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    Axcient Knowledgebase  /  Axcient x360Recover  /  Direct-to-Cloud: Backup with no appliance  /  D2C Technical FAQs  /  4. Recover with D2C  /   FTPS for file and folder recovery

    FTPS for file and folder recovery

    x360Recover

    Super Administrator

    Written By Tami Sutcliffe (Super Administrator)

    Updated at March 14th, 2024

    Overview 

    Improve the bulk data recovery experience  

    One of the major pain points reported with x360Recover backups is the relative inefficiency of recovering data using the classic File Browser mechanism.

    File Browser was originally built to download a few document files, or a couple of virtual disk images. More efficient iSCSI connections were meant to be used for any bulk data recovery or bare metal restores (BMR). Unfortunately, this means File Browser isn't ideal as the primary means for cloud recovery of endpoints. 

    To improve this experience, we introduced support for file and folder recovery over FTPS.

    Advantages of the FTP recovery method :

    • Available on both appliances and vaults
    • Robust native internet protocol specifically designed for file and folder transfers
    • Optimized for performance over internet connections
    • Interrupted downloads can be resumed in place
    • Suitable for very large files or many folders

    Disadvantages of this FTP recovery method:

    • Doesn’t preserve original file and folder permissions
    • Requires an FTPS client application on the user system
    • May require additional configuration of the FTPS client for optimal performance 
       

    What is FTP? And what is FTPS?

    • FTP (File-Transfer-Protocol) predates the public internet and is actually older than the HTTP (Hyper-Text-Transport-Protocol) we are all familiar with in everyday web browsing. FTP is an internet protocol specifically designed for managing files on a remote server host. Most FTP clients look and act like the operating system file explorer which most users are familiar with.    
    • FTPS is essentially secure FTP. 
    Note: Do not confuse FTPS with SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP.)  SFTP is a totally different protocol for transferring files based on SSH and is not related to FTP at all. x360Recover supports only FTPS.

    What can FTP do?

    FTP has attributes that make it superior to HTTP for managing remote file operations:

    • By default, FTP supports browsing and traversing a folder tree
    • FTP file transfers can be resumed when interrupted
    • FTP supports segmented multi-threaded file transfers for better performance

    Native support for recursive download of entire folders


    FTP Clients – Show hidden files

    NOTE: Most FTP clients default to NOT showing files flagged as ‘hidden’ in the file system.

    When performing file and folder recovery using FTP, be sure to enable display of hidden files so that you can see and retrieve all files present in the backup.

    • WinSCP (including the LFTP4WIN distribution of WinSCP)

    To enable display of hidden files within WinSCP:

    1. Click Options from the top menu bar and select Preferences.  

    2. Click Panels from the side menu and check the box Show hidden files.

    • Filezilla

    To enable Filezilla to display of hidden files:

    1. Click Server from the top menu

    2. Click to enable Force showing hidden files.


     to enable FTPS in x360Recover

    How to enable FTPS in x360Recover

    a.)  Log in to your x360Recover vault or appliance and navigate to the details page of any protected system.

    b.) Select a snapshot and click Mount or Export to stage recovery data that you wish to download.  

    c.) Navigate to the Network Sharing page from the left menu.  

    d.) Ensure that Enable FTPS is checked to enable this feature. (See example below.)

    e.) Locate the user entry in the table.

    • On an appliance, the user will always be the client account this device is registered to
    • On a vault, the user might be any client account that has data replicated to it.   

    Note: When no snapshots are mounted or exported, no FTPS user accounts will exist, and the list will be empty.  

    f.)  Click Show Password to unhide the FTP user account password.  (See illustration above)

    • Once the FTPS server is enabled, a Users name and Password will be presented for access. 
    • Passwords are generated randomly, each time the user account is created when activating a snapshot for recovery.

    Note: Whenever any snapshots are actively mounted or exported as virtual disks, the password is obscured by default for security. 

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    How to install an FTP client

    To use FTPS, you must first install an FTP client.

    IMPORTANT:  By default, most FTP clients are NOT configured to preserve the original time stamp of files being transferred. If you need to preserve the original file system time stamp on files being downloaded for recovery, you must adjust the default settings for your FTP client. For instructions on how to do this, please see Enable FTP client timestamps.

    We recommend using LFTP, a light-weight text-based FTP client for Linux that is heavily optimized for speed and performance, including segmented downloads by default. 

    LFTP4WIN, an open-source project that has streamlined the delivery of LFTP for use on Windows machines, by combining a minimalist deployment of Cygwin with an extensively customized version of WinSCP. With this combination, the project has provided an easy-to-use GUI user interface (in the form of a customized WinSCP) with the high-performance download capability of LFTP running on Windows.  

    Read more about LFTP4WIN here: LFTP4WIN: Linux FTP client for Windows

    Get the zipped installation script file here:      

    LFTW4WIN-installer.cmd  

    You will need to unzip the file after you download it.

    Additional free FTP client options:

    Filezilla

    Filezilla is probably the best known free open-source FTP client.  Filezilla is full-featured, cross-platform, user-friendly, and has a large open-source community supporting and maintaining it. 

    • You can download Filezilla for Windows here.

    How to work with files and folders in Filezilla

    To make a connection to the server, complete the Host, Username, and Password fields at the top of the window 

    You may leave Port blank and accept the default.

    Click on Quickconnect to continue.

    NOTE: The host should be the IP address or FQDN of your vault or appliance.

    Hint:   All Axcient-hosted vaults have an FQDN address in the following form:

    rb-<partner><instance number>.rb.<datacenter>.efscloud.net 

    For example:

    rb-pmteam4.rb.atl.efscloud.net

    Navigate in Filezilla

    Once connected, the local and remote file system data will be presented in the user interface.

    1. Local file system items are located in the window on the left
    2. Remote filesystem items are located in the window on the right.   
    3. Command and control status and results will be shown in the top window
    4. File transfer activity will be displayed in the bottom window.

    After connection, the right window pane will display the folders available for the client who is currently logged in.

    • Exported virtual disk images will be located in the ExportedVMs folder
    • Mounted snapshots will be located in the MountedVolumes folder.  

    The folder structure is the same as that presented in the classic File Browser via the web interface.  

    To navigate folders in Filezilla:

    • Double click a folder to traverse into it. 
    • Double click the ‘..’ folder to move back up a level
    • Click directly on a folder tree location in the upper window to move to that filesystem location.
    • You can also click directly on the desired local filesystem location (where you wish to recover files or folders)
    • Double click a file (or right-click and select Download on any file or folder) to add to the queue and begin downloading.  

    Set multiple simultaneous (concurrent) downloads in Filezilla

    Filezilla supports multi-threaded downloads (which means multiple files can be downloaded simultaneously.) By default, two simultaneous downloads are allowed, but you can change this setting to suit your preferences.   

    • Click Edit -> Settings
    • Select Transfers
    • Edit the Maximum simultaneous transfers setting to allow more or less concurrent downloads.  

    Note: Within this window, you may also set bandwidth throttling limitations for uploads or downloads .

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    WinSCP

    Another popular free open-source Windows client, WinSCP supports multiple protocols, including SSH, SFTP, FTPS, Google Cloud, and Amazon S3.  

    • You can download WinSCP here.

    How to work with files and folders in WinSCP

    To make a connection to the server:

    • Click New Site
    • Select FTP as the File protocol
    • Choose TLS/SSL Explicit encryption as the Encryption method
    • Enter the Host name.
    • Accept the default value for Port number.
    • Enter the User name.
    • Enter the Password.
    • Click Login at the bottom of the window to connect.

    NOTE: The host should be the IP address or FQDN of your vault or appliance.

    Hint:   All Axcient-hosted vaults have an FQDN address in the following form:

    rb-<partner><instance number>.rb.<datacenter>.efscloud.net 

    For example:

    rb-pmteam4.rb.atl.efscloud.net

    Navigate in WinSCP

    Once connected, local and remote filesystem data will be presented within the user interface.   

    • Local filesystem items are located in the window on the left.
    • Remote filesystem items are located in the window on the right.  

    After connection, the right window pane will display the folders available for the client who is currently logged in.

    • Exported virtual disk images will be located in the ExportedVMs folder
    • Mounted snapshots will be located in the MountedVolumes folder.  

    The folder structure is the same as that presented in the classic File Browser via the web interface. 

    To navigate folders in WinSCP:

    • Double click a folder to traverse into it. 
    • Double click the ‘..’ folder to move back up a level
    • Use the folder tree dropdown in the toolbar to move to another filesystem location
    • Navigate to a desired local filesystem location (where you wish to recover files or folders) by using the folder tree dropdown selector in the toolbar.
    • Double-click a file, click to select a file and press <F5>, or right-click and select Download on any file or folder to queue it and begin downloading

     Specify your Transfer settings and click OK to start the download.  

    To queue up multiple files or folders for download in WInSCP

    Check the Transfer in background checkbox. This will add the selected files to the queue. 

    You may also 

    (a) hold down the <CTRL> key

    (b) click to select multiple files and then

    (c) press <F5> to queue them for download.

    Download progress will be displayed in a popup dialog.

    If you are transferring multiple files in the background, the background transfers window pane will be displayed on the bottom of the application window.

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    Other commercial FTP client options (that you have to pay for) include CuteFTP Pro and SmartFTP Pro.

     

     

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