SFTP

Mover can connect to servers that accept SFTP connections. If possible, consider using an FTP/FTPS connection instead of SFTP, because it provides considerably faster performance (up to 10x).

Add a SFTP Connection

Add a new connection and select SFTP 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 22 should be used for SFTP. Only use an alternate port if you know the SFTP server requires it.

Credentials

Add your Username that you use for connecting to your SFTP server.

Mover provides several methods for authenticating with your SFTP server, whether with password or private SSH key or both.

Authenticating with Password Only

Choose this option if you log into your SFTP server with a password, but you don't also have to supply an SSH key.

Enter your password in the Password field of the connection. Your password is encrypted and stored securely within the Mover platform.

Authenticating with Existing Private Key Only

Choose this option if you connect to the SFTP server with an SSH key that you already have.

Upload the private key that Mover will use to log into the server. Your private key is encrypted and stored securely within the Mover platform.

Authenticating with New Private Key Only

Choose this option if you will connect to the SFTP server with an SSH key that does not exist.

When generating a new private key, Mover will generate a new key pair of type RSA, with 4096 bit length, and a SHA-256 hash. Your private key is encrypted and stored securely within the Mover platform.

The public portion of the new key will be presented to you, with options to copy it to your clipboard and to download it. The public key must be installed on the SFTP server in order for you to connect. Send the public key to the server's administrator.

Authenticating with Both Password and an Existing Private Key

Choose this option if you connect to the SFTP server with both a password an an SSH key, and you already have the key.

Enter your password in the Password field of the connection.

Upload the private key that Mover will use to log into the server.

Your password and private key are encrypted and stored securely within the Mover platform.

Authenticating with Both Password and a New Private Key

Choose this option if you connect to the SFTP server with both a password an an SSH key, and the key does not yet exist.

Enter your password in the Password field of the connection.

When generating a new private key, Mover will generate a new key pair of type RSA, with 4096 bit length, and a SHA-256 hash.

Your password and private key are encrypted and stored securely within the Mover platform.

The public portion of the new key will be presented to you, with options to copy it to your clipboard and to download it. The public key must be installed on the SFTP server in order for you to connect. Send the public key to the server's administrator.

Host Key Verification

Host Key Verification is set to Require server host key to match by default. This means that if the server's host key ever changes, Mover will disable the SFTP connection until you restore it by manually updating the host key. This protects your connection against Man-In-The-Middle attacks, where some other party tries to impersonate your server.

You can choose to Allow non-matching server host keys, may be required in rare instances. This behavior is insecure and not recommended.

Server Host Key

You can configure a Server Host Key for the SFTP server. If you do not provide one upon setup, we will automatically detect the server's host key the first time we connect and store it for you.

The Server Host Key is not used for user authentication. It is instead a cryptographic authentication of the SFTP server that ensures connection to the same server.

Max Connections

You can configure a maximum number of connections to the SFTP 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

Verify that you are using the correct SFTP settings for your connection. Check that the server hostname port, and authentication information are correct.

Ensure that the outbound server supports SFTP or is a SFTP server. The default SFTP port is 22, but could be a different customized port. If the connection information that was provided to you states that ports 21 or 990 should be used, then the server is a FTP/FTPS server.