Using FileZilla: FTP Access to Personal Web Space

This article details how to use FileZilla to access USM personal web space on the people.usm.maine.edu server through USM user (U:) drives. If you need instructions for accessing departmental sites, see Using FileZilla: FTP Access to Official USM Web Sites.

The FileZilla software is an FTP and SFTP client that allows users to access files and folders that are stored on network drives or on an FTP Server. To access files stored on user drives, you might want to use FileZilla:

  • University computers on campus are equipped with FileZilla that is ready to use on campus. However, for off-campus use of your user drive, follow the instructions on this page to use Filezilla at home.
  • You may download a copy of FileZilla for your personal machine and configure it to work with university resources.

The following will offer you some hints on how to set up FileZilla for use with USM Novell Servers.

Configure FileZilla to Access USM Novell Servers

With FileZilla installed, you will need to configure access to the Novell Servers. Use of the Novell server grants you FTP access to your personal user drive associated with your USM Novell ID (commonly the U: Drive).

Open FileZilla and from the file menu, select Site Manager… to begin configuring access to your USM resources. Then click the New Site button in the bottom left hand corner of the site manager. You will be prompted to name your FTP site. you will then need to fill in the Host, Port, and ServerType as well as the appropriate user name and click connect. This will save your site for future use, and attempt to login and access the site immediately.

Use the information below to set up your sites.

Setup FTP Access to USM Novell Servers

  • Host: people-ftp.usm.maine.edu
  • Port: 21
  • Servertype: FTP over SSL (explicit encryption)
  • User: Use your Novell ID with Logontype normal
image of Filezilla's Site Manager interface indicating where configuration settings are located

Your Novell ID generally should be all lower-case.

Your Personal Web Site

The folder public.www is your web site on people.usm.maine.edu. Any file(s) you place in this folder will be published on your site.

Uploading and Downloading Files

FileZilla is designed similar to that of your My Computer interface. In the diagram below, you will see that a portion of the screen (highlighted in the left column as red) shows the files on your own computer, and a portion shows you the files stored at the FTP site once you have connected to it (highlighted in the right column as green). The bottom area of the screen highlighted below in blue will show you the status of any file uploads or downloads while you are moving files between your computer (local) and the FTP site (remote).

image of the filezilla interface designating local files (on your computer) listed in the left column, remote files (on the ftp web server) listed in the right column, and status information of the upload or download progress listed in the bottom section

Moving Your Files Around

The FTP interface allows you to change, update, replace, add and delete files stored both locally (on your computer) and on the remote FTP site. To move files between your computer and the site, click on the file you want to modify and drag it to the desired location.

For example, if you wanted to replace a file called "index5.htm" that is located on the people.usm.maine.edu web server, select a file with the same name located on your computer and drag it to the pane for the remote site. Filezilla will send the new copy of index5.htm to the FTP site, and ask you to overwrite the existing file.

image of the filezilla interface depicting how to upload and download files by clicking and dragging files back and forth between the user's local computer and the remote (ftp) web server

Additional Resources

Content edited by John Derouche, March 28, 2008.

The USM Computing site is maintained by Robin McGlauflin.