How can I use sftp with SAP?

Question

Currently we use FTP, but there is a requirement to use SFTP. According to our Basis guys SFTP will not work. We have a couple of alternatives:

• Use PI
• Use a Unix script to move the files

However, is there something we are missing that would enable us to use SFTP in a similar way to FTP?

Example of code calling FTP:

  CALL FUNCTION 'HTTP_SCRAMBLE'  
    EXPORTING  
      SOURCE      = i_password
      sourcelen   = dstlen
      key         = c_key
    IMPORTING
      destination = lw_password.

  CLEAR: ftp_hdl, o_file.
  CALL FUNCTION 'FTP_CONNECT'
    EXPORTING
      user            = i_user
      password        = lw_password
      host            = i_host
      rfc_destination = c_rfcdest_sapftp
    IMPORTING
      handle          = ftp_hdl
    EXCEPTIONS
      not_connected   = 1
      OTHERS          = 2.

RFC Destination c_rfcdest_sapftp is defined as follows in SM59:

Connection Type: T (TCP/IP)
Activation Type: Start on Front-end Work Station
Program: sapftp (Is there a SFTP variant of the program?)
Start Type: Default Gateway

Answer 1

As odd as it is, SAP doesn't support SFTP out of the box. As I understand it, PI will do FTPS (which is different, I believe) There is at least one company selling a 3rd party bolt-on to PI to use SFTP. A quick Google will turn it up. That is what we had to do here to get SFTP & PGP encrypted files without invoking OS scripts.

Answer 2

At first I thought that this is also annoying, that the SAP PI cannot handle SFTP. Anyway, if you look at the protocol, it's ftp tunneled through ssh. At the moment there is a movement in the security community to ftps, due to the fact, that this protocol does not allow tunneling of other protocols and therefore is considered as more secure. Maybe you should think about establishing ftps, as it's a good alternative. If you are only using the PI as a middleware within the company or you don't have any FTP service which is accessible from outside it's a good chance to switch to ftps.

Regards

Matthias Kneissl