MFTExpress is pleased to offer it's Professional and Enterprise subscribers support for public key authentication when using the SFTP service. Public key authentication enables users to authenticate using a username and private key known only to the user. This private key may or may not be protected with a password.
How It Works
1. Create a key pair using MFTExpress web interface. This is a one-time process.
2. Authenticate with MFTExpress SFTP service using username and private key.
Creating Keys
1. Login to MFTExpress web interface and click on the My Account link in upper right corner.
Figure 5
2. Under Public Key Authentication section click the Generate Key link. You will be prompted to generate a new key pair. Leave the Type, Length and File type with their default values. If you wish to password protect this key enter the password in the fields provided. Click OK to generate the key pair.
Figure 9
3. Upon generating the key pair you will be prompted to save the private key. For security reasons the private key IS NOT saved on the MFTExpress server. Save the private key to a location on your computer.
Figure 10
Establishing a Connection
To establish a connection using a private key you must use an SFTP client that supports public key authentication. AnyClient is a platform-independent client that supports the SFTP protocol as well as public-key authentication. If you are using a command line client like OpenSSH then you can use the following command.
sftp -o IdentityFile=/path/to/private.key username@secure.mftexpress.com
For other SFTP clients please check your client documentation for details on how to perform public-key authentication.