FTP/FTPS

Mover can connect to servers that accept FTP or FTPS connections.

Add an FTP/FTPS Connection

Add a new connection and select FTP as the connection type.

Provide a Connection Label so you can identify the connection in a list. This is especially important if you need more than one connection of the same type.

Server

The Hostname should be the fully-qualified domain name. This must be an address that is publicly resolvable, because Mover must be able to reach it.

Most of the time, the default port value of 21 should be used for FTP. Only use an alternate port if you know the FTP server requires it. The other commonly used port, 990, typically means that the server requires SSL using the Implicit method. When using port 990, you most likely need to also select Require SSL (implicit) under the SSL selection.

Credentials

Enter the username that will be used for the FTP connection, and provide the password. FTP connections do not support the use of SSH/SFTP keys for authentication.

SSL

You can customize how Mover will use SSL on this connection.

Choose Use is available, Require SSL (explicit), Require SSL (implicit) to create a secure FTPS connection.

Only choose Never use SSL if the FTP server does not support SSL. This option is insecure, and is not very common.

Server Certificate

The SSL certificate allows the Mover to verify the identity of the server it is connecting to. Each time Mover connects to the server, it verifies that the client that the certificate is legitimate and has not been tampered with, preventing "man-in-the-middle" attacks where a malicious party could impersonate the server.

By default, Mover will require that the server's SSL Certificate matches the hostname used for the connection and also ensure that the SSL Certificate is signed by a trusted Certificate authority. You may relax this requirement to allow non-matching certificates, but this option is insecure.

Max Connections

You can configure a maximum number of connections to the FTP server that Mover will open at once. We recommend the default value of 25, as this will provide the a high level of parallelism, which improves performance.

Some server administrators will request that you reduce this number to reduce the pressure on their server. Reducing it too low will reduce performance because requests may have to wait for a free connection before they are able to complete.

Mover will use best efforts to honor the maximum number specified here, though it may still burst above this number on certain occasions, such as when moving the connection to another one of our gateway servers internally. As a cloud-based service, we often reconfigure our network in real time to provide optimized performance. If we ever temporarily exceed the configured maximum, expect the connection count will return to the specified number promptly.

Check For Case Sensitivity

Be aware of case sensitivity differences when copying, moving, or syncing files and folders between connections. Copying items from a system which is not case sensitive to another that is case sensitive could result in 1 item being treated as 2 different ones, such as attempting to overwrite MyFile.txt with myfile.txt .

In the other direction, copying from a case sensitive system to another that is not case sensitive can cause files to be overwritten, and folders to have their contents merged, if their case insensitive names are a match.

Check the documentation on your storage providers to determine if you might need to account for case sensitivity differences.

Troubleshooting

Make sure your connection info matches the required setting of your FTP server. The FTP protocol supports distinct methods, and a variety of options, which determine whether a client application can connect. If your connection is misconfigured, Mover won't be able to access your fiels.

FTPS Methods

A properly-configured FTPS uses secure TLS/SSL-based FTP, generally referred to as FTPS. However FTPS has been implemented in 2 non-compatible methods.

The current recommended method is Explicit FTPS, which implements TLS on standard FTP ports, starting with TCP port 21.

The older, deprecated method is Implicit FTPS, which implements TLS on TCP port 990.

Confirm which method of FTPS your server uses, and make sure your connection matches the requirements.

SSL Certificate Validity

Mover expects that the FTPS server is using fully valid and chained SSL Certificates. This means the certificate host name and domain name match the server's host name and domain name, including any wildcards. Fully valid certificates are valid for the current date, and should not be expired nor contain a start date that is in the future. Fully valid certificates are chained to a valid and trusted Certificate Authority.

If the certificate doesn't meet all of those requirements, then the FTP server is considered untrusted or self-signed. You can configure your FTP Connection to allow using self-signed certificates.

If you're not sure if the server's certificate is fully valid, there are many online tools available for checking the validity of a site's certificate, such as the SSL Shopper SSL checker and the DigiCert SSL certificate checker.

Firewalls

The FTP(S) server may be behind a firewall that only allows connections from specified IP addresses. If a firewall is blocking Mover's IP addresses, the firewall must be updated to allow Mover to connect.

Mover connects to the FTP(S) server using Passive (PASV) Mode. In this mode, the FTP(S) server will tell indicate which ports to use in order to traverse any firewalls.

Partial Connectivity

The FTP protocol uses different connection ports for Control and for Data. The Control channel is used for authentication and for control messages, such as navigating folders, listing folder contents, and setting transmission options. The Data channel is used for the transmission of file content.

If you can connect, navigate folders, and list folder contents, but not upload or download file content, then it's most likely that a firewall is blocking the PASV Data channels. A common symptom of this is having a zero-byte file created whenever an upload or download is attempted. Contact the operator or administrator of the firewall and ask them to ensure that all PASV ports are open on their firewall.