FTP and FTPS Transports
This chapter describes how to use FTP and FTPS transports for document exchange.
FTP Transport Overview
TIBCO BusinessConnect Container Edition supports FTP transport, which enables users to send or receive large documents by connecting to the trading partner's FTP server. It uses a store and retrieve mechanism of putting and getting files from the trading partner's FTP server. In some cases, a trading partner requires that the exchange of document happen securely so that the integrity of the transmission is not compromised. To accommodate this, TIBCO BusinessConnect Container Edition provides different ways of sending files through FTP transport.
- The initiating partner uses the trading partner setup area to specify the address of the FTP server that receives the FTP put operations for a particular trading partner.
- A responding partner that receives FTP put operations must specify an FTP server to receive the Initiator’s FTP files. This server name and directory must match the URL specified in the preceding step. The responding TIBCO BusinessConnect Container Edition uses a poller to monitor that location.
- A partner that receives FTP put operations from an Initiator must specify the directory into which it places its response.
- The Initiator that receives the FTP response from the Responder must specify a directory that it polls for the Responder’s response. This server name and directory must match the URL specified in the preceding step.
If you use asynchronous request-response, you can mix HTTP, HTTPS, Email, and FTP. For example, you can send an asynchronous request document using FTP and the Responder can use HTTP. You are responsible for monitoring the directory on the FTP external server and removing files as needed.
Explicit and Implicit FTPS Connections
TIBCO BusinessConnect Container Edition supports FTPS in explicit mode, which means that the BusinessConnect Container Edition server assumes it is configured to connect to the security enabled FTP server's standard FTP port (usually TCP port 21). On this port, it negotiates security properties by issuing an AUTH SSL or AUTH TLS command (as per the transport's configuration), made on the server's admin GUI and the corresponding specifications (see specification RFC2228). Implicit FTPS connections (usually for connecting to TCP port 990) are not supported.
Supported File Mask Options
The supported file mask options for file names using FTP/S, SSHFTP, and File transports are as follows:
| User Provides | TIBCO BusinessConnect Container Edition Uses |
|---|---|
| TpName | The receiving participant's name |
| HostName | The sending participant's name |
| DDD | Day in a year |
| YY | Last two digits of a year |
| YYYY | Year |
| MMM | Month abbreviated to three characters |
| MM | Month on two digits (1-base) |
| DD | Day of the month on two digits (1-base) |
| HH | Hour of the day (0-24) |
| MN | Minutes of the hour |
| SS | Seconds of the minute |
| NN | Milliseconds of the second on three digits |
| TransactionID | ID of the transaction |
| FileName | Name of the file |
| GUID | Globally unique identifier |
| DocumentID | ID of the sent document |
| OperationID | ID of the operation |
Example:
My-#(YYYY)-#(MMM)-#(DD)-#(HH)-#(MN)-#(SS)-#(NN)-#(OperationID)-file.txt
will print:
My-2020-Feb-17-14-01-45-093-BC_1.0_Notify-file.txt