Files, FTP and permissions

The Files menu is where you work with files on the server, see every FTP login and put ownership and permissions right again. It looks like the customer's Files menu, but your reach is wider. Customers see only their own account: see Files and backups in the customer's guide.

The menu has five entries: File manager, Trash, FTP, Backups and Fix permissions. Backups have their own page: Backups.

File manager

Open Files › File manager. You work in one of two modes.

Whole server

When you open the page with no account chosen, the heading says The whole server, the same reach as signing in over SFTP as root. You can browse every folder on the server, not only customer homes. Treat it like a root shell.

• Deletes here are permanent. There is no Trash outside an account. The Delete box says so, and the files are removed for good.
• To delete one item, type its file name to confirm. To delete several ticked items, type DELETE. If the word or name is wrong, nothing is deleted.
• Some places are refused even for you. Writing inside an account's mail folder is refused, because that is where mailboxes live. Use Mail to change mailboxes.
• Uploads, edits and new files are also checked by Malware Watch before the panel answers, and a file it judges to be malware is refused.

One account

Type an account name in the picker (Type to find an account) and click Open. The heading changes to Browsing name's files and the file manager is limited to that account's home folder. The Whole server button takes you back out.

Inside an account:

• The folder cannot be left. A link that points outside the account shows an outside badge and cannot be opened.
• Deletes go to the account's Trash, as they do for the customer. Tick skip the Trash only if you want a real delete.
• The side panel shows the account's disk use, read from its quota.
• An Owner column shows who owns each item. You see it and the customer does not.

The tools are the same as the customer's: upload, new file and folder, edit, rename, move, copy, download, permissions, compress and extract. They are explained in the customer's guide, Files and backups.

Trash

Open Files › Trash. The Trash link in an account's file manager opens that account's Trash; you can also add the account to the address (/files/trash?account=name).

Each row shows the name, where it came from, its size and when it was deleted. Items stay until someone removes them. They still count against the account's disk.

1. Click Manage on a row.
2. Choose Restore. Check Put it back at. If the panel has no record of where it came from, you must type a path.
3. Tick replace whatever is there now only if you want to overwrite.
4. Click Restore.

Manage › Delete for good removes one item. Empty the trash removes all of them and gives the disk space back. Neither can be undone.

Opening the Trash with no account chosen shows an error: the server as a whole has no Trash.

FTP

Open Files › FTP. It lists every FTP login on the server: the Login, its Account, the Locked to folder and when it was Created. The cards at the top show whether Pure-FTPd is running, how many logins exist and how many accounts have extra logins.

FTP logins are virtual users. An FTP password cannot sign in to anything else on the server.

Set FTP up

On a server where FTP was never set up, the page says FTP is not set up yet. Click Set up FTP. It installs Pure-FTPd, requires TLS, opens the passive port range and creates a main login for every account already there. It runs in the background and shows its log while it works.

If Pure-FTPd is installed but stopped, a red notice says nobody can connect.

Find a login

Type in Search logins, folders or accounts, or pick an account in the list and click Filter. The counter shows how many are shown.

Create a login

1. Click New FTP login.
2. Choose the Account.
3. Enter a Login. An extra login cannot be a plain name that an account could have. Use something like the account name followed by _name, or name@your-domain.
4. Enter Locked to folder, relative to the account's home. Leave it blank for the whole home. The login cannot see anything above this folder.
5. Enter a Password of at least 12 characters, or leave it blank to generate one.
6. Click Create login.

A generated password is shown once. Copy it then. It is stored hashed and cannot be shown again.

Change a password or remove a login

• New password takes effect at once and the old one stops working. Leave it blank to generate one.
• Remove stops the login working. Nothing it uploaded is deleted.
• The main login is marked as such and has no Remove button. It goes when the account is deleted.

The How to connect box shows the host with a Copy button, the port and the encryption: Explicit TLS (FTPS). Plain FTP is refused.

Fix permissions

Open Files › Fix permissions when sites give a 403, a 500 or a blank page after an upload, an unzip, a migration or a restore. These leave files that the web server, PHP or mail cannot read, or files owned by root.

One account

1. Type the Account.
2. Choose what to fix: Everything, Websites only, Mail only or One folder. For One folder, type a path inside the account, such as public_html/shop.
3. Check the switches. The first three are on by default: Standard permissions, Keep files that are stricter and Remove world-writable. Three are optional and off: PHP files 640, .htaccess: FollowSymLinks and .htaccess: remove handler lines. Ownership always becomes the account's own.
4. Click Check first to see what would change, then Fix now.

The result shows items checked, fixed, .htaccess files changed and items left alone on purpose. Table What gets set on the right lists the owner and mode for each place. Logs are not touched.

It never follows links and never touches a mounted disk or folder inside the account.

Every account

Below the form, Fix every account on the server runs the same fix, with the same switches, on each account one after another. It runs in the background. Leave the page and come back, and each account's result is listed when it finishes.

1. Set the switches in the form above.
2. Click Check every account and read the list. Details shows what would change for an account.
3. Click Fix every account.

On a large server this takes a while. Try Check first on one account before you run it on all of them.

How this differs from the customer view

Resellers see their own customers' accounts through their own panel: see the reseller guide.