Ultimate
Deployment: Connection Tab

Last modified: 01 August 2022

Use this tab to choose the way to access the Web server and specify the connection settings. The set of controls depends on the chosen server access type.

Common settings for all server types

Visible only for this project

Use this checkbox to configure the visibility of the server access configuration or server group.

  • Select the checkbox to restrict the use of the configuration or server group to the current project. Such configuration or server group cannot be reused outside the current project. It does not appear in the list of available configurations in other projects.

    The server records are stored in the .idea directory together with the project, which allows sharing them between team members through a VCS.

    In the server access configurations list in the left-hand pane, the configurations visible only in the current project are marked with the Visible only in current project icon icon.

  • When the checkbox is cleared, the configuration or server group is visible in all IntelliJ IDEA projects. Its settings can be reused across several projects.

For details on setting up interpreters, see Node.js via SSH and Configuring Remote PHP Interpreters.

Type

In this list, choose the way to access the server. The available options are:

  • FTP: choose this option to have IntelliJ IDEA access the server via the FTP file transfer protocol.

  • SFTP: choose this option to have IntelliJ IDEA access the server via the SFTP file transfer protocol.

  • FTPS: choose this option to have IntelliJ IDEA access the server via the FTP file transfer protocol over SSL (the FTPS extension).

  • Local or mounted folder: choose this option if the Web server is running in a local or a mounted folder and its document root is NOT the parent of the project root.

  • In place: choose this option if the Web server is running on your computer, your project is under its document root, and you do your development directly on the server.

Web server URL

In this field, specify the Web server root folder URL address. Click Open URL in browser icon in the field to make sure the specified server root URL address is accessible and points at the correct web page.

Both the HTTP and the HTTPS protocols are supported.

FTP and FTPS settings

Host

In this field, specify the host name of the server to upload the files to.

Port

In this field, specify the port to use. The default value is 21.

Root path

In this field, specify the server configuration root relative to the root folder on the server. This folder will be the highest one in the folder structure accessible through the current server configuration.

Do one of the following:

  • Accept the default / path, which points at the root folder on the server.

  • Type the path manually or click Browse button and select the desired folder in the Choose Root Path dialog that opens.

  • Click Autodetect. IntelliJ IDEA detects the user home folder settings on the FTP/SFTP server and sets up the root path according to them. The button is only enabled when you have specified your credentials.

Autodetect

Click this button to have IntelliJ IDEA detect the user home folder settings on the server and set up the root path accordingly.

User name

In this field, type your username for authentication to the server.

Password

In this field, type your password for authentication to the server.

Login as anonymous

Select this checkbox to enable anonymous access to the server with your email address as password.

Save password

Select this checkbox to have IntelliJ IDEA remember the specified password.

Test Connection

Click this button to check that the specified settings ensure successful connection. The button is only enabled when you have specified your user credentials.

FTP and FTPS advanced settings

In the Advanced area, customize upload/download by specifying additional protocol-specific options for the FTP/FTPS server configurations.

Item

Description

Available for

TLS

Choose the method to invoke client security:

  • Explicit: the explicit (active) security is applied. Immediately after establishing connection, the FTP client on your machine sends a command to the server to establish secure control connection through the default FTP port.

  • Implicit: the implicit (passive) security is applied. In this case, security is provided automatically upon establishing connection to the server which appoints a separate port for secure connections.

    Note that the Implicit method is considered deprecated, and using it is discouraged.

FTPS

Data channel protection level

From this list, set the protection level for the PROT command:

  • <default>: the default server policy is applied.

  • Clear: raw data is transferred without applying security.

  • Private: the Transport Layer Security (TLS) or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) applied.

For more information, see the articles on TLS, SSL 2.0, and SSL 3.0.

FTPS

Reuse SSL session

Select this checkbox to connect to a server that requires SSL session reuse between the control and data connections.

FTPS

Disable TLS 1.3

Select to disable TLS 1.3 features and have IntelliJ IDEA fall back to connecting via TLS 1.2. Use this option if you experience issues with establishing a connection to a server or uploading certain files.

note

IntelliJ IDEA supports connecting to servers via TLS 1.2 and later. Using TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 is not supported, since these protocols are deprecated and considered insecure.

FTPS

Passive mode

Select this checkbox to set the client on your machine to passive mode, when it connects to the server to inform about being in the passive mode, receives the port number to listen to, and established data connection through the port with the received number. This mode is helpful when your machine is behind a firewall.

FTP, FTPS

Show and process hidden files

When this checkbox is selected:

  1. Hidden files and directories are shown in the Remote Host Tool Window.

  2. Hidden files and directories are involved in diff and synchronization operations.

The name of a hidden file or directory starts with a dot ..

FTP, FTPS

Use LIST command

Use the options in this area to configure the LIST command usage.

  • Compatible with old version of listing children: Select this checkbox to ensure compatibility in child file naming with your FTP server.

    This option is helpful if the remote FTP server reports the following error:

    Invalid descendant file name <file name>

    Selecting this option may slow down synchronization with the server.

  • Instead of MLSD: Select this checkbox to use the standard LIST command for listing instead of the MLSD command. This lets you avoid problems, for example, failure during upload with the Invalid descendent file name exception if the FTP server supports MLSD and returns cdir.

FTP, FTPS

Number of connections

In this field, specify the maximum number of connections to be supported simultaneously.

FTP, FTPS

Retrieve files timestamps

Use this list to specify the MDTM FTP command calling policy to retrieve the last-modified time of a given file on the remote host.

The available options are:

  • Always: select this option to have MDTM called for every file shown in the Remote Host tool window.

  • On copy: select this option to have MDTM called in the following cases:

    • To check whether a file is up to date when the Overwrite up-to-date files checkbox in the Options dialog is cleared.

    • To preserve the actual time stamp of a file during download.

  • Never: select this option to suppress calling MDTM.

FTP, FTPS

Send keep alive messages each

In this field, specify how often you want IntelliJ IDEA to send commands to the server to reset the timeout and thus preserve the connection.

FTP, FTPS

Keep alive command

From this list, choose the commands to be sent to the server to reset the timeout and thus preserve the connection.

FTP, FTPS

Encoding for client-server communication

In this field, specify the encoding that matches the encoding used by your server. Accept the default value if you are not sure that it supports UTF-8 encoding.

FTP, FTPS

SFTP settings

SSH configuration

From this list, choose one of the created SSH configurations, or click the Browse button and create a new configuration as described in Create SSH configurations.

Test Connection

Click this button to check that the specified settings ensure successful connection. The button is only enabled when you have specified your user credentials.

Root path

In this field, specify the server configuration root relative to the root folder on the server. This folder will be the highest one in the folder structure accessible through the current server configuration.

Do one of the following:

  • Accept the default / path, which points at the root folder on the server.

  • Type the path manually or click Browse button and select the desired folder in the Choose Root Path dialog that opens.

  • Click Autodetect. IntelliJ IDEA detects the user home folder settings on the FTP/SFTP server and sets up the root path according to them. The button is only enabled when you have specified your credentials.

SFTP advanced settings

In the Advanced area, customize upload/download by specifying additional protocol-specific options for the SFTP server configurations.

Use rsync for download/upload

Select this checkbox to have IntelliJ IDEA use Rsync for uploading and downloading files, which can increase file transfer speeds.

Make sure that the paths to the rsync and ssh executables are provided on the Tools | Rsync page of the Settings/Preferences dialog (Ctrl+Alt+S).

  • On macOS and Linux, the tools are preinstalled and the paths are filled automatically.

  • On Windows, you need to manually install Cygwin with the rsync and openssh packages first. The tools' executables are commonly located in the <Cygwin installation>\bin folder.

note

Rsync is only used for the manually triggered upload and download operations. All other deployment-related operations such as accessing files on a remote host, comparing deployed files and folders with their local versions, auto-uploading, and so on, are performed via regular SFTP means.

Number of connections

In this field, specify the maximum number of connections to be supported simultaneously.

Send keep alive messages each

In this field, specify how often you want IntelliJ IDEA to send commands to the server to reset the timeout and thus preserve the connection.

note

For SFTP, this option is disabled. You can configure the keep alive interval for SFTP in the SSH Configurations settings.

Encoding for client-server communication

In this field, specify the encoding that matches the encoding used by your server. Accept the default value if you are not sure that it supports UTF-8 encoding.

Local or mounted folder settings

Folder

In this field, specify the server configuration root.

The server configuration root is the highest folder in the file tree on the server that can be accessed through the server configuration. The easiest way is to use the document root of your Web server as defined in the Web server configuration file. However you can appoint any other existing folder under the document root.

See also

Reference

Language and Framework-Specific Guidelines