File compression and encryption in a single application for HP-UX

[Mark Bly]

Hi,
To clarify,
This is a production environment, so we would not have much time to test and raise the required changes.
The receiving server must be able to automatically unencrypt and upload the file as part of a batch job. (The batch will run overnight)

Thanks once again for everyones help.
Mark

[Matti_Kurkela]

Must the file transfer be commanded from the source side, or can it be done from the destination side?

If you install a free HP-UX Secure Shell (available from software.hp.com) to your HP-UX system, and a free PuTTY client package to the Windows side, you could use a single Windows command to transfer the file, automatically compressing & encrypting it for the transfer and decrypting & decompressing it at the destination:

pscp -batch -C username@hpuxsystem:/some/path/file C:\somedir\

If the transfer needs to be commanded at the HP-UX side, you could use a similar "scp" command (included in HP-UX Secure Shell package) on the HP-UX, but you would require a SSH server package at the Windows side.

Once the SSH key authentication is set up, there is no need to type any passwords, so the process is really easy to automate.

PuTTY is very widely used SSH client for Windows and can be found here:
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

Unfortunately, I don't know of any SSH server implementation for Windows that would be production quality, free, and easy to use at the same time. (You can get any 2 out of 3, though.)

Cygwin is a free package for Windows that includes a version of OpenSSH server, which uses the same source codebase as HP Secure Shell. But it requires the Windows admin to understand UNIXy things, so it isn't necessarily easy for an average Windows admin.

http://www.freesshd.com/ is a free and easy-to-use SSH server for Windows, but it isn't necessarily production quality. The worst thing is, if you choose to run it as a service, it will give the remote user Administrator-equivalent access.

Commercial SSH servers can of course be both easy and secure, but will require a license.

MK

[Mark Bly]

Thank you for the reply.
Unfortunately we need the file to remain encrypted at the receiving end until another batch job picks it up. I believe that scp will only encrypt the file during transfer, and it would not be encrypted on the receving server.(correct me if I am wrong)

The file is created as part of a batch run on the UNIX server and part of the schedule will compress, encrypt and send the file.
Therefore the file must be pushed from the UNIX server.


Regards,
Mark

[Mhanby]

We have a similar need for something like this. I was wondering if it's possible to encrypt the files and then use scp to transfer them? We have a similar need and they were doing encryption and then using sftp to transfer the files after setting up ssh. Would it be possible to instead use scp versus sftp for the file transfer? Would this be as or any less secure than sftp'ing them as is done currently? Would scripting this be easier than scripting using sftp?

[Steven Schweda]

> We have a similar need for something like
> this. [...]

You should start your own thread, and provide
your own actual requirements. (You're
allowed, in your own thread, to provide a
link to this one, if you think that it would
be useful.)

[Alzhy]

I can recommend FastCopy.

It does encyrption, compression and persistent transmittal. www.repliweb.com I think is where it is now offered.


You can also look at ndm.