The system can act as an FTP client, reading and writing to an external FTP server.

To do this, there are several FTP related Event Actions.

Background Execution

As these actions can take some time to execute, particularly if there is a large amount of data being transferred, or if the remote FTP server is running slowly, all these actions must be executed in the background. They cannot be placed in the event tree anywhere which is not under a Background execution node.

Working with the FTP actions

Each FTP Action contains all the configuration to allow it to perform its task, ie a single action will handle logging in, doing the task, and exiting. However it is often the case that you need to configure multiple actions and execute them in turn, for example you might use the "FTP - Import Directory" action to retrieve a list of files stored on the FTP server, and then iterate through them using the "FTP- Import File" action to download them into the site.

When working with external servers actions may fail for numerous reasons, from mis-configuration to remote server issues. To allow these to be handled the actions can be configured to store feedback in two fields, a checkbox field to give an overall success signal, and a text field to give more detailed feedback. In addition, errors will be shown against the action in the event tree. These will show for 7 days, after which they will be removed from view.

The FTP actions:

FTP - Store SFTP Fingerprint

This action logs in to the SFTP server and retrieves a fingerprint string, which is then stored in a local table field. Subsequent FTP actions can check the fingerprint is unchanged when they connect, as a security defence against man-in-the-middle attacks. Use of fingerprints is recommended but optional.

FTP - Import Directory

This action logs in to the FTP server and retrieves a list of files and directories, storing information about each (but not the file contents itself) in individual records in a local table.

FTP - Import File

This action logs in to the FTP server and retrieves the contents of a file (typically as identified by the "FTP - Import Directory" action) in a file/image field of a local table.

FTP - Create Directory

This action logs in to the FTP server and creates a new directory.

FTP - Delete Directory

This action logs in to the FTP server and deletes a directory.

FTP - Delete File

This action logs in to the FTP server and deletes a file.

FTP - Export File

This action logs in to the FTP server and uploads a file to it.