OS4X Enterprise - Fetch files from (S)FTP server
Under construction!!!
OS4X offers an easy way to create OS4X Enterprise receive jobs from FTP server content. This solution is based on two mechanisms:
- Mount remote server directory as a local directory
- Configure the OS4X Directory Scanner to that mounted directory
This documentation covers all technical aspects to implement a functionality to automatically fetch new files from an (S)FTP server.
Assumption
All details explained here are based on the freely available pre-installed OS4X VMware virtualized image, which is also available for other virtualization solutions via OVA. In general, all solutions explained here can be used in any modern Linux environment. All steps explained here must be executed as user "root" unless any other documentation states to switch user context.
In this example, the following attributes are used:
- User running OS4X: "
www-data", group "www-data". - Target mount point for FTP directory:
/mnt/ftp/server1 - Target FTP server: 192.168.20.71, username "
os4x", password "os4x"
Install required packages
You need to install the following packages for (S)FTP mounting:
apt-get -y install sshfs curlftpfs
Change user group membership
The user running OS4X (configured in "Configuration" -> "Daemon" -> "Run OS4X programs as user") must be added in the user group "fuse":
adduser www-data fuse
Change permissions of /dev/fuse
By default, the required device file "/dev/fuse" is only writable by user "root". We need to extend the permissions:
chgrp fuse /dev/fuse chmod g+rw /dev/fuse
Create target mountpoint
The FTP target directory must be mounted somewhere into the local filesystem to be readable by OS4X. You may use any (in best case empty) directory. We need this directory name later for the configuration of the OS4X directory scanner. The owner of the target directory must be the configured user running OS4X):
mkdir -p /mnt/ftp/server1 chown www-data.www-data /mnt/ftp/server1
Save credentials securely
In order to automatically connect to the (S)FTP server, save the credentials in a single line in the following file:
/root/.netrc
The syntax of the file is simple: per line, one server can be given by its name (hostname or IP), followed by keywords for username and password, with their values. Example:
machine 192.168.20.71 login os4x password os4x
This file must have permissions to be readable only by root, so you might change the permissions after creating / modifying the file:
chmod 600 /root/.netrc
Add FTP server mount for bootup
In addition to let the FTP server be mounted at bootup (which is the most common way), you have to add a line to the filesystem table file:
/etc/fstab
The line to be added has the following syntax:
curlftpfs#192.168.20.71 /mnt/ftp/server1 fuse auto,allow_other,disable_eprt,_netdev 0 0
You have to change the IP address and mount point accordingly. The options are required to that the mount point will be available after reboot.