How To Change FTP Configuration in DreamHost
May 19th, 2008
If you’re changing from one website designer to another, it’s important to know how to reset your FTP information in your website hosting account. This article assumes that you have DreamHost as your website hosting company. Note: I no longer recommend DreamHost as a hosting company.
When you change from one website designer to another, it’s important to change your FTP password. FTP stands for “File Transfer Protocol”, and its the way web designers upload and download files between their personal computers and your website server. When you change website designers, it’s important to prevent the old designer from accessing your website, whether you parted on good terms or not – better safe than sorry.
Here are the steps:
1. Log into your DreamHost control panel at : https://panel.dreamhost.com.
2. Access the User Accounts section. You can do this either by clicking on “Users” and then “Manage Users” in the left hand navigation. You can also do this by clicking on “Create User Accounts” in the main area.
3. Manage Users. At the top of the window, it should now say “Manage Users” and typically you’ll see just one user listed.
- Username: This is found under the column labeled “user”.
- Password: Click “Edit” and you will see fields for new password, or to let DreamHost pick a password for you. (I recommend letting DreamHost do this for you so the password is nice and secure). Simply enter the new password, and click “Save Changes”.
If you simply want to know what your current FTP password is, you’ll need to send DreamHost a support ticket to turn on this display. Once they activate it, your current FTP password will show up in the “Edit” area under Manage Users.
Remember that to access DreamHost servers via FTP, you don’t need to put the “ftp://” just the domainname.com will work. (This is at least true for DreamWeaver, not sure for other FTP programs). Also remember that DreamHost stores website files in a subdirectory that’s the domain name: “yourdomainname.com.” So if your website is mywidgets.com, the folder name is mywidgets.com
Jill--------------
J. Olkoski
Aldebaran Web Design, Seattle
Jill Olkoski has a BS in Engineering, a BS in Computer Science and an MA in Clinical Psychology. She delights in using her advanced technical and psychological skills to help small business owners develop cost-effective and successful websites.
October 9th, 2012 at 10:38 pm
Why do you no longer recommend Dreamhost?
October 10th, 2012 at 12:12 pm
Hi Kevin,
I no longer recommend them because of an issue they caused with a contact form script back in April and discovered in August. They have big spam issues. And to fix these issues, they made a change to the mail rules that impacted PHP mail scripts (as used in contact forms, wordpress, online stores, etc, that use the PHP mail() function. They made this change in April, according to their own website, but didn’t actually notify account owners. So by the time I discovered this in August, the majority of contact forms of my clients, including my own, had been down. It took me three days of conflicting help tickets to get a fix, and even after getting it, DreamHost staff could not assure it would not make a similar change in the future and notify us. Given that PHP Mail is a vital function, I was forced to leave DreamHost and have taken dozens of my clients with me. DreamHost, only ever offered us a “sorry”, nothing else, and without being willing to notify clients of any future changes that impact website function, I can no longer recommend them, even though I was with them for six years. Having a contact form (or PHP mail function) being disabled by a change they (in writing) knew would do so, and being unwilling to communicate this directly with customers, is just unacceptable. For folks like me, who rely on my contact form to work, I needed a company that would communicate better, and be available by phone 24/7 to respond to issues.