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Tutorial - Creating and Manually Starting an FTPES or FTPS Server

Tutorial - Creating and Manually Starting an FTPES or FTPS Server

Jun 30, 2025

In this tutorial, you will:

  • Create a FTPES server.

  • Manually launch the server.

  • View server details.

 

The same procedure can be followed for creating an FTPS server. The parameters are the same except for the Mandatory Encryption toggle which is only available for the FTPES protocol.

Create the FTPES Server

Step 1

From the UDMG Admin UI navigation pane, select Local Servers. The Servers list displays.

Step 2

Click Add icon (

). The Server Details displays.

  • In the Server Name field, enter stonebranch-ftpes-01

  • In the Protocol field, select FTPES

  • In the IP Address field, enter the hostname or the IP for the network interface on the UDMG host that the server will attach to.
    This is also the value for the hostname or the IP that will be matched for validating the TLS certificate.
    For using a hostname, it is recommended that the alias is configured in the hosts file (/etc/hosts on Linux, \WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts on Windows)
    For instance: 

    0.0.0.0 ftpes_udmg.stonebranch.com

  • In the Port field, enter 4100

  • In the Root Directory field, enter data

  • In the Receive Directory field, enter ftpes-01/in

  • In the Send Directory field, enter ftpes-01/out

  • In the Temp Directory field, enter ftpes-01/tmp

  • In the Member of Business Service, select one of the available Business Services. More business Services can be added after the rule is created. 

  • Additional FTPES protocol-related parameters can be set:

    • Max client: the maximum number of clients that are allowed at the same time on the server, for instance 10.

    • Passive IP: the IP that the server returns to the client for establishing the passive connection. 
      It must be the external IP address that the FTP clients will connect to.
      This depends on your network configuration, for instance 2.19.51.184 for example.com. For a local test, put 0.0.0.0. 

    • Port range: the lower and upper values for the port range of the passive connections. For instance 4101 and 4110 to restrict to a range of 10 ports.

    • Allow remove file: allows the FTP users to remove files.

    • Allow rename file: allows the FTP users to rename files. 

    • Mandatory Encryption: select to force explicit encryption, any client connection without encryption is refused. If this is not set, FTP connections are allowed. 

 

Step 3

Click Save icon (

).

Step 4

Click the Restart icon (

).

The changes are effective after a restart of the local server.

Step 5

Prepare your certificate and private key in PEM format.

To generate a sample self-signed certificate with OpenSSL > 1.1.1 (older versions do not support the -addext parameter to set the subjectAltName):

$ SUBJECT="/C=US/ST=Georgia/L=Alpharetta/O=Stonebranch/OU=UDMG/CN=*.stonebranch.com" $ openssl req -new -newkey rsa:4096 -x509 -sha256 -days 365 -nodes -subj "$SUBJECT" -out ftpes-01.crt -keyout ftpes-01.key -addext "subjectAltName = DNS:*.stonebranch.com"

Note: if you're using Windows Git Bash, it is required to set the MSYS_NO_PATHCONV environment variable to 1 before you run this command.

Step 6

Select the stonebranch-ftpes-01 server record from the Server list and click the Certificates / Keys tab.

Step 7

Click the Add icon (

). 

Step 8

The Certificate Details displays.

  • In the Name field, enter stonebranch-ftpes-cert-01.

  • In the Private Key field, paste the key in PEM format.

  • In the Certificate field, paste the certificate in PEM format.

  • Leave the Public Key field empty.

Click Submit button.

Step 9

Click Save icon (

).

Step 10

The certificate record appears in the list:

Step 11

To see more details about a specific server certificate, click the View icon (

).

A menu appears with Private Key and Certificate options. 

Click the Private Key to show the key details:

  • algorithm

  • bits: size of the key, only for RSA

  • key type

  • the MD5 fingerprint

  • the SHA256 fingerprint

  • a clean authorized keyline, without any comment or host specification

Click the Certificate option to show the certificate details:

  • signatureAlgorithm

  • algorithm

  • bits

  • version

  • serial number

  • subject

  • issuer

  • validity date notBefore

  • validity date notAfter

  • key usage code

  • isCA flag

  • The MD5 fingerprint

  • The SHA1 fingerprint

  • The SHA256 fingerprint

  • The list of SAN addresses

If the record was just created or updated, click the Refresh icon (

) to reload the details.

Step 12

Start the server by clicking on the Play (

) icon.

Step 13

Click on the UDMG Server Status button to show the list of running services.

The new server stonebranch-ftpes-01 is listed and should appear with a green status. The green status indicates an FTPES server listening on the IP and port configured.

Step 14

The server status can be controlled with the following action buttons:

  • Save: request to save the local server details

  • Add: request to add a new local server

  • Delete: request to delete the local server

  • Disable: request to disable the local server

  • Play: initiate the start/play of the local server

  • Pause: request to pause/stop the local server

  • Restart: request to stop and start the server

Step 15

Additional details can be attached to a local server. 

  • Description

  • Primary Contact Name

  • Primary Contact Email

  • Primary Contact Phone

  • Secondary Contact Name

  • Secondary Contact Email

  • Secondary Contact Phone

  • Customized fields

Go to the Details tab.

Fill in the needed details.

New fields can be added using the Plus button (

) at the bottom of the form. A custom field is comprised of a key and value pair.

Press the Save icon (

).