Announcing our new on-premise agent

The Files.com team is excited to announce that integration with on-premise file systems is now available using our Files.com Agent.

The Files.com Agent allows you to integrate any supported remote system with Files.com. It provides a convenient method for securely connecting remote file systems with Files.com, allowing you to push and pull files between Files.com and on-premise file systems, including:

• locally attached storage, such as local disks and drives.
• network attached storage, such as network drives using CIFS, SMB, and NFS.

If you have on-premise applications or systems that cannot be moved to the cloud, the Files.com Agent can be used to securely integrate cloud based solutions with those applications and systems.

You can use as many agents as you require, in each of your data centers, across different geographic regions, providing you with a unified, inter-connected file transfer solution across your entire business infrastructure.

Any attached or mounted storage that the operating system has permission to access can be used with the Agent. This means that you can now integrate your SMB/CIFS network shares and your NFS mounts with Files.com.

All network communication between Files.com and the agent is performed over an encrypted connection. We've designed the agent to be just as secure as the rest of Files.com. It contains a built-in "allow list" that restricts connections to only those that come from Files.com, effectively providing the agent with a built-in firewall.

What the Files.com Agent can do for you

The Agent can be used to integrate business processes that use on-premise folders with Files.com, allowing you to:

• Use your on-premise folders, as sources or destinations, for FTP(S), SFTP, AS2, WebDAV connections.
• Use your on-premise folders, as sources or destinations, for automations and workflows.
• Use your on-premise folders as destinations for inboxes.
• Use your on-premise folders as sources for outboxes, share links, and public hosting.
• Access and interact with your on-premise folders using the Files.com web interface.
• Push, pull, or synchronize data between your on-premise folders and other storage providers such as Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Storage, Google Drive, BackBlaze B2, Box, Dropbox, Microsoft Sharepoint, Microsoft OneDrive, Rackspace Cloud Files, Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage, and more.

Deploying the Files.com Agent in your environment

You can find full details in the Files.com Agent documentation.

The on-premise Files.com Agent supports Windows, Linux, and Mac based operating systems. Although we keep saying "on-premise", the agent can be used with cloud-hosted operating systems too.

Download the Files.com CLI App and install it onto the on-premise system that has access to the folders that you wish to integrate with Files.com.

In your Files.com site, create a new Remote Server and select Files.com Agent. This will generate the configuration file for the agent and provide you with an option to download the configuration file.

The configuration file, which is in JSON format, can also be reviewed by the system administrator prior to being used.

The agent requires a single inbound network port, so you'll need to open the port on your firewall and port forward the connection to the system that the agent will be running on.

Run the Files.com Agent with the configuration file and it will let Files.com know that it is connected. Once connected, you can use our cloud-based features, such as Remote Mount and Remote Sync, to interact with your on-premise folders.

Controlling the Files.com Agent

You have complete control over the actions that the agent is allowed to perform, allowing you to configure the agent to meet you security or compliance needs.

The agent is configured by a JSON format configuration file, generated when a new agent Remote Server is created.

When the Remote Server is created, you can specify the permissions that the agent has to your on-premise file systems:

• Two way file transmission (Read and write) - Files can be sent to, and retrieved from, the Agent. Files.com will be able to create files and folders, read files and folders, update files and folders, and delete files and folders using the Agent.
• One way outbound file transmission (Read only) - Files can only be retrieved from the Agent. Files.com will be able to read files and folders using the Agent.
• One way inbound file transmission (Write only) - Files can only be sent to the Agent. Files.com will be able to create files and folders, read folders, update files and folders, and delete files and folders using the Agent.

In the configuration file, you can also restrict the agent's access to a specific folder. The agent will only be able to access files and sub-folders contained within the specified folder and will not be able to access, or see, any data held elsewhere.

The network port used by the agent can also be specified within the configuration file, allowing you to customize it to meet your network security needs.

The agent can be configured to run as a system service, allowing it to automatically start on system startup and reboot.

Availability

The Files.com Agent is now available to our subscribers.

You can use the agent today to extend the Files.com ecosystem, and its capabilities, to your on-premise, or cloud hosted, file systems.

We at Files.com are always looking at ways to improve our features and capabilities. Our new Files.com Agent was created based on feedback from our customers and we're looking forward to receiving more suggestions from you.