How to deploy SFTP aliases using repo based deployment?

Hello,

we use repository based deployment to install our programs to the target IS instances. A program we created recently uses SFTP connections. The SFTP server und user aliases are defined via the IS console and stored in files located in the config folder of the server. I.e. they do not belong to an IS package but are rather “global” assets for the server.

We need to set up the SFTP aliases on the target servers and would like to do this via repository based deployment. But we’ve never deployed a “global asset” in that manner.

My questions are:

  1. What files do we need to check in in to the VCS and in what folder?

  2. How do we substitute the hosts/users/passwords? We have several target clusters. Each cluster is populated with one deployment. But each cluster has its own credentials and should access different SFTP hosts. Usually, this is dealt with via variable substitution.

  3. How will the deployed alias be merged on the target server? I.e. if I deploy the SFTP alias A and the target server already has an SFTP alias B: what aliases will be present on the target server after the deployment? A and B? Or just A?

  4. What if the server where I define all the aliases (and from which I take the config files and put them to the VCS) has, say, three aliases, but I only want to deploy one of them?

If you have any links to useful docs or tutorials, I’d appreciate it very much. I read the deployer docs, but could not understand how to do it.

Thank you.

Hi,

you might want to check the Deployer Users Guide for further informations.
There is a chapter about building composites which also refers to sftp aliases.

As long as the aliases are named uniquely they should all be present on the target.

Variable substitution is availabe when creating the map for the target server.
Be careful when deploying assets which have a relation to a password as they most likely only contain a link to a password handle which is stored in a different asset. you will have to edit the assets after deployment to the target and re-enter the password to set the password handle correctly.

Regards,
Holger

OK, I’ll read the docs once again and see how far I can come.

I hope you are wrong because that would make the deployment procedure useless. The porpose of deployment is to have a workable app on target after the deployment has completed. At least for JDBC connections we set the passwords in the course of deployment and don’t have to edit them afterwards.

From your response (thank you for that) I understand that you also don’t have a concrete example, right?

Hi,

when it is possible to specify the password in the variable substitution this will work, as the handle is then updated during deployment.

When there is no possibility to specify a variable substitution the password handle points to a not existing entry in the password database and needs to be updated manually by setting the password explicitly in the Admin UI.

Regards,
Holger