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

Regarding Revocation Lists:
If we enable FTPS Mutual Authentication and add a revocation list to the windows computer certificate store, will the SSL connection validate the clients presented certificate against that revocation list?

Cheers

Answer 2

It should do, yes.

Answer 3

It should do, yes.

This will require more investigation from my side in that case.
Initial tests accepted revoked certificates with no problems, which is a problem.

However that is not to say that the revocation list was properly installed or the OCSP URL's did not override the CRL list in some fashion.

Next years job.

Answer 4

I may have encountered a bug with the Event trigger notifications.

I created and deleted various event notifications during development.
Normally when I double click on the RowID for a new Process Trigger I get a table showing up containing an Email Notification ID and an Event Type. This table normally contains a single row.

However, after creating and deleting process triggers I discovered that this table started to contain multiple rows, resulting in the same trigger being fired off multiple times (and resulting in multiple notifications being sent out).


I noticed that this behaviour manifested itself when I tried copying an existing trigger. Not when I create a new trigger. Furthermore, it appears that I can clean up the result by Copying the trigger, then unselecting and reselecting the required Events enough times that the extra rows are removed from the table.

So, while it is a minor annoyance, I would consider it a very low priority defect.

Product details:

Complete FTP Server 8.0.0 (Have not yet updated to 8.0.1)

Regards and Merry Christmas

Answer 5

Many thanks for the report - we'll investigate - and Merry Christmas.

Answer 6

Hello, thanks for the support so far.

Another few queries:
1. Is it possible to enable IP-filtering by protocol (HTTPS etc). So we can lock down specific protocols to particular IP addresses
2. In PASV mode, what default port range does Complete FTP Server use?
3. For the User Password policy, what constitutes a special character?
4. Regarding the audit logs. I only ever seem to see the current days audit log in the Complete FTP Manager Monitoring/Diagnostics tab. Is there a way to view previous days audit logs directly from the Manager? Or do I have to setup a username and give them FTP access to the audit logs directory directly.
5. Is the revision history a complete listing of all the changes and fixes that have been applied? Or is it only the major fixes.

Regards

Answer 7

1. Not currently - request noted.

2. Random - the operating system decides if a range is not set.

3.

!\"#$%&'()*+,-./:

4. This behavior can be altered by changing the config file, C:\Program Files (x86)\Complete FTP\Server\CompleteFTPService.exe.config. It uses log4net. Change the RollingStyle of the Audit appender to Size and make sure the params are the same as the Config appender's params. You'll need to restart the service after this.

5. The revision list is the major changes and bug fixes - it doesn't list every single change.

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