Getting started as a transfer client

Aspera transfer clients connect to a remote Aspera transfer server and request a transfer with that server. Your Aspera application can be used as a client to initiate transfers with Aspera servers, as described in the following steps.

Procedure

Test a locally initiated transfer to a server to confirm that your installation and firewall configuration are operational.
For instructions, see Testing a locally initiated transfer. Which provides a simple walk-through of how to set up a connection with a server and then to transfer.
If you need to authenticate to the remote server with an SSH key, create an SSH key and send the public key to the server admin.
For instructions on creating an SSH key, see Creating SSH keys.
To run transfers from the command line, review the instructions for the Aspera® command line clients.
Your Aspera product comes with two command line clients: ascp and ascp4. They are similar but have different capabilities. For a comparison, see Comparison of ascp and ascp4 options.
- For more information about ascp, see Ascp command reference And Ascp general examples.
- For more information about ascp4, see Ascp4 command reference And Ascp4 examples.

Results

When you confirm that you can transfer with your server, your basic setup is complete.

If you want to automatically distribute files and folders to clients when they are added to a specific folder on the server, see Introduction to Watch Folders and the Aspera Watch Service.
If you want to synchronize files with your server, with the ability to synchronize bidirectionally, see Introduction to Sync. The async tool requires an additional license to run.

For a comparison of automatic transfer tools, see Comparison of Aspera file delivery and synchronization tools.