Create an FTP site target in Jitterbit Design Studio

Introduction

An FTP Site target can be used to write to an FTP server with options such as success/error folders.

Prerequisite

Before you can use the success/error folders feature of an FTP Site target (see the Options below), you must have enabled Local File Location on your Jitterbit private agent. See Enabling local file location for details.

Create an FTP site target

You can choose to create a new FTP Site target on its own, or within an existing operation. For details on how targets work within operations, see Creating an operation.

Create new FTP site target as a standalone target

Within your project in Jitterbit Design Studio, you create a new FTP Site target by any of:

• Go to File > New > New Target; or

• In the tree on the left, right-click on Targets and select New Target; or

• In the top toolbar, click the blue target icon .

In the popup, select FTP Site as the type:

Your new target appears in its own New Target tab in the right pane of the window.

Create a new FTP site target in an existing operation

A target is usually created by default when you create a new operation. (The exception is an operation that consists only of a script.) With an existing operation, you can specify the type of its target by:

• Double-clicking on the target icon; in the popup, select Create New Target; or

• Right-clicking on the target icon and selecting Create New Target.

In the configuration screen that appears, use the Type dropdown to select FTP Site, as shown above.

Use an existing FTP site target in an existing operation

To use an existing FTP Site target in an existing operation with a target, you can set it by any of:

• Within the operation, double-clicking on the target icon, and in the resulting popup, selecting the desired FTP Site target from the list; or

• Within the operation, right-clicking on the target icon, choosing Select Existing Target, and in the resulting popup, selecting the desired FTP Site target from the list; or

• Dragging the desired FTP Site target from the tree on the left and dropping it onto the existing target icon of the operation.

Configure an FTP site target

After you have created an FTP Site target, the configuration screen will open in the main view of Design Studio. You can return to the configuration screen at any time by double-clicking on the target icon in the operation, or by double-clicking on the target in the tree on the left.

Basic configuration

The configuration screen will appear similar to this example:

• Name: Enter an appropriate, unique name for the target.
• Type: Use the dropdown to select FTP Site, if it is not already specified.
• Connection Parameters: Specify the details for your FTP Site connection:

• Host: Enter a valid FTP server location for your source, such as ftp.example.com. (Required.)

  • Use default port: The default ports are 21 for FTP/FTPS and 22 for SFTP/SCP. For different ports, deselect the Use default port checkbox and enter a port to use in the Port field.
  • Path(s): Enter one or more valid paths. The path should point to an existing directory on the FTP server such as /incoming/. Multiple paths can be specified using comma-delimited values. If multiple paths are specified, the same file is written to multiple locations.
  • Login and Password: Enter a username (required) and password (if applicable) that will allow access to the FTP server. Leave the password blank if no password is required.

• Filename(s): Enter the desired name for the target file(s). Variables may be used in this field. If specifying a compressed file (ZIP), see the "Compression" section of the additional connection parameters under Options below. The file will automatically be written into the archive at the root level. (Required.)

  • Uncheck Use FTP Rename if this option causes problems.

• Test Connection: Clicking the button will test the FTP Site target; it will fail if the specified directory does not exist. It does not test if the specified user has write permission on the directory.

• Click the Save button in either the main toolbar or the target's toolbar to save the configuration.

Options

Additional connection parameters can be specified by clicking the Options at the bottom of the Connection Parameters section:

• Passive Mode: Leave this box checked to use the FTP server's "PASV" method to retrieve files. When this option is enabled, the agent will open a control connection to the FTP server, tell the FTP server to expect a second connection, and then open the data connection to the FTP server itself on a randomly chosen high-numbered port. This works with most firewalls unless the firewall restricts outgoing connections on high-numbered ports.

• Auto Create Directories: Automatically creates any directories that do not yet exist in the target path.

  Warning

  It is a known issue that the auto-creation of directories works inconsistently. Depending on the particular FTP server involved, the directory may not be created. If this option is used, you should confirm that the directory has been created before production use.

• Write Headers: If checked and a flat text target, a header of column/field names will be written as the first line.

• Do not Create Empty Files: If checked, creating the target file will be skipped if there is no target data.
• Append to File: If checked, data will be appended to an existing target file instead of overwriting. Note that SFTP connections do not support the ability to append to files, which is a limitation of SFTP.

• End of Line Type: Determines how Jitterbit writes line breaks when writing to a target. Note that end-of-line characters in the data will not be converted. Available options:

  • Default: Standard end-of-line characters for the platform the agent is running on.
  • Windows: CRLF (ASCII 13 and ASCII 10)
  • Unix: LF (ASCII 10)

• Character Encoding: Used to specify a character encoding for the target file. If left blank, Jitterbit will attempt to detect the encoding. To specify a different encoding than that default, insert one of the supported encodings described in Supported character encodings.

• Success/Error Folder: Specifies if success and/or error folders will be used to archive a copy of all files processed.

  • If a success folder is specified, upon successfully processing the target, a copy of the file will be written to a file in that folder.
  • The file will be named the same as that specified in the Filename(s) field above, but with a trailing underscore and a timestamp added. If there is already a file with the same name in that folder, an additional underscore and a counter will be added.
  • Example: if a file named data.csv is successfully processed, a copy named data.csv_2018-01-01_12-00-00-000 could be written to the folder specified as the Success Folder. If such a file already exists from a previous run, a new file data.csv_2018-01-01_12-00-00-000_1 would be added.
  • In a similar fashion, if an error folder is specified, any files that fail will be written to a file in the Error Folder.

  Important

  Absolute paths for the success and error folders are located on the private agent, not on the FTP server.

  When using filename keywords in these fields, the keywords are not resolved. For a workaround, see Limitation and workaround under Filename keywords. Using asterisks (*) and other typically unsupported file name characters will cause the operation to fail.

• Compression: If the checkbox for Compress target files is selected, target files will be compressed using the ZIP format. Additional options are:

  • Filename(s) in archive: Accepts variables and filename keywords. To keep the filename in the archive the same as the filename defined in the target, use a format of [file].[ext] as shown above.
  • Mode: Not applicable for FTP Site targets.
  • Password: For encrypted archives, supply a password.
  • Encryption mode: If a password is supplied, there are two encryption modes available: AES and Standard ZIP.

• Proxy Settings: Use the dropdown to select one of these options for a custom proxy for the FTP host:

  • Disable: Proxy settings are disabled for this specific source, bypassing the agent proxy configuration if one exists.
  • Default: Proxy settings are enabled, using the agent proxy configuration if one exists. If proxy settings are not specified in the agent configuration, the Default setting has the same result as the Disable setting.

  • Custom: Proxy settings are enabled for this specific source using custom information provided here. This option bypasses the agent proxy configuration if one exists. When Custom is selected, these fields become available:

    

    See Enabling proxy for private agents for details on these fields.

• Transfer Type: If files are ASCII-based, choose the ASCII transfer type; for all other file types, choose Binary. Binary is the default and usually works best.

• Security Options: These options are available:

• Unsecure FTP: This uses normal unencrypted FTP and is not secure since passwords are sent in clear text over the network. Use only in a safe environment. (Default.)

  • Explicit FTPS: This option uses explicit FTP with SSL, requiring the FTP client to request security information before a file transfer begins. When this option is selected, you can set the preferred Authentication Mode (either TLS or SSL) and these SSL Options:

    • Try SSL: This tries to initiate a TLS/SSL-encrypted transfer. If that fails, non-encrypted FTP will be used.
    • RequireTLS/ SSL for control connection: With this option, the initial FTP control connection is encrypted using TLS/SSL to ensure that the password exchange is encrypted. The transfer itself will not be encrypted but at least the password is not sent in clear text. If the data itself is not sensitive or already encrypted, you can use this option. If the server does not support FTPS, the transfer will fail.
    • Require TLS/SSL for all data transfer: This option requires both the control connection and the data connection to be encrypted using TLS/SSL. If the server does not support SSL, the transfer will fail.

  • Implicit FTPS: This option uses implicit FTPS (implicit FTP with TLS/SSL), requiring a TLS/SSL connection prior to file transfer.

  • SFTP: This option uses the SFTP protocol instead of FTP. This option can only be used if you are connecting to an SFTP server. Public and private key files for SFTP can be configured in the SSH section of the agent configuration file, as described in Connect to SFTP with SSH keys. Note that SFTP and FTP/FTPS are different protocols and use different default ports.