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SFTP Bulk

Availability:
Available Airbyte CloudAvailable Airbyte OSSAvailable PyAirbyte
Support Level:
Marketplace
Connector Version:
1.6.0(Last updated 5 days ago)
CDK Version:
6.6.7
Sync Success Rate:
Usage Rate:

This page contains the setup guide and reference information for the SFTP Bulk source connector.

The SFTP Bulk connector offers several features that are not available in the standard SFTP source connector:

  • Bulk ingestion of files: This connector can consolidate and process multiple files as a single data stream in your destination system.
  • Incremental loading: This connector supports incremental loading, allowing you to sync files from the SFTP server to your destination based on their creation or last modification time.
  • Load most recent file: You can choose to load only the most recent file from the designated folder path. This feature is particularly useful when dealing with snapshot files that are regularly added and contain the latest data.

Prerequisites​

  • Access to a remote server that supports SFTP
  • Host address
  • Valid username and password associated with the host server

Setup guide​

Set up SFTP Bulk​

Step 1: Set up SFTP authentication​

To set up the SFTP connector, you will need to select at least one of the following authentication methods:

  • Your username and password credentials associated with the server.
  • A private/public key pair.

To set up key pair authentication, follow these steps:

  1. Open your terminal or command prompt and use the ssh-keygen command to generate a new key pair.

    note

    If your operating system does not support the ssh-keygen command, you can use a third-party tool like PuTTYgen to generate the key pair instead.

  2. You will be prompted for a location to save the keys, and a passphrase to secure the private key. You can press enter to accept the default location and opt out of a passphrase if desired. Your two keys will be generated in the designated location as two separate files. The private key will usually be saved as id_rsa, while the public key will be saved with the .pub extension (id_rsa.pub).

  3. Use the ssh-copy-id command in your terminal to copy the public key to the server.

ssh-copy-id <username>@<server_ip_address>

Be sure to replace your specific values for your username and the server's IP address.

note

Depending on factors such as your operating system and the specific SSH implementation your remote server uses, you may not be able to use the ssh-copy-id command. If so, please consult your server administrator for the appropriate steps to copy the public key to the server.

  1. You should now be able to connect to the server via the private key. You can test this by using the ssh command:
ssh <username>@<server_ip_address>

For more information on SSH key pair authentication, please refer to the official documentation.

Set up the SFTP Bulk connector in Airbyte​

For Airbyte Cloud:​

  1. Log into your Airbyte Cloud account.
  2. Click Sources and then click + New source.
  3. On the Set up the source page, select SFTP Bulk from the Source type dropdown.
  4. Enter a name for the SFTP Bulk connector.
  5. Enter the Host Address.
  6. Enter your Username
  7. Enter your authentication credentials for the SFTP server (Password or Private Key). If you are authenticating with a private key, you can upload the file containing the private key (usually named rsa_id) using the Upload file button.
  8. In the section titled "The list of streams to sync", enter a Stream Name. This will be the name of the stream that will be created in your destination. Add additional streams by clicking "Add".
  9. For each stream, select in the dropdown menu the File Type you wish to sync. Depending on the format chosen, you'll see a set of options specific to the file type. You can read more about specifics to each file type below.
  10. (Optional) Provide a Start Date using the provided datepicker, or by entering the date in the format YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss.SSSSSSZ. Incremental syncs will only sync files modified/added after this date.
  11. (Optional) Specify the Host Address. The default port for SFTP is 2​2. If your remote server is using a different port, enter it here. (Optional) Determine the Folder Path. This determines the directory to search for files in, and defaults to "/". If you prefer to specify a specific folder path, specify the directory on the remote server to be synced. For example, given the file structure:
Root
| - logs
|   | - 2021
|   | - 2022
|
| - files
|   | - 2021
|   | - 2022

An input of /logs/2022 will only replicate data contained within the specified folder, ignoring the /files and /logs/2021 folders. Leaving this field blank will replicate all applicable files in the remote server's designated entry point. You may choose to enter a regular expression to specify a naming pattern for the files to be replicated. Consider the following example:

log-([0-9]{4})([0-9]{2})([0-9]{2})

This pattern will filter for files that match the format log-YYYYMMDD, where YYYY, MM, and DD represented four-digit, two-digit, and two-digit numbers, respectively. For example, log-20230713. Leaving this field blank will replicate all files not filtered by the previous two fields.

  1. Click Set up source to complete setup. A test will run to verify the configuration.

For Airbyte Open Source:​

  1. Navigate to the Airbyte Open Source dashboard.
  2. Click Sources and then click + New source.
  3. On the Set up the source page, select SFTP Bulk from the Source type dropdown.
  4. Enter a name for the SFTP Bulk connector.

File-specific Configuration​

Depending on your File Type selection, you will be presented with a few configuration options specific to that file type.

For JSONL, Parquet, and Document File Type formats, you can specify the Glob pattern used to specify which files should be selected from the file system. If your provided Folder Path already ends in a slash, you need to add that double slash to the glob where appropriate.

For example, assuming your folder path is not set in the connector configuration and your files are located in the root folder, use a glob pattern like //my_prefix_*.csv to specify your file. If your files are in a folder, include the folder in your glob pattern, like //my_folder/my_prefix_*.csv.

If your files are in a folder, include the folder in your glob pattern, like my_folder/my_prefix_*.csv.

Copy Raw Files Configuration​

info

The raw file replication feature has the following requirements and limitations:

  • Supported Airbyte Versions:
    • Cloud: All Workspaces
    • OSS / Enterprise: v1.2.0 or later
  • Max File Size: 1GB per file
  • Supported Destinations:
    • S3: v1.4.0 or later

Copy raw files without parsing their contents. Bits are copied into the destination exactly as they appeared in the source. Recommended for use with unstructured text data, non-text and compressed files.

Format options will not be taken into account. Instead, files will be transferred to the file-based destination without parsing underlying data.

Supported sync modes​

The SFTP Bulk source connector supports the following sync modes:

FeatureSupportNotes
Full Refresh - Overwrite✅
Full Refresh - Append Sync✅
Incremental - Append✅
Incremental - Append + Deduped❌

Supported Streams​

This source provides a single stream per file with a dynamic schema. The current supported type files are Avro, CSV, JSONL, Parquet, and Document File Type Format.

Reference​

Config fields reference

Field
Type
Property name
array<object>
streams
string
host
string
username
object
credentials
string
start_date
object
delivery_method
integer
port
string
folder_path

Changelog​

Expand to review
VersionDatePull RequestSubject
1.6.02024-12-1749826Increase individual file size limit.
1.5.02024-12-0248434Add get_file method for file-transfer feature.
1.4.02024-10-3146739make private key an airbyte secret.
1.3.02024-10-3147703Update dependency to CDK v6 with ability to transfer files.
1.2.02024-09-0346323Update dependency to CDK v5
1.1.02024-08-1444028Update dependency to CDK v4
1.0.12024-05-2938703Avoid error on empty stream when running discover
1.0.02024-03-2236256Migrate to File-Based CDK. Manage dependencies with Poetry.
0.1.22023-04-1919224Support custom CSV separators
0.1.12023-03-1724180Fix field order
0.1.02021-24-0517691Initial version
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