CuteFTP Tutorial and Installation How To

This tutorial describes how to use CuteFTP with your NEXCESS.NET hosting account.

Cute FTP is available from GlobalSCAPE. For a limited time receive $10 off CuteFTP Pro!

For the sake of this tutorial we'll assume that you own the domain 'johnsmith.com' and your FTP username is 'ftp@johnsmith.com'.

Follow these steps to complete the tutorial:

1. CuteFTP is available from http://cuteftp.com. If you don't have a FTP client already we recommend you use SmartFTP as it's free and just as good as CuteFTP.
2. CuteFTP has a short wizard that walks you through the setup of an FTP connection. The first screen prompts you for a label for your new connection. You can just use your domain name if you like.

   

3. The next screen prompts you for the FTP server you want to connect to. Enter your domain name in the given space and click 'Next >'.

   

4. The next screen prompts you for your FTP username and password. Enter them in the boxes provided and click 'Next >'.

   

5. The next screen prompts you for a 'default local folder'. You should probably choose the folder where you keep all of your website files or if you don't have a website developed yet you can either make a new directory or just choose a random directory like c:\temp. Click 'Next >'.

   

6. The next screenshot (below) shows the view when logged-in to your web hosting account. The list of files/folders on the right hand and left had side is the view of your web hosting account.

   You'll notice a directory named 'html' in your web hosting account. This directory is where all of your website files should be placed in order for them to be seen when you type in http://yourdomain.com.

   Another important and often overlooked note is that you must have a file named index.html or index.htm which acts as you homepage. When a person types in http://yourdomain.com our webserver will look for the file named index.html or index.htm (there are a few others as well) first and will load that page. If you don't see a screen like the screenshot or are having problems connecting here are some things to check:

   1. If you just obtained your NEXCESS.NET web hosting account then your domain may not be switched over to our service yet and instead of using your domain in the 'Address' box you should use the temporary domain name given to you in your welcome e-mail.
   2. It may be that you are behind a firewall and/or router and need to use passive FTP. Just skip down to step 8 to see how to enable passive FTP.

   

7. In this next screenshot I've clicked on the 'html' directory in either the left or right hand view and the contents of the 'html' directory are visible on the right hand side of the FTP window. When you first signup and login to your site via FTP you will see something like what is shown in the screenshot. The files 'index.php' and 'logo.gif' are the default NEXCESS.NET new client index page and these 2 files should be deleted.

   You will also notice files named 404.html, 403.html etc. These files can be used to setup custom 404 (page not found) error pages. Just edit these files and customize them as you wish.

   

8. If you are behind a firewall and/or router you often need to use passive FTP to get a stable connection. Just open up the connection settings dialog by click on the Edit Menu and then 'Settings'. Once the settings window is open click on the 'Firewall' label on the left side of the dialog. You can then check/uncheck 'PASV mode' if necessary.

   

9. Often when installing scripts and other web tools you will need to "chmod" or change permissions on a file or directory. It's easy to do from within the FTP session. Just right-click on the file/directory you'd like to change permissions on select "CHMOD" and you'll receive the dialog below. You can then either type in the permissions you'd like to set using numbers (700 for example) or use the various check boxes to set the permissions. The CuteFTP tutorial is now complete.

   

Back to web hosting tutorials page