfully
appears. Additionally, the settings for this new FTP account appear,
which you should copy and paste into a blank text editor window (like
Notepad for PC, or TextMate for Mac users). The settings for the FTP
account are the connection details you need to connect to your Web
server via FTP.

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FTP Accounts page doesn’t display a default FTP user in the Account

If the FTP Accounts page doesn’t display a default FTP user in the Account
Management section, you can create one easily in the Add FTP Account
section:

1. Type your desired username in the Login field.

This creates the username of username@yourdomain.com (where username is the desired username you typed and yourdomain.com is your specific domain name).

2. Type your desired password in the Password field.

You can choose to type in your own password or click the Password
Generator button to have the server generate a secure password for
you. Retype the password in the Password (Again) field to validate.

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FTP account

View the existing FTP account. If your hosting provider automatically sets you up with an FTP account, then you will see it listed in the Account Management section. Ninetynine percent of the time, the default FTP account uses the same username and password combination as your hosting account or the login information you used to log in to your cPanel in Step 1.

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Advanced Steps

1. Log in to the cPanel for your hosting account.

Typically, you’ll browse to http://yourdomain.com/cpanel to bring
up the login screen for your cPanel. Enter your specific hosting account username and password in the login fields and click OK.

2. Browse to the FTP Accounts page.

Click the FTP Accounts link or icon in your cPanel to open the FTP Accounts page shown in Figure 2-1.

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Setting Up FTP on Your Hosting Account

Many Web hosts today offer FTP as part of their hosting packages, so just confirm that your hosting provider makes FTP available to you for your
account. In Book II, Chapter 1, we mention the hosting account management interface called cPanel. cPanel is by far the most popular hosting account management software used by hosts on the Web, eclipsing other popular tools, such as Plesk and NetAdmin.

In this chapter, we use cPanel as the example. If your hosting provider gives you a different interface to work with, the concepts are still the same, but you’ll need to refer to your hosting provider for the specifics to adapt these directions to your specific environment.

Mostly, the FTP for your hosting account is set up automatically. Figure 2-1 shows you the FTP Accounts page in cPanel

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Setting Up FTP on Your Hosting Account

✦ View files: After you log in via FTP, you can see all the files that are
located on your Web server.

✦ View Date Modified: You can see the date a file was last modified, which
can sometimes be helpful when trying to troubleshoot problems.

✦ View file size: You can see the size of each file on your Web server,

which is helpful if you need to manage the disk space on your account.

✦ Edit files: Almost all FTP clients allow you to open and edit files through
the client interface, which is a convenient way to get the job done.

✦ Change permissions: Commonly referred to as CHMOD, it controls what
type of read/write/execute permissions the files on your Web server
have.

FTP is a convenient utility that gives you access to the files located on your Web server, making managing your WordPress Web site a bit easier.

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Introducing FTP Concepts

This section introduces you to the basic elements of File Transfer Protocol (FTP). The ability to use FTP with your hosting account is a given for almost every Web host on the market today. FTP is a way of moving files from one place to another, such as:

✦ Uploading: Transferring files from your local computer to your Web
server

✦ Downloading: Transferring files from your Web server to your local
computer

You can do several other things with FTP, including the following, which we discuss later in this chapter: " height="319" width="28">

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Using File Transfer Protocol

 

 

 

Throughout this entire book, you run into the term FTP. FTP (File
Transfer Protocol) is a network protocol used to copy files from one

 

host to another over the Internet. With FTP, you can perform various tasks, including uploading and downloading WordPress files, editing files, and changing permissions on files.

Read this chapter to familiarize yourself with FTP, understand what it is and
how to use it, and discover some free, easy-to-use FTP clients or programs
that make your life as a WordPress Web site owner much easier. If you run
across sections in this book that ask you to perform certain tasks by using
FTP, you can refer to this chapter to refresh your memory on how to do it, if
needed.

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What do I mean by throttle

What do I mean by throttle? I mean they shut it down — they turn it off. Not
permanently, though; maybe for only a few minutes to an hour. They do this
to kill any connections to your Web server causing the spike in CPU use.
They eventually turn your site back on — but the inconvenience happens

 

regularly with many clients across various hosting environments.

 

When looking into different Web hosting providers, ask about their policy
on CPU use and what they do to manage a spike in processing. It’s better
to know about it upfront, than to find out about it after your site’s been
throttled.

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Choosing the size of your bandwidth pipe

 

Be wary of hosting providers that offer things like unlimited bandwidth,

domains, and disk space. That is a great selling point, but what they don’t

tell you outright (you may have to look into the fine print of their agreement) is that although they may not put those kinds of limits on you, they will limit your site’s CPU usage.

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

CPU stands for central processing unit and is the part of a computer (or

Web server in this case) that handles all the data-processing requests sent to your Web servers whenever anyone visits your site. Although you may have unlimited bandwidth to handle a large amount of traffic, if a high spike in traffic increases your site’s CPU usage, your host will throttle your site because they limit the CPU use.

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Choosing the size of your bandwidth pipe

Web hosts are pretty generous with the amount of bandwidth they provide
in their packages. Like disk space, bandwidth is measured in gigabytes (GB).
Bandwidth provision of 10-50GB is generally a respectable amount to run a
Web site with a blog.

Web sites that run large files — such as video, audio, or photo files — gener-
ally benefit from higher disk space compared with sites that don’t involve
large files. Keep this point in mind when you’re signing up for your hosting
account. Planning now will save you a few headaches down the road.

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Choosing the size of your bandwidth pipe

The very same concept applies to the bandwidth available with your host-
ing account. Every Web hosting provider offers a variety of bandwidth
limits on the accounts it offers. When I want to view your Web site in my
browser window, the bandwidth is essentially the pipe that lets your data
flow from your “well” to my computer. The bandwidth limit is similar to the
pipe connected to my well: It can hold only a certain amount of water before
it reaches maximum capacity and won’t bring the water from the well any
longer. Your bandwidth pipe size is determined by how much bandwidth
your Web host allows for your account — the larger the number, the bigger
the pipe. A 50MB bandwidth limit makes for a smaller pipe than a 100MB
limit.

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Choosing the size of your bandwidth pipe

 

Bandwidth refers to the amount of data that is carried from point A to point
B within a specific period (usually, only a second or two). I live out in the
country — pretty much the middle of nowhere. The water that comes to my
house is provided by a private well that lies buried in the backyard some-
where. Between my house and the well are pipes that bring the water to my
house. The pipes provide a free flow of water to our home so that everyone
can enjoy their long, hot showers while I labor over dishes and laundry, all
at the same time. Lucky me!

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