SFTP

SFTP is popular for business to business integration, and we are proud to support it.

SmartFile SFTP Server Details

SmartFile includes a proprietary SFTP server software that we build and maintain in-house using our full-time employees.

SCP (Secure Copy) Protocol

SmartFile's SFTP server also supports the SCP protocol, another file transfer protocol that is built on top of SSH. For purposes of most interactions with SmartFile, SCP will work exactly the same as SFTP.

SSH Restrictions

Functionality is restricted to only SFTP and SCP capabilities. This means that only the file transfer related capabilities of SSH are allowed, such as using SFTP or SCP to transfer files, and SSH Keys for authentication.

There are no other SSH services provided. SSH capabilities such as shell access or SSH tunneling are unavailable, preventing their use in any way.

Security scans will detect SSH availability as a "false positive" result. This is because SFTP and SCP are subsets of SSH functionality. No SSH capabilities, other than those required by SFTP and SCP, are available on the SmartFile platform.

Host Key

SFTP (and its underlying protocol) SSH have a concept of Host Keys, which is a way for clients to confirm using secure cryptography that they are connecting to the correct server (host).

Ordinarily in SSH, each host will use a unique host key that is generated by and associated with each host.

However, in a business-to-business service such as SFTP, it is best to use one single host key persistently over time so clients always recognize the service when connecting.