How do I connect to a ftp/sftp site?

Question

I need to provide an url to a third party company so that they can log in and download the file. The problem is that I don't know the url for my ftp/sftp site due to my very limited knowledge in ftp. I only know the way to connect to the ftp/sftp site using FireZilla. I connect to the ftp/sftp site using "Site Manager" in FireZilla, I provided the host name using an external IP address, and passed in an username and a password. The url that is showing up on the header of the FileZilla window displays: ftps://[email protected]

Question #1: am I using sftp or ftp? Question #2: 1029.56.34.19 points to the home directory of my ftp website, and the file I need to upload is in a subfolder in the home directory, what should be the full url to the file on my ftp/sftp site? Is it something like this? sftp://1029.56.34.19/FolderName/FileName.csv

p.s. 1029.56.34.19 is not a real ip address, I am using it for demo purpose.

Solution

Based on this:

ftps://[email protected]

you are using FTPS. There is FTP, SFTP, and FTPS. Furthermore, there are two types of FTPS - implicit and explicit.

FTPS is FTP over SSL (like HTTPS). SFTP is really a form of SSH (behind the scenes an SFTP client is logging in via SSH and issuing commands).

The easiest thing for you to recommend your third party to do is to install Filezilla and then give them the URL. Alternatively you can look into FileZilla's import/export functions which may be easier for both you and the client. WinSCP will also work.

Windows does not have native FTPS or SFTP support. Just the weird way it integrates with Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer) and the old ftp command.

Comments

[SLaG]

On a side note, The highest value any part of an IP address (v4 anyway) can take is 255. So the biggest IP is 255.255.255.255

[Superman Coding]

Yes, the ftp account I have set up is only accessible to the specified directory.

[Superman Coding]

Yes, I understood we can't have 4 digits number in any part of v4 IP address, I just make it up so that it won't match any real IP address out there.

[Superman Coding]

Just got back an email from the third party company, unfortunately they only support ftp. The reason I can't ask them to use FileZilla is because we are trying to automate the process. The 3rd party company is using a JAVA program to talk to the ftp site and download the file. They need an complete url to the file on the ftp site, an username and a password. I just couldn't figure out what the complete url should be.