topic Manual FTP transfers are always corrupted while scheduled backups are not in General Topics

Manual FTP transfers are always corrupted while scheduled backups are not

P_Williams — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 08:31:57 GMT

Hi,

We have an issue where whenever I manually try to ftp files from our gateways or SMS to an ftp server that the file is always corrupted.

We also have scheduled ftp backups configured on these gateways etc to the same ftp server with the same credentials and the same destination folder and those backups are always fine.

When I do a manual transfer I just use the default

#ftp <ip-address>

>put <file-name>

And there is never any failure message within the transfer. But when I try to extract the file I get 'Data error: <file name>'

Are there commands within the ftp 'mode' that I can play around with to see if I can get it working? I dont really want to play around on the ftp server as the scheduled backups are fine and I dont want that broken.

I do have a workaround in place where I can use WinSCP to get the files off but a standard backup transfer will typically take an hour + to complete. It is impractical to transfer snapshots this way as it can take 2+ days to complete a cluster and by that time the snapshots are getting to be out of date.

Re: Manual FTP transfers are always corrupted while scheduled backups are not

the_rock — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 11:03:01 GMT

Let me test this in the lab and I will let you know.

Andy

Re: Manual FTP transfers are always corrupted while scheduled backups are not

the_rock — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 11:37:39 GMT

Hey @P_Williams

Just tested in my lab, both R81.20 and R82, no issues. Not sure what sort of rule you have for this, but if you are using speicfic ftp service, make sure it is ftp-bidir one. If that does not work, clone the service and chose protocol as -none.

Andy

Re: Manual FTP transfers are always corrupted while scheduled backups are not

Bob_Zimmerman — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 15:29:09 GMT

It's likely your FTP client is defaulting to ASCII mode. That breaks most files. Be sure to issue the command 'binary' before the 'put'.

For files compressed with gzip, the program 'fixgz' attempts to fix the file. I've never personally had it fail to fix a gzip file transferred in ASCII mode, but I don't know if it has been rigorously proven that it always fixes such files.

Re: Manual FTP transfers are always corrupted while scheduled backups are not

P_Williams — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 15:38:15 GMT

Hi Bob,

That appears to have fixed it, certainly for the small test file I have just tested with. I will have a go with a full backup after the weekend, but it is looking good.

Thank you!