When performing an FTP installation and following the instructions in your readme.html file, you may notice that the directory paths do not directly correspond to what is instructed in the file. Many web hosts limit your access so that you can browse only your own files by FTP, making it necessary to adjust the directory paths in the instructions.

On your World Wide Web server, there is only one "real" directory structure. If your server is a unix server, the root directory is named "/" and the directories on the server all build upon this directory. If your server is running Windows NT, the root directories are "c:\" and "d:\" and possibly more.

Your home directory (which is often where you store your WWW files) is very rarely located in the root directory of the server. Rather, your web host has probably organized their client sites so that they can easily maintain them. The actual directory name where the client sites are stored varies depending on your host.

Your web host, in order to keep you away from the server's configuration files and the files belonging to their other clients, may choose to restrict your access so that you can access only those files in your home directory. Often this is done using their FTP server, so that when you log in to your server, you see directory "/" and this is your home directory.

However, your web server is shared among all of the hosting company's customers. Thus, when the web server runs, the directory paths are not changed. This presents a potential discrepancy between the directions in the readme.html file (based on the actual server directory paths) and what you see when logging in by FTP (probably based on your home directory). Hence, the existence of this document.

Generally, the correspondence between the readme.html directory structure and the FTP directory structure is easy to discern. For example, readme.html might tell you to create the directory /home/clients/yoursite/www/discus. When you log in by FTP, the directory you're in is /. The contents of the / directory are directories named "www" and "cgi-bin". In this case, it is likely that your web host is restricting your FTP access to your home directory, and that you actually need to create the directory /www/discus (change into the "www" directory and make a directory named "discus"). In other words, the /home/clients/yoursite part of the directory names is not anything you can see when logging in by FTP.

One way to tell that you may be in this situation is to look at the name of the directory when you first log in by FTP. If your initial directory is /, it is nearly a certainty that your host is adjusting your FTP privileges.

Another way is to try to create the directory by entering in the path as shown in the readme.html file. For example, try creating /home/clients/yoursite/www/discus (type in that entire text). If it works, great! If it doesn't work, that's probably not what you want to be doing.

If you have problems, you will need to ask your web host. Send them an e-mail and a copy of the readme.html file. For example:

Unfortunately, DiscusWare cannot assist you with determining the correspondence between the directory paths in the readme.html file and what you see when logging in with your FTP server. Your web host and not DiscusWare configured your WWW server and your FTP access privileges. We do not have access to your server's configuration files or setup, while your web host does. Thus, the only help that it is possible for us to offer is to refer you to this page.