You open the Netia FTP collection agent configuration dialog from a workflow configuration: you can right-click the agent icon and select Configuration..., or double-click the agent icon.
Part of the configuration may be done in the Filename Sequence tab described in the section, Filename Sequence Tab in 3.1.6 Workflow Template.
Connection Tab
The Connection tab contains configuration data that is relevant to a remote server.
The Netia FTP collection agent configuration - Connection tab
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Host | Enter the primary host name or IP address of the remote host to be connected. If a connection cannot be established to this host, the Additional Hosts specified in the Advanced tab, are tried. Note! The FTP Agent supports both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses |
| Username | Enter the username for an account on the remote host, enabling the FTP session to login. |
| Password | Enter the password for the Username entered. |
Transfer Type | Select the data transfer type to be used during file retrieval.
|
| File System Type | Select the type of file system on the remote host.
Note! When the File System Type for VAX/VMS is selected, some issues must be considered. If a file is renamed after collection on a VAX/VMS system, the filename might become too long. In that case the following rules apply: A VAX/VMS filename consists of <file name>.<extension>;<version>, where the maximum number of characters for each part is: <file name>: 39 characters <extension>: 39 characters <version>: 5 characters If the new filename turns out to be longer than 39 characters, the agent moves part of the filename to the extension part. If the total sum of the filename and extension part exceeds 78 characters, the last characters are truncated from the extension. Example - How characters are truncated
is converted to
|
| Enable Collection Retries | Select this check box to enable repetitive attempts to connect and collect data. |
| Retry Interval (s) | Enter the time interval in seconds, between retries. |
| Max Retries | Enter the maximum number of retries to connect. Note! This number does not include the original connection attempt. |
Note!
If a connection problem occurs the actual time interval will be the time set in the Timeout field in the Advanced tab plus the time set in the Retry Interval (s) field.
Source Tab
The Source tab contains configurations related to the remote host, source directories and source files.
The Netia FTP collection agent configuration - Source tab
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Collection Strategy | Only the Default Collection Strategy is available for the Netia FTP collection agent, so this option should always be selected in this drop-down-list. |
| Directory | The directory setting is not used for the Netia FTP collection agent. However, since this field needs to be populated for the agent to validate, simply enter "." in this field. |
| Filename | This field is used for determining the name of the source file(s) on the remote host. If you have disabled the Filename Sequence settings, you have to enter the complete name of the file to be collected in this field. If you have enabled the Filename Sequence settings, enter the filename up to the point where the sequence number begins in this field. For example if the names of the files are "IX.ICAMA.<sequence number>", enter "IX.ICAMA." in this field. For further information, see the section below, Filename Sequence Tab. |
| Compression | Compression type of the source files. This setting determines if the agent will decompress the files before passing them on in the workflow.
|
| Before Collection | The Before Collection options are unavailable for the Netia FTP collection agent. Ensure that this check box is not selected. |
| After Collection | The After Collection options are unavailable for the Netia FTP collection agent. Ensure that this check box is not selected. |
Advanced Tab
The Advanced tab contains configurations related to the use of the FTP service.
For example if the FTP server used does not return the file listed in a well defined format, the Disable File Detail Parsing option can be useful. For information refer to that section.
The Netia FTP collection agent configuration - Advanced tab
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Command Port | The value in this field defines which port number the FTP service will use on the remote host. |
| Timeout (s) | The maximum time, in seconds, to wait for a response from the server. 0 (zero) means to wait forever. |
| Passive Mode (PASV) | This setting must be enabled if FTP passive mode is used for data connection. In passive mode, the channel for data transfer between client and server is initiated by the client instead of by the server. This is useful when a firewall is situated between the client and the server. |
| Disable File Detail Parsing | This setting disables parsing of file detail information received from the FTP server. This enhances the compatibility with unusual FTP servers but disables some functionality. If file detail parsing is disabled, file modification timestamps are unavailable to the collector. The collector does not have the ability to distinguish between directories and simple files. For that reason, subdirectories in the input directory must not match the filename regular expression. The agent assumes that a file named DR_TMP_DIR is a directory because a directory named DR_TMP_DIR is used when Move to Temporary Directory in the Source tab is activated. Therefore, you cannot name a regular file in the collection directory DR_TMP_DIR. |
| Additional Hosts | List of additional host names or IP addresses that may be used to access the source directory, from which the source files are collected. These hosts are tried, in sequence from top to bottom, if the agent fails to connect to the remote host, set in the Connection Note! The FTP Agent supports both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. Use the Add, Edit, Remove, Move up and Move down buttons to configure the host list. |
Filename Sequence Tab
The Filename Sequence settings are used when you want to collect files containing a sequence number in the file name. The sequence number is expected to be found on a specific position in the file name and will have a
fixed or dynamic size.
Note!
When collecting from several sources, the Filename Sequence settings are applied on data arriving from all the sources, as though all the information arrived from a single source. This means that the Filename Sequence number count is not specific to any of the sources.
The Netia FTP collection agent configuration - Filename Sequence tab
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Enable Filename Sequence | This setting determines if the service will be used or not. If the Filename Sequence settings are enabled, a list with possible files ending with the range of numbers defined by the Wrap On and Wrap To values will be generated before collection. Otherwise, a list with only one file with the name stated in the Source tab will be generated. Note! If the Filename Sequence settings are enabled, the workflow will collect files in the sequence until a file cannot be found. The workflow will then stop. The next time the workflow is started, it will continue to collect where it stopped last, i e if the last collected file ended with numer 121, the workflow will start to collect the file ending with 122, the next time it is executed. This may result in a slower startup of the workflow. |
| Start Position | The offset in the file name where the sequence number starts. The first character has offset 0 (zero). In the example file name TTFILE0001 the start position is 6. |
| Length | The length of the sequence number, if the sequence number has a static length (padded with leading zeros). If the sequence number length is dynamic this value is set to 0 (zero). Example - Length setting
|
| Wrap On | If the Filename Sequence service is enabled, a value must be specified on which the sequence will wrap. This number must be larger than the value entered for Wrap To. |
| Wrap To | Enter the value that the sequence will wrap to. This value must be less than the value entered for Wrap On. |
| Warn On Out of Sequence | If you select this check box, the agent will log an informative message to the System Log when detecting an out of sequence file, before deactivating. |