Sunday, December 15, 2013

Connect to FTP Servers with Nautilus

I wanted a quick way to access a few FTP servers without having to open up Filezille.  It turns out that using Nautilus as an FTP Client is very easy and convenient. Under the FILE menu option you will find the option “Connect to Server”.

The connection dialog window provides the options to connect to various types of connections; FTP (public), FTP (Login), SSH, Windows Share, WebDAV and WebDAV (Secure).  The one I wanted was FTP with Login/Password.

So here's what we do to make an FTP connect we can access in Nauitlus which will allow us to just cut, copy, paste files to and from the remote FTP server.

1.  Open Nautilus and Click on the FILE menu option.
2.  Select the CONNECT TO SERVER... option.
3.  That will open up a dialog box.
4.  Select FTP (with login) from the TYPE dropdown
5.  You should now see this dialog box.
6.  Fill out the required Information.
7.  Check the REMEMBER THIS PASSWORD box.
8.  Click on CONNECT and your done!

This is fine for a one time use, but if you don't want to have fill out the dialog every time, you need to make the connection a BOOKMARK.

While you are connected to the FTP server you should see your FTP server connection listed under NETWORK list on the left side (bottom) menu of Nautilus.  Simply RIGHT CLICK on the connection listing and select the BOOKMARK option from the Right Click Menu.  Now your FTP connection will show up as a Bookmark in Nautilus (left side menu)