Chapter 5. Datasinks

Datasinks are the counterpart of datasources in ReportServer. Reports can be sent to any datasink defined, e.g. to a FTP or SFTP datasink. Reports may be sent directly to a datasink (via the SendTo button) or scheduled to be sent to a specific datasink. Multiple datasinks of the same type are allowed, analogously as datasources. Further, as with most other objects in ReportServer, datasinks are maintained in a hierarchical structure. The datasink management module can be found in the Administration module under Datasinks. The following object types can be created in the tree:

• Folder Serve to structure datasinks.
• Datasink Here various datasinks are optionally available which we will discuss in more detail in the following.

Datasinks will be configured in two steps. In datasink management, datasinks will be created and the basic settings made. For FTP datasinks, here, for instance, user name, password, default folder and FTP URL are stored. However, the specific configuration per use will be set at the point where the datasink will be used (this is mostly with the respective report). Here, for instance, for a FTP datasink, the specific folder can be set where the report should be stored. The default folder can be used or a new folder can be defined for the specific use.

Datasinks may either completely disabled, or disabled for a specific type, or scheduling may be disabled for this type. Disabling datasinks may be done in /fileserver/etc/datasinks/datasinks.cf. Details on this can be found in the Configuration Guide.

ReportServer supports the following datasinks.

• FTP
• SFTP

FTP datasinks allow to send and/or schedule reports to a FTP server. FTP datasink configuration can be made in the Administration area. Permissions to FTP datasinks can be given analogously as to other objects in ReportServer.

The host can be entered using the following format:

ftp://ftpHost

SFTP datasinks allow to send and/or schedule reports to a SFTP server. SFTP datasink configuration can be made in the Administration area. Permissions to SFTP datasinks can be given analogously as to other objects in ReportServer.

The host can be entered using the following format:

sftp://sftpHost

Currently, SFTP datasink authentication supported is by username/password. Note that for SFTP to work, you have to add your SFTP host to your .ssh/known_hosts file (https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenSSH/Client_Configuration_Files#~/.ssh/known_hosts) in order to verify the identity of the remote host, thus protecting against impersonation or man-in-the-middle attacks. Its location can be configured in the /fileserver/etc/security/misc.cf file as described in the Configuration Guide. For manually adding a public key to the .ssh/known_hosts file, check here: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenSSH/Client_Configuration_Files#Manually_Adding_Public_Keys_to_~/.ssh/known_hosts.