August 13, 2007 at 9:37 am
I need to connect to an FTP site to download a file, and load it into a SQL Server 2000 table. Acting under the clearly mistaken assumption that I could use the File Transfer Protocol Task within DTS to do this, I created a new package, added the File Transfer Protocol task to it, and entered what I thought were the correct properties. I clicked on the Files tab, and did NOT get the following message:
Unable to connect to internet! Please check the source site information, your username, and password.
I mention this because I'm working under the assumption that by not receiving the above message, I've entered the correct connection information. But when the Files tab is displayed, I don't see any files or directories, which of course makes it really difficult to transfer anything.
Now the site I'm trying to connect to isn't a publicly accessible site, so my first thought is that there's an additional parameter that's needed, or a firewall to scale, or a goat to sacrifice. Acting under that assumption, I tried to connect to a public site, like http://ftp.lucasarts.com, with the UserID of anonymous, and no password. It just hangs when I click on the File tab.
Based on the difficulty I'm having with what I thought would be a relatively simple operation, I'm sure this is just the first in a line of questions I'll have on this topic, but I need to start somewhere. So, can someone tell me exactly how I need to populate the task properties so I can get to ANY ftp site, and what I should see when I click on the Files tab?
Thanks so much for your help with what seems like an issue I should have been able to figure out.
Mattie
August 15, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Can you reach these FTP sites and see files with your web browser, a command prompt, or some FTP software like Filezilla? If not, the problem isn't with the FTP Task, it's with your computer.
To use the FTP Task, you need to do the following:
On the location tab:
1) Select "Internet Site" from the Source drop-down
2) Enter FTP site address, username, and password
3) Enter the destination directory path (where you want files downloaded to)
On the Files tab:
4) Select the files you want to download from the Source list and click the arrow box so they're moved to the Destination list.
August 16, 2007 at 7:17 am
Hi Erik,
Thanks so much for responding. The answer to your question is yes: While I cannot access any site using the DTS task, I can access at least one of them using Internet Explorer.
We don't use FTP very much around here, and if I need to do anything remotely complicated, I use the WS-FTP software we've purchased. Unfortunately, I don't think installing it on the server that would need it is an option for this project. Anyway, I looked at every other post I could find that seemed to address this issue, and I tried to just connect to a site using command line FTP. Figuring if I couldn't get to Microsoft, I couldn't get anywhere, so here's what I typed in at the command prompt, and here's what I got back. What I entered is in red, and what the server responded with is in green.
FTP
connected to http://ftp.microsoft.com
220 microsoft FTP service
User (ftp.microsoft.com: (none)):
ANONYMOUS
331 anonymous access allowed, send identify (e-mail name) as password
Password:
(pressed enter key)
230-Welcome to http://FTP.MICROSOFT.COM. Also visit http:/www.microsoft.com./downloads
230-Anonymous user logged in
cd deskapps/games/public
250 CWD command successful
ls
200 PORT command successful
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for file list
and then it hangs. So while I think that explains the behavior from within SQL Server, it really doesn't point me in the direction I need to resolve this.
Now when I use WS-FTP to connect to the same site, I have no problem displaying the directories and files. But one of the commands it generates is
PASV
227 Entering passive mode (207,46, 236, 102, 55, 147)
and frankly, I see that command generated by WS-FTP on every site I connect to. So is that a setting peculiar to my computer, or the way our network is set up? It seems fairly obvious to me that this is not a SQL programming issue, but unless I can define the area it is an issue for, help is the last thing I'll get from our 'help' desk.
So can anyone help me put into the correct technical jargon what the issue is here?
Thanks,
Mattie
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