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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) - FTP

Q: How can we specify a port number?
A: Enter the port number separated by a colon ':' behind the server name, in the form ftp.server.com:2121 . Standard is 21 for direct ftp connections, 80 for HTTP connections, 8080 for HTTP proxies, and 1080 for socks4/5 proxies.

Q: Total Commander cannot connect at all!
A: You are probably running a personal firewall like ZoneAlarm, Sygate, Norton Internet Security or the Windows XP firewall. Make sure that you allow Total Commander to access the Internet. Warning: With some firewalls, it doesn't help to close the firewall frontend - the actual firewall continues to run in the background.

Q: Although Total Commander can connect to servers inside our company, it can't access servers on the Internet!
A: Your corporate network is separated from the Internet by a Firewall or Proxy server. Therefore you have to configure the firewall or proxy, respectively, through which the connection has to pass. Please ask your network administrator which type of proxy your network uses, and which is its server name and port address. You can enter these in the proxy dialog as follows: proxy.yourcompany.com:port_number .

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Q: Total Commander connects to the server, but cannot download the directory.
A: Your machine is probably located in a corporate network behind a firewall which doesn't allow connections from the outside. Please try a connection in passive mode. You need to configure at least one passive mode connection in Net - FTP Connect. Afterwards, Total Commander will use this mode by default.

Q: Total Commander downloads the directory, but shows incomplete or false file details.
A: Apparently the FTP server returns the directory listing in a format not understood by Total Commander. Unfortunately the directory format for FTP isn't standardized. Total Commander supports the de facto standard Unix, plus a few often used server types, e.g. Windows NT and VMS. However, you can define your own server type. To do this, create a new FTP connection using Net - FTP Connect - New connection, and as server type choose Define new type. now establish the connection. Total Commander now shows you the raw directory listing from the server, and allows you to redefine the server type. Some definitions are included as examples.

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Q: Why can't I put a download in the background as when copying?
A: Because an FTP server only supports a single file transfer through one connection, Total Commander needs to create a new connection for every background transfer. Therefore you need to check the option to download in background in the dialog box which appears before the download starts.

Q: Why doesn't Total Commander support resume on uploads?
A: Starting with version 4.53, Total Commander supports (because of popular demand) resuming of uploads, but only if the following conditions are met:

  1. The FTP server needs to support resume, otherwise you will get an error.
  2. The file is transferred in binary mode (not text mode)
  3. The partially uploaded file needs to be visible in the target window, including its size. Attention: If your server shows wrong file sizes, you must NOT use this function, because otherwise the data would be appended in the wrong location!
  4. The partial file has a minimum size of 32 kbytes
  5. The target machine doesn't use the server WarFTPd. Total Commander doesn't offer the resume option if it detects this server, because it damages files on resume.
  6. The connection isn't made over a HTTP proxy.

Warning: Unlike with downloads, it's not possible with uploads to verify that the already present part and the rest of the file belong together, or if one of the parts has been changed in the meantime. When resuming a download, Total Commander downloads an overlapping part of the file and compares it with the end of the already present part. Therefore you should test the target file after resuming an upload!

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Q: Why doesn't Total Commander support a connection by SSH?
A: Unfortunately we cannot support any encryption in Total Commander because of the current patent and crypto export situation.
However, there is now a new file system plugin for Total Commander, which supports SFTP. SFTP is FTP via SSH. It needs SSH2, which is now supported by almost all new Linux and other Unix distributions.

Q: Where does Total Commander store the settings of the FTP client?
A: The FTP settings are stored in the file wcx_ftp.ini, all other settings in the file wincmd.ini, the button bar in the file default.bar. The location can be seen in menu Help - About Total Commander. You can define other locations by using command line parameters (see the help).

Q: How can I change the access rights (permissions) of files?
A: If the FTP server supports the chmod command (unfortunately not supported by all servers), you can either use the function Files - Change attributes, or directly send the command through the command line, e.g. SITE chmod 755 test.cgi

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