Enabling SFTP on MediaTemple (dv) accounts (Plesk)
Connecting to your web server by FTP is insecure as you send your username and password in plain text for the world to see. Instead, you should really be using SFTP. Setting up SFTP on most systems, however, is still not as intuitive as it should be.
If you're on a MediaTemple (dv) – Dedivated-Virtual – account, here are the settings for connecting via SFTP:
- In Plesk, under Hosting, click the Setup icon
- In the Setup screen, take note of your FTP login and change your password if necessary.
- Then, under "Shell access to server with FTP user's credentials", select "/bin/bash/(chrooted)"
- Click the OK button to save your settings.
Then, in your FTP client of choice (mine's Transmit), enter the following FTP settings:
- Set the protocol to SFTP (and make sure that the port is 22 – this is usually selected for you when you select SFTP as your protocol but it's good to double-check).
- The remote path is
/httpdocs
That's it, you should be up and running.
(If you're on a MediaTemple (gs) – Grid-Service – account instead, you can enable SFTP by selecting Server Administrator from the main Control Panel and setting the SSH option as "enabled".)