You may be wondering why you cannot see an .htaccess file on your server when using WS_FTP or Cute FTP. Perhaps you checked the server and didn’t see the file, so you created one and transferred it, only to find that it does not appear to be there.

An .htaccess file is normally hidden on a Unix or Linux server because the dot (.) designates the file as a system file. As a matter of fact, the .htaccess name does not conform to typical file naming standards because it is more of a file extension without a name. Nonetheless, Unix based systems hide files like .htaccess and .htpasswd from normal access and viewing in order to protect them.

Getting these files to display using either Ipswitch’s WS_FTP or GlobalSCAPE’s CuteFTP is fairly simple. Just follow the instructions below.

Displaying .htaccess with WS_FTP

1. Open WS_FTP
2. Click Connect
3. Select the site you wish to modify and right-click on the site
   name
4. Click Properties
5. Select the Startup tab
6. Enter -a in the Remote File Mask box
7. Click OK to confirm the changes

Your hidden files should now be visible when you connect to the site. I don’t know of a way to set this as a the default setting in WS_FTP, so you will probably have to set this mask manually for each Web site you have set up in WS_FTP.

Displaying .htaccess with CuteFTP

1. Open CuteFTP
2. Click the Site Manager tab
3. Select the site you wish to modify
4. Select File, then Properties (when in CuteFTP Professional)
5. Select the Actions tab
6. Click the Filter button
7. Check the Enable Remote Filters check box
8. Check the Enable server side filtering check box
9. Enter -a in the Remote field
10. Click OK

Your hidden files should now be visible when you connect to the server.

One word of caution when working with the .htaccess file. This file must be a clean text file in order to operate properly. Do not use a word processor to create or modify this file. If you use Microsoft Windows, work on this file with Notepad. If you are using Linux or Unix, use a text editor.