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General Topics
Technical TopicsLooking to the future
General Topics
To register WFTPD, visit our Buy It ! page. The page lists instructions for purchasing WFTPD by credit card, company purchase order, check or money order. Please be sure to use the order form provided in this section. You may also register WFTPD by visiting our Online Store where we accept VISA and MasterCard. Back to Top
What do I get with my registration? First, registration removes the limit on the number of files that can be transferred in a single session. You can also modify the greeting and farewell messages. In addition, if you have sent me an e-mail address on your order form, you will be added to our mailing list, and kept informed of all major updates. Back to Top
Please email info@wftpd.com. You can also reach me at the following address and phone number: Texas Imperial Software P.O. Box 2784 Woodinville WA 98072 Phone: (425) 806-1787 Fax: (425) 806-1787 Back to Top
How do I get a new version of WFTPD? Registered users are emailed about major updates and bug fixes whenever they are released. These new versions can be downloaded for free - there is a $5 charge for delivery of updates through regular mail. You can find news about the current version of WFTPD on our What's New page. The unregistered shareware version is available for download from our main web site. Please see our Downloads page for more information. Back to Top
Why didn’t I get an email about the most recent update? There are a number of reasons why you may not have received the email. If you have changed email addresses, please make sure you send us the new email address along with the old one so that we may update your information in our database. Another reason you may not have received the update email is if someone else registered the software and that person has changed jobs or left your company. Also, we only send out update announcements for major updates. For other updates, please check our What's New page for details. Please contact us if you have not received update emails so that we can determine and correct the reason. Back to Top
We sell WFTPD in blocks of 100 licenses at a substantial discount – see the Buy It! section for more details. Bulk licenses for WFTPD Pro are also available; please contact us for details. Back to Top
What other products have you developed? In addition to WFTPD Server and WFTPD Pro Server, we have a TFTP server in beta, since we get a number of requests for that. We also have an HPGL to Postscript converter along with other utilities written by the author of WFTPD, Alun Jones. Recent additions include the WFTPD Explorer and WFTPD Pro Explorer FTP clients. Please see the Products section of our website for more details, or the Downloads page for free downloads and trial versions. Try everything before you buy it. Back to Top
Why haven't I received my order yet? There are a number of reasons why you may not have received your order yet. We usually ship orders the same day we receive them (or next business day if we receive them over the weekend), however, it may take up to three (3) business days for us to ship orders. Also, please allow up to ten business days for regular mail orders (up to fourteen days for orders outside the US). If you need a rush on your order, please call us between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. CST at [E-mail contact only while we move premises] so we can expedite your order. If you mailed your registration, please make sure that you sent it to the correct address, P.O. Box 2784, Woodinville WA 98072. If you believe you should have received your order and you haven’t, please contact us. Back to Top
Technical Topics
Why can’t I change the greeting or farewell messages? The greeting and farewell messages cannot be changed in the unregistered shareware version of WFTPD. Please register WFTPD to change theses messages. Back to Top
I can only transfer 5 files in each session. Why? In the unregistered shareware version of WFTPD, you are limited to 5 file transfers (uploads and downloads) per session. Please register WFTPD to allow unlimited file transfers per session. Back to Top
Does WFTPD or WFTPD Pro support encryption? Yes. WFTPD Pro version 3.10 and above supports industry standard SSL/TLS. WFTPD Pro Explorer, the secured FTP client also provides encryption through SSL/TLS. Back to Top
You may have heard of SSL and TLS, but not know what they are - obviously with SSL and TLS support being integral to the latest version of WFTPD Pro, we'd very much like you to know about them. SSL, standing for "Secure Sockets Layer" was developed a few years ago by Netscape, as a proprietary standard for encryption and authentication of Internet traffic. From this, the IETF created TLS, or "Transport Layer Security", an updated SSL, essentially compatible, but also fixing a few problems with the original specification, and updating it for new encryption and authentication methods. You've probably used SSL and TLS already - any time you access a web page that has "https://" at the start of its address, or any time you've seen the padlock or key icon in the bottom of the browser. Such use generally will authenticate the server (so that you know you're really connected to the right server), and encrypt the data transferred between the client and the server. These capabilities have now been added to WFTPD Pro. You won't be able to access the encrypted server by putting "ftps://" into your web browser, though, since web browsers have not yet been updated to the new "FTP over SSL/TLS" standard of operation. Back to Top
How do I set up WFTPD Pro for SSL/TLS? To set WFTPD Pro up as an SSL / TLS capable server, you first need to get, and install, a server certificate. This serves two purposes - first, it identifies you correctly to FTP clients, and second, it allows you to receive encrypted data that the client knows only you can read. This initial data is used to exchange encryption keys with the client so that your conversation with the client can not be intercepted and decoded. There are numerous companies that provide server certificates, at a range of different prices, or you can also opt to run a "Certificate Authority" of your own, to identify your servers to the connecting clients. Back to Top
Do I have to have a special SSL/TLS enabled client? If so, which ones will work? Our own testing has been done with numerous FTP clients recently updated to support this secure FTP. Obviously, our own choice is to use WFTPD Pro Explorer, but we take pains to make sure that our software is compatible with the specification, not just our own software. You should find that WFTPD Pro Server works well with all clients that follow the FTP over SSL / TLS standard. You can find a list of such clients, wrappers and servers at the official site for FTP over SSL / TLS, which we hope will eventually be described simply as "ftps". Be warned that "SFTP" is not related to FTP, and we do not support it. It is not the FTP over SSL / TLS standard, it is an entirely different transfer protocol, designed to be carried over the SSH (Secure Shell) protocol. Back to Top
How do I back up WFTPD and WFTPD Pro? WFTPD: To back up WFTPD's configuration, simply save the file WFTPD.INI (by default this is located in the Windows system directory) to a backup storage device. Make sure that you also back up your copy of the WFTPD installation files. To restore the configuration, simply copy the WFTPD.INI file back to the Windows system directory from the backup media. WFTPD Pro: To back up WFTPD Pro's configuration, use a registry backup tool to back up the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Texas Imperial Software
Make sure that you also back up your copy of the WFTPD Pro installation files and the password for the zip file.
To restore the configuration, use a registry restore tool to restore that key to its original location.
In WFTPD Pro 3.20 and above, individual servers may be exported and imported from the Control Panel applet's main window. You can do this by right-clicking on a server, and selecting the appropriate option from the drop-down menu. Back to Top
FTP requires the use of a secondary data channel for file listings and Back to Top
You simply follow the procedure for backing up and restoring the WFTPD/WFTPD Pro configuration listed above. Back to Top
How do I set my FTP server to be accessed by a web browser such as Internet Explorer or Netscape? While web browsers are not typically very good at accessing FTP servers, they do have a large user-base and it is often necessary to provide links to your FTP site in you web pages. To do this, it is important to use the correct format for an FTP URL: ftp://[username[:password]@]host[:port][/path1[/path2[…]]] Square brackets indicate optional items (do not include them in your URL). If no username is supplied, then the user is logged in using anonymous. If the user does not supply a password, they will be prompted for one. Here are a few examples: ftp://ftp.wftpd.com/pub/downloads/wftpd.zip This logs the user in as anonymous to the FTP server at ftp.wftpd.com and downloads the file wftpd.zip. ftp://phil:smurf@ftp.wftpd.com:5000/home/phil This logs the user phil with a password of smurf into the FTP server at ftp.wftpd.com using port 5000. It will then list the directory /home/phil. If you want your browser to show a dialog asking for the user's name and password, then simply select a user that doesn't exist, for instance: ftp://???@ftp.wftpd.com/pub/downloads/wftpd.zip Back to Top
I tried to pull down the list of users, but I don't get some of the users I know I've added - why? If you are using the 16-bit version of WFTPD for Windows 3.1, the problem is probably a WFTPD.INI file exceeding 64k. Windows and Windows for Workgroups 3.1x support .ini files up to 64k. Back to Top
Is WFTPD multi-threaded? Is a multi-threaded server better than one that isn't? Multi-threaded FTP server software is not always a good thing, and changing WFTPD into a naively multithreaded program would have been more likely to reduce performance and stability than it is to improve it. Currently, WFTPD operates using Asynchronous, non-blocking sockets, which allows the Winsock stack to take more control in deciding how to switch priorities and manage bandwidth. Asynchronous non-blocking sockets, such as WFTPD uses, scale far better as the number of users grows, than would most multithreaded solution. In the simplest implementation of multi-threading, the performance will start off slightly slower than WFTPD, and as users are added, will bog down rapidly in comparison with WFTPD. WFTPD 2.35 and above use some multi-threading features on Win32, mainly for directory listing. For a slightly more technical discussion, please note that TCP/IP (and indeed any network traffic) is essentially a serial flow of information. If you have two users connected, they will each speak in turn - when one is speaking, the other is silent. This concept of seriality is extended to any number of users - the number of users connected cannot increase the maximum amount of processing required. To produce a multithreaded server that uses one thread per user would attempt to use a parallel solution to a serial problem. This would not only be conceptually inappropriate, but performance would degrade as more users were added, due to the extra overhead of context switching and thread swapping. As the number of users increases, a single thread will degrade linearly, but a server that uses one thread per user will degrade faster. Directory listings inside the server, by comparison, are not serialized, and hence benefit greatly from being threaded. While it is common for Unix servers to use one thread (often one process) per user, the Unix threading model is much simpler than that in Windows, and hence the degradation is not as marked. In Windows, a server that uses one thread per user will not work as well as a single threaded server once more than five or six users connect. Back to Top
Why does WFTPD say it can't find my user's home directory? The algorithm for finding the home directory is so basic that I have yet to see a situation where this error was reported other than that where the home directory specified for the user is not a full path. This means it must include a drive letter, followed by a colon (":"), then a full path down from the root of that drive, with each directory spelt correctly, and with no backslash at the end of the path or be a UNC path, in 32-bit version. (Hint: go to the DOS prompt, and try to "CD" to the directory in the edit box of the Users/Rights dialog, or use the Browse button to confirm the presence of the directory.) This version of WFTPD checks for valid directory entries, and will not let you exit the dialog without entering a valid, existing directory. So, just visiting the Users/Rights dialog, and selecting the user that is having trouble, will often let you know what is going wrong. If you are running WFTPD as a service, please remember that drive mappings are either not available, or are unreliable, for use as home directories. Remember that these drive mappings are only available while someone is logged in as a Windows user, and will go away when that person logs off. Back to Top
Why does WFTPD tell me I can't run it in DOS mode? There are two possibilities here - either you really ARE trying to run it in DOS mode :-), or you're trying to run the 32-bit version of WFTPD on a Windows 3.1x machine without first installing Win32s. You can download a current version of Win32s from ftp.microsoft.com, or you can fetch the 16-bit version of WFTPD from the Downloads page . Please note that we do not support the use of the 32-bit version of WFTPD on 16-bit versions of Windows (Windows 3.1x and before, or Windows for Workgroups). We use some 32-bit features that are not available on the 16-bit platform (multithreading being the main one). Back to Top
How do I change the port WFTPD listens on? WFTPD asks the Winsock stack what port the "ftp" service should run on. This is often configurable by editing a services data file - the equivalent of the Unix standard "/etc/services" file. You'll have to talk to your Winsock supplier to determine just where this configuration change can be made. This behavior can be overridden in the command line used to run WFTPD. For instance, if you want to listen on port 2579, simply run "WFTPD :2579" (note the colon is a separator - the full parameter is an IP address (numerical or name), followed by a colon, then the port number (again, number or name - names are searched on in the services database). Back to Top
We currently support WFTPD on most released Microsoft operating systems including Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003. WFTPD Pro only runs on Windows NT-based operating systems including Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003. We do not support WFTPD and WFTPD Pro on beta Microsoft operating systems. That does not mean that the FTP servers will not work or that we do not want to know about problems you are having with them running on beta operating systems – it simply means that we may not have solutions or fixes to those problems. Back to Top
We recommend that anyone wishing to run WFTPD as a Windows XP / Windows 2000 / Windows NT service should use WFTPD Pro. Current information on WFTPD Pro is always available on our Products page. Back to Top
What if none of these answers answer my question? Please email us at info@wftpd.com. Back to Top
Looking to the future
What's going to be in the next version? See our What’s New section for details on soon-to-be released versions. Back to Top
When are you going to ship the next version? Well, this is a tough one. We generally do not supply release dates for new versions. We release software when the feature set is complete, the software is reliable, and the software is secure. Back to Top
What's in the "professional" version, and what is the price? WFTPD Pro installs and run as a Windows 2003 / Windows XP / Windows 2000 / Windows NT system service, configured by a Control Panel applet. WFTPD Pro also has the ability to run multiple hosts from the one instance, with configuration made far easier - each host will have a 'nickname', and the Control Panel applet will display clearly the nickname of the host that you are configuring. Configuration information is stored in the registry, rather than an INI file. WFTPD Pro includes remote administration through the FTP control connection, allowing anyone to write custom administration programs, as well as remote administration through the Control Panel applet. WFTPD Pro 3.00 has added, among other things, the ability to use Windows NT / 2000 user names (although you can, if you want, stay with the WFTPD user database instead). WFTPD Pro 3.10 has added Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) support, and we are continually building on this. Its current price is $139. There are discounts available for volume purchases, or for existing WFTPD users wishing to upgrade. Back to Top |
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