FTP missing in High Sierra, any working alternative to upload?

michal · November 2017

Hello,

My SecuritySpy config stores most of the footage on 5TB local HDD.
I also upload all motion-triggered videos to my large iCloud drive (with periodical script pruning the oldest files to adhere to 1TB size limit I set). Not knowing better I used FTP upload functionality to perform this task - my mac server exposed iCloud sub-folder as FTP share, SecuritySpy uploaded to this folder via FTP and it all got nicely synced. Since all has been happening on the same machine it was safe, fast, reliable and very simple to setup.

Unfortunately High Sierra removed the FTP server altogether and I lost the upload to iCloud for now. I'm looking for some way to get this working again.

A feature request - would it be possible to add 'local copy' mode as one of the server upload options (next to FTP, SFTP and FTPS dropdown)? This would allow me to fill the iCloud folder directly and potentially be directly useful with DropBox or other cloud services (I noticed others requested cloud services integrations in the past).
I'd like to emphasize that I'm using upload as secondary offsite backup, I don't want to redirect my complete camera folder to iCloud as I have continuous movie recording turned on.

Is this something I could reliably fix via writing my own Apple Script action? I looked at the SecuritySpy reference, but did not find a way to execute the action after motion triggered movie writing is completed. Also does the filename come as parameter to the script? Such script action was quite easy to achieve in MotionEye and SightHound I used before moving to SecuritySpy (where I'm quite a fish-out-of-water

).

Do you know of some other options I could try? I hope my setup is nowhere near unique, but I did not find solution to this while looking through the forum archives.

Thanks everyone in advance!
Michal

Ben · November 2017

Hi Michal,

Apparently Apple removed standard FTP support in High Sierra due to security concerns. I think the best solution would be to switch to using SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol), which High Sierra supports.

This should simply be a case of turning on "Remote Login" under the Sharing system preference on the Mac that you want to be receiving the files, and then switch the protocol to SFTP in SecuritySpy under Preferences -> Uploads.

Currently SecuritySpy does not have a feature to invoke a script after a file finishes being captured, but I think this is a good idea and will be useful for many advanced users. We'll have a look at adding this in a future version of SecuritySpy.

michal · November 2017

Hi Ben,

Thanks for the suggestion, I got the SFTP working.
I feel a bit uneasy about the fact that mac SFTP forces me to use the same account I use for SecuritySpy (in order to access the correct folder), but that's not really SecuritySpy issue.

Thanks for considering adding script after file finishes being captured, it will allow me to restore my workflow.

Would it be possible to add local copy as a mode for the 'server upload' in the future? That could be much easier to use for people who'd like to sync some files to cloud.

cheers,
Michal

Ben · November 2017

Hi Michal, good to hear you got it working.

A "local copy" function is a good idea I think, and won't be difficult to implement, I'll see what we can do for a future update.

michal · December 2017

Thanks Ben, please let me know when there's a beta and I'll help to test it out.

Domodial · December 2017

I use FTP server (on apple store).

TomQ · February 2018

Hi.
ftp'ing is a bit new for me. I have turned on "Remote Login" and switched to SFTP as you suggest, Ben. But I do not know how to determine the Server address and Path on server for my iCloud account. Can you help me with this?
Thanks, Tom Q

TomQ · February 2018

Hmmm, Looks like I misunderstood what michal and Ben were doing. They appear to be saving SS files to a 2nd computer at michal's location---not to iCloud. Is it possible to SFTP directly to iCloud using SS? Right now I am setting my iCloud folder at the destination for my SS files and then using ChronoSync to constantly sync the iCloud files to my 2nd computer, but this seems very inefficent

michal · February 2018

Hi TomQ,

In my case I'm saving motion triggered SS files to the iCloud folder onto the same computer the SS server is running on. I'm using the SFTP (used to use FTP) option to do so since that seems to be the only way to get second copy of the motion files to a specific folder. Since the files are saved into iCloud folder they get automatically uploaded into the cloud for me

Ben mentioned he would think about a local copy function in some of the future updates. I hope it would come soon.

cheers,
Michal

Ben · February 2018

We have now added a "local copy" function as discussed above. Here's how to use it:

- Create a new server under Preferences -> Uploads.
- Specify the server address as "local"
- Set the "Path on server" to the local path where you want the captured files to be copied (you can drag a folder into this box from the Finder to have it set the path for you).

This feature is in the latest beta version of SecuritySpy (currently 4.2.4b6).

@michal - please test this and confirm it works as expected.

Ben · February 2018

Hi @TomQ - there is no way for SecuritySpy to send files directly to iCloud, as iCloud doesn't support FTP protocols. You will have to use iCloud "Desktop & Documents Folders" syncing to copy files from your local machine to iCloud, which can include SecuritySpy's captured files if you set the capture destination to within your Documents folder.

TomQ · February 2018

Thanks Michal & Ben. I will check those soutions out, plus the new local option.

michal · February 2018

Hi @Ben, I'm trying the latest beta and can confirm the local copy works as expected.
Thanks a lot!
Michal

Ben · February 2018

Hi Michal, great, thanks for reporting back!

FTP missing in High Sierra, any working alternative to upload?

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