Changing FTP Site Home Directories

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2, Windows Server 2008

Each FTP site on a computer must have its own home directory. The default home directory for the default FTP site is LocalDrive:\Inetpub\Ftproot.

There are two ways to change the home directory of an FTP site:

  • Use IIS Manager

  • Edit the MetaBase.xml file directly.

Important

You must be a member of the Administrators group on the local computer to perform the following procedure or procedures. As a security best practice, log on to your computer by using an account that is not in the Administrators group, and then use the runas command to run IIS Manager as an administrator. At a command prompt, type runas /User:Administrative_AccountName "mmc %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\iis.msc".

Procedures

To change the home directory of an FTP site using IIS Manager

  1. In IIS Manager, expand the local computer, expand the FTP Sites folder, right-click the FTP site whose home directory you want to change, and click Stop.

  2. Right-click the FTP site again, and click Properties.

  3. Click the Home Directory tab.

  4. Under The content for this resource should come from, click the location of your home directory.

    Note

    If you select a directory on a network share, you might need to enter a user name and password to access the resource. IUSR_computername is the default account used if another account is not specified. If you use an account with administrative credentials on the server, clients can gain access to server operations. This seriously jeopardizes the security of your network. For more information about security see, Security Best Practices in Windows Help.

  5. Click Apply, and then click OK.

  6. Right-click the FTP site you've just changed, and click Start.

  7. Optional: Move or copy the content for the FTP site from the original home directory to the new home directory.

To change the home directory of an FTP site by editing the MetaBase.xml file

  1. In IIS Manager, right-click the local computer, point to All Tasks, and click Select Restart IIS....

  2. In the Stop/Start/Reset dialog box, click Stop Internet Services, and click OK.

  3. Expand the FTP Sites folder, right-click the FTP site you want to change, and click Stop.

  4. In Windows Explorer, from the localdrive\System32\Inetsrv folder, open the MetaBase.xml file in a text editor.

  5. To change the FTP home directory, search for "/msftpsvc/1/root" and change the Path= value to the new location of the FTP home directory. Substitute the value 1 with the value corrresponding to the FTP site you want to change.

  6. In IIS Manager, right-click the local computer, point to All Tasks, and click Select Restart IIS....

  7. In the Stop/Start/Reset dialog box, click Start Internet Services, and click OK.

  8. Optional: Move or copy the content for the FTP site from the original home directory to the new home directory.

  • For information about installing the FTP service, see FTP Site Setup.