Sites: FTP accounts

FTP accounts let you upload and download the files that make up your website with any FTP client. The FTP page of a hosting site creates those accounts, resets their passwords and deletes them. Open it from the site toolbar (My Sites → your site → FTP), or go to /sites/{id}/ftp. This article is for the customer, and covers the page on Enhance, cPanel/WHM and Plesk hosting.

What each panel does differently #

The page is the same on all three panels. What differs is the shape of the login, what the home directory is measured against, and — importantly — what a delete takes with it.

Note: On cPanel and Plesk the account’s own main FTP login is deliberately left out of the list, along with cPanel’s log-access and anonymous entries. Showing them with a Delete button next to them would let you remove your own access. Use the main login from your welcome email; it is not managed here.

The account list #

The table has three columns: Username, Home Directory — the folder the account is confined to — and Actions, holding Reset Password and Delete. With nothing to show it reads “No FTP accounts found.”

Creating an FTP account #

1. Select Create Account.
2. Enter a Username. The domain is shown after the box as a reminder of which site the account belongs to.
3. Enter a Password. The requirements appear under the box as you type.
4. Set the Home Directory — a path relative to the website root. The default is /; use something like /public_html to confine the account to that folder.
5. Select Create Account.

Note: The checklist under the password box always lists all four requirements — 12 characters, mixed case, a number and a symbol — whatever your provider has actually switched on. It is a fixed prompt, not a reading of the live policy, so a password that shows red crosses may still be accepted, and the real rule is whatever the portal returns as an error.

Warning: On cPanel a Home Directory of / — the field’s own default — does not give the account the whole site. cPanel is sent the path with its leading slashes stripped, and an empty value falls back to public_html. If you need a different folder on cPanel, name it: public_html/staging, not /.

Warning: Plesk applies a tighter rule to the login than the portal does. A Plesk FTP login may use only letters, digits, dots, underscores and dashes, must be no longer than 32 characters and may not start with a dash — anything else is refused with “That is not a valid FTP login.” even though the portal’s own field accepts up to 64 characters.

Note: The password is never shown again after you create the account. Record it somewhere safe, or use Reset Password to set a new one.

If the panel refuses the account you are returned to the page with its own message — for example that the username is already taken. The username and home directory you typed are kept; the password is not.

Note: On cPanel the login is stored as user@yourdomain and that is how it appears in the list, so that is what you sign in with. The portal strips the part after the @ before every password reset and delete, because cPanel takes the bare user on those calls — passing the qualified form to a password change creates a second, differently named account instead.

Resetting a password #

1. Select Reset Password on the account’s row.
2. Enter the New Password. The same rules apply as when creating an account.
3. Select Update Password.

The change takes effect immediately. Any client still connected with the old password will fail on its next login.

Deleting an account #

Select Delete, confirm the “Are you sure you want to delete the FTP user …?” prompt, then confirm your account password.

Warning: On cPanel a delete removes the account’s home directory and everything in it, not just the login. That is cPanel’s own “destroy” option, and it is used on purpose so that “delete this FTP account” means the same thing everywhere in the portal — but it means an account whose home directory is public_html takes the website with it. Move or copy anything you want to keep first. On Plesk the login is removed and the files stay where they are. On Enhance the portal simply asks the panel to delete the user and does not ask for the files to go with it — if you are about to delete an account whose home directory holds anything you need, take a copy first anyway.

Connecting #

Use an FTP client that supports FTPS (explicit TLS). Sign in with the username exactly as it appears in the list — including the @yourdomain part on cPanel — and the password you set. Your provider publishes the server address and port to use: this page does not display them in the current release, on any panel.

Tip: Give each person or deployment tool its own account with a home directory scoped as tightly as the job allows, rather than sharing one account at the site root. Deleting one account then does not disturb anything else — and on cPanel, where a delete takes the directory with it, that is not just tidiness.

Troubleshooting #