This tutorial will explain the basic concepts and methods of using an FTP (file tranfer protocol) program. Although this tutorial was written using the FileZilla FTP as an example, almost all FTP clients are similar in nature.

Before we begin
If you do not currently have an FTP Client installed on your computer, here is a small collection of the most popular clients to choose from.

FileZilla - http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/ (http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/)
Core FTP - http://www.coreftp.com/ (http://www.coreftp.com/)
Smart FTP - http://www.smartftp.com/ (http://www.smartftp.com/)

Lesson 1: Setting the FTP Site Settings
Open you FTP Client and look for something that refers to FTP Site Manager. In FileZilla it is a little server icon directly below File.

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-Click the Site Manager Icon and follow the instructions below.

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Click on the New Site button.

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Now give your new site a name (for this tutorial, I named mine "Test Site").

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Under the "General" Tab, fill in the "Host" box with your site name. In the Port box, enter which port your server will use (the most common is 21).
Click on the Logontype drop-down button as seen above...

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Change the default entry from Anonymous to Normal as seen above...

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Now you can specify your hosting accounts FTP username and password

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NOTE: You must obtain or setup this information through your web-hosting provider.

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Click the Advanced tab.
Set your Default Local Directory by clicking the Browse button.

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NOTE: Setting your local and remote directories will eliminate the need to thread through your hard-drives directory tree in order to find the files that you are wanting to upload.

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Now set your Remote folder (in this example I set mine to /test). This is the folder or sub-folder that you wish the FTP to point to by default.

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NOTE: This is useful for those that may have several websites running on one hosting account. One can setup an FTP site for each website, have each FTP Site point to its remote sub-folder and thus eliminate alot of confusion in the future.

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Now click the Transfer Settings tab. Most servers perform-well on the Passive setting. If you are using a Shared-Hosting account, most likely the only setting that will work properly is Passive.

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NOTE: For more information on Active and Passive settings, I recommend reading the information on the following website: http://slacksite.com/other/ftp.html (http://slacksite.com/other/ftp.html)

- NEXT -
Click the OK button to save your settings.

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Congratulations! You have now setup your first FTP Site using the Site Manager!

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Finally, you will want to access your newly-created site. To do this, open the Site Manager, click on your new site and then click the Connect button (as seen above).

Coming next... Lesson 2: Using the FTP Interface

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General => Free/GPL/Tutorials Discussions => Topic started by: Robert D. Wagers on October 06, 2007, 11:06:23 AM