A Recipe for SFTP

Ingredients:

• Server (Select your own hardware; recommend Server class machine)
• Operating System (recommend Windows 2003, 2008 various flavors)
• *Licensed operational Titan Enterprise or MFT Server (other SFTP Servers can be used but not as flavorful as Titan)
• Port 22
• Client SFTP software (we like to use WebDrive; Mac or Windows flavor)
• 2 Host Key Pair, 1 for Server and 1 for Client
• 1 Password for Private Key pair (required for Titan Server)

*Note if you attempt to use single Licensed Titan Server in the same recipe, you will receive bad results

Preparation Time: 1 – 2 hours

Prep:

On your Server class machine, install your Operating system with either Windows 2003 or 2008 flavor, some people even like it with Windows XP.

Refer to: our Titan Host Key Quick Start Guide (Steps 1 – 7) for detailed instructions on preparing your Titan Server with SFTP.

Now that your Titan Server is ready, now you can add SFTP to make it incredible.

To make SFTP (SSH’s Secure File Transfer Protocol) on this server select this check box and choose the port number using the up/down arrows. Choose the host key set by using the drop down arrow. To use SFTP services, you will need a host key pair that will be used by the Titan FTP Server. Use the Host Key Management utility to either create a new host key pair to be used by the Titan FTP Server or to import an existing host key pair from an external file set. Once you have created a host key pair, select it from the list and then type the password associated with the host key.

*Port 22 is reserved for SSH (Secure Shell)/SFTP and is the default/recommended port.

Depending on your taste, choose your Host Key Type flavor: select a DSA host keys (must be 1024 bits in length), or  RSA keys, which do not have this restriction and can range from 512 bits in length to 4096 bits in length. A longer key length provides better taste, but takes longer to serve.  Shorter keys aren’t as good, but you can serve it quickly.

Now add the finishing touches to your Titan server, and then you are ready to serve your guests.

Before your guests can experience your server, they must use a password or a host key.  You’ll have to add the final component to the server to make this easier for your guests.

We recommend you support both Password Authentication and Public Key Authentication (meaning that client can use either Password OR Public Key Authentication), then select the Allow Trusted Host Keys option and deselect the Require Trusted Host Keys option, but depending on your taste, select what you like.

Before serving your guests, navigate to the guest’s public key filename and click.

* Note that the client host key pair will be created by each individual client.

They will then need to export their Public Host Key in SSH2 or OpenSSH format and send that .pub file to the Titan Administrator so that it can be imported into the Titan Host Key Database.

Make sure your server is started prior to serving.  Enjoy!

The Perfect Help Desk Ticket

Perfect – accurate, exact, or correct in every detail. As a society, we are always striving for perfection. The perfect date, the perfect car, or shall I dare say it, the perfect application. We strive for perfection because we believe it will make life easier. Here at South River Technologies, we strive for perfection every day. In my role as Technical Support Engineer, I want to provide accurate and correct advice to resolve your issue, but in order to do that, I need accurate and exact information.

In order to provide the best customer service, here is a step-by-step guide on creating the perfect Help Desk ticket. If you follow these steps, you will probably get your tickets resolved much faster, freeing you up to handle other technical issues. But before I show you how to submit the Perfect Help Desk ticket, let me give you an example of a bad Help Desk ticket, so you can see the difference.

Bad Ticket:

“I came in this morning and everything is down, so no one can log in even after a restart. Please help.”

There are so many problems with this ticket. Let’s start with the introduction. It’s imperative that you always open a Help Desk ticket with your name and contact information. What operating system are you using? Include Service Pack level and if it’s 32 versus 64-bit. What software?  Is it our Titan product, or maybe WebDrive? Include the version, for example, “Titan MFT ver. 7.11 build 879 with the WebUI.” This type of information will help narrow down the scope so I can begin to focus on what the issue could be. Now,  let’s get to the heart of the ticket: the description of the problem. “No one can log in even after a restart” is too vague. For example, if this is a Titan issue, did you restart the service or did you restart the Windows server? How do your users log in? Are they using  Active Directory accounts? Or are Native accounts maintained in the Titan database? This will allow us to focus more accurately on the problem and to quickly find a solution.

Here are the steps:

1) introduce yourself,

2) include as much information as possible about all of the equipment involved in the problem, for example, “Titan MFT ver. 7.11 build 879 on Windows 2003 (32bit) server SP 2 with latest Microsoft Security patches behind a Cisco ASA 5500 firewall”,

3) a clear description of the problem, for example, “after a power failure in our building, our Domain server rebooted and now the Titan service doesn’t appear to be loading,” and

4) include your location; SRT has a presence all over the world, so please include your location and time zone and good contact information, so we know when it’s best to reach you.

Now that we are armed with our 4 steps, let’s re-submit the ticket.

Perfect Ticket:

“I’m John Smith with Widget World in Wichita, Kansas and last night a Lightening storm came through and knocked out the power to our building. Unfortunately, our UPS failed and we were unable to gracefully shut-down our LAN. This morning upon arrival, all 200 of our Domain users (we are running Windows 2003 AD server SP 2 32bit with security patches up to May of 2009) could not login to our Titan MFT server with WebUI, it is version 7.11 build 879. We have an FTP (in PASV mode behind a CISCO ASA 5500 firewall) and a SFTP server configured both using ADSI Authentication, and they both appear offline as well. We did restart the Active Directory server but still no one can log in. For your convenience, I have attached a Titan debug level log taken after the server came back online for you to review. This is urgent and you can reach me on my Blackberry @ (222) 555-9033 (CST). Thank you.”

We may not have the perfect car, the perfect commute, or even the perfect kid, but we can have the Perfect Ticket!