how can I transfer files securely ?

For Windows, we recommend WinSCP, it is available at http://winscp.sourceforge.net/eng/. WinSCP is easy to use because it has a windows-explorer like panel. The left pane is your computer, the right panel is the remote server. This method of file transfer is highly recommended if you store sensitive information.

rootr.net supports SCP, SFTP, SSH 1 and SSH 2.
OpenSSH is included in Mac OS-X, however there are other applications, such as Fugu, an OS-X mac (power-pc) SFTP client: http://rsug.itd.umich.edu/software/fugu/

BSD users, UNIX and GNU/Linux users should have no problem using either OpenSSH or SSH.

FTP is also available, but is not as secure. This is a characteristic of FTP itself. For more security, we recommend using SSH protocol 2, available in WinSCP and Fugu. There are other programs availbable, but those are complete, easy, and free.

Can I user both Secure FTP and "normal " FTP ?

Yes, no problem. the files and folders you see are the same. However we strongly recommend using the SFTP method.

I use Linux/BSD/*nix, how can I transfer files securely ?

Use the command scp. you can copy directories and multiple files from or to any other server supporting the SSH protocol.

I have CuteFTP pro, how do I make secure file transfers ?

1. Launch cuteFTP pro, (only the pro version supports SFTP)
2. Right-click on your site, select "edit site properties" (alt+enter)
3. Select the "type" tab on the pop-up properties windows,
4. In "protocol type", choose "SFTP using SSH2 (secure shell)"
5. click ok.

I lost my files, do you have a backup ?

We keep daily server mirror backups. You can access it directly from /altroot. For example if your home directory is /home/george, then the backup directory is /altroot/home/george, and you can access it directly with FTP or SSH.

How do I create a shared folder ?

1. With FTP (or SSH, SFTP etc.) login your main account.
2. create a folder named 'shared' or whatever you wan to name it.
3. change the permissions of this folder to 770
4. Now the all the users in the group can download and upload files there.
5. Secondary users will need to go up 2 levels of folders to see it.

Can I transfer files direclty between my account and some other ISP server ?

Yes, you can. You do not need to transfer files first to your desktop computer and then back to a server. you can do it in one step, and much faster. You will need some basic *nix command knowledge, such as scp.

(a) Example, assuming you're logged in with SSH on your Rootroute account:
prompt> scp joe@server.example.com:public_html/index.html .
don't forget the last dot. then it will ask for your other ISP's password for joe.
The file will tranfer probably much faster than otherwise.

(b) Other example:
prompt> scp -rp joe@server.example.com:public_html/* ~/web/mydomain.com/
will transfer everything in the public_html folder of the other ISP, and copy it in "mydomain.com". the 'r' means recursive to include all files and sub-folder. The 'p' means preserve, which is optional here, and means to keep the date and time of files as much as possible.