Client Documentation
TerminologyΒΆ
While using this document you will come across a set of concepts and terms from the secure file transfer domain. You might already know and understand some of the terms, while the meaning for others will be unclear.
This section tries to describe the meaning and usage of these special concepts and terms.
- client
- A remote party initiating connections to the server and requesting file management operations.
- configuration file
- A file on local filesystem used for storing configuration options.
- configuration option
- A distinct entry from a configuration file describing client behaviour.
- credentials
- A pair of username/secret used for authorizing a client session. secret can be a password, a SSH key, a SSL private key/certificate or take other forms.
- curl
- A command-line tool for transferring files in batch mode. It supports various Internet protocols, including HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS. It is provided as part of cURL project.
- event
- A unique identifiable actions occured while client is operating.
- event log
- A series of events stored in cronological order. The storage can be a file, a Unix SysLog server or Windows Event Log Service.
- OpenSSL
- An open-source implementation of the SSL and TLS protocols.
- operating system service
- This is a long running background OS process that don’t interact with keyboard, mouse or monitor. On Unix they are also called daemons, while on Windows they are called Windows services.
- process
- The operating system process under which the SFTPPlus client is executed.
- protocol
- The rules defining how client and server interact for performing file transfer operations.
- psftp
- A command-line tool for transfering files in interactive or batch mode, using SCP or SFTP protocol. It is provided a part of Putty project.
- server
- The sum of all services interacting between them or with external clients in order to perform file management operations.
- service acount
- The operating system account used for running the main SFTPPlus Client process.
- transfer definition
- A special purpose configuration file used for defining the rules for a single transfer.
- transfer / session
The sum of all actions performed while executing the rules defined inside a transfer definition file. A session starts when new files are detected on remote or local folders and ends when all files described inside the transfer definition are processed.
The terms transfer and session are interchargable.
- transfer operation
- A single file management command taking place inside a client session. For example listing the content of a folder is one transfer operation, while downloading the content of a file is another one.