Moving Files to and From your Virtual Private Server

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is the most common method for moving files between two computers. Because FTP is insecure, however, it is not the best option. SFTP and FTP over SSH are both alternatives supported by most modern FTP clients and your Virtual Private Server. Another option is SCP, which is a UNIX secure copy utility now available on Windows. For help selecting and configuring a file transfer client program, see Selecting and Configuring a File Transfer Client Program.

Configuring your FTP Server

Your Virtual Private Server uses the ProFTPd FTP server program to make FTP connections. ProFTPd is a modern FTP server which supports TLS (Transport Layer Security), allowing you to use SFTP or FTP over SSH. In addition, ProFTPd is configurable, with a plain text proftpd.conf file in the /etc/ directory. For documentation of the ProFTPd configuration file, see ProFTPd Documentation.

Using FTP from your Virtual Private Server

In addition to connecting to your VPS from your home computer, you can use the UNIX shell based FTP program to transfer files between your VPS and another remote server. We also provide the Wget for copying files to your VPS. See a UNIX manual for more information about using the shell-based FTP client program built in to UNIX.