Anonymous FTP
Chapter 8
Anonymous FTP Access
Virtual domain account users can allow anonymous FTP access to visitors wishing
to download or upload files to your web site as if you were running your own FTP
server.
You can enable (and disable) ANON FTP access within Edit Account Information
within your account Control Panel. Just check (or uncheck) the check box labeled
"Anonymous FTP Enabled".
ANONYMOUS FTP WARNINGS:
Security
Anonymous FTP will grant any and all users the ability to access your
"upload" directory, or any directory on your domain that has been set
for "public" read/write permissions. Anonymous users will have access
to upload or download files to and from your domain. You must set the
appropriate permissions for your directories to restrict anonymous FTP access.
This is needed to ensure that anonymous users will not be able to access any
existing files or directories. You can inhibit access to specific files and
directories using the File Manager by disabling public read and/or write access
to the files or folders you don't want people to see (ie. cgi-local).
Responsibility
As the account owner, you are responsible for any and all files that are stored
on your domain. This would include files that were uploaded by you as well as by
anonymous FTP users. With the use of anonymous FTP, your site is susceptible of
becoming a "warez" site. Typically, these are sites that are used by
"hackers" to trade (upload/download) illegally pirated copies of
software programs with one another. As the account owner, the complete content
of your account is your responsibility. If your site becomes a trading post for
"warez" programs, you may face legal action that can be taken against
you by the programmers/software companies of the copyrighted software, in
addition to your account being deleted from our servers. Please refer to our Hosting
Policy for more information.
Data Transfer
Any and all FTP download transfers, anonymous FTP included, will be used in the
calculation of the total data transfer for your account. If this total data
transfer amount exceeds the limit that is set for your plan, you will be
responsibility for any and all overage charges that occur. Please Note: There
will be NO exceptions made for these overage charges. Once anonymous FTP has
been enabled, it will be your responsibility to monitor the anonymous FTP
activity for your account. All anonymous FTP activity is stored within the
"xferlog" file. This file contains entries for each and every
anonymous FTP upload/download session. This file is located within the /stats
directory of your account. There is also a link provided off the "View your
web usage statistics & logs" page of your account control panel.
Disk Space
If you are going to allow people to upload files to your site, make sure you
keep track of your disk space usage via your Control Panel. Do not allow your
disk space usage to get too close to your maximum disk space allocation or you
may experience problems accessing your site via FrontPage and/or be unable to
upload or modify files. Please contact Technical
Support in regards to additional disk space.
Once you enable ANON FTP in Account Settings within your Control Panel, files
can be accessed anonymously via FTP client.
Anonymous visitors wishing to access your site via FTP client (e.g. wsftp) must
use your domain name as the FTP hostname, userid of anonymous and password of
guest.
Your anonymous ftp site is completely different from your web site.
When people ftp to your domain anonymously, they will see the following
directories:
bin/
dev/
etc/
incoming/
lib/
pub/
"pub" is where you should put all your anonymously accessible files.
"incoming" is for the anonymous users to upload files.
For security the following applies:
- Only the incoming directory can be written to anonymously
- Sub-directories are not creatable
- The incoming directory is not readable by people dropping files there
You are responsible for any "pirated" software uploaded by the
anonymous users. The anonymous ftp sites will be periodically monitored for any
abuses.
You may ignore the other directories.
To access the anonymous FTP site via the web, use the following address: ftp://yourdomain.com/pub/
Your HTML to download a file called something.exe from a web page would look
like this:
<A HREF="ftp://yourdomain.com/pub/something.exe">Download
Something Now</A>
You should tell your visitors that they may need to right-click on the link if
they are PC users, or if they use a Macintosh, they need to hold down the mouse
button on the link, then select the appropriate option from the Pop-up menu.