We have multiple WinSCP processes to upload/download files from external servers. These jobs run to a schedule but can often overlap as they are running so frequently.
There are occasions where we can successfully upload a file to a server, however WinSCP exits as if it has failed, because it cannot write back to the ini file.
Error writting to file 'c:\progra~1\winSCP\WinSCP.ini'
System Error. Code: 32.
The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process
It appears that this is due to two or more processes trying to write back to the ini file at the same time.
This is then causing us to treat the files uploaded as failures and re-upload them on the next run (not great when you're dealing with transactional data)
According to the Configuration Guide, we can set the properties of the WinSCP ini file to read-only:
Particularly when using shared INI file, you can set read-only
attribute to the INI file to prevent WinSCP from overwriting the file.
Before making this change, I was hoping someone could tell me the following:
What exactly gets written back to the file?
What issues could arise from setting the file to Read-Only?
Typically, no important data are written after script run, maybe some caches, statistics, etc. You can compare the INI file before and after the run to see yourself.
You can probably turn off all these to avoid WinSCP from writing them, but setting the INI file read only is more reliable and I would recommend it anyway. You would have no problems with that.
Though the best practice is not to rely on external configuration.
Related
How can I make sure that a file uploaded through SFTP (in a Linux base system) stays locked during the transfer so an automated system will not read it?
Is there an option on the client side? Or server side?
SFTP protocol supports locking since version 5. See the specification.
You didn't specify, what SFTP server are you using. So I'm assuming the most widespread one, the OpenSSH. The OpenSSH supports SFTP version 3 only, so it does not support locking.
Anyway, even if your server supported file locking, most SFTP clients/libraries won't support SFTP version 5. Or even if they do, they won't support the locking feature. Note that the lock is explicit, the client has to request it.
There are some common workarounds for the problem:
As suggested by #user1717259, you can have the client upload a "done" file, once an upload finishes. Make your automated system wait for the "done" file to appear.
You can have a dedicated "upload" folder and have the client (atomically) move the uploaded file to a "done" folder. Make your automated system look to the "done" folder only.
Have a file naming convention for files being uploaded (".filepart") and have the client (atomically) rename the file after an upload to its final name. Make your automated system ignore the ".filepart" files.
See (my) article Locking files while uploading / Upload to temporary file name for example of implementing this approach.
Also, some SFTP servers have this functionality built-in. For example ProFTPD with its HiddenStores directive (courtesy of #fakedad).
A gross hack is to periodically check for file attributes (size and time) and consider the upload finished, if the attributes have not changed for some time interval.
You can also make use of the fact that some file formats have clear end-of-the-file marker (like XML or ZIP). So you know, when you download an incomplete file.
A typical way of solving this problem is to upload your real file, and then to upload an empty 'done.txt' file.
The automated system should wait for the appearance of the 'done' file before trying to read the real file.
A simple file locking mechanism for SFTP is to first upload a file to a directory (folder) where the read process isn't looking. You can "make" an alternate folder using the sftp> mkdir command. Upload the file to the alternate directory, instead of the ultimate destination directory. Once the SFTP> put command completes, then do a move like this:
SFTP> move alternate_path/filename destination_path/filename. Since the SFTP "move" is just switching the file pointers, it is atomic, so it is an effective lock.
WE have a call recordings everyday that are posted in FTP. As a backup i wanted to copy those recordings from FTP in to local drive on daily basis.Is it possible to copy entire folder as a whole and paste the folder in my local and rename it ?
thanks in advance
BIDS in 2008 has an FTP Task, but I never use it. There are also several third party extensions for SFTP and the like, but I don't use those.
[Edit: Since the above links are to CodePlex, which is shutting down, I'll provide more detail. The first link is to a project titled "SSIS SFTP Task Control Flow Component" and the second is to a project titled "SSIS Extensions - SFTP Task, PGP Task, Zip Task". As of June 2017 the projects do not appear to have an obvious rehosting.]
I tend to use WinSCP with a script file. It's certainly the least Microsoft-y approach, but, IMX, it's more foolproof. This has the advantage of working for FTP, FTPS, and SFTP. It has the disadvantage that you're storing the password in plain text. You can store it in the registry with WinSCP's session manager, but I believe that's a per-user registry which makes for lots of possible fun when you have the SQL Agent using an SSIS Proxy account.
Create your script file with the commands you want to use. Be sure to specify option batch abort and option confirm off. You also might want to specify option failonnomatch, but I haven't tested that one yet myself since I'm still on a slightly older version that doesn't support that option.
Mine tend to look like this:
# Set batch settings
option batch abort
option confirm off
# Connect
open sftp://user:password#sftp.server.com -hostkey="ssh-rsa 2048 00:11:22:33:44:55:66:77:88:99:aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff"
# Change remote and local directories
lcd "M:\SSIS\eSchoolPlus to Clever\Output"
# Transfer files
put -nopreservetime -nopermissions -transfer=ascii file1.csv
put -nopreservetime -nopermissions -transfer=ascii file2.csv
put -nopreservetime -nopermissions -transfer=ascii file3.csv
put -nopreservetime -nopermissions -transfer=ascii file4.csv
put -nopreservetime -nopermissions -transfer=ascii file5.csv
close
exit
The options on put are due to how the remote server works for the script I happened to grab. get works about the same.
Then you use an Execute Process Task. The executable is C:\Program Files (x86)\WinSCP\WinSCP.exe and the Arguments I use are:
-console -script="X:\Path\To\Script\WinSCPScript.txt" -xmllog="X:\Path\To\Script\WinSCP-!S-!Y-!M-!D-!T.log" -xmlgroups`
That creates a daily log of just the WinSCP information. The XML logs are more readable and useful than the older log format, IMO, which contains a lot of mostly debugging information.
You can also go the route of using the WinSCP .NET library with an Execute Script Task, but that's obviously a lot more effort. They do have a HOWTO for that, however.
Yes - you would use a File System Task and set the Operation to Copy Directory (before Microsoft changed it with Win 95, folders were called directories). You can change the name in the destination connection where you choose the destination folder. You can use an expression to add a date if you want.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ms140185.aspx
Here's some good step-by-step instructions if you need them since Microsoft gives vague descriptions with no examples:
http://oops-solution.blogspot.com/2011/11/file-operation-copy-move-rename-and.htmlhttp://oops-solution.blogspot.com/2011/11/file-operation-copy-move-rename-and.html
My application is keeping watch on a set of folders where users can upload files. When a file upload is finished I have to apply a treatment, but I don't know how to detect that a file has not finish to upload.
Any way to detect if a file is not released yet by the FTP server?
There's no generic solution to this problem.
Some FTP servers lock the file being uploaded, preventing you from accessing it, while the file is still being uploaded. For example IIS FTP server does that. Most other FTP servers do not. See my answer at Prevent file from being accessed as it's being uploaded.
There are some common workarounds to the problem (originally posted in SFTP file lock mechanism, but relevant for the FTP too):
You can have the client upload a "done" file once the upload finishes. Make your automated system wait for the "done" file to appear.
You can have a dedicated "upload" folder and have the client (atomically) move the uploaded file to a "done" folder. Make your automated system look to the "done" folder only.
Have a file naming convention for files being uploaded (".filepart") and have the client (atomically) rename the file after upload to its final name. Make your automated system ignore the ".filepart" files.
See (my) article Locking files while uploading / Upload to temporary file name for an example of implementing this approach.
Also, some FTP servers have this functionality built-in. For example ProFTPD with its HiddenStores directive.
A gross hack is to periodically check for file attributes (size and time) and consider the upload finished, if the attributes have not changed for some time interval.
You can also make use of the fact that some file formats have clear end-of-the-file marker (like XML or ZIP). So you know, that the file is incomplete.
Some FTP servers allow you to configure a hook to be called, when an upload is finished. You can make use of that. For example ProFTPD has a mod_exec module (see the ExecOnCommand directive).
I use ftputil to implement this work-around:
connect to ftp server
list all files of the directory
call stat() on each file
wait N seconds
For each file: call stat() again. If result is different, then skip this file, since it was modified during the last seconds.
If stat() result is not different, then download the file.
This whole ftp-fetching is old and obsolete technology. I hope that the customer will use a modern http API the next time :-)
If you are reading files of particular extensions, then use WINSCP for File Transfer. It will create a temporary file with extension .filepart and it will turn to the actual file extension once it fully transfer the file.
I hope, it will help someone.
This is a classic problem with FTP transfers. The only mostly reliable method I've found is to send a file, then send a second short "marker" file just to tell the recipient the transfer of the first is complete. You can use a file naming convention and just check for existence of the second file.
You might get fancy and make the content of the second file a checksum of the first file. Then you could verify the first file. (You don't have the problem with the second file because you just wait until file size = checksum size).
And of course this only works if you can get the sender to send a second file.
How can I make sure that a file uploaded through SFTP (in a Linux base system) stays locked during the transfer so an automated system will not read it?
Is there an option on the client side? Or server side?
SFTP protocol supports locking since version 5. See the specification.
You didn't specify, what SFTP server are you using. So I'm assuming the most widespread one, the OpenSSH. The OpenSSH supports SFTP version 3 only, so it does not support locking.
Anyway, even if your server supported file locking, most SFTP clients/libraries won't support SFTP version 5. Or even if they do, they won't support the locking feature. Note that the lock is explicit, the client has to request it.
There are some common workarounds for the problem:
As suggested by #user1717259, you can have the client upload a "done" file, once an upload finishes. Make your automated system wait for the "done" file to appear.
You can have a dedicated "upload" folder and have the client (atomically) move the uploaded file to a "done" folder. Make your automated system look to the "done" folder only.
Have a file naming convention for files being uploaded (".filepart") and have the client (atomically) rename the file after an upload to its final name. Make your automated system ignore the ".filepart" files.
See (my) article Locking files while uploading / Upload to temporary file name for example of implementing this approach.
Also, some SFTP servers have this functionality built-in. For example ProFTPD with its HiddenStores directive (courtesy of #fakedad).
A gross hack is to periodically check for file attributes (size and time) and consider the upload finished, if the attributes have not changed for some time interval.
You can also make use of the fact that some file formats have clear end-of-the-file marker (like XML or ZIP). So you know, when you download an incomplete file.
A typical way of solving this problem is to upload your real file, and then to upload an empty 'done.txt' file.
The automated system should wait for the appearance of the 'done' file before trying to read the real file.
A simple file locking mechanism for SFTP is to first upload a file to a directory (folder) where the read process isn't looking. You can "make" an alternate folder using the sftp> mkdir command. Upload the file to the alternate directory, instead of the ultimate destination directory. Once the SFTP> put command completes, then do a move like this:
SFTP> move alternate_path/filename destination_path/filename. Since the SFTP "move" is just switching the file pointers, it is atomic, so it is an effective lock.
My .NET app updates a certain .xls file located in a shared folder inside the domain. Using VB.NET, how can I check if that file is being used by another user and unshare/close it, so my code can update the file properly?
NOTE:.Exe file(my app) will be executed in the server where shared folder is.
Windows and NTFS is designed to prevent this scenario. Unless you:
Get the Excel application which is holding the .xls file open to close it
Shut down the server's network connection assuming the Excel file is opened by client PCs - a highly undesirable step to take
Discover the PC on which the Excel.exe instance is running and use the Windows Taskkill command-line command to kill all Excel.exe instances (since you won't necessarily know which one has it open) on the machine - another undesirable step to take
Have a look at this answer, but this uses third-party utilities, and doesn't explain how these utilities do what they do though you may be able to Process.Start them.
you just can't get Windows/NTFS to release the file lock.
A possible alternative that I'm not sure will work with an xls (as opposed to an xls_) is to make the file shared, though this has some limitations.