SFTP Connections

Linux- and Windows-based SFTP  servers are supported. 

Jobs can be executed from SFTP  sources on the following running environments:

• Trifacta Photon
• Spark on EMR

Read: Supported

Write: Not supported

Limitations

• Read-only connection

• Files and folders with spaces or special characters in them cannot be used. For example, a file or folder on the SFTP server with a hashtag (#) in it cannot be used for data.
  • Files and folders whose names begin with underscore (_) are not visible.
• Ingest of over 500 files through SFTP  at one time is not supported.

• For private SFTP servers, you cannot run jobs on Spark. These jobs must be run using Trifacta Photon.

• Through SFTP connections, you cannot run jobs on Avro or Parquet files or on files that require conversion such as JSON, PDF, and Excel.

• File types, such as Excel or PDF, that require use of the conversion service cannot be imported via SFTP connections.

Prerequisites

• Acquire user credentials to access the SFTP  server. You can use username/password credentials or SSH keys. See below.

• Verify that the credentials can access the proper locations on the server where your data is stored. Initial directory of the user account must be accessible.

SSH Keys

If preferred, you can use SSH keys to for authentication to the SFTP  server.

Whitelist SFTP server

If your SFTP server is private, you must add the Trifacta's IP to the whitelist of IPs that are permitted to communicate with the server. For more information, please see the documentation that is provided with your software distribution. 

Create Connection

Create through application

You can create a SFTP connection through the Designer Cloud application .

Steps:

1. In the left nav bar, select the Connections icon. See Connections Page.
2. In the Connections page, click Create Connection. See Create Connection Window.
3. In the Create Connection window, click the SFTP  connection card.

4. Specify the properties for your SFTP  server.

   Property	Description
   Host	The hostname of the FTP server to which you are connecting. Do not include any protocol identifier (sftp://).
   Port	The port number to use to connect to the server. Default port number is 22.
   Credential Type	Select one of the following: basic - authenticate via username and password SSH Key - authenticate via username and SSH key
   User Name	The username to use to connect.
   Password	(Basic credential type) The password associated with the username.
   SSH Key	(SSH Key credential type) The SSH key that applies to the username.
   Test Connection	Click this button to test the connection that you have specified.
   Default Directory	Absolute path on the SFTP server where users of the connection can begin browsing.
   Block Size (Bytes)	Fetch size in bytes for each read from the SFTP server. NOTE: Raising this value may increase speed of read operations. However, if it is raised too high, resources can become overwhelmed, and the read can fail.
   Connection Name	The name of the connection as you want it to appear in the application.
   Description	This description is displayed in the application.

   For more information, see Create Connection Window.

5. Click Save. 

Create through APIs

• Type: jdbc
• Vendor: sftp

For more information, see  Designer Cloud Powered by Trifacta: API Reference docs