Query Regarding Complete FTP Server Capabilities

Question

Hello
We are in the process of evaluating the Complete FTP Server to see if it meets our needs.
History:
The company I am currently working for purchased a 1 year license for CompleteFTP Server Professional several years ago. Due to complications listed below the product was never actually used and the organisation let the license expire. I have the enviable task of tracking down the technical issues that caused the product to remain unused several years ago and see if they can be rectified with newer versions of the Server or Client.


We have the following situation:
1. AIX Server will Push a file via SFTP to a Windows Complete FTP Server using its own FTP Client. The File will be in ASCII(Unicode) with Line Endings set to (LF). The expected encoding will be ASCII(Windows) with Line Endings set to (CR LF)

2. A custom java application using EnterpriseDT edtFTPj/PRO will take the file, log details about it and push it to a z/OS mainframe using FTPS. It should be received by z/OS in the EBCDIC format with newline characters converted appropriately

When we tested this situation several years ago (with CompleteFTP Server 4.1) we discovered that the line endings in step 1 were not being converted from (LF) to (CR LF). I believe this was the fault of the FTP client on the AIX server, possibly also the fault of the SFTP protocol as it does not handle Data Types as cleanly.

When we tested step 1 with Line endings manually set to CR LF the entire process worked.
When we left it as above the file appeared on a single line on the z/OS server.
We were not able to put a process in place on the AIX side to manually change the line endings before the file push due to possible conflicts with other legacy applications calling the same SFTP scripts.

Given the above restrictions. Does the newer versions of CompleteFTP Server have the capabilities to automatically change the line endings for incoming files to match ASCII(Windows), either through custom scripts/extensions, overriding whatever Data Type is pushed from the client or by some other method.

If we were to upgrade to CompleteFTP Server Enterprise edition, would the Multi-Protocol Gateway have the capability to convert line endings as the situation above requires?

The answer provided will help us determine whether a license renewal/license upgrade for EnterpriseDT CompleteFTP Server is warranted or if it will continue to sit unused in the organisation.

Note: I do not have permission to make a decision regarding the purchase of an EnterpriseDT license, I can only pass any findings along.

Answer 1

Well, it appears as though approval has been given to renew the support license, so hopefully I can actually start development soon instead of design

Answer 2

Regarding the Enterprise edition. Especially with regards to Clustering.
I note it stated that clustered sites could be used for failover or load balancing.
Is there anything in place for automatic load-balancing or failover? Or does it come down to the connecting FTP client application pointing to the correct IP Address.

No, CompleteFTP doesn't directly implement failover or load-balancing. What it does is make sure that the configuration is synchronized across all nodes in a cluster. It doesn't synchronize files between nodes since this would normally be done using DFS. Likewise, it doesn't automatically reassign IP address since this would normally be done by a load-balancing router or failover manager, which would be a device external to the machine on which CompleteFTP is installed.

I am curious to see if we should be requesting a license upgrade rather than a license renewal in order to address some high availability concerns.

Also:
http://www.enterprisedt.com/products/co ... tings.html
specified a %FileLength% variable with the following description: "Length of the file in bytes, kB, MB or GB"

Can we use the formatting options to force the FileLength to always return bytes? So far when playing with the trial version of the software I have not been able to accomplish this.

Before I answer this, I just want to make sure that you're aware that CompleteFTP now includes a browser-based file-manager (see here, which for many applications has obsoleted Apache-style HTTP directory-listings.

Anyway, the answer is no, you currently don't get a choice about how the length is provided, but we'd be happy to make modifications for you to allow you to control it. I suspect the simplest solution would be to provide an additional macro called something like %FileByteCount% that would return the number of bytes.

- Hans (EnterpriseDT)

Answer 3

From what I see the web browser in question is a mostly Javascript/AJAX style web-app.
I need something more akin to SOAP based web services to overcome a limitation in the connecting FTP Client application (It can retrieve the filenames, but not the metadata).

Regarding a %FileByteCount% variable. Not a priority at the moment, just investigating options.

Anyway, there are a few methods I can use at the moment, just need to weigh the pros/cons of each one

Answer 4

You might be interested to know that CompleteFTP 8.0, which is due for release in mid-November, includes support for server-side Javascript. It allows you to define functions in Javascript that can be called using JSON-RPC or REST-style URLs. For example, a file (dir.jss) containing the following code would return a directory listing of the given directory:

function getListing(dirPath) {
    return system.getFile(dirPath).getFiles();
}

This function could be called by JSON-RPC or via the URL

http://mydomain.com/directory/dir.jss?dirPath=/mydir

Results are returned in JSON.

- Hans (EnterpriseDT)

Answer 5

Well, we are now licensed.
I am getting a few errors indicating that EnterpriseDT FTP Server does not support Proposed Standard RFC 5746 (http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5746).
Are there any plans to support this RFC? Or will it only be adopted once it leaves 'proposed' status.

Also, How do we go about requesting a universal activation key?
I sent an email through to support on Thursday or Friday containing the purchase reference and am still waiting to hear back.

Regards

Answer 6

Hi Huw

We replied to both your emails early on Friday afternoon and sent you your UAK. Please check your spam folder.

We are considering RFC 5746 and plan to implement it soon.

regards

Bruce Blackshaw
EnterpriseDT

Answer 7

Edited so conversations will continue via PM

Answer 8

Please continue this via private messaging - please check your account on this forum.

Answer 9

You might be interested to know that CompleteFTP 8.0, which is due for release in mid-November, includes support for server-side Javascript. It allows you to define functions in Javascript that can be called using JSON-RPC or REST-style URLs. For example, a file (dir.jss) containing the following code would return a directory listing of the given directory:

function getListing(dirPath) {
    return system.getFile(dirPath).getFiles();
}

This function could be called by JSON-RPC or via the URL

http://mydomain.com/directory/dir.jss?dirPath=/mydir

Results are returned in JSON.

- Hans (EnterpriseDT)

I am now investigating this option and can not access to the API reference
http://www.enterprisedt.com/products/co ... index.html

From what I gathered I would need the Enterprise Edition to have this configured as a Custom web module/extension. With the Professional edition I would need to place this file into the root directory for the connecting user and have them call it as follows:
https://ServerAddress/dir.jss?dirPath=/Path

Is my assumption correct? Or can I make it globally available for every user.


EDIT: Nevermind, I found the locally installed API documentation

Answer 10

FYI we've updated the site to make the API reference accessible - thanks for pointing it out.