Using FTPc to manage a UK2 website

[John Williams (News)]

The key bit here is UK2.

Seduced by their advertising I have purchased a domain and some simple
hosting from UK2, not realising that they only support an FTP program
called Filezilla or some such thing presumably running on a platform I
don't have.

I, of course, want to use my favourite and reliable FTP program to do the
necessary under RISC OS.

What I lack is the necessary incantation.

So is there anyone out there who has successfully connected to this
provider using FTPc, and could they tell me the magic bit enabling them to
do so?


Without giving too much away, I already have a site small.thing.free.fr¹,
so decided my new site would be called smallthing.space, this latter bit
being a new alternative to .com, .co.uk etcetera.

I believe that this will be accessed, unlike my free.fr site, with a
preceding www. - but I don't think that's relevant.

I used my ***@free.fr address to register, so my UK2 user name is
that - with or without the .free.fr bit - I am unsure in this context.

It appears that the last bit after the @ sign doesn't start with "ftp" like
many - that gives an immediate fail - and should correspond to the domain,
so I've been trying "smallthing.space". An odd way of doing things, but
there it is.

So, before bothering Colin, who is always very kind and helpful, I thought
I'd first see if anyone here had achieved my goal and could offer guidance.

My first fail was of the pattern:

ftp://small.thing:***@smallthing.space/


John

¹ Note: "small.thing" is a fiction for illustrative purposes, and I have
checked it doesn't (yet) exist at free.fr.

[Jean-Michel]

Post by John Williams (News)
The key bit here is UK2.
Seduced by their advertising I have purchased a domain and some simple
hosting from UK2, not realising that they only support an FTP program
called Filezilla or some such thing presumably running on a platform I
don't have.
I, of course, want to use my favourite and reliable FTP program to do the
necessary under RISC OS.
What I lack is the necessary incantation.
So is there anyone out there who has successfully connected to this
provider using FTPc, and could they tell me the magic bit enabling them to
do so?
Without giving too much away, I already have a site small.thing.free.fr¹,
so decided my new site would be called smallthing.space, this latter bit
being a new alternative to .com, .co.uk etcetera.
I believe that this will be accessed, unlike my free.fr site, with a
preceding www. - but I don't think that's relevant.
that - with or without the .free.fr bit - I am unsure in this context.
many - that gives an immediate fail - and should correspond to the domain,
so I've been trying "smallthing.space". An odd way of doing things, but
there it is.
So, before bothering Colin, who is always very kind and helpful, I thought
I'd first see if anyone here had achieved my goal and could offer guidance.
John
¹ Note: "small.thing" is a fiction for illustrative purposes, and I have
checked it doesn't (yet) exist at free.fr.

[Richard Darby (news)]

Post by John Williams (News)
The key bit here is UK2.
Seduced by their advertising I have purchased a domain and some simple
hosting from UK2, not realising that they only support an FTP program
called Filezilla or some such thing presumably running on a platform I
don't have.
I, of course, want to use my favourite and reliable FTP program to do
the necessary under RISC OS.
What I lack is the necessary incantation.
So is there anyone out there who has successfully connected to this
provider using FTPc, and could they tell me the magic bit enabling them
to do so?
Without giving too much away, I already have a site
small.thing.free.fr¹, so decided my new site would be called
smallthing.space, this latter bit being a new alternative to .com,
.co.uk etcetera.
I believe that this will be accessed, unlike my free.fr site, with a
preceding www. - but I don't think that's relevant.
is that - with or without the .free.fr bit - I am unsure in this context.
like many - that gives an immediate fail - and should correspond to the
domain, so I've been trying "smallthing.space". An odd way of doing
things, but there it is.

Hi John,

I don't have any experience with UK2 but I wonder if you are aware of the
program !FTPcEdit. This may help you to get the parts of the login
correct by filling in the form. I think it sets passive to on as default,
however if things don't work you could try turning this to off.

You can get the program/app from here:
https://www.mortara.org/apps-software/riscos/

Regards,

Richard.

[John Williams (News)]

Thank you, Jean-Michel, but using ftps:// which, though it gets highlighted
here in Pluto, doesn't seem to do the same in FTPc or even StrongEd.

Richard, thanks for drawing my attention to the program. It does seem
useful in telling one which bits are called what, and I'll keep it for the
future, but it doesn't seem to throw any light on the current problem, and
there isn't a field to accommodate Jean-Michel's suggestion of a protocol
edit.

In the absence of a working solution here, I think I'll widen my search to
the RISC OS Open forums.

Thanks again, though, for your input.

John

[Jean-Michel]

Post by John Williams (News)
Thank you, Jean-Michel, but using ftps:// which, though it gets highlighted
here in Pluto, doesn't seem to do the same in FTPc or even StrongEd.
Richard, thanks for drawing my attention to the program. It does seem
useful in telling one which bits are called what, and I'll keep it for the
future, but it doesn't seem to throw any light on the current problem, and
there isn't a field to accommodate Jean-Michel's suggestion of a protocol
edit.

!FTPc 1.56 version

Security explicit or implicit ftps

Post by John Williams (News)
In the absence of a working solution here, I think I'll widen my search to
the RISC OS Open forums.
Thanks again, though, for your input.
John

[Richard Darby (news)]

Post by John Williams (News)
Thank you, Jean-Michel, but using ftps:// which, though it gets
highlighted here in Pluto, doesn't seem to do the same in FTPc or even
StrongEd.
Richard, thanks for drawing my attention to the program. It does seem
useful in telling one which bits are called what, and I'll keep it for
the future, but it doesn't seem to throw any light on the current
problem, and there isn't a field to accommodate Jean-Michel's suggestion
of a protocol edit.

You may find that if you fill in the boxes and save it to the FTPc menu it
will concatenate the entries into a single line like you have been trying
but in the right order with the correct delimiters.

I have entered details in the appropriate boxes on my system which get
assembled into a single line in the FTPc Menu.

Regards,

Richard.

[Dave]

Post by Richard Darby (news)

Post by John Williams (News)
Thank you, Jean-Michel, but using ftps:// which, though it gets
highlighted here in Pluto, doesn't seem to do the same in FTPc or even
StrongEd.
Richard, thanks for drawing my attention to the program. It does seem
useful in telling one which bits are called what, and I'll keep it for
the future, but it doesn't seem to throw any light on the current
problem, and there isn't a field to accommodate Jean-Michel's
suggestion of a protocol edit.

You may find that if you fill in the boxes and save it to the FTPc menu
it will concatenate the entries into a single line like you have been
trying but in the right order with the correct delimiters.
I have entered details in the appropriate boxes on my system which get
assembled into a single line in the FTPc Menu.
Regards,
Richard.

This has been/is an interesting subject, as I've always had *big* troubles
trying to make sense of FTP configuration.

I use FTPc on RISC OS, and with luck and advice from others years ago did
eventually get FTPc configured with my accounts.

Years ago I did look at FTPcEdit but didn't understand much of it.

For example...

What's the Host?
What's the Path?
What Flags need listing?

User what is that?
Password is obvious. :-)

Aside from Passive, I have no idea what the remaining config are.

So here we have an edited example line from my FTPc Menu, which in it's
original form works. :-)

name="Dave webspace";
value="ftp://daveweb:***@ftpadmin.dave.co.uk/"

What among all that is what?

Thanks

Dave

[Dave]

In article <***@triffid.co.uk>,
Dave <***@triffid.co.uk> wrote:
[Snippy]

Post by Dave
This has been/is an interesting subject, as I've always had *big*
troubles trying to make sense of FTP configuration.
I use FTPc on RISC OS, and with luck and advice from others years ago did
eventually get FTPc configured with my accounts.
Years ago I did look at FTPcEdit but didn't understand much of it.
For example...
What's the Host?
What's the Path?
What Flags need listing?
User what is that?
Password is obvious. :-)
Aside from Passive, I have no idea what the remaining config are.
So here we have an edited example line from my FTPc Menu, which in it's
original form works. :-)
name="Dave webspace";
What among all that is what?
Thanks
Dave

Later... Revisiting, FTPcEdit I now see some of it... and why I was
confused (mostly still am.) ;-)

When I open FTPcEdit I'm presented with an almost blank form, it just has
a name in it, the name is the first one of the FTP configs in the FTPc app
menu.

But FTPcEdit does not show any of the details as set in the FTPc app menu.
That's confusing... Because in FTPc it works perfectly okay.

I've only just noticed there are up and down arrows at the top left of the
entry window, which if clicked takes me through the other entries in the
FTPc app menu, all of which have details entered.

I still don't understand most of the entry fields, but looking at the ones
that do have entries I can see what's needed in some of my previously
noted questions.

That leaves me with a big question...

Why is the first entry in FTPCEdit not showing the configs for that ftp
entry?

Mnnn!

Dave

[Dave]

In article <***@triffid.co.uk>,
Dave <***@triffid.co.uk> wrote:
[Snippy]

Post by Dave
That leaves me with a big question...
Why is the first entry in FTPCEdit not showing the configs for that ftp
entry?
Mnnn!
Dave

As a footnote... :-/

Using FTPcEditor I created a new entry for that first entry (F1) calling
it F2 and using using the exact same details in the new F2 from F1.

After Saving, F2 presented in the FTPcEdit panel, but F1 did not.

Viewing the FTPc "UserMenu" from ...Choices in StrongED the two configs F1
and F2 were identical.

Ah well! such are the mysteries of a computing life... :-)

Dave

However, with more work, I did discover the cause of the problem.

In the original F1 the "value=" was written as "Value=" changing that to
"value=" fixed the FTPcEdit problem.

In case you missed it... "V" cap, when it should be "v" lower case. :-/

You've gotta laugh. :-)

dave

Whoops! that should be Dave. ;-)

[Jean-Michel]

Post by Dave
[Snippy]

Post by Dave
This has been/is an interesting subject, as I've always had *big*
troubles trying to make sense of FTP configuration.
I use FTPc on RISC OS, and with luck and advice from others years ago did
eventually get FTPc configured with my accounts.
Years ago I did look at FTPcEdit but didn't understand much of it.
For example...
What's the Host?
What's the Path?
What Flags need listing?
User what is that?
Password is obvious. :-)
Aside from Passive, I have no idea what the remaining config are.
So here we have an edited example line from my FTPc Menu, which in it's
original form works. :-)
name="Dave webspace";
What among all that is what?
Thanks
Dave

Later... Revisiting, FTPcEdit I now see some of it... and why I was
confused (mostly still am.) ;-)
When I open FTPcEdit I'm presented with an almost blank form, it just has
a name in it, the name is the first one of the FTP configs in the FTPc app
menu.
But FTPcEdit does not show any of the details as set in the FTPc app menu.
That's confusing... Because in FTPc it works perfectly okay.
I've only just noticed there are up and down arrows at the top left of the
entry window, which if clicked takes me through the other entries in the
FTPc app menu, all of which have details entered.
I still don't understand most of the entry fields, but looking at the ones
that do have entries I can see what's needed in some of my previously
noted questions.
That leaves me with a big question...
Why is the first entry in FTPCEdit not showing the configs for that ftp
entry?
Mnnn!
Dave

For the site to appear in usermenu=> edit, when you are connected, use
FTPc menu=> Add to user menu.

[Dave]

In article <***@jmc.bruck.orange.fr>,
Jean-Michel <***@orange.fr> wrote:
[Snippy]

Post by Jean-Michel
For the site to appear in usermenu=> edit, when you are connected, use
FTPc menu=> Add to user menu.

Thanks for the thought, but sorry, I don't understand what you've written.

The entry was already in the FTPc Menu, it just wasn't being picked up by
FTPcEdit for the reason I mentioned in an earlier posting of 9:43 AM today.

"V" and "v".

Dave

[John Williams (News)]

Post by Dave
What among all that is what?

Apart from how any flags would be incorporated, I think my immediately
previous posting deals adequately with that.

It's not (for me) what's called what, I get that bit; it's exactly how each
item is formulated. For example, whilst I know that my "username" contains
an arobas, is that valid within this ftp context?

I have now discovered that my "control panel" will allow me to configure an
additional user for ftp, on a timer. I gave this a go with a simpler
username, but to no avail.

John

[John Williams (News)]

Post by John Williams (News)
Apart from how any flags would be incorporated, I think my immediately
previous posting deals adequately with that.

Sorry, I see that I didn't mention path, which is the bit after the "/" in
the server bit - at the extreme right: That would be a path through any
sub-directories.

For example, if you, Dave, had a directory on your site called "Faye", you
would add "Faye/" on the end after the "/", and that would directly display
the contents of directory "Faye" instead of the root directory of your site.

John

[Dave]

Post by John Williams (News)

Post by John Williams (News)
Apart from how any flags would be incorporated, I think my immediately
previous posting deals adequately with that.

Sorry, I see that I didn't mention path, which is the bit after the "/"
in the server bit - at the extreme right: That would be a path through
any sub-directories.
For example, if you, Dave, had a directory on your site called "Faye",
you would add "Faye/" on the end after the "/", and that would directly
display the contents of directory "Faye" instead of the root directory
of your site.
John

Aha! I see John, just tested that on my site with a particular dir and yes
it works a treat.

Thanks
Dave

[Harriet Bazley]

On 1 Feb 2024 as I do recall,

Post by John Williams (News)
The key bit here is UK2.
Seduced by their advertising I have purchased a domain and some simple
hosting from UK2, not realising that they only support an FTP program
called Filezilla or some such thing presumably running on a platform I
don't have.

This appears to be the relevant instructions: https://www.uk2.net/knowledgebase/article/how-do-i-connect-via-ftp/

They specifically say that you can use different third party FTP
software to connect through FTP - FileZilla is simply the client thety
offer a download link to. (In fact you are lucky they allow FTP updates
at all and don't require you to use an applet running in a web browser
or some such concoction....)

'Quickconnect' is apparently simply a way of making one-off connections
via FileZilla (as !FTPc does) rather than setting up anything more
complicated like a pending queue.
https://filezillapro.com/docs/v3/getting-started/how-to-use-the-quickconnect-bar/

Post by John Williams (News)
a. Host:�Enter your domain.co.uk (Replace domain.co.uk with your domain
name, the�server name, or the server's IP address)
b. Username:�Enter your cPanel username
c. Password:�Enter your cPanel password
d. Port:�Leave this field blank

FTPcEdit will let you set up these easily (and save them as a menu
entry for future use, and/or allow you to edit any entries you have
already set up manually).

I think the main problem is likely to be finding out what user name and
password they expect without access to your 'CPanel'. I have a site
where the user name is the domain name of the site, and the password
appears to be something I set up myself at some point via the hosting
site - if the UK2.net settings are similar, then your ftp syntax will be
ftp://smallthing.space:***@smallthing.space (possibly with a
-passive switch appended - my site requires it)

This shows up as Host, User and Password settings in FTPcEdit.




This page might conceivably help so far as setting a password and/or
accessing CPanel are concerned: https://www.uk2.net/knowledgebase/article/frequently-asked-questions/

[John Williams (News)]

The value entries in my "Edit" file for FTPc take the form of:

ftp://<username>:<password>@<whatever the server is>

My username for the "cpanel" is an e-mail address, and so has an "@" in the
middle of it:

I have suggested ***@free.fr as a pseudonym for that.

The password is, and should be, confirmed by what Harriet has looked-up, my
only password, the one I use to access the "cpanel". I am grateful to her
for her effort and suggestions, but I'd already checked that sparse
information.

The <whatever the server is>, usually something beginning ftp but by no
means always, seems to be in the case of UK2 <your domain>, which in this
case is "smallthing.space" (again obfuscated) - a contraction of the first
part of the e-mail address I normally use formed by missing out the dot -
just something easy to remember.

So the string would be:

ftp://***@free.fr:<password>@smallthing.space which, if I took out
the angle brackets, would become a click-able link in this e-mail, like
this:

ftp://***@free.fr:***@smallthing.space

which, if I put in the proper values, tries to connect to something but
times out, unlike that above which fails immediately.

J-M's suggestion using the FTPc "enter-it-in-this-window" thing where you
can try the "change the security bit" doesn't work with either setting, but
anyway I can't see what the format of this would be in the edit list
because <emphatic>you can only save it if it works</emphatic>.

If anyone has an example of where and how those flags change the string
value in the edit file, that would be useful to try. It is a bit of a
barrier with FTPc that you can only save the resulting item as a click-able
string if it is successful, but probably equally very sensible.

I'm afraid that when, for example, I'm connecting to a new phone, it's the
actual string in the "Edit" list I mess about with, not the c "Enter the
details in this form" window called FTPc. I double-click on them to see if
they work rather than go back to the actual created menu.

John

[John Williams (News)]

Post by John Williams (News)
The key bit here is UK2.
Seduced by their advertising I have purchased a domain and some simple
hosting from UK2, not realising that they only support an FTP program
called Filezilla or some such thing presumably running on a platform I
don't have.
I, of course, want to use my favourite and reliable FTP program to do the
necessary under RISC OS.
What I lack is the necessary incantation.
So is there anyone out there who has successfully connected to this
provider using FTPc, and could they tell me the magic bit enabling them to
do so?

The problem lay entirely with UK2. They had omitted a few vital steps in
setting-up the site. These were sorted out eventually after I used the
stackcp control panel to diagnose.

Once the DNS was actually pointing at the site, and they had provided the
included SSL certificate, evrything works fine.

I am impressed at how the control panel can configure the site. No mor
messing with .htaccess files for password protection or directory contents
listing - it can all be done automagically on the root configuration file
using simple web forms.

However, back on topic:

FTPc works fine as usual. The "incantation" is of the usual form I quoted
earlier:

ftp://<yoursitename>:<password>.<yoursitename>/

where <yoursitename> is your [second-level domain name "." top-level
domain], the bit like [BBC "." co.uk], or [Google "." com]. That is, your
domain bit.+-

An alternative provided is to substitute "stackcp.com" for the second
<yoursitename>, giving:

ftp://<yoursitename>:<password>.<stackcp.com>/

Either works.

As these take you to the root containing your public_html folder, you will
probably want to add this path fragment giving you:

ftp://<yoursitename>:<password>.<yoursitename>/public_html/
or
ftp://<yoursitename>:<password>.<stackcp.com>/public_html/

and if you wanted to display/access a particular folder's contents, say
"Faye", you would add "Faye/" to the end of that. That last bit was for
Dave, who was puzzled about the word "path".

So, to summarise, I was worrying unnecessarily about FTPc, and although I
had some hic-cups with UK2 initially, it must surely have been exceptional,
otherwise they wouldn't have any customers! All sorted out now, but took
10 days. All fine now. Bit surprised it didn't work from the start,
though.

John

[Theo]

Post by John Williams (News)
FTPc works fine as usual. The "incantation" is of the usual form I quoted
ftp://<yoursitename>:<password>.<yoursitename>/
where <yoursitename> is your [second-level domain name "." top-level
domain], the bit like [BBC "." co.uk], or [Google "." com]. That is, your
domain bit.+-

The standardised format is
ftp://username:***@ftpserverhostname/

Do you mean to have an '@' before the site name, rather than a '.' ?

In other words, if your site is called example.com, they run an FTP server
at example.com your FTP client connects to and you login with the username

Post by John Williams (News)
An alternative provided is to substitute "stackcp.com" for the second
ftp://<yoursitename>:<password>.<stackcp.com>/

I think there's an extra < > in there. You might mean:

ftp://username:***@stackcp.com/

which means they run an FTP server on the host stackcp.com, you login

Post by John Williams (News)
So, to summarise, I was worrying unnecessarily about FTPc, and although I
had some hic-cups with UK2 initially, it must surely have been exceptional,
otherwise they wouldn't have any customers! All sorted out now, but took
10 days. All fine now. Bit surprised it didn't work from the start,
though.

It sounds like completely standard FTP, the problem being their end hadn't
got it set up properly which muddied the waters. Plus it can sometimes be
unclear what username they want.

Theo

[David Higton]

Post by John Williams (News)
ftp://<yoursitename>:<password>.<yoursitename>/public_html/
or
ftp://<yoursitename>:<password>.<stackcp.com>/public_html/
and if you wanted to display/access a particular folder's contents, say
"Faye", you would add "Faye/" to the end of that. That last bit was for
Dave, who was puzzled about the word "path".
So, to summarise, I was worrying unnecessarily about FTPc, and although I
had some hic-cups with UK2 initially, it must surely have been exceptional,
otherwise they wouldn't have any customers! All sorted out now, but took
10 days. All fine now. Bit surprised it didn't work from the start,
though.

Interesting. I've looked at the FTPc UserMenu entries for my website,
which are like this:

name="My web site (plain);
value="ftp://<myusername>:<mypassword>@<providername>/"

name="My web site (secure)";
value="ftps://<myusername>:<mypassword>@<providername>/ -secure 1"

providername is the name of the website hosting company that I use.

I've been accessing it securely since late 2021, according to the date
of the UserMenu file.

As an aside, my own version of AcornSSL (which FTPc uses) is built
with TLS1.0 and TLS1.1 disabled, and secure access still works, so
it's another data point on support for deprecated versions of TLS
being unnecessary.

David