How to set up CompleteFTP as a proxy for another server

A common request that we get is how to configure CompleteFTP Enterprise Edition so that it acts as a direct proxy for another server. This is particularly common for users who need an encrypted front-end to a legacy FTP server, for example. With CompleteFTP it's possible to have authentication handled by the remote server so that it's unnecessary to set up users in CompleteFTP.

To do this you first need to configure a gateway authenticator as described here.

Next you'll need to configure the user's home directory. Users authenticating via a gateway use the CompleteFTP user account called 'defaultExtension' as their template (though this can be changed). This means that to control the home folder of these users you'll need to set the home folder of the defaultExtension user.

This user is not shown in the list of users until you check ‘Show system users/folders/sites’ in the Options menu at the bottom left of the CompleteFTP Manager, so check that, and then right-click on defaultExtension and select Properties from the pop-up menu. You'll see in the User Properties panel that the home folder of defaultExtension is /ExtensionUser.

Similarly, the /ExtensionUser folder is not visible until you check ‘Show system users/folders/sites’ in the Options menu at the bottom left, so check that as well. Now select the /ExtensionUser folder. You'll see that it's set to '%HomeBaseFolder%\%UserName%'. This means that whenever a user logs in via the gateway its home folder will be "C:\ProgramData\Enterprise Distributed Technologies\Complete FTP\Users\{theirUsername}". This directory will be created if it's not already there. What your users will see is an empty directory, which is probably not what you want.

What you want is for them to see the content of their home folder on the FTP server. To do this you'll need to make the home folder of the defaultExtension user a 'Gateway folder'. To do this, click Add folder and select Gateway folder. You'll then be prompted for a folder name. You should accept the defaults what are to use the same connection to the FTP server that was established during authentication and just display the content of the directory that it's on, which will be the home directory on the FTP server.

The final step is to set the home folder of the defaultExtension user to be the newly created gateway folder.

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