Configure FTP server using FileZilla in Windows 7

FTP stands for File Transfer ProtocolIf you want to know more about it, you can consult it on Wikipedia. FTP is becoming less popular nowadays as users have many other protocols to exchange files, P2P, especially BT. FTP, however, still plays a very important role.

Say, you have a file of about 300MB and you want to send it to your friend abroad right away. What would you do? Emails usually have a limit of attachments (usually not as high as 300MB) and it will be extremely slow and unstable if you try to transfer through instant messaging software like MSN. The best solution will be to set up your own FTP server at home and authorize your friend to download from your computer. Also note that you can set up an account so you can see all your files and get them wherever you go.

If you’ve already set up your remote desktop at home, you’ll probably leave your computer on 24/7 so you can access it anytime you want. Or if you have a spare computer like me, why not try using it? I’ll show you how you can turn your computer into an FTP server.

After trying a couple of FTP server software, the free FileZilla server became my choice.

OK lets start.

The first thing you will need to do is install the package you just downloaded. (from the link above); The installation is quite simple and I will not go into too much detail.

Upon successful installation, the FileZilla server will start and you should be able to see the following interface:

Before we go ahead and configure the ports, we’d like to add a user to make sure it works. we will choose “Edit–>Users” (Or there is a shortcut icon just below “Edit” in the menu bar.)

I created a user called “anonymous” and made sure the “Password” field is not checked because I would like it to be my public FTP account that visitors can download from my FTP server. If you want to set up other accounts, be sure to check your “Password” on file to enforce a secure login. For different users, you can assign a different route, or you can simply create a group and assign the route to all members of that group.

On the left side, you will see the “Shared Folders”, you can specify the folder path that you would like “anonymous” to look at, as well as the permission that you would like to grant. Once done, click OK.

Note: The directories of shared folders are the root folder that the selected user (in this case, it is “anonymous”) would be able to see, but the folders contained in the root folders are also visible to this user.

The most common thing Windows users would likely miss when setting up FileZilla is the Firewall. During the installation, even though you grant permission for the FileZilla server to access your computer’s resources, something is not configured correctly.

Go to your firewall settings, you should be able to find the FileZilla server interface which might be on the allow list; however, this is the problem. We should allow the FileZilla server core instead of the frontend. The interface is just the user interface for end users like you and me to access the main program. So we click add to choose “FileZilla Server” from the installation folder:

Now it should be fine.

If you have two or more computers at home, you can try it now. First find out your internal IP address. If you don’t know how to do that, check out my previous post, set up your remote desktop. For example, I found out that my server’s internal IP is 192.168.1.111, then on the other computer I just type ftp://192.168.1.111.

Note: if you have a different port than port 21, let’s say you have port 22, you need to type ftp://192.168.1.111:22 if you don’t know what port it is, it’s actually in settings–>general settings: If it works for you, we’ll move on; if not, read the instructions again or ask me.

The FTP server is meant to be an outlet on a network, if you’re just trying to set it up at home, then you’re done; but according to the situations that I introduced in my first few paragraphs, I want to make it global.

Just like a remote desktop, we’ll also need to set up port forwarding. In my case, since my FileZilla server is on port 21 of my computer, I will have to somehow forward the FTP request to this port. Ideally, it would be great if we could set port 21 as the external port because every time we enter the address, we don’t need to enter the port number (the browser’s default FTP port is port 21). However, most ISPs (internet service provider), for example, I use Telus, block port 21. We will need to find an alternate port as our external port:

I have set Port 5050 as my external port and all FTP requests through this port will be redirected to Port 21 on my server. I’m using D-Link DIR-825, if you have a different router, check your manual for instructions.

If you configured your dynamic DNS then you are done, if not then go back and read my post; it’s extremely easy

Let’s say you have your dynamic DNS name like myServerAtHome.no-ip.org, then when you are outside you can simply write ftp://myServerAtHome.no-ip.org:5050but if you are at home, you can write ftp://192.168.1.111.

You can use your browsers to visit your FTP server, however I recommend using FTP software. FileZilla Server is a great FTP server and they also have client software. You can check the FileZilla website; if you don’t have one, why not try FileZilla Client?