This source type is used to specify files located on an FTP server (and that are therefore accessible through the FTP protocol) as source files for the import.
The connection to the specified FTP Server will be created from the Application Server. Therefore it is necessary that the Global Settings for FTP connections are set correctly.
This source type will process all files on a specified FTP server in a specified directory on that server that match the given file mask. Additionally a date and time can be given to limit the files to files that were update after that given timestamp.
The Application Server supports the option to only import files that were changed after the last execution of the import definition. The option Only files modified after last import is of course only respected for stored import sessions. If set this option will advice the Application Server to import data only from files that were modified after the last successful import session was started.
The Only files modified after last import option uses the last update time stamp provided by the FTP Server to decide if a file shall be imported or not. Only files with a last modification timestamp that is greater than the timestamp when the last successful import session was started will be downloaded and imported. Note that some FTP Servers do not always provide precise values for date & time and do not support date-time-offset values. Therefore it may be that this option behaves not as wanted especially when FTP Server and Application Server are in different time zones.
Table 1 lists the settings that are available for an import source of type FTP.
Setting |
Description |
Server |
The DNS name or IP address of the FTP server |
Port |
The FTP Server's Port |
Passive |
Defines if passive FTP mode shall be used when connecting to the FTP server. |
Timeout |
Timeout in [s] for FTP commands |
Username |
The username to use for authentication on the FTP server. |
Password |
The password to use for authentication on the FTP server. The password is stored within the Application Server as symmetrically encrypted string. |
Path |
Path on the FTP server where the files to be imported are located. |
File mask |
A regular expression defining which files shall be imported, if empty all files will be processed. |
Minimum last update date |
The minimum last updated time stamp a file must have to be imported. |
Only files modified after last import |
Only useful for stored import definitions. If true, only files that were changed after the begin of the last import session will be processed |
Table 1: Settings for the FTP source
