Hi,
I hope you kind people can help me, as I am new to web hosting, and have just made my first web site, and registered with my first hosting company hostmedia in the uk. I picked it just because it uses c-panel so if I got stuck, many people might have used it before.
Anyway, I was about to upload my web site using ftp and installed core ftp lite on my computer. I made an ftp account within c-panel from the instructions therein, and then looked at the configuration files for the account I had made. It has a downloadable file to set up core ftp, but only for ftp set up; The instructions however say it is safest to use sftp, but there is no set up for that.
There is however, a pre-made "special" ftp account, that must have been made when I signed up for the hosting, and this does seem to have sftp, as is does have a downloadable file to set coreftp up with sftp, and gives a secure port number.
Sould I upload to my host using this account instead of the one I made ?
I am now worried that if I do not use sftp to upload my web site, my password will be seen.
I contacted hostmedia support via chat, and was told I need a vps to have sftp. I am not sure if this is so, but I would like some guidance please.
I did read an article from another hosting company that said it is possible use another way to upload it using the main servers secure key, or something like this, and to just accept it when connecting with the ftp client. Please help if you can.
P.S. if I have put this post in the wrong section, please move it for me moderator. Thank you.
ftp and sftp help please for newbie
Re: ftp and sftp help please for newbie
[quote="audioaudio"]I am now worried that if I do not use sftp to upload my web site, my password will be seen.[/quote]
Gratz, you're just starting out and already you're ahead of the curve. It's sad but even today, people fail to think about the inherent security risks of FTP.
In the end, though, there's a lot of unknowns to your situation. The best advice I can offer is try to connect via SFTP to your host using the various accounts that you know are valid.
If you can connect, and you can see where you need to upload your files, then I'd say you have SFTP access.
It's either that or use the FTP account you created, and then just change its password after every upload. If you go this route, I would recommend a program like KeePass (Actually I'd recommend getting to know and use this regardless of what you do, as passwords are weaksauce these days) to keep track of the FTP password for you, and to generate random passwords so that you don't create an easily guessable password increment scheme. I can foresee a scenario where someone would use passwords like: Temp1, Temp2, Temp3. I wonder what the next password would be?
Gratz, you're just starting out and already you're ahead of the curve. It's sad but even today, people fail to think about the inherent security risks of FTP.
In the end, though, there's a lot of unknowns to your situation. The best advice I can offer is try to connect via SFTP to your host using the various accounts that you know are valid.
If you can connect, and you can see where you need to upload your files, then I'd say you have SFTP access.
It's either that or use the FTP account you created, and then just change its password after every upload. If you go this route, I would recommend a program like KeePass (Actually I'd recommend getting to know and use this regardless of what you do, as passwords are weaksauce these days) to keep track of the FTP password for you, and to generate random passwords so that you don't create an easily guessable password increment scheme. I can foresee a scenario where someone would use passwords like: Temp1, Temp2, Temp3. I wonder what the next password would be?