If you’re new to Filezilla, it’s an easy-to-use, widely used, and free-to-download FTP client that provides a multipurpose solution for transferring files remotely. 

With Filezilla, users can:

• upload
• delete
• move
• download
• copy
• rename files on a remote server.

In this guide, we’ll explore how to set up and use Filezilla, step-by-step, in your Spanel if you have a ScalaHosting account.

Let’s get to it.

Features of Filezilla

If any of these features solve your needs, then Filezilla is right for you.

1. Protocol support: Filezilla supports IPv6, FTP, and FTPS, that is FTP over SSL or TLS. It also supports SFTP, SSH File Transfer Protocol.
2. Platform support: This tool works across platforms. It runs on Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, and others. Filezilla even works on the discontinued BSD — Berkeley Software Distribution — operating system.
3. File size: Filezilla supports resume and transfer of very large files, above 4GB.
4. User experience: Filezilla makes for a pleasant user experience with features like its tabbed user interface, bookmarking, transfer queue, drag and drop interface, filename filters, configurable transfer speed limits, keep-alive, and more.
5. Directory management: With its directory management features, Filezilla makes database management easy for administrators and developers. You get directory comparison, synchronized directory browsing, remote file search, remote file editing, and more.

Even better, Filezilla doesn’t stop at these features. 

It supports:

1. HTTP/1.1, SOCKS5, and FTP-Proxy
2. Multiple languages
3. Logging to file
4. Network configuration wizard
5. Site Manager

You can harness all of these Filezilla strengths to your advantage in four simple steps, especially with your easy-to-use Spanel.

Step 1 — Setup Your FTP Account

To set up the FTP program, you will be required to set up a New FTP account first, if none is existing. 

To do so: 

Login to your Spanel account using the default URL of your root domain. This is https://[yourdomain]/spanel.

After logging in, select FTP Accounts under the Files section of your sPanel

Click on New FTP Account 

You will be required to fill in the following credentials to complete the new account setup process:

• Username: Give your FTP account a username that easy to remember and will be used to access your account at any time
• Document root folder: This specifies the location where you will access your new FTP account. If left empty, the new FTP account will link to your account root directory.
• Password: Give your FTP account a strong password which will be required your new FTP account
• Repeat password: Re-enter the password created in the previous field

Click Create Account

After clicking on Create Account, a message will be displayed saying Successfully created FTP User [yourFTPusername]

Step 2 — Add A New Site To Site Manager

At this point, we assume that you already have the Filezilla application on your desktop. If you don’t, you can download it here.

The next step is to add your site to Filezilla. To do so:

Open the Filezilla web application on your computer

Click on File > Site Manager

Click on New Site

Step 3 — Connect To The FTP Server

After clicking on New Site, give your new site a name.

Go to the General tab and fill in the following required credentials: 

• Host: This is your FTP IP address or domain name; write it as yourdomain.com or ftp.yourdomain.com
• Port: This refers to your data server port and has its default number as 21. This field is optional and can be left blank.  
• User: Enter your FTP account username in this field
• Password: Type in your FTP account password here
• Logon: Select the type of logon option you would like to use. Select Normal
• Protocol: Here, you are required to select the protocol for transferring files across networks. Select FTP – File Transfer Protocol 
• Encryption: At this point, you are to select how you want your data to be encrypted. Choosing Only Use Plain FTP is an insecure but simplest option because it does not require certificates and other configurations. However, at Scalahosting, we recommend selecting the most secured encryption method, which is the Use explicit FTP over TLS if available option.

Go to the Transfer Settings tab. 

Select the Limit number of simultaneous connections box and increase the number to 8 

After checking that all the details are correct, click on the Connect button.

Please note that if you set your encryption to Use explicit FTP over TLS if available, you will get a TLS certificate inspection screen prompt.

To avoid seeing this prompt again, you can select the Always trust this certificate in future sessions checkbox.

Step 4 — Check For A Successful Connection

If you had a successful connection, your FTP Server directory listing would be displayed. 

Now, you should be able to drag and drop files to upload or download them.  

You can also carry out other multipurpose file-sharing actions using Filezilla.

Conclusion

Well done! You have successfully set up FTP using Filezilla. That was a piece of cake, wasn’t it? We would love to hear your feedback on the success of your connection, do leave us a comment or reach out to our happy-to-help support team.

General overview and accessing backups

ScalaHosting customers have access to their backups 24/7 via their control panel. Users of our self-managed VPS solutions can opt to use R1Soft Backups – an automated backup system. it gives you access to your currently available backup through the R1Soft Restore Backups tool on cPanel’s homepage.

It automatically logs you into the backup server holding the backups of your web hosting or reseller hosting account. On that page you will be able to see all available restore points for your account with the exact date and time when they were generated. On the right of the screen you will see 4 icons allowing you to perform specific actions.

1. The first icon allows you to browse the files in your account and restore them. You can restore any file or directory in your account. You can also restore entire email boxes or separate e-mail messages.
2. The second icon allows you to browse the databases in your account and restore any of them.
3. The third icon gives you an option to download files or directories to your computer directly from the backup server.
4. The fourth icon will restore the whole data of your account to an archive on the server.

R1Soft is a comprehensive backup system, but the range of operating systems it supports is rather limited, so most users will need to rely on native tools provided by their control panel. Although they don’t offer quite so many options, you still have everything you need to make sure you can back up and restore data easily. Here, for example, is what SPanel’s backup system looks like.

How do I restore files?

If you use R1Soft, you need to start at the R1soft Restore Backups icon on cPanel’s homepage. Click the first icon which corresponds to the restore point you want to use. See the screenshot below.

A new window will open showing the home directory. You can do a double-click on it to enter your account’s files and choose what exactly you want to restore. You can select multiple files and directories and restore them at the same time. If you have multiple websites under public_html you may want to restore the specific website only. Double-click on the public_html folder to see the list of the files and directories under it and select which ones you want to restore. In this tutorial we will restore the public_html folder which contains all files of the website. In this case that is a website hosted on one of the WordPress hosting plans we offer.

Look at the public_html folder in the screenshot and how it is selected for restore. Once you click on the Restore Selected button a new window will pop up.

When you click on the Restore button the restoration process will start. All files which already exist in your account will be overwritten. The system will not remove any other files though. For example, if you uploaded a file after the restore point was generated and you perform a restore, that file you uploaded will not be removed. That’s why if your account was compromised and you want to restore it to a previous state it’s always best to remove the data before you start the restore. It’s easiest to remove the public_html folder from cPanel -> File manager and then restore it from the backups. Ensure you have a restore point from the desired date before you remove public_html.

If you want to be 100% safe, rename public_html to public_html.bak and then restore the folder. Then you can remove public_html.bak once you are sure everything is working fine.

Once the restore process starts you can monitor it and watch how the data is being copied from the backup server to your web hosting server.

After a successful restore the following will appear on your screen.

The process for restoring files from SPanel’s own backup system is not much different. To restore files from a backup, log into SPanel’s User Interface and click the Restore Backup icon under the Files section.

You will see all the available restore points. Choose the date you want to go back to and click the Browse Files button next to it. You will see the files and folders backed up on the selected date and using the checkboxes next to them, you will be able to choose which ones you want to restore. The Restore Selected button reinstates the data.

How can I restore MySQL databases?

Restoring MySQL databases is just as easy. It is similar to restoring files, however, if you use R1Soft, you need to click on the second icon to browse the databases and restore one or more of them. Once you click on the Browse databases icon a new screen will load and you will see a list of the databases after you click on the arrow. Please see below.

Then you have to select the database you want to restore and click on the Restore Selected button to start the restore process.

The process will take some time to complete depending on the size of the database. Please be patient and if it takes more than 30 minutes please contact us. Once the restore completes successfully you will see the following.

The procedure for SPanel users is not much difference. Once again, they start by logging into SPanel’s User Interface and opening the Restore Backup tool. Next to the restore point they choose, there is a Browse Databases button, which presents a list of the databases backed up on the selected date.

From the Restore drop-down menu next to each database, they can choose to either restore it in its original form or import the data into a new database.

Example:

Lets say you have 100 customers which you want to transfer over to another type of hosting (from reseller hosting to an ssd cloud server).

If you are using private name servers prior to the transfer, you will only need to change the IP’s of your private name servers once the transfer of the accounts is complete. The change of the IP’s should take about a minute (1 action redirects all clients’ domains).

If you are using shared name servers, you will need to change the name servers of each domain, which makes 100 name server changes and could take hours to complete (1 action redirects one domain).

note: in both cases you will need to wait up to 24 hours for the changes to propagate.

The first client impression when they are just getting started on a new account is critical and it sets the tone for future interactions. By default, the new account will open up into an empty directory, leading to a 403 Forbidden error or perhaps a 404 Not Found message. Instead of leaving it to your client to figure out what’s wrong and making them wade through documentation and search engine results, why not place your own custom page on all new accounts, welcoming users into the hosting family?

You can also use this opportunity to provide your visitors with valuable information on how to get started, manage their reseller plan, and many more helpful guides. It doesn’t even have to be just a single page – you can configure an entire application and tailor it to your specific hosting requirements.

For example, if you specialize in WordPress hosting, you can use something known as the Skeleton Directory to create a completely fresh WordPress installation and have it automatically transferred over to every new account. When your client visits their domain for the first time – they will be presented with the setup wizard you configured.

Creating a customized skeleton directory for new users is incredibly easy. Let’s go over the basic process.

Locating your Skeleton Directory

Log into WHM and enter “Skeleton Directory” in the search box.

When you click this, it will tell you in bold letters where your Skeleton Directory is located as shown below.

In our test example, the default location is the subdirectory cpanel3-skel. A short description under the title explains the purpose of the Skeleton Directory and what you can do with it.

For this basic example, we’ve created a simple HTML file explaining its purpose. Since we have the location, it’s easy to directly FTP to the subdirectory in question and upload the default index.html we want to show our users. Keep in mind the Skeleton Directory is usually located at the very root of your hosting folder and therefore you need an FTP account with root permissions.

As you can see in the screenshot, we’ve navigated to the public_html folder within our default skeleton directory and placed the new index.html file within it. To test it, all we need to do is create a new account in WHM, navigate to the home URL and see what pops up.

Creation and Testing

Within the WHM welcome screen, navigate to the Create a New Account section. Here, insert the details of a throwaway domain reserved for testing purposes, create a token username and password, and instruct WHM to complete the process.

Once the server has finished all the steps, you should see something like this on the right-hand side of the WHM split-screen:

Now simply open a new browser tab and head over to the root URL for which we created a new cPanel account.
You can see below our index.html file has been copied and appears automatically for every new user.

This is, of course, a simple example, but it lays the foundation for a completely customized offering, tailored to your client’s needs. Using the Skeleton Directory, you can further brand your reseller products and present a unique experience to your users to set yourself apart from all the competition.

Changing your site’s PHP version through cPanel

To change the PHP version for your web hosting account on servers running EasyApache 3, follow the steps below:

1. Log into your cPanel account.
2. Scroll down and find Software/Services and the PHP Version menu below.

3. You can change the PHP settings for the entire public_html or for any other directory in public_html.

4. You can choose between PHP 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, and 7.

If you are on a server using EasyApache4, you would need to edit your PHP version following the instructions below.

Under the Software section, look for the icon MultiPHP Manager.

Once you click on it, a new page will load, which will allow you to change the PHP version for your entire account. That will be the default PHP configuration used by all your domain names and subdomains, except you didn’t choose a separate PHP version to be used for the specific website.

Check out the screenshot below:

The System PHP Version is the default version for your web hosting account. You can change that by choosing one of the available PHP versions and clicking on the Apply button.

Alternatively, you can have a different PHP version for each of your websites. To do that, you need to select the chosen site from the list and choose a PHP version for it from the drop-down menu.

Click on the Apply button afterward.

Changing your website’s PHP version with SPanel

The process for SPanel users is not much different. Here are the steps.

1. Log into SPanel’s User Interface.

2. Open the PHP Manager available under the Tools section.

3. Click the Change button next to the website you want to edit, and select the PHP version you need.

You can also control the settings of each PHP version. That is done by creating a custom php.ini file.

You can create a global php.ini file or separate custom php.ini files for each of your websites. That allows you to configure PHP per website to fit your software requirements.

The procedure works the same for shared hosting, VPS, or Dedicated Server solutions.

To learn more about creating and managing your custom php.ini files, please read this helpful article.

Feel free to contact our support team if you have additional questions.

If you have 5GB space, you can add five accounts with 1GB space each or ten accounts with 500MB space.

If overselling is enabled, the disk space is calculated based on the used space of your accounts. This is why with overselling enabled, there is a limit of the number of cPanel accounts you can create. At ScalaHosting, the limits are as follows:

Scala1 – 20 accounts
Scala2 – 40 accounts
Scala3 – 60 accounts
Scala4 – 80 accounts

With overselling enabled, the maximum space you can assign to a new account is the free space remaining in your reseller account. For example, if you have 5000MB space and you created five accounts and each of them was given 2000MB space, you can still create more accounts as long as there is free storage space remaining. If the five accounts use 4000MB space, you can create a sixth account, but the maximum space you can assign to it will be 1000MB since 4000MB are already in use by your other accounts.

Basically, with overselling enabled, you can create as many accounts as you want until you reach the number of cPanel accounts allowed for your plan or run out of free space.

Some clients prefer overselling to be disabled since they host multiple small websites with very low space requirements. Others prefer to have overselling enabled because they believe the extra flexibility can make them more competitive.

Although it’s disabled by default, at ScalaHosting, you can choose whether you want to have overselling enabled. All you need to do is get in touch with our technical support experts who will assist you further.