Overview

FTP is a very convenient way to access a lot of files on a remote server. UltraCart provides FTP server access to allow users access to:

• catalog file system
• catalog group multimedia
• catalog log files
• digital delivery files
• item multimedia
• screen branding graphics

Using the FTP server with the catalog allows a merchant to upload static content like HTML, CSS, graphics, and JavaScript.

Configuring User FTP Password

Navigation

The first step in accessing the FTP server is to configure an FTP password on the user.
First click on the Configuration link on the left hand navigation and then click on the "Users" link under General as shown below.

Alternatively you can set your own FTP password from the Your Preferences screen by clicking Your Preferences in the upper right corner of the page as shown below.

Click "Edit" on the user to set the FTP password on. If a user does not have administrator permissions they will have to request an FTP password be set by the administrator. On the user editor screen there is a section labeled "FTP Password" with fields to enter and confirm the new password.

FTP Host/User Credentials

After an FTP password is configured the FTP server is accessed with the following credentials:

Notice that the values in angle brackets are replaced with the actual values for the account.
Please make sure to study the format for the credentials carefully.

FTP Client Configuration

One of the most popular FTP clients available for free is FileZilla. This quality open source FTP client is downloadable from http://filezilla-project.org/
The screen shot below shows the proper configuration in the FileZilla site manager for accessing the UltraCart FTP server.



Notice the use of credentials as explained earlier in this chapter. The other field highlighted on the configuration screen is the server type. The UltraCart FTP server supports FTPES (FTP over explicit TLS/SSL). If this option is available, UltraCart recommends using it because the FTP control port used to transmit the username and password will be encrypted making the communication very secure.
While a complete tutorial on how to use FTP is out of the scope of this guide, below is a brief explanation of the windows. Notice the client is divided into two sides "Local site" and "Remote site". The remote site represents the UltraCart FTP server.

FTP Folder Hierarchy

Off the root folder there are four child folders:

• catalogs
• digital-delivery
• item-multimedia
• screen-branding

By clicking on the catalogs folder the FTP client will drill down into the folder and show the subfolders. There is one folder for each catalog host configured on the UltraCart account.



After clicking on the hostname folder, in this case ucdoc.ultracart.com, the FTP client will show three child folders as shown below:



The three child folders each represent different file level functionality within a catalog.

Whenever a user requests a URL from the catalog that does not have a filename (such as http://ucdoc.ultracart.com/ ), UltraCart first checks to see if a file named "index.html" exists on the file system in the requested folder. If the file exists it will be served up to the client. A custom home page is created by placing the file "index.html" in the directory "/catalogs/<hostname>/file-system/". The naming conversion of "index.html" is the most common for default files. Other names like "index.htm" and "default.htm" are not supported. If a site contains those file names, they should be renamed before uploading them to the catalog file system.

PHP Support

A common assumption is that every hosting site supports PHP files. UltraCart's catalog system does not support PHP files because it is a virtual hosting environment shared by multiple tenants. If a site has PHP content for something like a blog it should be hosted in a subdomain pointed to commodity LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) hosting environments like GoDaddy, 1&1, etc. hosting environments. If you do upload PHP files to UltraCart the system will not interpret them and will simply serve them up to the browser as any other binary content.

Troubleshooting login Issues

Let's compare the logging of a succesful login versus a failed attempt.

Here is an successful login:

Status:	Resolving address of merchantftp.ultracart.com
Status:	Connecting to 74.116.32.26:21...
Status:	Connection established, waiting for welcome message...
Response:	220 Service ready for new user.
Command:	AUTH TLS
Response:	234 Command AUTH okay; starting TLS connection.
Status:	Initializing TLS...
Status:	Verifying certificate...
Command:	USER DEMO9/Admin2
Status:	TLS/SSL connection established.
Response:	331 User name okay, need password for BATTS/pbatts.
Command:	PASS **************
Response:	230 User logged in, proceed.
Command:	SYST
Response:	215 UNIX Type: Apache FtpServer
Command:	FEAT
Response:	211-Extensions supported
Response:	 SIZE
Response:	 MDTM
Response:	 REST STREAM
Response:	 LANG en;zh-tw;ja;is
Response:	 MLST Size;Modify;Type;Perm
Response:	 AUTH SSL
Response:	 AUTH TLS
Response:	 MODE Z
Response:	 UTF8
Response:	 TVFS
Response:	 MD5
Response:	 MMD5
Response:	 MFMT
Response:	211 End
Command:	OPTS UTF8 ON
Response:	200 Command OPTS okay.
Command:	PBSZ 0
Response:	200 Command PBSZ okay.
Command:	PROT P
Response:	200 Command PROT okay.
Command:	OPTS MLST size;modify;type;
Response:	200 Command OPTS okay.
Status:	Connected
Status:	Retrieving directory listing...
Command:	PWD
Response:	257 "/" is current directory.
Command:	TYPE I
Response:	200 Command TYPE okay.
Command:	PASV
Response:	227 Entering Passive Mode (74,116,32,26,132,147)
Command:	MLSD
Response:	150 File status okay; about to open data connection.
Response:	226 Closing data connection.
Status:	Directory listing successful

Here is an example of a failed attempt (prior to a block being initiated:

Status:	Resolving address of merchantftp.ultracart.com
Status:	Connecting to 74.116.32.26:21...
Status:	Connection established, waiting for welcome message...
Response:	220 Service ready for new user.
Command:	USER DEMO9/Admin2
Response:	331 User name okay, need password for DEMO/Hunter.
Command:	PASS **********
Response:	530 Authentication failed.
Error:	Critical error: Could not connect to server

Here is an example of a failed login after three previous failed attempts and the FTP block has been initiated:

Status:	Waiting to retry...
Status:	Resolving address of merchantftp.ultracart.com
Status:	Connecting to 74.116.32.26:21...
Status:	Connection established, waiting for welcome message...
Error:	Could not connect to server

When a block has been initiated, you'll need to email UltraCart Support at support@ultracart.com providing your Ultracart merchantID.