Accessing your Anonymous FTP Site

Anonymous ftp space can be attached to any publishing service on request. Having anonymous ftp space allows you to publish and receive data using standard ftp applications. It also allows others to transfer data to your "incoming" directory or retrieve data you have published outside of our "incoming" directory.

To make files available for download, you would log into your FTP account with your login and password, this will put you inside your home directory. From there you would go into your FTP directory. You can put files in or make directories as you please, whatever suits your needs. Make sure that any file you wish to make available for download is world readable, meaning the permissions would be (-rw-r--r--) for files and (drwxr-xr-x) for directories or they will not be accessible. If you are comfortable using a UNIX shell you can issue the command "chmod 644 filename" to make the file available for public download or "chmod 755 dirname" to make the directory publicly browsable. Most modern ftp clients (Fetch on the Mac, and CuteFTP on the PC) allow you to set these privileges from within the application.

The incoming directory is the only directory you can use for incoming file transfers. The incoming directory is secure. Files copied into that directory cannot be downloaded or moved by anyone but yourself. You can create additional directories as necessary but none will be available for incoming file transfers. If you wish to prevent people from uploading files just simply remove the incoming directory.

How Others Access Your Site

Others gain access to your FTP space by using an FTP client to connect to your FTP site which is also the hostname were your account resides, I.E. "u2.netgate.net". In order for someone else to access your site they must use an FTP client and use the login id of "anonymous" or "ftp", they would then use their e-mail address as their password. When they log on anonymously, the FTP site will place them into the root FTP directory, they will then need to enter the directory "/u/" where there will be a listing of all FTP accounts on that server. They then go into your user folder where they may download the files you've made available to them. An example of the directory tree would be:

/u/brooks/incoming

FTP FAQ

Question:
How can I prevent others from being able to upload files into my public ftp space?

Answer:
To prevent others from being able to upload files just delete the "incoming" directory. From the UNIX shell type "rmdir incoming" to remove the directory.

Question:
Can I setup private (password protected) directories for upload or download?

Answer:
No