Connecting to FTP with Filezilla

Introduction

The easiest way to upload files to your web space is by FTP. To use FTP, you will need to use an application called an FTP client. These are widely available, with one of the most popular being FileZilla which is available to download and install for free from https://filezilla-project.org/. This article shows how to connect and upload files using FileZilla.

If you are going to upload files regularly using FTP, we recommend that you use the Filezilla Site Manager to save time.

For screenshots in this article, the following FTP account details have been used. Please transpose these values for your FTP account. If you are unsure of your FTP account details, they may be configured through the Hosting Control Panel.

FTP Server: sandbox.calzadamedia.net

FTP Username: sandboxdemo

Quick Connection

1. At the top of Filezilla, there are three textboxes labelled Host, Username and Password. Enter your FTP account details into these boxes.

For our example, Host is sandbox.calzadamedia.net, Username is sandboxdemo

2. Click on the QuickConnect button to open the FTP connection. The area or panel immediately underneath the QuickConnect button will start to cycle through lines of text. This is Filezilla connecting to our FTP servers. As long as you seen green text, everything should be correct. Any red text will indicate a problem and you should check your FTP account details.

3. You can now begin to upload files.

Using the Site Manager

FileZilla includes a facility to save FTP account details for later use called the Site Manager. With Site Manager, you only need to enter the account details once.

Adding a FTP Site

1. Go to File > Site Manager

2. Click on the New Site button

3. A new entry called New site will appear underneath My Sites. Change this to a more recognisable name

4. On the right of the Site Manager dialog,

• Enter your FTP server address into the Host textbox
• Set Logon Type to Normal
• Enter your FTP username into the User textbox
• Enter your FTP password into Password textbox

5. Click on OK to save the site. To save the site and connect immediately, click on the Connect button.

Once connecting, you can start to upload files.

Connecting to a FTP site

Once a site has been saved to the Site Manager, you may open the connection very quickly:

1. In FileZilla, go to File > Site Manager
2. Select the site to connect to and then click on the Connect button.
3. FileZilla will now attempt to connect.

Or, even faster:

The first option in the FileZilla toolbar is a shortcut to the Site Manager (see screenshot below). If you click on the button, a list of defined sites will appear and you may simply click on the site you wish to connect to.

Uploading Files

1. Once connected, you should see a list of folders under the area/panel labelled Remote Site. You should see a folder matching the name of your website. Double-click to open it.

Within this folder you should see at least 3 folders: data, logs and wwwroot. The folder you want is wwwroot, so double-click to open it.

For an explanation of what the various folders are for, read about Website Folders.

2. Once the wwwroot folder has been opened, you can begin to upload files. In the left-hand pane labelled Local Site, browse to the folder containing the files you wish to upload. In the screenshot below, we have browse to the My Pictures folder on our computer and are going to upload the file moonrise.jpg.

There are three ways to upload a file:

Double-click on the file to upload

Or

Right-click on the file and select Upload from the contextual menu

Or

You can drag and drop the file from the Local Site pane into the Remote Site pane.

To upload an entire folder, use either the right-click or drag and drop methods.

3. The progress of your uploads will be listed in the bottom-most area/panel of FileZilla.

4. Once all of the files have been uploaded, you can simply close FileZilla to break the FTP connection.

Additional Information

Unknown Certificate Warning

When you attempt to connect you may get an "Unknown Certificate" message (see screenshot below). This message appears if you attempt to connect to any of our servers using an FTP server address that doesn't include 'calzadamedia.net', for example: ftp.mydomain.com

All of our FTP servers are configured to use SSL secure certificates to provide secure FTP connections. These certificates are issued against the name of the relevant server (in this case avon.calzadamedia.net). You will receive the message as the server address you used does not match the address defined in certificate.

As long as the Common Name of the certificate takes the form xxxx.calzadamedia.net (in the screenshot below it is avon.calzadamedia.net), you may safely click on the OK button to continue. To avoid the message in the future, click on Always trust certificate in future sessions prior to clicking on OK.