Category: Technical

Uploading Files to Hosting (FTP, FTPS, SFTP)

Note: this guide applies to our customers on standard hosting. If you have a dedicated server or complex setup then this may not apply and you will have received specific instructions. If in doubt please just contact support.

You can upload content onto your web hosting account using the FTP or FTPS protocols. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol and is the most commonly used way to upload files on the Internet. By default unlike more modern technologies, FTP does not encrypt anything, so in theory someone “listening in” could intercept your files or passwords although please note this is unlikely. FTPS is FTP with added security (like a website with HTTPS) and the communication between your computer and our server is encrypted.

Verrotech support FTPS on all our standard hosting platforms, and you may well find your file transfer client (WinSCP or FileZilla etc) supports this option.

To FTP into your content you connect (the server name) to your web address so for example.com connect to www.example.com (note old documentation may refer to ftp.verrotech.com but you should now always use your own domain address). If you are using FTPS you may see some warnings about the Certificate being for a different host or unknown but these are safe to accept/say yes to (your communications will be secured).

Once you are connected for most accounts you will see a ‘web’ folder. This is the folder that web content (things you want to be able to be downloaded) go into. Things you want to store but do not want to be downloadable (password files, configuration, etc) you can put outside of the web folder. If we have configured different services for you (i.e. shop.example.com) you’ll see more folders there.

If you’re unsure about where things or go need some guidance specific to your setup then please just get in touch.

SFTP

SFTP stands for Secure Shell File Transfer Protocol and is different from FTPS (of course!). SFTP is based around the SSH protocol and is entirely encrypted from start to finish.

Verrotech can offer SFTP access to accounts but we can only offer either FTP/FTPS or SFTP access, and by default it’s FTP/FTPS (if you have SFTP enabled you will no longer be able to use FTP/FTPS).

If you do want to switch over to SFTP just contact support.

 

DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)

One way of avoiding your sent messages being put into spam folders is by “signing” your messages as being genuinely from your domain (not just sent by a random stranger) using a mechanism called DKIM.

There are two elements to DKIM – a record held with your domain records and a signature put into a message. When a message is received supposedly from your domain containing a signature this is validated against the actual record held by your domain. DKIM is a powerful mechanism to ensure messages are genuine but requires some setup and careful management especially if you have complicated email setups.

Currently Verrotech are offering DKIM on a trial basis with limited support to customers. To qualify for the trial DKIM service you must:

  1. Have Verrotech manage the DNS for your domain (if you don’t know what this is, then don’t worry – we do!)
  2. Send messages through Verrotech directly (i.e. not have your email hosted on Google or Office 365 or another provider)
  3. Do not take part in bulk mailing or marketing emails (though we will be trialling per-domain DKIM for such users)

If you meet the above criteria and would like to try DKIM (maybe you’re having more mail go into spam) then contact support.

 

Sender Policy Framework (SPF)

The Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is a way to try and combat junk (spam) email on the Internet by defining who is allowed to send mail on behalf of a domain.

If you have a domain hosted with Verrotech you may want to use SPF in one of two ways.

1 – Use a Third-Party Email Provider (gSuite, Office 365, etc)

If you use a third-party email provider to send and receive your email then we can configure your domain to make them a “trusted sender”. You can find the settings yourself and let us know, or just tell us which provider you’re with. Either way just contact support.

2 – Use Verrotech to Send and Receive Email

If you use the Verrotech mail system to send mail then we may have already configured SPF. If you’re not sure or need to ensure it’s enabled then contact support.

Note: If you send through Verrotech but we don’t manage your domain (the DNS) then you’ll need to add Verrotech to any SPF record you have. You can do this by including _spf.verrotech.com in your SPF directive.

Don’t Forget…

You may well actually send mail from a few different places – do you for example use MailChimp or a similar bulk sending service? Have a website form that sends mail or a notification system? Ideally all these will be listed in the SPF.

Domain email settings

If Verrotech host your domain then you’ll need the settings below to connect your mail client to your account. These settings should work with pretty much any mail client – if not get in touch and we can do a specific guide for yours.

Please note as of July 2016: Verrotech ask all our customers to use secure (SSL) connections. Old configurations will continue to work only for the time being!

For these to work you need your EMAILUSERNAME and EMAILPASSWORD (these are specific for each email address you have and often in the form domain-name e.g. hello@example.com would probably be example-hello).

Note depending on your mail client not all the settings below should be asked for – but all clients will work with Verrotech, just fill in what you can and test it.

Incoming Settings

  • Type of server: IMAP (we strongly recommend you use IMAP, but we also support POP)
  • Server: mail.verrotech.com
  • Use SSL to connect (this may be called use secure connection or similar, and ensures your connection is safe and encrypted)
  • Port: 993 (for IMAP secure this is 993, if you’re using secure POP it’s 995. If you are not using SSL connections [unsecure and not recommended!] the ports are 143 for IMAP and 110 for POP)
  • Username: EMAILUSERNAME
  • Password: EMAILPASSWORD

Outgoing Settings

Outgoing is a standard called SMTP (so no need to worry which one to choose!)

  • Server: mail.verrotech.com
  • Use authentication: yes (note you may be able to check “use the same credentials as incoming server” here to avoid putting the username and password in twice)
  • Use SSL to connect (this may be called use secure connection or similar)
  • Port: 465 (if you’re not using SSL this would be 587, but please use SSL!)
  • Username: EMAILUSERNAME
  • Password: EMAILPASSWORD

 

Why IMAP?

We strongly recommend all our customers to use IMAP over POP.

IMAP is newer and faster! The other advantage is that message status (which ones are read, unread, replied to, etc) is stored on the server so will be the same on all your clients (mail on your desktop, mobile, etc).

You can also use folders on IMAP to sort and manage your mail (folders which if anything happens to your computer are stored safely on the server). You can also save your sent mail in IMAP as well.

IMAP offers many advantages over POP, though we have no plans to phase out our POP service.

Receiving domain mail from gMail

Rather than connecting a client directly to Verrotech many people choose to import their email into gMail. You do this by adding a POP email account to your gMail account.

For this you will need your email username and password for the account (specifically the email ones, not the file upload ones).

Assuming your email is hello@example.com with a username of MAILUSERNAME and password MAILPASSWORD the settings would be as follows:

  • Email address: hello@example.com
  • POP Server: mail.verrotech.com
  • Tick “Always use a secure connection (SSL)”
  • Port: 995

We recommend you do not tick/untick “Leave a copy of the mail on the server” (unless you access it from different places) – without this ticked nothing will be deleted from your mailbox and may slow down your email/cause you to go over quota (depending on your account).

Note that in addition to the above to receive mail, gMail now requires an SMTP server to be setup for sending mail as well – the SMTP (outgoing) settings for gMail can be found in this help article.

 

Sending domain mail from gMail

In order to send mail from gMail as another domain (one hosted with Verrotech) you need to configure some options.

For this you will need your email username and password (the ones used for accessing your email account, not the file upload ones).

Let’s assume your Verrotech-hosted email is hello@example.com and your username is MAILUSERNAME with password MAILPASSWORD.

The settings for gMail outgoing mail would be:

  • SMTP Server: mail.verrotech.com
  • Port: 587
  • Check: Use TLS Encryption
  • Username: MAILUSERNAME
  • Password: MAILPASSWORD