When adding a new Remote Server for SFTP, you'll need to provide the correct connection and authentication information.

After your Remote Server is added, you can integrate it with Files.com as either a Remote Server Mount or Remote Server Sync.

SFTP Hostname

You can provide a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or an IP address. The hostname must be resolvable from the public internet.

SFTP Port

Most of the time, the default port value of 22 should be used for SFTP. Only use an alternate port if you know the remote server requires it.

SFTP Authentication

Files.com can authenticate to the remote SFTP server using a username and password, a private key, or both.

Select the appropriate authentication method for the remote server.

If providing a Private Key, Files.com currently requires that you provide it in OpenSSH format, PuTTY (.ppk), or SSH2 format.

When generating a new private key, we will generate a new key pair of type RSA, with 4096 bit length, and a SHA-256 hash. The public portion of the new key will be presented to you, with options to copy it to your clipboard and to download it. Send this to the administrator of the remote SFTP server, to be installed for use by the account corresponding with the specified username.

Authentication information, including passwords and SSH/SFTP keys, are encrypted while stored within Files.com and cannot be accessed by Files.com employees.

Server Host Key

You can configure a Server Host Key for the remote server. If you do not provide one upon setup, we will automatically detect the server's host key and store it for you.

The host key provides cryptographic authentication of the remote host, ensuring that we are connecting to the same remote server (or pool of servers) every time.

A Server Host Key is not the same as a Public or Private Key pair for user authentication. Those are a separate key related to the user. Server Host Keys apply to the entire remote server and not a specific remote user.

Changes to a Server Host Key

By default, if the server's host key ever changes, Files.com will disable the Remote SFTP connection until you restore it by manually updating the host key. This protects your connection against Man-In-The-Middle attacks, where some other party tries to impersonate your server.

You may also configure Files.com to allow non-matching server host keys. This behavior is insecure and not recommended.

Maximum Number of Connections

You can configure a maximum number of connections that Files.com will make at a time to the remote SFTP server. We recommend the default value of 25, as this will provide the a high level of parallelism, which improves performance.

Some server administrators will request that you reduce this number to reduce the pressure on their server. Be aware that reducing it too low will reduce performance because requests may have to wait for a free connection before they are able to complete.

Files.com will use best efforts to honor the maximum number specified here, though it may still burst above this number on certain occasions, such as when moving the connection to another one of our gateway servers internally. As a cloud-based service, we often reconfigure our network in real time to provide optimized performance. If we ever go above this number, you should expect the connection count to return to the specified number promptly.

Dedicated IPs

If your site has been configured with a Custom Domain and Dedicated IP addresses then you can choose to connect to this remote server using those IP addresses.

Data Regional Routing

If your site has been configured for Data Regional Routing then you can choose to connect to this remote server from your non-US region.