Dreamweaver MX 2004: Your Connection to the Internet - Understand the Components of an IIS Installation
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Once you have Internet Information Services installed, you can learn more about the components that make it up and how they can be configured.
The Default FTP Site FTP is the Internet protocol used to transfer files back and forth between machines, as you could probably tell from its name. It is used when getting a complete file from computer A to computer B is more important than viewing the contents of the file over the Web. For instance, when you create and save Web pages as HTML files on your development computer, they are only accessible once they are placed on a server that is connected to the Internet. If that server is a machine other than your development computer, you will use an FTP program, either within Dreamweaver or from a third party, to transfer those complete files to the appropriate directories on the server. From there, their contents can be viewed over the Web by browsers everywhere.
The default FTP site is the directory that has been created for this machine. Accessing FTP using this computer’s name or using its default IP address will map you to this directory for uploading your files. There are a few things that you will want to do in the FTP site properties to complete the setup. You can access the FTP properties by right-clicking the default FTP Site and selecting Properties from the pop-up menu.
Figure 1-6 shows the Default FTP Site Properties window. It has several tabs, only a couple of which are important to us at this point. The FTP Site tab lists the description and the IP address for this FTP site. You can change this description to anything you like.
Figure 1-6 The default Site Properties window
The default setting for the IP address for this site is All Unassigned, which means that any FTP request that arrives at this machine for which a specific IP address has not been assigned will end up here. This is important if you are running multiple FTP servers on a single machine. Because you can run only one FTP site on IIS in Windows 2000 or XP Professional, this is a less important setting. You can leave it as is or change it to one of the IP addresses that are assigned to your computer, either for your internal network or by your Internet connection.
Click the Security Accounts tab and you will see the Properties window, shown in Figure 1-7.
Figure 1-7 The Security Accouts tab of the Default FTP
Site Properties window
There are two important settings on this page. The first is at the top, where Allow Anonymous Connections has been enabled by default. If you want people to be able to log in to your FTP server anonymously and download things, you can leave this setting as is. But considering that this is going to be your development directory and not a site dedicated to downloadable files, you will probably want to disable anonymous connections for this server.
NOTE Allowing anonymous connections can be especially dangerous if you allow usersto write files to the FTP site in the Home Directory tab, which will be discussed ina moment. A malicious user could then upload files that contain viruses or otherdamaging code. Although you need to be able to write to the FTP site in order toupload your Web pages, allowing an anonymous user to do so may very wellresult in the commandeering of your computer by an unscrupulous hacker. Disabling anonymous connections means that only those users who are listed under FTP Site Operators (in the lower half of the screen) can access the FTP server. The Administrators group is listed by default. You can leave it like this, add users explicitly, or add users to the Administrators group to allow access to only those people who need it.
Finally, look at the Home Directory tab, shown in Figure 1-8. Although you can change the physical directory that is accessed by this FTP site, it is not really that useful to do so because you can have only one FTP site set up. You should, however, check the Write option so you can upload files into the directory from within Dreamweaver. After you have made these simple changes, you are left with a basic, yet very useful, FTP server that can be used to test the site you develop.
Figure 1-8 The Home Directory tab of the Default Site
Properties window
 This chapter is from Dreamweaver MX 2004: A Beginner's Guide, by Tom Muck and Ray West (McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2004, ISBN: 0-07-222996-9). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today.
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