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Publishing with FTP

The most common method of publishing your website is FTP, or "File Transfer Protocol". To do so, you'll use an FTP application to connect to our servers and upload your files.

Connection information

Enter the following information in your FTP software to connect.
Hostname: Your website name (such as www.example.com)
User name: Your FTP user name
Password: Your FTP password
Once connected, upload your web pages into your web document folder. This is a folder that has the same name as your website, such as www.example.com. This is where your website files must be placed in order to be visible.

If you find that files aren't being transferred, make sure to enable "passive mode" in your FTP software. Passive mode is also known as "outgoing data connections" or "PASV mode". This is required if you're connecting through a firewall, or if your local network uses private IP addresses, such as 192.168.x.x. Many FTP programs, such as SecureFX, have passive mode enabled by default. Entering FTP information in SecureFX

Using secure FTP (SFTP)

If you chose Unix as your hosting platform, you also have the option of using secure FTP over SSH, or SFTP. FTP is not inherently secure, in that your user name and password, and any files you transfer, are sent across the Internet unencrypted. Using SFTP, your user name, password, and files are securely encrypted during transit.

The only requirement for using SFTP is software that supports it. Use the same information as with FTP, described above, to connect. Entering SFTP information in SecureFX

FTP and SFTP software

There are many free and commercial software products that you can use for FTP and SFTP. You can search Google for FTP software, or try one of the following.
  • SecureFX
    This is a feature-rich FTP and SFTP commercial application with many options.

  • WinSCP
    Open-source SFTP freeware.

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