The International Bureau uses the SSH Communications Security Corporation Tectia SSH2 server for Unix. This server supports the full range of SSH2 services, including public key authentication using both digital certificates and the standard SSH key trust model.
Several clients are available for use with the PCT EDI service. Two freely available Windows Win32 environment clients, PuTTY and WinSCP, are described in the User Guide. Both clients use the PuTTYgen key generator application found in the PuTTY package. PuTTY is a simple client that is useful for automated tasks initiated from a Windows machine. WinSCP is a user-friendly full-featured client designed for use by an operator. It is suggested that first-time users become familiar with the WinSCP client.
A tested commercial product is the SSH Tectia client for several platforms, including Microsoft Windows/NT/2000. This client also supports authentication through the use of industry-standard digital certificates.
Offices working in the Unix environment will find detailed instructions in the User Guide for the use of the OpenSSH secure shell package, including the ssh and sftp clients, and the lftp advanced SFTP client, which includes features such as site mirroring and batch download/upload scheduler.
Offices that desire to integrate PCT-EDI access into their local automation systems can make use of the OpenSSH programming libraries.
Several SSH programming modules for Perl programming language also exist. The Net::SFTP Version 0.08 package is a pure-Perl implementation that is both compact and full-featured.
| Package | Description | Instructions |
|---|---|---|
| WinSCP | WinSCP is a SFTP and SCP client for Windows using SSH. Its main function is secure copying of files between a local and a remote computer. [SourceForge/Martin Prikryl] | Setup |
| OpenSSH | OpenSSH is a free SSH/SecSH protocol suite providing encryption for network services like remote login or remote file transfer. The OpenSSH source code is available free to everyone via the Internet. [ OpenBSD Project] | Setup |
| PuTTY | PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator. [ Simon Tatham] | Setup |
| lftp | The lftp Secure File Transfer Protocol client. lftp is a file transfer program that allows sophisticated ftp, sftp, http and other connections to remote hosts. [ Alexander V. Lukyanov] [ Hints from IP Offices] | Setup |
| Net::SFTP | Net::SFTP is a pure-Perl implementation of SFTP for the Perl programming language. It gives the programmer a simple but robust programming interface for interactively connecting to and accessing the PCT-EDI SFTP server. [ Benjamin Trott/Dave Rolsky] [ Hints from IP Offices] | Not Applicable |
| Package | Description | Setup/Use |
|---|---|---|
| GenXML | GenXML is a generic, easily modified Perl script that allows users to create properly formated EDI/COR XML requests from Comma Separated Value (CSV) files. These CSV files can be generated from any source, including Microsoft Excel. The Setup page has links to example Excel and CSV files, as well as hints for modifying the script to suit local needs. [WIPO/Jim Fullton, with corrections in the CD-DVD type handling by IP Australia] | Setup |