Creating a new FTP account

You need to have an FTP account to use FTP to manage your files on your Bravenet account. You can still use the File Manager without an FTP account.

Free users can only have one FTP account; pro users can have as many as they want.

It is recommended that you use FTP to manage any larger websites that you may choose to host with Bravenet. It provides greater ease-of-use and reliability when dealing with the hundreds, or perhaps even thousands of files involved in more complicated websites.

Note that you need to complete these steps to create a new FTP account whether you plan on using our FTP applet or a 3rd party FTP program.

Creating a FTP account

1. Log in to your Bravenet account.
2. Select the FTP tab.
3. Select the New FTP account option.
4. You will be prompted to select a home directory. This will be the directory that your FTP client will show when you log in with the account you are creating. For most users, the default is fine - it will give the FTP user you are creating full access to all your websites. For information on changing the home directory, see below.
5. Type in a username and password. Note that your username will automatically be followed by a number - this is part of your username. For example, testuser-1234567890. Ensure you choose a secure password! When done, click the create FTP account button.
6. You can now login to your FTP account using either our FTP applet or a 3rd party FTP program.

Using a Non-Standard Home Directory

There are cases where you may not want to give an FTP account full access to all of the files on your account. For example, maybe you manage multiple websites for multiple people/businesses - you may want each person to have their own FTP account, and restrict that account to only one website, or one part of one website.

In that case, in step 4 above, navigate through the directories in the dialog box to the directory you wish to have as the home directory. Only subdirectories of that home directory will be accessible through that FTP account.

The typical account has the following directory structure:

• web
  • website1.example.com
    • some subdirectory
    • another subdirectory
  • website2.example.com
  • example.com

In this example, if you set web/website1.example.com/ as your home directory for an FTP account, that account will only be able to access files in website1.example.com and its subdirectories. It would be unable to access files on example.com or website2.example.com.