How to build a home FTP server that works

FTP is a file transfer protocol for exchanging and manipulating files over computer network. We will use FileZilla software to build our own FTP server that actually works.

Follow the link in case you only want to know how to use FileZilla ftp client and not server.

Download the latest version of FileZilla Server.

Software can be downloaded from:
http://filezilla-project.org

After successful download run the installation.

For installation you can use default options. Just press Next button to finish installation.

After installation the program will automatically start.

You will see a dialog for connection to local administration. Default parameters are already correct, so just press OK button.

Now we need to add new users which will be able to connect to our FTP server.

In menu Edit select option Users.

On the right side of dialog window click Add user.

Enter a new username and confirm with OK.

In this lessons I have chosen username demo.

Because of security concerns it is good to also setup password.

Click Password checkbox and enter a new password which will be used with selected username.

Now we will define which folders on you hard drive will be accessible through FTP server.

Click Shared folders.

Click button Add and add a new folder. You can also add more than one folder.

One directory needs to be your home folder. Select one of the newly added folders and press button Set as home dir.

In my case I used c:\tftproot folder.

Basic setup of FTP server is now complete and it is time to verify the installation.

For FTP clienct we will use Windows File Explorer. If you like you can also test with any other standard FTP client program.

Open Windows File Explorer and in the address bar enter the following address:
ftp://127.0.0.1

You should now see a dialog for checking credentials.

Enter you username and password that you have defined in previous steps.

You should be able to see the files from your Home folder.

You can now use copy&paste to transfer files to other location.

To be able to access FTP server from you local network we need to specify that we allow connections for Filezilla.

Click Windows Start button and search for Allow a program through Windows firewall.

Click button Allow another program, browse to your Filezilla folder and add Filezilla program to the list.

Next to FileZilla select checkboxes to allow connections.

If you are behind router and you want FTP server to be accessible from Internet, you also need to enable port forwarding.

You need to configure your router to forward the ftp port (default: 21) to the IP address of the computer which is running FTP server.

There are a lot of different models of routers available. That is why you will need to check Users Manual of your router and see how to configure port forwarding on your router.