Dynamics AX 2009: How to FTP from a batch job on an AOS

Question

After quite a few searches for ways to FTP files in AX, I was happy to discover the WinInet class, which is more or less just a wrapper for the .DLL of the same name. I thought my problems were solved! I was not aware, however, that the class had a major Achilles heel -- it doesn't run in batch (on a server).

Can anybody point me in the right direction? Specifically, I want to upload (FTP put) a file to another server in a server-run batch job (running as a service user with admin rights to the file in question). Anybody?

Answer 1

There is another example of using .NET classes for FTP in Axaptapedia. It is different enough from 10p's example code to take a look...

In my own experience I ended up writing and then calling a bat file from the command line to pass in ftp commands as we needed to use a special FTP client! Here are two examples of using shell scripting - Net Time && Run a Process.

Answer 2

Use .NET classes in AX, e.g. following code logs into the FTP server and renames the file there:

str ftpHostName = 'ftp.microsoft.com'; // without "ftp://", only name
str username    = 'myloginname';
str password    = 'mypassword';
str oldname     = 'oldfilename';
str newname     = 'newfilename';

System.Net.Sockets.Socket socket;
System.Net.Dns dns;
System.Net.IPHostEntry  hostEntry;
System.Net.IPAddress[] addresses;
System.Net.IPAddress    address;
System.Net.IPEndPoint endPoint;

void sendCommand(str _command)
{
    System.Text.Encoding ascii;
    System.Byte[] bytes;
    ;

    ascii = System.Text.Encoding::get_ASCII();
    bytes = ascii.GetBytes(_command + '\r\n');
    socket.Send(bytes, bytes.get_Length(), System.Net.Sockets.SocketFlags::None);
}
;

socket = new System.Net.Sockets.Socket(System.Net.Sockets.AddressFamily::InterNetwork, System.Net.Sockets.SocketType::Stream, System.Net.Sockets.ProtocolType::Tcp);
hostEntry = System.Net.Dns::GetHostEntry(ftpHostName);

addresses = hostEntry.get_AddressList();
address = addresses.GetValue(0);

info(address.ToString());

endPoint = new System.Net.IPEndPoint(address, 21);
socket.Connect(endPoint);

sendCommand(strfmt("USER %1", username));
sendCommand(strfmt("PASS %1", password));
sendCommand(strfmt("RNFR %1", oldname));
sendCommand(strfmt("RNTO %1", newname));

This is just an example but feel free to use any standard FTP command slightly mpdifying this code. Let me know if the concept is unclear.