Pulling Data Source from MID Server SFTP results in SSH Error

[J Benson]

Hello,

Hoping someone can shed some light on an issue we're having in using one of our MID Servers (Server 2019) as an SFTP drop site for Data Sources. We've installed and configured OpenSSH on one of our MID Servers and setup a directory there for a customer to automatically drop an excel file. In our Dev instance of ServiceNow, we've defined a Data Source pointing to that file but when attempting to load the file we receive the following error:

'com.glide.db.impex.datasource.DataSourceException: java.io.IOException: SSH authentication failed, Timed out while waiting for TCP to connect to [MID Server IP]:22'

I've already verified that credentials being used are valid and working. I can use WinSCP to SFTP to the server and reach the directory and file specified. I've already followed the steps in following KB article to no avail. Still fails with the same error. The import log doesn't seem to hold any additional information. Just displays the same error each time we attempt to load it. 

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Regards,

James Benson

[Appli · Accepted solution]

Hi, importing through mid server is OOB supported for "JDBC" type of Data Source only. I understood you use "File" type of Data Source, so ServiceNow tries to establish SSH connection directly to MID server (aka SFTP drop site) over plain Internet but not over secure tunnel; if MID server is not reachable (22/tcp) from outside for SN instance, it leads to the error.

You may consider to use other methods for importing the data to ServiceNow instance. Like upload to database, ServiceNow will pull the data from the database using JDBC Data Source over MID.

Hope it helps

[J Benson]

Appli,

So the "File" selection prevents it from utilizing SSH to reach the MID Server? I'm not sure I entirely understood 'if MID server is not reachable (22/tcp) from outside for SN instance, it leads to the error.' Could you explain a bit?

Is there some way to use ServiceNow Orchestration to create an SFTP Activity that would upload the file?

James

[Appli]

Hi James

correct, my view - ServiceNow Dev instance attempts to connect to MID server over 22/TCP, but fails due firewall policy or so. You may consider opening a firewall rule permitting inbound SSH connection from ServiceNow to MID server and re-test, if feasible. 

About Orchestration- as per doc, it seems possible to copy files in between SFTP servers only.

And just FYI - in Quebec, Flow designer supports an action to copy the file from external SFTP server to the instance, consider to check this as well.

Hope it helps

[J Benson]

In case anyone else stumbles across this post, I opened a ticket with ServiceNow and they did eventually confirm that MID Servers are not configured to facilitate large file uploads directly.