FTP (remote file system) connection
To access your data with the FTP protocol, create a connection asset for it.
FTP is a standard communication protocol that is used to transfer files from a server to a client on a computer network.
Create an FTP connection
To create the connection asset, you need these connection details:
- Connection mode: The connection method configured on the FTP server:
- Anonymous
- Basic authentication (with username and password)
- SFTP Tectia: Transfer data sets that are in Multiple Virtual Storage (MVS) format to or from an IBM z/OS mainframe computer. MVS data sets use a period (
.
) to separate the qualifiers in the data set names. To write to an MVS data set, select Access MVS Dataset and enter the file transfer advice (FTADV) strings in key-value pairs separated by commas. For information, see the Tectia documentation. - SSH: File transfer over a secure channel that uses the Secure Shell protocol. Also requires username and password.
- SSL: File transfer that uses File Transport Protocol (FTP), which supports secure transmission via SSL (sslTLSv2) protocol. Also requires username and password.
- Hostname or IP address
- Port number of the FTP server
- SSH mode: Private key and Key passphrase
- Authentication method:
- Username and password
- Username, password, private key. If you use an encrypted private key, you will need a key passphrase.
- Username and private key. If you use an encrypted private key, you will need a key passphrase.
If you use a private key, make sure that the key is an RSA private key that is generated by the ssh-keygen tool. The private key must be in the PEM format.
For Credentials, you can use secrets if a vault is configured for the platform and the service supports vaults. For information, see Using secrets from vaults in connections.
Choose the method for creating a connection based on where you are in the platform
- In a project
- Click Assets > New asset > Data access tools > Connection. See Adding a connection to a project.
- In a catalog
- Click Add to catalog > Connection. See Adding a connection asset to a catalog.
- In a deployment space
- Click Add to space > Connection. See Adding connections to a deployment space.
- In the Platform assets catalog
- Click New connection. See Adding platform connections.
Next step: Add data assets from the connection
Where you can use this connection
You can use FTP connections in the following workspaces and tools:
Projects
- Data Refinery (Watson Studio or IBM Knowledge Catalog)
- DataStage (DataStage service). See Connecting to a data source in DataStage.
- Metadata import (IBM Knowledge Catalog)
- SPSS Modeler (SPSS Modeler service)
- Synthetic Data Generator (Synthetic Data Generator service)
Catalogs
-
Platform assets catalog
-
Other catalogs (IBM Knowledge Catalog)
Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) compliance
- 4.8.0, 4.8.1, and 4.8.2: This connection is compliant with FIPS.
- 4.8.3 and later: This connection is not compliant with FIPS, but it is FIPS-tolerant.
Compliance for FIPS the FTP connection has these exceptions:
- Connections that use SSL or SSH
- SFTP Tectia connection mode
Supported file types
The FTP connection supports these file types: Avro, CSV, Delimited text, Excel, JSON, ORC, Parquet, SAS, SAV, SHP, and XML.
Parent topic: Supported connections