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Connecting to MetaLocator SFTP
Connecting to MetaLocator SFTP

Enterprise and higher clients can send us data via Secure FTP. This article explains the connection process.

Bryan Nye avatar
Written by Bryan Nye
Updated over a week ago

To upload files in a secure manner to MetaLocator, we provide SFTP access to our Enterprise clients.  The helpdesk must create SFTP credentials for you upon request.  The helpdesk will provide a username, a hostname and a private key.  These are shared securely via LastPass.

We cannot share SFTP credentials via email for security reasons.

To connect to the SFTP repository, an SFTP client must be used.  

Ensure you have shared the IP address from which your SFTP client will be connecting with MetaLocator. If you see "Connection refused" or similar timeout errors, the MetaLocator team likely does not have or has not whitelisted your IPv4 Address.

To connect to SFTP, a username, host and key are required. No password is used in this setup.

If the host is provided by MetaLocator, it is securetransfer.metalocator.com.

The username and key will be in the instructions provided by your MetaLocator contact.

On the Linux command line, the syntax is:

sftp -i <fullPathToPrivateKey> user@securetransfer.metalocator.com

For Windows, a variety of SFTP clients are available. These instructions use WinSCP. If you have not been provided a PPK file, you must convert the PEM file to the windows PPK format to use WinSCP.

  1. Open WinSCP

  2. Click New Site

  3. Enter the provided hostname and username as shown below: 

  4. Click Advanced, and select Authentication under SSH.  Select the Private Key file (PPK). 

  5. Click Ok, then Save.  No password is provided.  Do not supply or enter a password.

  6. Click Login

At this point you may upload and/or download files as necessary.

The filename can remain the same after each upload (E.g. data.csv), or you can provide a time-stamped filename (E.g. data20221022.csv). A time-stamped name is preferrable, as it allows MetaLocator to definitively ignore files it has already processed.

Ensure the file is in UTF-8 CSV format and is ready to directly import into MetaLocator.

Once the data is uploaded, and a schedule is established to regularly update the file, notify MetaLocator that you are ready for our team to configure the SFTP Import.

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