Although there are many FTP servers available for Windows, either they are very costly or their free versions are very limited. So I have selected FileZilla FTP Server which seems to be the best in its class. Among so many other features, the ones I like the most are the user management interface and the permissions which can be assigned to any user. I can easily create groups and users and assign them certain read/write permissions in order for accessing and working on the FileZilla FTP Server. The permission sets are very similar to Linux permissions along with advanced options.

Configuring Dynamic IP

First of all, we need to address a problem with every home user – there is no static IP. The IP is the network address associated with your computer. Most Internet Service Providers do not provide a static IP address to the home users. If there is no static IP address, you will need to change the server address each time you restart the Internet router. For resolving this problem, we will be using a dynamic DNS service. No-IP is a very basic but free dynamic DNS service which can serve our purpose easily.

Go to No-IP.com and create a free account. After your account is fully active, you can download the No-IP dynamic update client for Windows. The installation of the update client is pretty straight forward and does not require any user input or manual configuration.

When you start No-IP dynamic update client from the Windows start menu, it will ask you for your registered email address and password. After signing in, you will need to create a host name for you computer. You can create the host name here. Just enter the host name with DNS Host (A) as host type and leave the rest of the options as default. Click on the Create Host button to create the host. Configuration will take some time (one minute or so) to propagate.

Now you can easily access your computer through the host name provided by no-ip. In my case, it is sanix.serveftp.com.

Setting up the FTP Server

Now that you have setup a dynamic DNS service on your computer, you can proceed forward and download FileZilla FTP server.

During the setup process, you will need to choose the components to be installed with the FTP server. I would recommend keeping the install type as Standard. Another important part of the installation process is choosing the port for administration interface of FileZilla server. The default port is 14147. Let’s keep it default for this tutorial but you can change it to any value between 1024 and 65535.

If you want to start the FTP Server with Windows startup, you should select install as a service, automatically started with Windows. Otherwise select the manual option but you will need to start the server yourself upon Windows restart.

Once installed, you will find the FileZilla server icon in the system tray. Double click on the icon to access the configuration option.

A Connect to Server dialog box will appear. If you want to have an administration password, you can input the password here and then click OK without changing other settings.

Configuring your FTP Server

Now the real fun begins when we start to configure the actual FTP server. First we will be creating some groups. Groups enable us to manage the users easily. We can apply certain permissions and restrictions on the group which will be applied to all the users in the group. For creating a new group, go to “Edit menu –> Groups” and then click on the add button under groups.

Now that we have created the first group, we will be adding some users to this group. Go to “Edit menu –> Users –> Add” for adding the users.

Once you click OK, you will be able to create passwords for each user under the account settings.

For each group or individual user, you can assign different folders which will be shared to those users and groups. To add a new folder to a group, go to “Edit menu –> Groups –> Shared folders“. You can click on the Add button to create a share folder for that particular group. Once created, you can easily set permissions for that particular direct under a specific group. The file permissions include the following:

For Files

• Read
• Write
• Delete
• Append

For Folders

• Create
• Delete
• List
• List + Sub-folders

That’s all what you need to setup a very basic FTP Server on your home computer. You can go through the advanced settings under the Edit menu. Please note that if you want the FTP server to be available to the network users, it needs to be in Active mode. If you want to restrict the access to the FTP server, lock the server by selecting the lock option in the server menu.

Connecting to your FTP Server

Once everything is configured and the FTP server is active, you can go to another computer on the network and access the FTP server by using your Local IP address. If you want to access it from the Internet, you can use the dynamic DNS address which we have already setup at the start of this tutorial. The address will look something like this: username.no-ip.com:21. Please note that the administration port no. is different from the server listening port. The server listening port is the one on which the clients will connect to the server. The default listening port is 21. You can change it through options but make sure that whichever port you select should be open in the firewall and computers can communicate through this port. The administration port is only for administering the FTP server and can be used only internally without giving access to the outside world.

Hopefully this guide will enable you to create your own FTP server on your home computer.

Image credit: Multiple Wired To Ftp by Big Stock Photo.

Setting up iFTP to work with your website is easy enough. It’s just a matter of providing the sign-in information, the same as you will need to use FTP anywhere. What is needed is the host name, user name, and password. Once this has been provided,  you’ll only need to resubmit your password with each successive time you launch the app.

iFTP allows you to have several different FTP servers configured. For my uses at the present time, however, I just have one server I sign into that handles all previous and present versions of my website.

Opening the server shows all the information contained within. It contains all the folders and all the individual files stored on the server. I can add or delete any file order folder at this point.

Files can be uploaded to your server using iFTP from four different sources – an upload directly from the iPad, local files, a website, or from a computer using a WiFi through a URL. After it’s uploaded, iFTP asks you $2.99 to name the file, and it then appears within the other files and folders on your server.

Once on your server, files can be opened, viewed, edited, renamed, or deleted. Permissions can be changed at this point as well. When managing a website, you can edit and tweak the files right there on the iPad instead of having to resort to a desktop computer.

To upload a file from the web, or to check on your progress as your edit, upload, and move around files, you don’t even have to leave the app. iFTP also included a web browser. It automatically opens up into Google, allowing you to either do a search, or put in a URL directly.

With iFTP, I haven’t found anything I cannot do. While it did cost $2.99, it’s an amount well-spent in the time it saves me from not having to bounce back and forth between my iPad and Mac. This, combined with the ease of use, makes it a great little find for anyone looking for a solution for transferring files to or from their iPad.

iFTP (iTunes link)

The Basics

As noted above, wget is most commonly used to quickly grab a file from somewhere on the web.

wget http://mydomain.com/file.zip

Which would simply grab the file and save it to the current directory.

If you want to save to a different filename or different location, you use the -O flag.

#Remember it’s a capital "O" not zero or small "o"

wget http://download.maketecheasier.com/Firefox_shortcut_keys.pdf -O Documents/ffkeys.pdf

You may be downloading multiple files, in which case you may want to specify a location for all downloads. Just use the -P flag (or –directory-prefix=LOCATION) to specify where they go.

As you can see, that’s a lot of output. Let’s try the -q option to clean it up, making it more suitable for scripts.

wget -q http://mydomain.com/file.zip

Similarly, you can use the -nv option for just a little output, but not as much as the default.

Fancy stuff

What if your download failed, and you want to resume? What if the file already exists, and you don’t want to overwrite it? There are options to handle those as well as several other situations.

To resume a broken download, you’d use the -c flag (or –continue)

If you need to make sure your command (or script) doesn’t overwrite any existing files, use the -nc option (for no-clobber)

There are times when you can’t be certain if filenames will be case-sensitive on both ends, but the –ignore-case flag will negate that problem.

To limit the download rate, use the –limit-rate=RATE option, as demonstrated below.

wget –limit-rate=20000 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian-cd/5.0.7/amd64/iso-cd/debian-507-amd64-netinst.iso

FTP Options

As noted earlier, wget supports FTP as well. If you just specify a FTP site, like

wget ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian-cd/5.0.7/amd64/iso-cd/debian-507-amd64-netinst.iso

wget will assume you want an anonymous login. If that’s not the case, you can manually specify things like username and password with the following flags:

• –ftp-user=USER Specifies the username for login
• –ftp-password=PASS Specifies password
• –no-passive-ftp Disables passive transfer mode.

As well as a few others for advanced use cases.

Timeouts, Retries, and Failed Downloads

Finally, wget comes with several options relating to server connection problems and timeouts. Not all failures can be dealt with of course, but the following flags are all intended to help deal with server issues:

• –tries=NUMBER Specify number of times to retry download
• –retry-connrefused Retry download even if connection is refused by server.
• –continue Resumes an incomplete download, used as -c above
• –timeout=SECONDS Global setting – how long to wait before timeouts
• –wait=SECONDS How long to wait between successful downloads (if repeating)

Conclusion

For such a simple, basic, built-in utility, wget has a surprising amount to offer. Next time you find yourself writing an internet-aware shell script, or needing to get that missing driver file on your broken computer, give wget a shot. If you’ve got any interesting stories about how wget has got you out of a jam, let us know in the comments below.

If you have a website of your own, you would be fairly used to using various FTP clients to transfer files to and from your hosting space. I personally use Filezilla for this activity. What I do not like about most FTP clients is the interface and the number of sections that are there in front of a user. While the designers are trying to show all that is happening in the background when you transfer a file to a remote server, this transperancy is not always required.

At times like these, I like to switch over to an interface that is familiar and uncluttered. Nautilus, the file manager for the Gnome desktop can also be used as an FTP client without having to install any additional software to your system. Nautilus provides an easy way to connect and exchange files via FTP and makes the process as simple as a copy paste that you may be doing day in and day out.

Getting started with Nauitlus is easy. The File menu provides the option to “Connect to Server”. The connection dialog provides the options to establish various types of connections like Public FTP, FTP with Login, SSH, Windows Share and a few others. For a normal hosted acocunt you would probably have a FTP login which you would have provided to your FTP client.

Choosing the option of FTP (with login) allows you to specify your Server, Port, Start Folder and User Name to connect to the server. There are no cryptic fileds and you can also add this connection information as a bookmark in Nautilus so that you dont have to enter this information the next time. The bookmark will appear under the Bookmarks menu in Nautilus.

The connection is established as soon as you click on Connect after entering your password. You can also specify the validity of your session by choosing to let the system remember your password.

Your default directory is shown in the normal Nautilus file browsing window. All the actions like Copy, Cut, Paste can be carried out the same way as you have been doing them on your machine locally. The benefit of using Nautilus as your FTP client is that you can use the Tabbed Browsing feature of Nautilus even while working on your remote server. This allows you to browse multiple sections of your server and carry out file operations in each section simultaneously. Which is a functionality that I miss in normal FTP clients like Filezilla.

The performance provided by Nautilus is as good as any FTP client in terms of speed of browsing the remote server. The added benefits of tabbed browsing and a clean and familiar interface are a bonus that you will enjoy.

1. WebFolder (webdav)
2. FTP
3. Microsoft Windows network drive (using Samba)
4. Secure shell (ssh)

Each one has its slightly unique features and requirements, and in this post, you will learn about each one.

There are two ways to start KNetAttach. One, which we already discussed, is to go to remote:/ in Dolphin or Konqueror. Then, simply click on Add Network Folder. The other method is to press Alt-F2, type “knetattach” and press Enter.

WebFolder

WebFolder relies on WebDAV, which allows you to create and use web-based folders. Many remote file storage services rely on this technology. To connect to a web  folder:

1. Select WebFolder from the “Add Network Folder” list and click “Next“.
2. Give it a name; something you will only use for identification.
3. Enter your username.
4. For Server, it is usually a full web address like http://webdav.yourdomain.com
5. Enter a folder name only if required by your host.
6. Check “use encryption” if HTTPS is available.
7. Check “create an icon for this remote folder” to use the connection again in the future.
8. Click “Save and Connect“.

It will prompt you for your password.  If you elect to save your password, it is a good idea to use Kwallet, which is enabled by default.

FTP and SSH

Connecting to FTP is nearly identical to other connection methods.

1. Give the connection a name.
2. Enter the username (Often, this is a full email address if you use shared hosting. Check with your host). If it is public FTP, usually the username is “anonymous”.
3. Enter the server (Usually just the domain name, like suchandsuch.com or ftp.suchandsuch.com).
4. Only change the port if specified by your host. 21 is the default.
5. Click “Save and Connect“.

The only difference with SSH is usually the port number. In addition to connecting to remote hosts for a website, this is a good method to use for connecting two Linux computers on a local network for file transfer. Just make sure that both hosts have openssh server installed.

Microsoft Windows network drive

For a connection to Windows, you will need Samba running and configured on your computer. If you are unsure what server information to use, navigate to remote:/ and then click on “Samba Shares“. It will show you the current windows shares on your network. When you click “Save and Connect“, it will prompt you for a username and password only if the samba share requires it.

Network Services

There is a button in the remote:/ section called “Network Services”, and it allows you to connect to zeroconf services. The idea behind zeroconf (zero configuration) is to connect to networked computers, printers, and various devices without any expert configuration. Linux uses a free implementation called Avahi. Many distributions enable the avahi daemon by default. It allows you to quickly discover and connect to FTP, Samba, HTTP, CUPS, and other protocols.

The remote:/ KIO combined with KNetAttach provides users with a full networking experience. Once you are connected to one of the above-mentioned services, you can navigate through them just as you would through folders and files on your own computer. You can drag and drop, copy and paste, and even delete all in real time.  When you are finished, just close the tab or window.

Easy Set up

The ease of setup really surprised me. All you need to do is click the [+] in the bottom left corner of the bookmark window and a window opens (see below). In that window you only need two pieces of information, your server address and username. (You will be asked for your password when you connect for the first time.) If you have more than one destination you are uploading files to, you will want to change the nickname of the new bookmark, but it isn’t necessary; the default nickname is the server address. Additional information is needed if your going to use SFTP (recommended over FTP). The port number is the most important. If it does not connect using port 22 (the default SFTP setting), you may need to ask your web host. Some web hosts use different protocols, here is a list of options you can choose from:

• FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
• FTP/TLS (FTP secured over SSL/TLS)
• SFTP (SSH Secure File Transfer)
• WebDAV (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning)
• Amazon S3
• Rackspace Cloud Files

Browser-like Ease of Use

Part of what I like about Cyberduck is the similarities to a web browser. What makes it more more like a browser than a Finder window is the bookmarking feature. If you have multiple sites or even multiple folders on the same site which you need to send files to, no problem. Each destination can have a bookmark just like you would have in Safari or Firefox. Simply click on the bookmark and the connection to that destination is opened.

Drag and Drop

To keep on pace with the simplicity Apple users are accustomed to, Cyberduck allows drag and drop functionality. Many other applications offer this in the most basic sense; these guys took it a step further by adding some Mac-like features. One of these features is spring loaded folders. I know when I am moving things from folder to folder, I really love this feature. Another super cool feature is being able to upload files without opening a connection to a server. Drag the files onto a bookmark for the destination of server you’d like the file to be uploaded to.

In the picture below, you can see there is not an option to disconnect. A connection will open for the length of the upload then disconnect again.

Synchronize

Files on the server can be synchronized with the those on your computer. You will be prompted to select the location on your computer to synchronize the files with. Cyberduck will only sync files that have changed. Whether or not they have changed is determined by the size of the files and the last time the files were modified. You will be asked to authorize actions, including what to do if there is are missing files.

Dashboard Widget

The widget is a great option for quickly uploading files to one folder. This is a great option for uploading pictures or files to a specific location on more than on occasion. When you configure the widget, you can select a path to a specific folder. This setting only affects the widget, not the main application.

Archive and Unarchive (SFTP only)

A handy feature is being able to archive and unarchive files and folders remotely on the server side after its uploaded. Being able to transfer smaller files, means faster upload times. Your remote systems must have the archiving tools tar or zip installed on their end for this to work, if they don’t it won’t be possible.

Other Integration

Cyberduck integrates really really well with many native and 3rd party apps. Spotlight, Mobile Me, Bonjour, external text editors, Applscripts, Growl and Keychain are a few. If you have a Mac and need a super simple way to upload and access your files in any of the protocols listed, Cyberduck delivers. Its like the FTP uploader Apple forgot.

How does Cyberduck compare to other uploaders you have used?

If you are really concerned about the security of your site, this is something that you really need to avoid.

In place of FTP, you can use SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) to create a secure network connection instead. When you are connected via SFTP, all your data are encrypted. Even if they are intercepted, they will only show up as garbage text on the hacker’s computer.

This tutorial teaches you how to connect to your WordPress account (or any other Web server) via a SFTP connection.

A point to note: Not all web host supports SFTP. Do check with your Web host before carrying out the steps below. If your web host does not support SFTP, maybe it’s time to consider another web host that does. Hostgator does the hosting for MTE and they support SFTP.

While there are many FTP clients that support SFTP, the one that I find it the easiest to use and is available for all platforms is Filezilla.

Download and install Filezilla client for your platform. (skip this step if you are already using Filezilla)

Open up Filezilla. Click on the first icon on the Toolbar to access the Site Manager. Alternatively, you can find the Site Manager at the menubar File->Site Manager.

Click the New Site button on the left bottom pane to create a new account.

On the right pane, enter your host name (this is usually the IP address assigned to you by your Web host). In the Port input field, enter 22 (Different web hosts have different ports for their SFTP connection, Hostgator uses port 2222. If you can’t connect with port 22, you may want to ask your web host for the port number).

Under the Servertype dropdown field, select SFTP – SSH File Transfer Protocol.

Enter your login username and password. Click Connect at the bottom to connect to your account. If everything is fine, you should see a popup window prompting you to accept the server’s public key. Click Ok to continue (You may want to save the key in your cache so that it won’t prompt you all the time). You should be connected to your account via SFTP now.

Bringing it a step further

If you are really paranoid about your security, you can use a public/private key authentication to connect to your SFTP network instead. A public/private key authentication allows you to login to your account without any password and also eliminates any chance of a brute force SSH attack.

Once again, not all web hosts allow you to generate public/private key certificate. The following example is based on Hostgator cPanel.

Log into your cPanel. Scroll down until you see the SSH/Shell Access icon.

Click on the Manage SSH keys button.

Click on the Generate a new key link.

Enter your key name and give it a password. Make sure that your password is a strong one. Click on the Generate key button.

You should now see information about your public key.

Back to the main screen, you should see that your public key is listed as not authorized. Click on the Manage Authorization link to toggle it.

Back to the SSH key management screen, download the private key to a secure folder in your computer.

In your Filezilla, go to Edit->Settings. On the left, click SFTP. On the right, click the Add KeyFile button. Navigate to where you store your private key and select it.

Once you have added the private key, click Ok to close the window.

Back to the Site manager screen, remove the password that you have saved previously. Click the Connect button. Filezilla will now authenticate the session with your private key and allow you to login to your account without any password.

That’s it.

Image credit: beefranck