It is most likely that one of the first things you will want to do after getting your web hosting account, and taking a quick look at cPanel's interface, is get some files onto your website. So how
do you accomplish this? The most common method is via something called FTP. If you have ever
downloaded anything on the Internet before, you have likely used FTP, perhaps without even
realizing it.
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is a method of transferring files from remote
locations to your local computer (called downloading) and vice versa (sending files from your
computer to a remote location is called uploading).
In this article we will cover most methods that cPanel provides to enable you to transfer files to
and from your web hosting account, including:
Discussing methods of uploading files to your hosting account
Learning about the types of FTP clients available
Learning how to work with FTP
Accessing the main FTP account
Creating FTP accounts and placing limits on those accounts
Deleting FTP accounts
Checking FTP quotas for accounts you create
Managing Anonymous FTP access
Monitoring FTP access and killing FTP sessions
SFTP (Secure FTP)
FXP (File Exchange Protocol)
Navigating your site with the cPanel file manager
Uploading files and downloading files, editing and managing files with the file manager
WYSIWYG HTML editing via WYSIWYG Pro in the file manager
Before discussing FTP and other file transfer methods in cPanel, we need to learn a bit more about
the various types of FTP tools that you can use.
FTP Basics
For those of you who may not be familiar with FTP, it is important to understand what FTP is,
what it does, and what sorts of tools you need to use it.
General FTP Tools
There are many tools that can handle FTP in one form or another, but not all are created equal for
our purposes. These can be broadly categorized as:
Web Browsers: Although most web browsers can handle FTP, they generally only
handle it in a single direction (remote files to local computer) and they cannot handle
the reverse (local files to remote computer) or do not handle it well. It is not
recommended that you use a web browser to handle FTP to or from your website.
HTML/Website Editing Programs: If you use any sort of website editor that runs off
of your computer (like Macromedia Dreamweaver, Adobe GoLive, Nvu, and so on), it
most likely has the ability to upload, download, and synchronize files via FTP. The
focus of these sorts of programs is to create web content and the ability to FTP files to
your web hosting account is just a convenience. If you plan to only work on your
website in one of these sorts of programs, then the FTP features should serve you well.
Stand-alone FTP Clients: This category includes all programs that are designed
primarily to work with FTP, though they may handle other types of transfers as well.
It is recommended that you download and install one of these types of programs
even if you have only one of the types of items mentioned above.
Configuring your FTP Client for use with your Main FTP Account
Once you've chosen a program to FTP files to your web hosting account, you should attempt to set
it up and test uploading and downloading a file or two to make sure it is working properly. Every
cPanel account comes with at least one FTP account, though depending on your hosting plan you
may be able to create others. The main FTP account cannot be deleted. To connect to your website
via FTP using this main account, you will typically need to provide the following information:
FTP Host/Address: This typically is your domain name with ftp. added to it
(ftp.domain.com). You can also use your web server's IP address if your domain
name isn't working for some reason.
FTP Username: For the main FTP account this is the same as your cPanel username
(8 characters or less).
FTP Password: For the main FTP account this is the same as your cPanel password.
Normally, this is all the information you must enter to access your account via FTP, but some
clients may ask for more:
Port: A port is a channel of communication. FTP transfers normally use port 21,
although your web host might set it to something else. Always try port 21 first before
trying another port.
Starting directory: Typically you won't need to specify this unless you want to start
in a different location. This path is a list of directories separated by slashes / (for
example public_html/forum will start you in the forum directory of your web
hosting account, which is inside the public_html (web files) directory). Some FTP
clients require the starting directory to end with a trailing slash / and some do not.
Consult your FTP client program documentation to learn more.
On Linux servers, folders are called directories.
Passive FTP: There are two primary kinds of FTP connections, active and passive
FTP. Passive FTP is a method of sending and receiving FTP information that works
well if you are behind a firewall. Generally, you should use passive FTP for all
connections since active FTP may get filtered by your ISP or your home firewall. If
you'd like more information about the difference between the two types of
connections, please visit http://slacksite.com/other/ftp.html.
Directory Synchronization: If you are using a web content editor to FTP files you
may be asked to specify which directory on your local computer should match with
your remote web directory. For example, you may want the contents of Documents/
website/mydomain/ on your computer to be what people see on your website, so you
would set the remote directory to public_html. Please see the documentation for
your web content editor for more information about this feature if you want to use it.
If you enter the connection information into your FTP client and you are able to upload a test file
and download it successfully then you are ready to begin working on your website. If you receive
an error message, please check to see that you entered your account information correctly. You
may also want to consult the account information you were sent by your web hosting company. If
you have a hardware or software firewall or router in the location where you are trying to connect,
you should check its settings to make sure it can send and receive through port 21. If it still doesn't
work, please contact your web host for assistance.
On most cPanel web servers, the FTP server has a maximum display limit of 2,000 files
per directory. This means that if you have 2,500 files stored in a single directory on the
web server you will only be able to see the first 2,000. This limit is designed to help keep
the FTP server from crashing or overloading the entire server. It is recommended that you
never have more than 2,000 files in any directory, because even if your web host has
raised the maximum file limit, working with so many files will slow down your FTP
transfers to and from that directory. If you must have more than 2,000 files in a single
directory, please contact your web host and see if they are willing to raise that limit. | 
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