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# Testing Your Connection

## Previous Step

This article is part of the "Setting Up Your Host" procedure. How you arrive at the "Testing Your Connection" stage of "Setting Up Your Host" depends on your choice of Host:

- The previous step is "Publishing to a Remote Host."

## Test Procedure

Before you can publish a site, Sandvox must test the connection between your computer and Host. This test covers the full range of functionality required of the host in order for the site to work.

The diagram below demonstrates the six steps that make up the test. The key thing to understand first is that there are two ways in which a computer can contact your host:

### Web Connection

The web connection is used by anyone visiting the website. With it, you can view webpages, but can't modify them. In the diagram below this address is:

    http://www.example.com

### Upload Connection

The upload connection is used by Sandvox to communicate with the Host when publishing the site. To use this connection, your username and password is needed, hence why Sandvox requires this information. In the diagram below, this address is:

    sftp://example.com/www

Sandvox knows the addresses from the information you have already given it.

The yellow arrows signify an upload connection to your host, and the green arrows a web connection.

Test 1: Contacting Host
  Sandvox attempts to contact the host to see if it exists.
Test 2: Establishing Connection
  Sandvox attempts to establish a connection to the Host using your chosen Upload Method. If you are uploading by SFTP and have not connected to this server before, Sandvox will warn you. Please see "Uploading using SFTP" for more information.
Test 3: Creating Directories
  If any directories are required to publish your site to, Sandvox creates them.
Test 4: Uploading Test File
  A small test file is uploaded to the host.
Test 5: Downloading Test File
  Having uploaded a test file, Sandvox attempts to download it to test the Host's web connection.
Test 6: Deleting Test File
  The test file is no longer needed, so Sandvox deletes it.

If the connection test fails, please see "Testing my connection fails" to hunt down the problem. When connecting to the server, if Sandvox finds an invalid certificate it will prompt you to handle that.

## Next Step

If your connection passed the full test, click the "Continue" button. The next step is the "Host Summary" panel.

If Sandvox failed to connect to your host, click the "Go Back" button to make the necessary amendments, or click "Cancel."

## Related Articles

- Testing my connection fails
- Setting Up Your Host
- Host

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