FTP For Beginners

I have had a couple of queries recently about ftp and other aspects of Internet technologies. After helping some friends with various computer problems over the weekend, I realised that it is pretty easy to forget that many people learning the ropes about earning money online don’t come from a geek or tech background; while they can pick up many of the techniques to get them started to earning money online, they may not have sufficient knowledge, or the underlying technical skills necessary to understand many of the terms and techniques they learn.

With this in mind, I thought it time to devote some posts to explaining some of the standard skills and tools you will need to master. This is aimed at the beginner to intermediate user, who will each learn from this post. To begin, I will detail something you have probably heard of called ftp.

What is FTP?

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is simply a protocol for transferring files over the Internet. Using ftp, you can send and receive files between computers located anywhere in the World. If you have a Website, or are hoping to create one at some stage, you will be using ftp to transfer files from your computer to the Web server hosting your site

FTP uses a URL (the address of the site) that is similar to what you are familiar with from your Web browser. To load Webtrepreneur in your browser, you enter the address: http://www.webtrepreneur.net/.

The ftp address looks very similar: ftp://ftp.webtrepreneur.net.

This post will only detail connecting to your host server (where your Website is hosted) and the basic commands and details you will need for uploading your files.

There are numerous ftp programs available for all of the major platforms, both free and commercial. The selection comes down to your preference. Some of the basic terminology you may encounter is listed below:

Profile Name:- A name for you to remember the profile you created for a connection.

Host / Server Address:- This is the server your computer will connect to, e.g. ftp://ftp.webtrepreneur.net.

Port:- This is the port on the server you will connect to. The default port is 21 and this should work on most servers

Login / Username:- This is your username for your account on the remote server.

Password:- Likewise, this is your password for accessing your account on the remote server.

Initial Path:- The first directory that will be opened on the remote computer.

Attempts:- This is the number of times the computer will try to download (or upload) a file if it is interrupted.

Retry Delay:- The time between each retry.

Download Path:- The directory on your computer where files will be downloaded to.

You don’t have to know all of these, as you may not have to be concerned with all of these commands, depending on the application you select.

Connected

After choosing your ftp application and entering the settings relevant to the instruction above, you simply connect to the remote in order to transfer files. Once connected, depending on your application you will be presented with a window similar to the one above, with the remote server in the left or right hand side and your computer in the opposite.

Transferring files is simply a matter of dragging them to the appropriate location on either. If you wanted to copy a file or directory from the server to your computer, you simply select the file and drag it from the server window across to the window representing your computer. Don’t be worried, this action will not delete the copy from your server, it will simply copy it across to your computer.

Be aware though, that if you already have a file with the same name, you will be prompted whether you want to overwrite. Make sure that this is what you want, as it will overwrite the file, so proceed with caution if you are unsure and place the file in a different directory if needed.

Permissions

Something else you will come across when transferring files to your server is that on occasions you may read about things called permissions and / or CHMOD. CHMOD stands for CHange MODe.

I wont go into too great a detail here, as you don’t really need to know all the Unix idiosyncrasies behind CHMOD, what you do need to know though is that the server needs some details about who and what can do certain actions on and with your files. Basically, you are setting permission about who can do certain things to your files. For example, on a blog, you want visitors to be able to read posts and comment on them, but you don’t normally want them to be able to access your scripts and change them and damage your site.

That is basically what you are telling the server through you CHMOD settings. It does this by assigning numbers to each file. These numbers set the actions that can be preformed on the files. There are only 3 actions, so it is not too daunting. The actions are:

READ

WRITE

EXECUTE

You can set these permissions on most ftp programs, either by a tick in a text box or by writing a combination of numbers, or both.

To give you an example, a standard WordPress installation will have permission similar to the ones below:

Directories should have permissions of 755. Never use 777.
All files should have permissions of 644.
If you do want to use the built-in theme editor, theme files should have permissions of 666. Once again, never give them 777.

Once you get your ftp program up and running, you will be able to see this by experience and get a better understanding of it.