Creating FTP Target Activity

FTP Target provides the ability to specify a target location that is accessible via FTP.
This feature is available in:

This section describes how to create a FTP Target activity using the following details as an example:

Steps to create a FTP Target Activity

1. On the Adeptia Suite homepage, click the Develop tab.

2. Go to Services > Target, and then click FTP. The Manage FTP Target screen is displayed (see Figure 289).

   

   Figure 289: Manage FTP Target

3. Click the Create New link. The Create FTP Target screen is displayed.
4. Enter the name and description of the new FTP Target in the textboxes Name and Description respectively.
5. Enter the host name/IP address and port number of the FTP Server in the textboxes Host Name and Port respectively.
6. Enter the username and password of FTP Server in the textboxes User ID and Password respectively. Then, re-enter the password in the textbox Confirm Password field.

7. Enter the full path of the target file in the textbox Remote File Path. . However, if the respective drive does not contain the folder mentioned in the path then the creation of the new folder will depend on the value of the system property abpm.target.createFolder and on the option value selected from the new drop-down list Auto folder Creation added in the Advanced Properties section.

    

   To check or change the value of the application property abpm.target.createFolder, refer to the Updating System Properties section in Administrator Guide. The Target Property is present under the Services category. By default, the value of this property is set to None.

8. Enter the name of the target file in the textbox File Name.
9. If you want to append date and time stamp in the target file name, then select the date and time stamp from the dropdown lists Time Stamp.
10. If you want that each target file created by this activity should have unique name, then select the Create Unique File checkbox. When this option is enabled, a 30 digit random number is appended in the file name.

11. Enter the file extension in the field File Extension (see Figure 290).

    

    Figure 290: Create FTP Target

12. Select the transfer mode as either BINARY or ASCII from Transfer Mode dropdown list. In BINARY mode a file is copied bit for bit from one machine to the other. Both files (the original and the transferred file) will contain exactly the same sequence of bytes. In ASCII mode a file may be changed slightly to maintain the meaning of EOL (End Of Line) characters.
13. Select the transfer type as either Active or Passive from the dropdown list Transfer Type. Active transfer is more secure since the client only initiates communication to the Server on one port whereas in case of Passive transfer the client initiates communication to the Server over two ports. Passive mode is useful when you are behind a firewall or a proxy.
14. Select the SFTP checkbox if the FTP Server specified in the Host Name field is an FTP Server over SSH.
15. Select the FTPS checkbox, if the FTP Server, specified in the Host Name field is an FTP Server over TLS/SSL.
16. In case you have selected FTPS, checkbox, then select the FTPS mode from FTPS Mode dropdown list. It can be Explicit or Implicit depending on FTP Server that you are accessing.
17. Select the protection level supported by the FTP Server, from the Protection Level drop-down list. This drop-down list has the following three options:
     
    • None
    • Clear
    • Private
      By default, the option None is selected.

18. If you want to validate the certificate sent by the FTPS Server, select the Validate Server checkbox.

     

19. Select keystore activity from the dropdown list Keystore Name. This option is applicable only when you have selected the Validate Server checkbox (see Figure 291).

    

    Figure 291: Create FTP Target

    When Validate option is not selected, it always accepts the certificate sent by FTPS Server.
    When this option is selected, it validates the certificate sent by FTPS server against the certificate imported in Keystore.
    Keystore is repository of security certificates.
    To know how to create Keystore and import certificates, refer to Creating Keystore section of Administrator Guide.

    To learn about Advanced Properties refer to Changing Advanced Properties section.

20. Click Advanced Properties to expand the hierarchy. All items in Advance Properties are displayed (see Figure 292).

    

    Figure 292: Advanced Properties of FTP Target

21. The Auto Folder Creation drop-down list has the following three options:
     
    1. • • • None
           • Yes
           • No
     

    By default, the option None is selected.
    When the value of the system property abpm.target.createFolder is set to Yes and if the option value selected from the drop-down list New Folder is:

     
    • • • • Yes, then the new folder will be created.
          • No, then the new folder will not be created and an error message will be displayed.
     

    When the value of the system property abpm.target.createFolder is set to No and if the option value selected from the drop-down list New Folder is:

     
    • • • • Yes, then the new folder will be created.
          • No, then the new folder will not be created and an error message will be displayed.

     

    If the option value selected from the drop-down list New Folder is None. In this case, None indicates that the folder will be created depending only on the value of the property abpm.target.createFolder. 
     
    If abpm.target.createFolder is set to Yes then the folder will be created and if abpm is set to No then the folder will not be created irrespective of the option value selected from the drop-down list New Folder.

22. Enter a time (in seconds) in the Data Timeout text box within which you want the FTP server to break the data connection. The defaut value is 60 seconds.

    If you want to disable this property then enter 0 in the Data Timeout text box.

23. The Connector dropdown lists the APIs that you can use to connect to the FTP Server.

    The options of the Connector drop-down list changes as per your selection of the protocols that you want to use to establish the FTP connection. Please see the below table for more information:

    For any new activity, by default Secured Inet Factory option is selected in this dropdown list. 

    Protocol	Options
    FTP	Native Secured Inet Factory
    SFTP	J2SCH (VFS) Secured Inet Factory J2SSH
    FTPS	J2SCH (VFS) Secured Inet Factory

    
    

24. If you want to create a log file of your FTP activity then check the Verbose checkbox.

    The Verbose checkbox is enabled only when you select the Secure Inet Factory option from the Connector drop-down list. When you enable the Verbose checkbox, the log file is created within <Adeptia Suite Installation folder>\AdeptiaServer\ServerKernel\Logs\Ftplogs folder. Whenever you execute this activity a separate log file is created with the name <ActivityName_MM-dd-yyyy hh-mm-ss.S>.
     Here:
     ActivityName is the name of the FTP Activity for which log file is created.

25. Click the Save button.