The following is a collection of nonsensical posts about the file transfer process. Read, laugh and learn.
- FTP, FTPS and SFTP walk into a barby WordPress AdministratorFTP, FTPS and SFTP walk into a bar. And right away there’s a problem, because what is that? Three letters, three letters, four letters. Who named these? Nobody sat down and said “let’s make it easy.” Somebody just kept adding letters until it stopped working. So FTP goes up to the bartender and says, loudly,… Read more: FTP, FTPS and SFTP walk into a bar
- Close the Door on the Way Outby WordPress AdministratorThe migration is finished and the site loads. You are pleased, and it is tempting to close the laptop. Not yet. A few minutes of tidying will save you trouble later. Delete the test folders you created to check the connection. Remove any temporary files, such as phpinfo.php, old archives and database exports. These reveal… Read more: Close the Door on the Way Out
- One Account Per Site, and Other Acts of Kindnessby WordPress AdministratorIt is tempting to use one FTP account for everything. It saves time, until a plugin gets compromised and the attacker discovers that one login opens every site you manage. Give each site its own FTP account, restricted to that site’s folder. If one gets compromised, the damage stays in one place. It also makes… Read more: One Account Per Site, and Other Acts of Kindness
- Key-Based Login: Because Passwords Get Guessedby WordPress AdministratorPasswords have one big weakness: someone can guess them. Brute force attacks do exactly that, trying thousands of passwords until one works. Your server logs may already show some visitors trying their luck. SSH key-based login offers a better way. You create a pair of keys. The private key stays on your computer and is… Read more: Key-Based Login: Because Passwords Get Guessed
- What Not to Upload: A Short, Judgmental Listby WordPress AdministratorSome files do not belong on a live web server, and your FTP client will happily upload them anyway. It has no opinions, which is both its charm and its flaw. Leave out the .git folder. It holds the entire history of your project, and if the web server exposes it, a visitor can download… Read more: What Not to Upload: A Short, Judgmental List
- Search and Replace Without Setting Your Database on Fireby WordPress AdministratorAfter moving a WordPress site, the old web address is scattered through the database like glitter after a party. You need to replace it everywhere, and the obvious way is a quick SQL REPLACE. Please resist. WordPress stores much of its settings and widget data as serialised data. That is text that includes the length… Read more: Search and Replace Without Setting Your Database on Fire
- 421 Too Many Connections: The Server Says Noby WordPress AdministratorThere is a special sort of defeat in seeing “421 Too many connections from this IP” after thirty minutes of uploading. It means the server has limited how many connections one address may hold at once, and you have used them all. You probably did not do it deliberately. FTP clients open a new connection… Read more: 421 Too Many Connections: The Server Says No
- Backups: Do It Before You Touch Anythingby WordPress AdministratorThere are two kinds of WordPress users: those who take backups and those who are about to. A backup is the thing you wish you had made at 4:55 on a Friday afternoon. Before any migration, take a full backup of two things: the site files and the database. The files include themes, plugins and… Read more: Backups: Do It Before You Touch Anything
- Hashes: Did My File Survive the Trip?by WordPress AdministratorA file hash is a short code worked out from a file’s contents. Change a single byte and the code changes completely. That makes hashes a handy way to check a file arrived exactly as it left. SHA-256 is the one to use. MD5 is quicker, but it is weak, so keep it for simple… Read more: Hashes: Did My File Survive the Trip?
- Zip It First: One Big File Beats a Thousand Small Onesby WordPress AdministratorA fresh WordPress install has well over a thousand files. Uploading them one at a time is like moving house by carrying each teaspoon separately. Your FTP client will open connections, ask permission, close connections and repeat, and the server may eventually tell you it has had enough. That “enough” is a real message: a… Read more: Zip It First: One Big File Beats a Thousand Small Ones
- The White Screen of Death, Upload Editionby WordPress AdministratorYou upload a few hundred files, refresh your site and see nothing. No error, no message, just a blank white page. Welcome to the White Screen of Death, which WordPress shows when PHP hits a fatal error and has been told to keep quiet about it. After a transfer, the usual causes are boring. A… Read more: The White Screen of Death, Upload Edition
- wp-config.php: The File You Never Emailby WordPress AdministratorIf your WordPress site has a diary, it is wp-config.php. It stores the database name, the database user, the database password and the secret keys that protect logins. It is also the file people most often send around by email, upload to public repositories and paste into support chats. Please do not. Anyone with that… Read more: wp-config.php: The File You Never Email
- CHMOD 777: Leaving the Front Door Openby WordPress AdministratorEvery file on a web server has permissions that say who can read it, write to it or run it. They are set with a command called chmod, short for change mode, and the numbers look like a locker combination. For WordPress, the sensible defaults are 755 for folders and 644 for files. The wp-config.php… Read more: CHMOD 777: Leaving the Front Door Open
- ASCII vs Binary: How to Break a Photo With One Clickby WordPress AdministratorThere are two ways to transfer a file: ASCII mode and binary mode. One of them can quietly ruin your website. Binary mode sends every byte exactly as it is. ASCII mode was designed for plain text, and it changes line endings so a file suits the operating system at the other end. That is… Read more: ASCII vs Binary: How to Break a Photo With One Click
- Choosing an FTP Client Without Starting a Warby WordPress AdministratorAsk three IT people which FTP client is best and you will receive four opinions and a mild argument. Let us keep it calm. FileZilla is free and runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. It supports FTP, FTPS and SFTP, which makes it the Swiss army knife of the group. WinSCP is Windows only and… Read more: Choosing an FTP Client Without Starting a War
- SFTP Is Not FTP With a Hatby WordPress AdministratorEveryone assumes the S in SFTP means FTP with security added. It does not. SFTP is a different protocol that happens to share three letters. SFTP stands for SSH File Transfer Protocol. It runs inside an SSH (Secure Shell) connection on port 22. There is one connection, one port and one encrypted tunnel. Your login,… Read more: SFTP Is Not FTP With a Hat
- FTPS: FTP in a Trench Coatby WordPress AdministratorFTPS is ordinary FTP wearing a trench coat. Underneath, it is the same old protocol. On top, it has TLS, the same encryption your browser uses for HTTPS. There are two styles. Explicit FTPS connects on port 21 in plain text, then sends the command AUTH TLS to upgrade the connection. Implicit FTPS starts encrypted… Read more: FTPS: FTP in a Trench Coat
- Your Password Is Shouting Across the Networkby WordPress AdministratorImagine reading your password aloud in a crowded cafe, then being surprised when someone uses it. Plain FTP does exactly that, only with fewer chairs. When you log in over plain FTP, the commands USER and PASS travel as readable text. Anyone who can capture the traffic, such as someone on the same shared Wi-Fi,… Read more: Your Password Is Shouting Across the Network
- Active vs Passive Mode: Who Rings Whom?by WordPress AdministratorActive and passive mode sound like personality types, but they simply decide who starts the data connection. In active mode, your computer tells the server which port it is listening on, and the server calls you back. That is like asking a stranger to ring your mobile while you are standing behind a firewall. Your… Read more: Active vs Passive Mode: Who Rings Whom?
- Port 21 Walks Into a Barby WordPress AdministratorPort 21 walks into a bar and orders a drink. Then it asks a second port to carry the drinks to the table. That, in short, is how FTP works. FTP uses two connections. The control channel on port 21 carries commands such as USER, PASS and STOR. The data channel carries the actual files,… Read more: Port 21 Walks Into a Bar
- FTP: The Protocol That Time Forgotby WordPress AdministratorFile Transfer Protocol was born in 1971, which makes it roughly as old as the floppy disk. Its job is simple: move files from one computer to another. It has done that job faithfully for decades. The trouble is that FTP was designed in a friendlier era, when the internet was a handful of universities… Read more: FTP: The Protocol That Time Forgot