FTP

 

 

 

The FTP job step type is used to transfer any number of files to or from a server running a File Transfer Protocol service. 

 


This job step type extends basic job step functionality.  For details common to all job step types click here.


 

In addition to the common attributes shared by all job steps this job step type has the following attributes:

 

Connection tab:

Protocol:

FTP: Standard implementation of File Transfer Protocol

FTPS: File Transfer Protocol Secure is an FTP implementation over SSL or TLS and is common in Windows environments.  If selected an X509 certificate must exist, be valid, not be expired, and match the host name used to connect.

SFTP: Secure File Transfer Protocol is an implementation of FTP over SSH (Secure Shell) and is common in Linux and UNIX environments.  Keys are exchanged automatically.

Server Name or IP: The DNS name or IP address of the server hosting the FTP service.

Port Number: The TCP port of the FTP server.  The protocol standard default is 21 for FTP, 990 for FTPS, and 22 for SFTP.

Options:

Binary Transfer: Indicates whether or not files are transferred in binary mode.  Binary mode is the default and recommended mode.  Not choosing this option may result in the corruption of some types of files.

Keep Alive: Indicates whether or not keep alive technology is used to prevent premature operation timeouts.  The default and recommended option is checked.

Passive Mode: Indicates that passive mode connections are made for transferring data.  Passive mode is the recommended and default option.  It is important to note that not all FTP servers support passive mode and that some only support passive mode.  NOTE: Passive mode is not available for SFTP connections.

Authentication Mode:  Specifies whether to use credentials or certificates with SFTP operations.

User Name: User name on the remote FTP server.  If left blank pasUnity will attempt to logon as the anonymous account.

Password: Password corresponding to the FTP user name.

Private Key Path: Location of the RSA or DSA private key file.  NOTE: Only available for SFTP operations that use Certification authentication mode.

Passphrase: Pass phrase used in conjunction with an RSA or DSA private key file.  NOTE: Only available for SFTP operations that use Certification authentication mode.

Operation tab:

Operation: Specify either download to retrieve a file from a remote FTP server or upload to send a file to the remote FTP server.

Timeout: The length of time that pasUnity will attempt to complete the FTP operation before aborting the job step and reporting failure.

Ignore Zero-Length Files: Skips FTP operation if the file to transfer is detected as have a size of 0 bytes indicating no content.

Delete After Transfer:  Indicates whether a file should be deleted from the source location after transfer is complete.  NOTE: The standard accounts only for ASCII characters so file names that use expanded character sets such as UTF8 or Unicode cannot always be deleted from remote FTP servers.

Remote Path: The folder on the remote FTP server where the FTP operation will occur (must exist).  When specifying the remote path, the following general conventions are observed:

A blank path indicates the home directory for the authenticated user (not necessarily the root folder).

Paths beginning with a forward slash character (/) indicate absolute paths starting at the root of the file system.

Paths containing ../ can be used to navigate to the parent folder.  If the current context is the root folder this will fail.

Paths should not be specified using the backslash character (\) as this is invalid in a URI - use forward slash character instead.

Remote File Name: The name of the file to create during upload operations and the name of the file to retrieve for download operations.

For upload operations this is can be blank to preserve the original file name otherwise a new file name can be provided.  NOTE: if multiple files are being uploaded do not provide a remote file name.

For download operations this can be blank to indicate all files in the remote path or file system wildcards can be used.

Local Path: The folder on the local server where the FTP operation will occur (must exist).

Local File Name: The name of the file to create during download operations and the name of the file to send for upload operations.  One or more files matching the file name must exist for uploads to work.

For download operations this is can be blank to preserve the original file name otherwise a new file name can be provided.  NOTE: if multiple files are being uploaded do not provide a local file name.

For upload operations this can be blank to indicate all files in the remote path or file system wildcards can be used.

After making changes be sure to press the Update button to save your changes.

NOTE: Not all operations are supported on all types of FTP servers and not all FTP protocols implement the same features.  Additionally, not all FTP servers implement the entire FTP feature set or adhere to all FTP server RFCs nor do they all support modern encodings (such as support for UTF-8 and Unicode).

 


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