(S)FTP a file [feature-request]

[simonalexander2005]

Some of my IIB flows use a File Input node, and therefore the ability to automate the FTP of a file as a step in a test sequence would be useful

[zheng-wang]

Right, will need to find some time to implement this.

[zheng-wang]

FTP is to be supported.

One question about (S)FTP. Do you actually mean FTPS (FTP over SSL)? SFTP is fundamentally a different protocol (SSH File Transfer Protocol) which means your IIB flows (with File Input node) run on Linux/Unix which uses SFTP to receive files from the source application.

[simonalexander2005]

I did mean SFTP. Actually all it means is that the file server is a unix server - the IIB nodes could still run on Windows. The protocol here is about the connection between irontest and the file server.

In my java code I use apache commons vfs to connect to file servers over ftp/sftp, and it's pretty simple that way.

The reason for this is that I don't have a huge amount of control over our test environments. Some allow basic FTP for uploading the test files, but others require an SFTP connection - and so it would be helpful if irontest could support both. But just FTP would be a good start.

[zheng-wang]

Alright, I'll probably create two types of steps to support FTP and SFTP.

[zheng-wang]

On the other hand. Upload is to be supported. How about download? Is it used widely in your work? If yes, what sort of assertions are you currently making against the downloaded files?

[zheng-wang]

FTP test step has been implemented in v0.14.0.

[simonalexander2005]

Thank you for implementing FTP. I would appreciate the option to download, and also to delete a file from the server. Mostly I just need to check that a file with a given name exists at a certain location; but comparing content against text (the same assertions as we have for an MQ message, for example) would also be useful.

[zheng-wang]

Right, no question for download. Will implement it.

Can I know more details about how you would use delete in a test case? Or you use it on an ad hoc basis (i.e. not in test automation) to avoid switching to or from other FTP tools frequently?

[simonalexander2005]

I would use delete for clean-up. e.g. I am running a test on an MQ flow that results in files being created, which need to be deleted before the test can be run again. So I would like to automate that step, either at the start or the end of the test.

[zheng-wang]

Ok, will implement delete as well.