Tuesday, June 30, 2009

How to use CPanel to create and manage FTP account

When you purchased a new domain for domain registrar like Godaddy etc .. the next immediate step that you have to do is to buy some space in any of the hosting servers to launch your website and publish it online.The FTP Accounts section of cPanel is where you can set up additional FTP accounts. This is most often performed to grant someone temporary or partial access to your hosting account. For instance, lets say you have a third-party web developer building your site on a sub-domain. Instead of giving them access to the entire site, setting up an additional FTP account would only grant them access to that particular directory. Once the job is done and they no longer require access, you may then delete the account.

Getting Started

After logging into cPanel and accessing the FTP section, enter a username for the FTP account. Keep in mind that the final name will include your domain name. For example, if the username is “designer”, your FTP username may read something like this: designer@mydomain.com Your base domain will also be appended to the username even if its an account for one of your parked domains.

From there you need to create a password to protect the FTP account and your web content. This should be a secure password; a good mix of letters, numbers and symbols and at least eight characters in length.

With your FTP login credentials all squared away, you then need to choose a home directory for the account. This is how you will grant someone access to a particular section of your site.

If you want to give them access to all the content in your public (public_html) directory, enter a slash (”/public_html”) in the “Home” directory input field. If the field is left blank, cPanel will create a folder based on the username you entered. This comes in handy when you want to grant access to all of your web content, without the username and password that will allow them to access your control panel and account information.

Creating FTP Accounts for Sub-domains and Parked Domains

As we mentioned above, creating FTP accounts for your extra domains is an easy way to grant access to others while keeping the core of your site private. If you want to grant someone access to the files in your parked domain, enter something like “myparkeddomain” into the “Home” directory field. This would make the full directory path to your FTP account something like “/home/designer/public_html/myparkedomain/”.

Creating FTP Accounts for Other Directories

Setting up an account for another directory on your account is useful for allowing someone to upload and download files from the site. Lets say you have hired a web designer to help create the site. They can use this FTP account to upload content and show you the work they have completed. For example, if the designer’s name is Tom, you can enter “Tom” in the “Home” directory field which would create a directory called “/tom/”. When the designer accesses this FTP account, they will automatically be taken to that directory.

Final Notes

All of the files dedicated to FTP accounts you created are made visible simply by typing the directory into a browser. For instance, if you have uploaded files to the “/home/designer/public_html/myparkedomain/”, type http://mydomain/myparkeddomain/ into the browser. Keep in mind that these files will not be displayed in search engine results unless they have been linked.