Friendly Network Business Web Hosting Support: FTP and uploading

Internet Support >> Business Web Hosting Support >> FTP: updating your web site

FTP allows you to send your newly created/modified web page changes from your computer to our web server so that the rest of the Internet can view it. Accessing your web site on our servers to update files is easy once you understand a few concepts. Here, we'll cover what you need to get started and introduce you to some basic concepts of FTP that will apply to most FTP programs and HTML Publishing tools.

You must know your FTP information to proceed. When you signed up for web hosting with Friendly Network, we gave you some important information: Your FTP Server Name, log in ID, password, and base directory. If you are unsure of what this information is, please contact us to request your FTP Information.
You need an FTP Client Software, such as CuteFTP, WS_FTP, AbsoluteFTP or Fetch (for Macintosh). These are very small software that allow you to transfer files from one computer to another over the Internet. Sometimes people can bypass the need for this tool if their web publishing software has a FTP client inside of it -- such as NetObjects Fusion or another HTML Editor.

There is some basic stuff you should know that might help make this process a lot easier.

FTP Software: This is the program you use to send files from your computer to our web servers.
Uploading: Refers to the act of sending files from your local computer to another computer on the Internet.
Downloading: Refers to the act of receiving files from the Internet to your local computer.
Home Page: also called your default page. This is the page where your website 'begins' and must be named index.htm or index.html.
Base Directory: this refers to the name of the folder where you should place all your web site files. On our server, all .htm, .html and image files must be placed in the httpdocs directory unless otherwise noted.

When you access your account via FTP, you will notice that there are a number of folders or directories that have been created for you. Two directories what you will need to access are: HTTPDOCS and your CGI-BIN directory. The httpdocs directory is the folder that holds are your HTML and graphic files. Here is a 'snapshot' of what you would see something like what's on the left here.

After you have installed your FTP program, you have to configure it (basically, tell is which computer you want to connect to and enter in your account information). In this case, you are attempting to connect to our web servers with your account information to gain access to your web site files located on our servers. At a minimum, all FTP clients require the same information: the address of the computer to which you are trying to communicate with, your login ID and password on that computer. Base directory/Initial Directory is optional.

Launch/Open your FTP program
Begin a new session
Complete the required information: FTP Server Name, Login ID, Password and base-directory or initial directory if necessary.
Once you log in, you will see something that looks a lot like your windows explorer. Once side of the screen represents your local computer while the other side represents your account on our web server. Simply browse to and select the files you want to transfer from your local machine and drag-n-drop them into the correct location on the web server. You can do this one file at a time or select several by using the SHIFT or CTRL keys as you click.
The FTP program will send the files over. Occasionally, it may ask you to specify the Transfer type if it comes across a file that it doesn't recognize. Generally, you want to send all your image files as binaries and all your HTML code pages as ASCII (text) files.

Many people find that once you've done this once, it's easy, but people often find this process confusing the first time around. If you have additional questions, please contact us and a staff member will gladly assist you.

Friendly Computer Systems, Inc. & Friendly Network
1383 Main Street, Suite 201
Stevensville, MD 21666
(410) 643.4606 • (410) 639.7799 • fax: (410) 643.4216