Difference between revisions of "R4L/Services/Hosting/Basic/FTP"

Revision as of 10:52, 2 December 2013

How to Configure FTP with the Free Hosting Service

Step by Step Instructions

It's a good idea to first start by checking your FTP password. Your FTP password is by default your login password to manage domains on your account. You can however set a unique FTP password for your domain by going into Profile->Change FTP Password once you are logged into your account. If you get an error connecting by ftp, this should be the first thing to check.

Check to see the publishing options that are provided by the program you are using to develop your pages. You should be able to find publishing options or something similar. Please note, FTP (file transfer protocol) is not the same thing as Microsoft Front Page support. While MS FrontPage supports ftp to upload your files, the free hosting system does not support Front Page extensions.

If you cannot find ftp support, do a search on a good search engine and search for something like "free ftp client". Download and install the software. Because of the number of ftp programs and web development utilities out there, it is not possible for register4less.com support staff to provide support for individual software programs. Configure your software to use the following:

Hostname: ftp. plus your domain name. For example, if your domain name is r4l.biz, your ftp host name would be ftp.r4l.biz. If your domain name is my-domain-name.com, your ftp host name would be ftp.my-domain-name.com.

Note, if you just registered your domain or updated the DNS for your domain to point to our servers, you may not be able to connect to your ftp server yet. You can however also ftp to the address ftp.r4l.com and log in using the same instructions listed above.

Username: is your domain name without the "www.". In our example, the username would be r4l.biz or my-domain-name.com. Password: is the same as you use to log into your account on register4less.com. If you're not sure, you can use the Lost Password function on our login page. Upload Path: If your ftp program requires an upload path, this should be either left blank or be "/". Your ftp account with us goes to the root directory for your domain. With these settings, you'll be able to upload and maintain files on your home page hosting account. Other than these settings, there are no other variables that we can provide you for ftp upload to your account. Please make sure you consult the Help system with the FTPprogram you're using.

Using FileZilla

FileZilla is an FTP program that is supported on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and is free to download and use. Get it here.

Once you have installed and launched FileZilla, go to the File Menu and select Site Manager. On the left side, click "New Site" and type in your domain name. In the screen shot, we are using "yourdomain.com" instead of your actual domain name. Configure the host, logon type, username and password as shown in the image. Your password is the password you use to log into the Register4Less.com control panel, unless you have set a specific FTP password.

On the Advanced tab, you may set the server type, and local directory where your website files are. The target directory on the server can be left as blank or "/". Using your Browser for FTP connection

You can test your ftp connection using your browser. This will ensure you don't have a firewall preventing the connection. To do this, in the address of your brower, type in:

ftp://domain:password@ftp.domain

If for example we are publishing for the domain "testdomain.com" and the password is "mypass", you would type into the location bar:

"ftp://testdomain.com:mypass@ftp.testdomain.com"

You can use the drag and drop ability of your browser in this way to move files from your computer to our servers and vice versa.

Still not working?

If you have the above settings correctly configured and you are still not connecting, we recommend you check the following:

DNS Settings. Is your domain pointing to Register4Less.com's DNS servers? If not, reset the DNS for your domain. Your Firewall. If all of the above (including DNS) are correct, it's likely that a firewall on your Internet connection is blocking the FTP connection. Check the documentation with your firewall product or service to verify how you can open the ports for FTP (port 21 plus higher ports if using passive mode). Firewall settings are not something our support staff will be able to assist with. FTP using SSL

FTP using SSL is supported on Register4Less.com's hosting service. You need to specify that you are connecting to the host ftps://ftp. plus your domain name as the host name you are connecting to. Use your domain name as the username and then your password for the connection.