FTP

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) component allows you to transfer files from and to various FTP servers.

Field (Account) Information

While configuring the Source or Destination of a Template or Transaction, you need to create an account to configure your application with Adeptia Connect. While creating an account, you need to specify the location from where Adeptia Connect will access the data.

Click  to add an account.

Specify the following information for FTP:

 

Field Name

Description

Account Name

A short, descriptive name that helps you re-use this account in the future.

IP Address/Domain

Provide IP address or full hostname of the FTP server.

Port

Enter port number of the FTP Server.

User ID

User ID to log into FTP account.

Anonymous

FTP users may connect anonymously if the server is configured to allow it.

Password

Password to log into FTP account.

Security

If you want to disable the plain FTP option, refer to Configuring the plain FTP document.

None: Communication occurs in plain text without any security.

SFTP (SSH): SFTP uses the SSH protocol to authenticate and establish a secure connection with the target server.

FTPS (SSL): FTPS uses SSL for security.

For SFTP (SSH), select the SSH key from the SSH Key drop-down list.

For FTPS (SSL), provide the following details:

SSL Mode: Either Explicit or Implicit.

In Explicit mode (also known as FTPES), an FTPS client must "explicitly request" security from an FTPS server and then step-up to a mutually agreed encryption method. If a client does not request security, the FTPS server can either allow the client to continue in an insecure mode or refuse/limit the connection.

In Implicit mode, negotiation is not allowed with an implicit FTPS configurations. A client is immediately expected to challenge the FTPS server with a TLS/SSL message. If such a message is not received by the FTPS server, the server should drop the connection.

By default, the mode should be set to Explicit as in this mode, the client requests security from the FTPS server.

 

Protection Level:

Protection level is a single Telnet character code that specifies the data channel protection level. This command indicates to the server, the type of data channel protection that the client and server will be using.

Select one of the following:

  • None: No protection level.
  • Clear: The Clear protection level indicates that the data channel will carry the raw data of the file transfer, with no security applied.
  • Private: The Private protection level indicates that the data will be confidentially protected.

 

Validate on Server:

Select the Validate On Server check box if you want Adeptia Connect to validate the certificate sent by the FTPS server against the certificate imported in the Keystore. This certificate is required to authenticate the trusted FTP server. Select the Keystore from the drop-down list.

Modify Default Settings

Transfer Type

  • Passive: In passive mode FTP, the client initiates both connections to the server, solving the problem of firewalls filtering the incoming data port connection to the client from the server. When opening an FTP connection, the client opens two random unprivileged ports locally (N > 1023 and N+1). The first port contacts the server on port 21, but instead of then issuing a PORT command and allowing the server to connect back to its data port, the client will issue the PASV command. The result of this is that the server then opens a random unprivileged port (P > 1023) and sends P back to the client in response to the PASV command. The client then initiates the connection from port N+1 to port P on the server to transfer data.
  • Active: In active mode FTP, the client connects from a random unprivileged port (N > 1023) to the FTP server's command port, port 21. Then, the client starts listening to port N+1 and sends the FTP command PORT N+1 to the FTP server. The server will then connect back to the client's specified data port from its local data port, which is port 20.
    The FTP client does not make the actual connection to the data port of the server. It simply tells the server what port it is listening on and the server connects back to the specified port on the client. From the client side firewall, this appears to be an outside system initiating a connection to an internal client something that is usually blocked.

Transfer mode

This option is used to specify the mode in which the Source file is transferred to/from the FTP server. The available options are:

  • BINARY: A Source file is transferred bit by bit (as the raw data without any modification) from one system to another. Both the files (the Source file and the Destination file) will contain exactly the same sequence of bytes. In this way, the file is transferred in its exact original form.
  • ASCII: Source file is not transferred bit by bit as the transferred data is considered to contain only ASCII formatted text. Therefore, the Destination file that receives the transferred data is responsible for translating the format of the received data to the format that is compatible with the operating system at the client-end.
Select ProjectSelect the project.
Add On ConfigurationsTo be used in back end for performing operation on the FTP server, for example, param1=value¶m2=value.

Triggers

A Trigger specifies when a particular Transaction will start executing. While configuring the Source of a Template, you need to choose an event. 

Following triggers are available for FTP at Source.

Trigger Name

Description

On File Created

Triggers when a file is created.

On File Modified

Triggers when an existing file is modified.

Actions

An Action specifies how the data will be transferred at the destination location. While configuring the Destination (Target) of a Template, you need to choose an action.  

Following actions are available for FTP at Destination. 

Create File

Creates a file (with a unique name) at the specified location.

Copy File From Trigger

Creates a file (with the same name as the source file) at the specified location.

Action Name

Description