Enter search queries below or use the tag links to the right to browse the knowledge base by category (Show All Tags).
Enabling extended SFTP options on Dovetailed Technologies Co:Z SFTP Server
The Dovetailed Technologies Co:Z Co-Processing Toolkit for IBM's z/OS includes non-standard SFTP extensions to allow access to certain z/OS-specific features, including z/OS datasets and spool files. Robo-FTP also has enhancements that will allow access to these features, though there are differences between Robo-FTP and the Co:Z SFTP client in how such access is obtained.
Consider the task of enabling "text" transfer mode. This mode treats each transferred file as a text file. Each file is converted to the server's codepage on upload, and converted to the client's codepage on download. Additional text conversions are also performed if the appropriate option is provided.
An example is given in the Dovetailed Technologies Co:Z SFTP documentation (Co:Z SFTP - User's Guide) for such a conversion. The following Co:Z SFTP client session will (1) set the transfer mode to "text" and override the default client codepage by explicitly setting it to UTF-8, and (2) transfer the sftp-server.rc file to the client computer while performing the specified text conversion on the fly:
sftp> ls /+mode=text,clientcp=UTF-8
/+mode=text,clientcp=UTF-8
sftp> get .ssh/sftp-server.rc
Fetching /u/user/.ssh/sftp-server.rc to sftp-server.rc
/u/user/.ssh/sftp-server.rc 100% 234 0.2KB/s 00:00
These same operations can be performed through Robo-FTP. First, we enable the transfer mode options. In the Dovetailed Technologies Co:Z SFTP client, these options are issued through the "ls" command, with each individual option separated by commas (as shown above). In contrast, when connected over SFTP, such non-standard options must be issued through Robo-FTP's "FTPCD" command. With Robo-FTP, the transfer mode is then enabled like so:
FTPCD "/+mode=text,clientcp=UTF-8"
Following that, we proceed to download the file using ordinary Robo-FTP commands:
FTPCD ".ssh"
RCVFILE "sftp-server.rc"
The Co:Z SFTP Server supports many non-standard options. Consult the Co:Z SFTP documentation for more information.
Article last updated: 2021-03-29
Tags: Co:Z, Dovetailed Technologies, z/OS, SFTP