Setup FTP server and FTP client in Windows using IIS, Filezilla server and WinSCP

Skill - Setup FTP server and FTP client in Windows using IIS, Filezilla server and WinSCP

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• In this post we will try to setup a local FTP server using IIS or Filezilla server and setup FTP client using WinSCP
• Sometimes, we might want to test our code with out production FTP server using a local FTP server. This can be a use case for setting up a local FTP server and client

Setup FTP server

Option 1 - Setup FTP server using IIS in windows

Step 1 - Enable IIS ftp server feature

• In windows search for “Turn Windows features On or Off”
• Under the “Internet Information Services” section, make sure that “FTP Service” and “IIS Management Console” are enabled

Step 2 - Create an FTP site in IIS

• Right click on “Sites” and click “Add FTP site”
• Enter a name and select the physical path to host in the FTP server and click next
  
• Select SSL certificate if required and click next
  
• Select Authentication as Basic, select allow access to all users or specific users and select both read and write permissions and click finish
  
• Now FTP server is setup
• You can start/stop the ftp server by right clicking on the site in the Sites section
  
• You can change setting like authentication, authorization easily by double clicking on the FTP site under the Sites section in left pane

Option 2 - Setup FTP server using Filezilla Server

• Download Filezilla server at https://filezilla-project.org/download.php?type=server
• Run the executable and complete the installation. While installation, set the server administration password and remember the server administration port
• After installation search for the application “Administer Filezilla server” and click “Connect to Filezilla FTP Server”
• Enter the host, port and password click OK to connect to server
  
• In the top menu bar, open the Server->Configure menu
  
• You can check the port bindings of the FTP server in the FTP Server left menu
  
• In the Users left pane section, add a user, configure the virtual and native path for that user and set read and write access permissions for that user. Example Virtual path can be “/” and example Native path can be “C:\Users\xyz\Downloads\ftpFolder”
  
• Now the ftp server along with user logins is setup

Setup FTP client in windows using WinSCP

• Download WinSCP at https://winscp.net/eng/download.php
• Run the downloaded executable file and complete the installation
• Open WinSCP app
• Click on New Session button in the top left menu
• Set protocal as FTP, encryption as TLS/SSL explicit encryption if the FTP server uses encryption or select No encryption, port as 21, hostname as localhost, enter username and password. Finally click login
  
• Now FTP server is connected to WinSCP
• We can copy,paste,rename,delete the ftp server files just like file explorer
  

References

• IIS FTP server setup - https://winscp.net/eng/docs/guide_windows_ftps_server
• Filezilla server - https://filezilla-project.org/download.php?type=server
• WinSCP - https://winscp.net/eng/download.php

Video

Video for this post can be found here

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