SFTP Transport User Guide

Introduction to SFTP Transport

The SFTP transport allows you to transfer files over SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) using SSH version 2. After authentication, a connection is established between ALSB services and the SFTP server and file transfer occurs. The SFTP transport is a poll-based transport that periodically polls a specified directory based on a polling interval specified during service configuration. One-way inbound and outbound connectivity is supported for this transport.

Service Types

The SFTP transport is available only for the following service types:

Message Service with only request message type specified during message type configuration.

Note: For a SFTP transport-based proxy service, when you select the service type as Message Service, you must specify Binary, Text, MFL, or XML as the Request Message Type. Response Message Type must be None.

Any XML Service

While configuring proxy or business services, ensure that you select Message Service or XML Service as the service type. For more information about configuring proxy and business services, see Business Services and Proxy Services in Using the AquaLogic Service Bus Console.

Quality of Service

For inbound message transfer, the Quality of Service (QoS) is set as exactly-once. This ensures that a message is processed at least once.

For outbound message processing, the QoS is best-effort.

Note:

To take care of messages that are not transferred, you must create the error handling logic (including any retry logic) in the pipeline error handler. For information about configuring error handling, see Proxy Services: Error Handlers in Using the AquaLogic Service Bus Console.

For more information about QoS in ALSB messaging, see Quality of Service in Modeling Message Flow in AquaLogic Service Bus in Using the AquaLogic Service Bus Console.

Environment Values

Environment values are certain predefined fields in the configuration data whose values are very likely to change when you move your configuration from one domain to another (for example, from test to production). For information about updating environment values, see Finding and Replacing Environment Values in Using the AquaLogic Service Bus Console. The environment values associated with the SFTP transport are listed in Table 1-1:

Table 1-1 Environment Values
Environment Value	Description
Archive-directory	The directory to which the files are moved from either the download directory or the remote location.
Download-directory	The directory on your local machine where files are downloaded during the file transfer.
Error-directory	The location where messages are posted if there is a problem.
Managed Server for Polling	In a cluster scenario, this value specifies the Managed Server that is used for polling.

Note:

For more information about the directory values, see Configuring Proxy Services to Use the SFTP Transport and Configuring Business Services to Use the SFTP Transport.