SFTP

The SFTP connector lets you connect to a SFTP server and perform file transfer operations.

Before you begin

Before using the SFTP connector, do the following tasks:

• In your Google Cloud project:
  • Ensure that network connectivity is set up. For information about network patterns, see Network connectivity.
  • Grant the roles/connectors.admin IAM role to the user configuring the connector.
  • Grant the following IAM roles to the service account that you want to use for the connector:
    • roles/secretmanager.viewer
    • roles/secretmanager.secretAccessor

    A service account is a special type of Google account intended to represent a non-human user that needs to authenticate and be authorized to access data in Google APIs. If you don't have a service account, you must create a service account. For more information, see Creating a service account.

  • Enable the following services:
    • secretmanager.googleapis.com (Secret Manager API)
    • connectors.googleapis.com (Connectors API)

    To understand how to enable services, see Enabling services.

  If these services or permissions have not been enabled for your project previously, you are prompted to enable them when configuring the connector.

Configure the connector

Configuring the connector requires you to create a connection to your data source (backend system). A connection is specific to a data source. It means that if you have many data sources, you must create a separate connection for each data source. To create a connection, do the following steps:

1. In the Cloud console, go to the Integration Connectors > Connections page and then select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Go to the Connections page

2. Click + Create new to open the Create Connection page.
3. In the Location section, choose the location for the connection.
   1. Region: Select a location from the drop-down list.

      For the list of all the supported regions, see Locations.

   2. Click Next.
4. In the Connection Details section, complete the following:
   1. Connector: Select SFTP from the drop down list of available Connectors.
   2. Connector version: Select the Connector version from the drop down list of available versions.
   3. In the Connection Name field, enter a name for the Connection instance.

      Connection names must meet the following criteria:

      • Connection names can use letters, numbers, or hyphens.
      • Letters must be lower-case.
      • Connection names must begin with a letter and end with a letter or number.
      • Connection names cannot exceed 49 characters.
   4. Optionally, enter a Description for the connection instance.
   5. Optionally, enable Cloud logging, and then select a log level. By default, the log level is set to Error.
   6. Service Account: Select a service account that has the required roles.
   7. Optionally, configure the Connection node settings:
      • Minimum number of nodes: Enter the minimum number of connection nodes.
      • Maximum number of nodes: Enter the maximum number of connection nodes.

      A node is a unit (or replica) of a connection that processes transactions. More nodes are required to process more transactions for a connection and conversely, fewer nodes are required to process fewer transactions. To understand how the nodes affect your connector pricing, see Pricing for connection nodes. If you don't enter any values, by default the minimum nodes are set to 2 (for better availability) and the maximum nodes are set to 50.

   8. Remote Path: Folder path in the SFTP server.

      Consider setting this field only if you want to perform any of the entity operations like List, Create, Update, or Delete.

      If you are accessing entities (files or folders) in the root folder, or the immediate child folders of the root folder, you need not set any value to this field. However, if you want to access nested entities that are present at a depth of 2 levels or more from the root folder, you must set the value of this field to the base path of the folder that has the entities you want to access. For example, if you want to access the /folder_A/folder_B/folder_C/test.png file, you must set the Remote Path to /folder_A/folder_B/folder_C.

   9. Optionally, click + Add label to add a label to the Connection in the form of a key/value pair.
   10. Click Next.
5. In the Destinations section, enter details of the remote host (backend system) you want to connect to.
   1. Destination Type: Select a Destination Type.
      • Select Host address from the list to specify the hostname or IP address of the destination.
      • If you want to establish a private connection to your backend systems, select Endpoint attachment from the list, and then select the required endpoint attachment from the Endpoint Attachment list.

      If you want to establish a public connection to your backend systems with additional security, you can consider configuring static outbound IP addresses for your connections, and then configure your firewall rules to allowlist only the specific static IP addresses.

      To enter additional destinations, click +Add destination.

   2. Click Next.
6. In the Authentication section, enter the authentication details.
   1. Select an Authentication type and enter the relevant details.

      The following authentication types are supported by the SFTP connection:

      • Username and password
      • SSH_PUBLIC_KEY

   To understand how to configure these authentication types, see Configure authentication.

   2. Click Next.
7. Review: Review your connection and authentication details.
8. Click Create.

Configure authentication

Enter the details based on the authentication you want to use.

• Username and password
  • Username: The SFTP username to use for the connection.
  • Password: Secret Manager Secret containing the password associated with the SFTP username.

• SSH_PUBLIC_KEY
  • Username: The SFTP user account used to authenticate.
  • SSH Private Key: Private Key for SSH authentication.
  • SSH Private Key password: Passphrase/password protecting the private key, if any.
  • SSH Private Key type: Format of the Private Key.

System limitations

The SFTP connector can process 1 transaction per second, per node, and throttles any transactions beyond this limit. By default, Integration Connectors allocates 2 nodes (for better availability) for a connection.

For information on the limits applicable to Integration Connectors, see Limits.

[{
"Success":"true"
}]

[{
"Success":"true"
}]

JSON schema for payload

All the entity objects in a SFTP connection have a pre-defined JSON schema. Having a good understanding of the schema, lets you easily configure the input or output payload values. The entity objects in a SFTP connection use the following JSON schema:

  {
    "type": "object",
    "properties": {
      "FilePath": {
        "type": "string",
        "readOnly": false
      },
      "Filename": {
        "type": [
          "string",
          "null"
        ],
        "readOnly": false,
        "description": "The name of the file or directory."
      },
      "FileSize": {
        "type": [
          "number",
          "null"
        ],
        "readOnly": false,
        "description": "The size of the file."
      },
      "LastModified": {
        "type": [
          "string",
          "null"
        ],
        "readOnly": false
      },
      "IsDirectory": {
        "type": [
          "boolean",
          "null"
        ],
        "readOnly": false
      },
      "Permissions": {
        "type": [
          "string",
          "null"
        ],
        "readOnly": false
      },
      "Owner": {
        "type": [
          "string",
          "null"
        ],
        "readOnly": false
      },
      "OwnerId": {
        "type": [
          "string",
          "null"
        ],
        "readOnly": false
      },
      "Group": {
        "type": [
          "string",
          "null"
        ],
        "readOnly": false
      },
      "GroupId": {
        "type": [
          "string",
          "null"
        ],
        "readOnly": false
      }
    }
  }

Dynamic configuration of filterClause

For the List, Update, and Delete operations, you can set the value of the filterClasue input variable dynamically at runtime by using the Data Mapping task in your integration. For example, you might want to send the filter clause's value when invoking the API trigger in your integration. The following image shows a sample mapping for the filterClause variable in the Data Mapping editor of the Data Mapping task:

Use terraform to create connections

To learn how to apply or remove a Terraform configuration, see Basic Terraform commands.

To view a sample terraform template for connection creation, see sample template.

When creating this connection by using Terraform, you must set the following variables in your Terraform configuration file:

Use the SFTP connection in an integration

After you create the connection, it becomes available in both Apigee Integration and Application Integration. You can use the connection in an integration through the Connectors task.

• To understand how to create and use the Connectors task in Apigee Integration, see Connectors task.
• To understand how to create and use the Connectors task in Application Integration, see Connectors task.

Get help from the Google Cloud community

What's next

• Understand how to suspend and resume a connection.
• Understand how to monitor connector usage.
• Understand how to view connector logs.