Suppose you create a directory D:\wftpserver\ on your computer that is to be managed by Wing FTP Server. You want to store your to-be-shared files in D:\wftpserver\public\ that can be downloaded by others, and you create D:\wftpserver\user1\, D:\wftpserver\user2\,..., to be used by Wing FTP Server user1, user2,..., to upload/store their own files to. How can you achieve that with Wing FTP Server?
1. Download Wing FTP Server(We use a windows version here, you can find Linux and Solaris version on that website too).
2. Click WingFtpServer.exe to install Wing FTP Server on your computer. During installation, you will be asked to set up an administrator account which is used to log in the administrating program to manage Wing FTP server. Input an Administrator Username and a password here.
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| Wing FTP Server installation - add administrator account |
3. After installation, launch Wing FTP Server Administrator program(Figure). Input the username and password you created in step 2 to log in.
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| Wing FTP Server Administrator Login |
4. You are prompted to create a domain. Click "OK" to create a domain. Input the domain name(domain1) and click "ok", you will be prompted to create a user account. Click "ok" and input the user name(user1)/password(user1). Click "Browse" to choose the directory D:\wftpserver\user1\ on your computer as the user's(user1's) home directory(Physical Path). The Virtual Folder is shown "/", which is the directory a user can see in his ftp client software right after he connects to the FTP server. When user1(from other computer via an FTP client software) connects to the FTP server, he will see(in his ftp client program) the files in his home directory, and he can operate the files(such as delete ,move, copy, download,etc) via the ftp client. After creating the user account, you complete the initial setup of Wing FTP Server and can now see the main GUI of Wing FTP Server Administrator.
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| Wing FTP Server Administrator - create a domain |
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| Wing FTP Server Administrator - create a domain |
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| Wing FTP Server Administrator - create a user account |
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| Wing FTP Server Administrator - create user account |
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| Wing FTP Server Administrator - choose user home directory |
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| Wing FTP Server Administrator - main GUI |
5. You have created a domain(domain1) and a user account(user1) of domain1 in step 4, now you can create more user accounts of domain1 through Wing FTP Server Administrator. Click Wing FTP Server/Domains/domain1/Users/Add User to add more user account(user2,user3,etc) to domain1. On the Add User Dialog, you can see a lot of options regarding user account creation. The important ones are username, password, and home directory as introduced in step 4.
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| Wing FTP Server Administrator - add more users |
6. Now Wing FTP Server is running and listening to connections from remote users. Let's try to connect to it as an FTP user(user1). You can connect to Wing FTP Server using any FTP client software. Wing FTP Software also develops a free FTP client called FTP Rush on its website. You can download FTP Rush here.
7. After running ftprush, input the IP address of the computer where Wing FTP Server is running, the username(user1) and its password, press "Enter", you will connect to the FTP Server and see the files in the home directory(on the remote computer) in the left column, the local files are shown in the right column. Now you can drag the local files to the remote computer(upload), or drag the remote files to the directory in your local computer(download).
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| FTPRush |
8. Now you have set up an FTP server with Wing FTP Server, it is so easy. I hear you say: "Wait a minute, you talked about storing files in D:\wftpserver\public\ to let everyone download, how do you do that?". It is also easy to do. Click Wing FTP Server/Domains/domain1/Users, double click a user that you allow him to access your public directory. On the Edit User dialog, click Directory Tab, click "Add Directory" button, input(or browse to) D:\wftpserver\public\ to the Physical Path edit box, input a name in the Virtual Folder edit box(the name will be shown in the ftp client), click "Ok". That is all! The user is able to access your public directory now.
Following the above instructions, you can set up an FTP server easily. Although easy to use, Wing FTP Server has very powerful features. In fact, Wing FTP Server includes almost every piece of function of modern FTP servers in the market, which you can find in the administrating program. Wing FTP server has versions for most OS platforms including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Solaris.
Click here to get more information about Wing FTP Server.
