Connecting to Cloud Platform with an FTP client¶

Before you begin¶

To connect with and use FTP with your Cloud Platform-based applications:

• Register your public key with Cloud Platform
  To connect to a Cloud Platform infrastructure, you must have a private/ public key pair and register the public key in Cloud Platform. For information about how to do this, see Getting started with SSH.

• Enable Live Development
  You must first enable live development to interact with your codebase on Cloud Platform using SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). For more information, see Using the Live Development mode. If you are working with files, this step isn’t necessary.

  Important

  After you make changes to your codebase using live development, you must commit all the changes to your Cloud Platform repository, or else the changes will be lost when you exit live development.

Selecting an FTP client¶

You can use any client that supports SFTP connections to remote infrastructure. Here are a few possibilities to consider:

• Cyberduck - MacOS
• Transmit - MacOS
• WinSCP - Windows

Example¶

Here is an example demonstrating how to connect to Cloud Platform with SFTP, based on WinSCP:

1. Start the WinSCP application.

2. On the WinSCP Login window, select Session and enter the following:

   

   • In File protocol, select SFTP.
   • In Host name, enter the full DNS infrastructure name of the Cloud Platform infrastructure you want to connect to. The infrastructure name is listed on the Infrastructure page of the Cloud Platform user interface. For example: ded-1234.devcloud.hosting.acquia.com.
   • In User name, enter [site].[env], where [site] is the sitename, and where [env] is the environment you want to connect to (one of prod, test, or dev).
   • In Password, do not enter any details.

3. Select Advanced.

   

4. On the Advanced Site Settings page, select Directories.

5. In Remote directory, change to the live development folder for your application’s Development environment: /mnt/gfs/[sitename].dev/livedev/docroot

6. In Local directory, change to the docroot directory in your local code repository.

7. On the Advanced Site Settings page, select Authentication.

8. In Private key file, select your private key. You must convert your SSH key into a format compatible with WinSCP. You can use PuTTYgen (which is in the WinSCP installation package) to convert your key into the .ppk format required by WinSCP. For more information, see Converting SSH keys for WinSCP.

9. Select Ok.

10. In the Save session as dialog, enter [site].[env], where [site] is the sitename, and where [env] is the environment you want to connect to (one of prod, test, or dev).

11. Select Login to connect to your Cloud Platform infrastructure.

Connecting to Cloud Next environment using SFTP¶

To connect to your Cloud Next file system through SFTP, you can use the fully qualified SSH domain name in the <USER_NAME@<HOST_NAME> format. For example,

johngalvin.next@johngalvinnext.ssh.prod.acquia-sites.com

To locate the SSH URL, access the Cloud Platform user interface and go to the Overview page of your Cloud Next environment.