WordPress® All-in-One For Dummies®

Setting Up FTP on Your Hosting Account

Many Web hosts today offer FTP as part of their hosting packages, so just confirm that your hosting provider makes FTP available to you for your account. In Book II, Chapter 1, we mention the hosting account management interface called cPanel. cPanel is by far the most popular hosting account management software used by hosts on the Web, eclipsing other popular tools, such as Plesk and NetAdmin.

In this chapter, we use cPanel as the example. If your hosting provider gives you a different interface to work with, the concepts are still the same, but you'll need to refer to your hosting provider for the specifics to adapt these directions to your specific environment.

Mostly, the FTP for your hosting account is set up automatically. Figure 2-1 shows you the FTP Accounts page in cPanel — follow these steps to get to this page and set up your FTP account:

1. Log in to the cPanel for your hosting account.

   Typically, you'll browse to http://yourdomain.com/cpanel to bring up the login screen for your cPanel. Enter your specific hosting account username and password in the login fields and click OK.

2. Browse to the FTP Accounts page.

   Click the FTP Accounts link or icon in your cPanel to open the FTP Accounts page shown in Figure 2-1.

3. View the existing FTP account.

   If your hosting provider automatically sets you up with an FTP account, then you will see ...