Knowledgebase

Overview:

You can use this interface to create and manage your website’s File Transfer Protocol (FTP) accounts. FTP allows you to manage your website’s files.

Add FTP Account

To create an FTP account, perform the following steps:

1. Enter the desired username in the Log In text box.

2. Select the desired domain from the Domain menu.

3. Enter and confirm the new password in the appropriate text boxes.

   Note:

   • The system evaluates the password that you enter on a scale of 100 points. 0 indicates a weak password, while 100 indicates a very secure password.

   • Some web hosts require a minimum password strength. A green password Strength meter indicates that the password is equal to or greater than the required password strength.

   • Click Password Generator to generate a strong password. For more information, read our Password & Security documentation.

    

4. Enter the FTP account’s home directory.

   Note:

   • The Directory text box defines the new FTP account’s top level of directory access. For example, if you enter example in the Directory text box, the FTP account can access the /home/$user/example/ directory and all of its subdirectories.

   • The system automatically populates this text box with public_html/domain.tld/account, where account represents the username that you entered in the Login text box and domain.tld represents the domain you selected in the Domain menu.

   Important:

   You cannot use symbolic links (symlinks) to upload data outside of this directory.

    

5. Enter the disk space quota, or select Unlimited.

   Note:

   If your server uses the ProFTPD FTP server, you cannot use quotas. For more information about your server’s FTP server, contact your hosting provider.
   Important:

   If an FTP account experiences problems with uploads, you may need to increase the Quota value.

    

6. Click Create FTP Account. The new account will appear in the FTP Accounts table.

FTP Accounts

The FTP Accounts table allows you to manage existing FTP accounts.

Change Password

To change an FTP account’s password, perform the following steps:

1. Click Change Password for the FTP account for which you wish to change the password.

2. Enter and confirm the new password in the appropriate text boxes.

   Note:

   • The system evaluates the password that you enter on a scale of 100 points. 0 indicates a weak password, while 100 indicates a very secure password.

   • Some web hosts require a minimum password strength. A green password Strength meter indicates that the password is equal to or greater than the required password strength.

   • Click Password Generator to generate a strong password. For more information, read our Password & Security documentation.

    

3. Click Change Password.

Change Quota

To change an FTP account’s quota, perform the following steps:

1. Click Change Quota for the FTP account for which you wish to change the quota.

2. Enter the disk space quota, or select Unlimited.

3. Click Change Quota.

Delete

To remove an FTP account, perform the following steps:

1. Click Delete for the FTP account that you wish to remove.

2. Click the desired deletion option:

   • Delete Account — Remove the FTP account only. This will not remove the files that the FTP account’s home directory contains.

   • Delete Account and Files — Remove the FTP account and all of the files that the FTP account’s home directory contains.

     Warning:

     Only use this option with extreme caution. If the FTP account that you delete can access the public_html directory, this option automatically removes the public_html directory and all of its contents, which will break your website.

      

   • Cancel — Do not delete the account.

Configure FTP Client

To configure an FTP client, perform the following steps:

1. Click Configure FTP Client for the desired FTP account.

2. Click FTP Configuration File under the desired FTP client’s logo. You can choose between Core FTP and Cyberduck.

   Note:

   • We only support auto-configuration for these FTP clients. To use another client, manually configure the client.

   • Click Instructions to view detailed instructions for your chosen client.

   • FTP does not support Server Name Indication (SNI). You must use the server’s hostname as the FTP server to connect with SSL. You can’t use your domain name. For more information, read our How To Configure Your SFTP Client documentation.

    

3. Open the configuration script file that downloaded to your computer. The FTP client automatically opens, configures itself, and connects to your FTP server.

Special FTP Accounts

The Special FTP Accounts table lists your cPanel account’s primary FTP account and the log access account. The system creates these accounts by default. Unlike other FTP accounts, you cannot modify or delete these accounts. This is because the system links these accounts to administrative aspects of your cPanel account.

Primary FTP account

This account has FTP access to all files in your cPanel account. It also has access to files that exist outside of your account’s public_html directory. When logging in to this account, you should always use the SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) protocol.

Log access account

This account lets you download your website’s raw access logs. The logs are available in the /etc/apache2/logs/domlogs/USERNAME directory, where USERNAME is the log access account’s username. This directory contains the FTP transaction logs for domains on webservers running EasyApache 4.

Anonymous FTP accounts

These accounts allow users to anonymously connect via FTP to access your website’s files. You can manage this access in cPanel’s Anonymous FTP interface (cPanel >> Home >> Files >> Anonymous FTP). When you disable anonymous FTP, the system does not remove these accounts.