FTP files from Google App Engine

Question

I was wondering if it was possible to FTP/SFTP a file from a Google App Engine application's servlet to a remote FTP/SFTP server. Or maybe by creating a Task on the TaskQueue... Has anyone got this?

The GAE's documentation says that "bytecode that attempts to open a socket or write to a file will throw a runtime exception"

Thank you for your time!

Answer 1

The GAE's documentation says that "bytecode that attempts to open a socket or write to a file will throw a runtime exception"

If I am not wrong this pretty much rules out FTPing a file from GAE.

Here a Google employee confirms opening a port is not possible: http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine/browse%5Fthread/thread/21948f691660ca2/708036e7f2af595b?lnk=gst&q=ftp#708036e7f2af595b

But if you read carefully, he says opening a port to "listen on" in not allowed. You should give it a shot. I would love to hear from you the results of this experiment! :)

Answer 2

You can't open sockets - of any sort - on App Engine. All outgoing requests have to be over HTTP.