Virtual Private Server User Guide

FTP Services

Chapter 5   FTP Services

An Introduction To FTP

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standardized method of transferring files 

between computers, regardless of the platform or operating system each 

computer is running on. To access your VPS server's FTP service from a remote 

computer, you use a program known as an FTP client. You can find step by step 

tutorials for configuring an FTP client program on your PC by searching the 

Answer Center

.

There are two different types of FTP access: User Authenticated FTP and 

Anonymous FTP. 

User Authenticated FTP Access

User authenticated FTP allows your users who have been given FTP access to 

transfer files between your VPS server and a remote computer. Through FTP, 

users can upload files to any directory that they have permission to write to. Any 

files that a user has write permissions to can be overwritten through FTP. 

Likewise, any files that the user has access to read can be downloaded to their 

computer. 

User authenticated FTP is useful for uploading files such as Web pages, graphics, 

and other files that you create on your PC. It is also useful for uploading files that 

you wish to make available for public download.

Anonymous FTP Access

Anonymous FTP access allows people to access files on your VPS server that are 

available for public download without requiring visiting users to provide a 

password. Anonymous FTP is the ideal way to distribute public files to those that 

visit your site.

To make a file available through anonymous FTP, it must be placed in the /var/ftp 

directory. It is common practice to place these files in a subdirectory of /var/ftp 

called pub, reflecting that the files are available to the public for downloading, but 

any files placed in the /var/ftp directory will be treated as public files. 

Files made available through anonymous FTP must also be given the correct file 

permissions to allow the world to read them. If a file does not have the correct 

permissions, it can be given the correct permissions with the chmod or vchmod 

commands. For example, suppose you had a file called imyfile.zipi and you 

wanted to make it available to the public through anonymous FTP. First, you 

Technical Training Department

August 2004

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