Dedicated IP Addresses

Customers often ask for dedicated IP addresses as a way to avoid having to whitelist a huge list of IP addresses for firewall purposes.

Files.com automatically provisions a pair of dedicated IP addresses for every site that has a custom domain enabled. We do that because FTP, unlike HTTP, requires that every custom domain be hosted on a dedicated IP address in order to have a custom SSL Certificate that matches the domain.

This means that if you have users who restrict outbound access via a firewall, they will only need to whitelist your 2 dedicated IP addresses rather than our entire published list of IP addresses (see above).

Custom domains and dedicated IPs are only available on the Power and Premier plans.

Dedicated IPs, once provisioned, are used for both inbound connections to your site via your custom domain, as well as outbound connections from Files.com to Remote Servers that are used for Remote Server Sync and Remote Server Mount.

Files.com does not offer IPv6 addresses for dedicated addresses.

Dedicated IP Addresses With Files.com-provided SSL Certificates

When you use a Files.com-provided SSL certificate with a custom domain, inbound connections to your default account subdomain ([SUBDOMAIN].files.com) address will also use your dedicated IPs because your custom domain uses a CNAME pointing at the default subdomain address.

Dedicated IP Addresses With Your Own SSL Certificates

When using your own SSL certificate with a custom domain, inbound connections to the Files.com subdomain address ([SUBDOMAIN].files.com) will use the Files.com general IP pool of IP addresses. Inbound connections to your own custom domain (yoursubdomain.yourcompany.com) will use your dedicated IP addresses.

Dedicated IP Addresses For Outbound Connections from Files.com

Remote Servers can be configured to either use your dedicated IP addresses or to use the Files.com general IP pool of IP addresses. The setting for using dedicated IP addresses for remote servers applies to both our Remote Server Sync and Remote Server Mount features.

However, you can disable the use of your dedicated IP in these circumstances if you need to. You might do that if your counterparty has already whitelisted the main Files.com IP range, for example.

We will not use your dedicated IP addresses for other types of outbound connections such as webhooks, LDAP, or SMTP. Our view is that this likely isn't a priority for most customers. If you have a need to have webhooks, LDAP, or SMTP originate from a dedicated IP address, we'd love to learn more about your exact use case.

How To Get Dedicated IPs

In order to receive dedicated IP addresses for your site, you will first need to set up a custom domain. Once your custom domain is set up and active, you can look up your 2 dedicated IP addresses.

Static IP Addresses

Dedicated IP addresses are exclusive to your Files.com site and act as effectively static IP addresses, unless you remove your custom domain or change your site's primary storage region.

It is our goal to have your dedicated IPs remain the same, and we work hard to avoid having IP addresses change out from under you. In practice, dedicated IPs for our customers have remained the same for the past several years. If we ever have to make changes to your IP addresses, we will endeavor to provide advance notice.

We have implemented an automated mechanism for you to get real time notifications when a change occurs. You can achieve this by polling the /ip_addresses API endpoint shown in our API documentation. This endpoint returns a response including both our published list of IP addresses, and your site's 2 dedicated IP addresses. Our Command Line Interface (CLI) App makes this process simple.

Dedicated IP Addresses Are Region Specific

If you change the primary region where files are hosted on your Files.com site, we will issue you new IP addresses in the new region and release your old IP addresses.

Deactivating A Custom Domain

If you remove a custom domain from your site, the dedicated IPs associated with that custom domain are removed from active use and are no longer associated with your site.

Your users are still able to connect using your subdomain.files.com address as the host, but are no longer able to connect via your custom domain, and your subdomain will no longer resolve to the 2 IP addresses that were dedicated to your site.

After your custom domain is deactivated, your subdomain will resolve to an IP address from the general pool. Those users who require whitelisting in their local network firewalls or elsewhere will need to cover that entire list to ensure that they have consistent connection results.