Direct download links

[hmcm2006]

Hope this is the right forum, I'm never quite sure if I've got it right.

Is it possible to provide a direct download link to a file on the webserver? We have some customers who are fine with an ftp account but others really can't get their head round it so providing a direct download link to a file would be a really useful thing to be able to do.

All help much appreciated

[sysadmin]

Originally Posted by hmcm2006

Hope this is the right forum, I'm never quite sure if I've got it right.

Is it possible to provide a direct download link to a file on the webserver? We have some customers who are fine with an ftp account but others really can't get their head round it so providing a direct download link to a file would be a really useful thing to be able to do.

All help much appreciated

Yes, this is rather a much easier task, just put the file in the DocumentRoot [public_html (in Linux/cPanel) or httpdocs (in Plesk/Windows)] & have it accessed via the browser. If the file is an archive, eg: xxx.ZIP or xxx.RAR or xxx.TAR.GZ, it'd be readily downloaded without any additions to the MIME types

Feel free to ask if any other information is required, good luck.

[hmcm2006]

Hi and thanks for the response.

So now I appreciate that it's possible but I'm not sure how you do it. I understand putting it in root but how does it then become accessible from a browser?

All help much appreciated.

[sysadmin]

Originally Posted by hmcm2006

Hi and thanks for the response.

So now I appreciate that it's possible but I'm not sure how you do it. I understand putting it in root but how does it then become accessible from a browser?

All help much appreciated.

Ok, its simple.. DocumentRoot is the folder where actually all the web files reside. If you put in testme.txt in there [public_html (in Linux/cPanel) or httpdocs (in Plesk/Windows)] & browse the file http://somedomain.com/test.txt, you get to the file.

Similarly if you put a-file-which-needs-to-be-downloaded-from-the-browser.zip into the above mentioned folders, you can download it through the browser, in this way :

http://somedomain.com/a-file-which-needs-to-be-downloaded-from-the-browser.zip

Please let us know if you need any further assistance

[hmcm2006]

Thank you very much works a treat

[sysadmin]

Originally Posted by hmcm2006

Thank you very much works a treat

You're welcome