Accessing Your Anonymous FTP Site

Inside the home directory of your account there is a directory called FTP. Within that directory there is a public or "pub" directory. Inside the public directory (you may also create your own directories other than "pub" to put files in, so long as the permissions make them accessible to users) is where you place files you wish to make public to users on the Internet. 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.

Also inside the FTP directory is a directory called "incoming". Here is the only place your users may upload files to your FTP site. The files copied into that directory cannot be downloaded or moved by anyone but yourself. You can create additional directories on your ftp site as needed but none will be available for incoming file transfers.

Please note, the other directories in your site, bin, etc, and shlib do not belong to you, they belong to the server. These directories are needed in order for your virtual FTP to work. Changing the permissions, or playing around with the files or directories will cause your virtual FTP to not work.

How Others Access Your Site

Others gain access to your FTP space by using an FTP client to connect to your FTP site "ftp.yourdomain". They should connect using the login id "Anonymous", or "ftp", and their e-mail address as their password.

Welcome Message

You can display a welcome message directing them to a specific directory or directories by placing a text file containing your message into your ftp directory. The text file must be named "welcome.message" and must reside in the "hidden" directory located inside your "ftp" directory.

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.

More Information

You can find out more about ftp by connecting to your shell account using telnet or SSH and typing "man ftpd".