Some of my IoT students have encountered problems trying to get some of the FTP (Node-RED) contrib nodes working. This may be due to the restrictions on the school network and/or the school's ISP.
As an exercise I tried writing a couple of Python scripts to use the FTP_TLS library to send and receive files between a Raspberry Pi and a remote FTP server. As shown below, the scripts are called from a Node-RED flow using an Exec node.
[{"id":"678f819f147e416a","type":"exec","z":"4eb6989c0ae472d1","command":"","addpay":"payload","append":"","useSpawn":"false","timer":"","winHide":false,"oldrc":false,"name":"main_exec","x":590,"y":220,"wires":[["295ffd186354873d"],["295ffd186354873d"],["295ffd186354873d"]]},{"id":"295ffd186354873d","type":"debug","z":"4eb6989c0ae472d1","name":"","active":true,"tosidebar":true,"console":false,"tostatus":false,"complete":"false","statusVal":"","statusType":"auto","x":790,"y":220,"wires":[]},{"id":"1013b9dd79f38f81","type":"function","z":"4eb6989c0ae472d1","name":"READ from remote FTP-server","func":"let local_path = \"/home/pi/camera_stills/\";\nlet local_filename = \"latest_dave.jpg\"; \nlet remote_filename = \"dave.jpg\";\n\nlet ftp_server = \"enter your FTP host server details\";\nlet ftp_user = \"enter your FTP user details\";\nlet ftp_passwd = \"enter your FTP password\";\n\nmsg.payload = \"python /home/pi/python_scripts/read_from_ftp_server.py \"+ local_filename + \" \" + local_path + \" \" + remote_filename + \" \" + ftp_server + \" \" + ftp_user + \" \" + ftp_passwd;\n\nreturn msg;","outputs":1,"noerr":0,"initialize":"","finalize":"","libs":[],"x":330,"y":260,"wires":[["678f819f147e416a"]]},{"id":"5594bd8aaa14b632","type":"inject","z":"4eb6989c0ae472d1","name":"","props":[{"p":"payload"}],"repeat":"","crontab":"","once":false,"onceDelay":0.1,"topic":"","payload":"1","payloadType":"num","x":110,"y":260,"wires":[["1013b9dd79f38f81"]]},{"id":"e9475ff83ddb2478","type":"function","z":"4eb6989c0ae472d1","name":"SEND to remote FTP-server","func":"let local_path = \"/home/pi/camera_stills/\";\nlet local_filename = \"garage.jpg\";\nlet remote_filename = \"dave.jpg\";\n\nlet ftp_server = \"enter your FTP host server details\";\nlet ftp_user = \"enter your FTP user details\";\nlet ftp_passwd = \"enter your FTP password\";\n\nmsg.payload = \"python /home/pi/python_scripts/send_to_ftp_server.py \"+ local_filename + \" \" + local_path + \" \" + remote_filename + \" \" + ftp_server + \" \" + ftp_user + \" \" + ftp_passwd;\n\nreturn msg;","outputs":1,"noerr":0,"initialize":"","finalize":"","libs":[],"x":320,"y":200,"wires":[["678f819f147e416a"]]},{"id":"2898d0bdd1189d27","type":"inject","z":"4eb6989c0ae472d1","name":"","props":[{"p":"payload"}],"repeat":"","crontab":"","once":false,"onceDelay":0.1,"topic":"","payload":"1","payloadType":"num","x":110,"y":200,"wires":[["e9475ff83ddb2478"]]},{"id":"862fa1d96f252595","type":"comment","z":"4eb6989c0ae472d1","name":"Enter your FTP credentials in these two function nodes","info":"","x":240,"y":140,"wires":[]},{"id":"ee0fa8e5d73a67c8","type":"comment","z":"4eb6989c0ae472d1","name":"READ ME - location of Python scripts","info":"SEND to remote FTP server\n/home/pi/python_scripts/send_to_ftp_server.py\n\nREAD from remote FTP server\n/home/pi/python_scripts/read_from_ftp_server.py","x":190,"y":80,"wires":[]}]
The two Python scripts need to be located in the Raspberry Pi that is running Node-RED. Obviously you can change the location to suit your system - but remember to change the settings in the function nodes.
SEND to remote FTP server
/home/pi/python_scripts/send_to_ftp_server.py
READ from remote FTP server
/home/pi/python_scripts/read_from_ftp_server.py
Here's what part of the SEND to remote FTP-server function node looks like.
As you can see the 'jpg' file is located in the folder... /home/pi/camera_stills/
This is a folder the students used to capture images from a Raspberry Pi camera.
You need to enter the credentials for your ftp_server here.
If you inspect the two Python scripts you'll see a sub-folder is used to store the files on the FTP server. My IoT students decided to do this so they didn't interfere with each others files. You may decide you don't need to do this and could comment out this line.
A few things to note.
- I'm not fluent in writing Python and will accept there are probably better ways to implement the above.
- You may want to consider a method to 'hide' your credentials.
- There is zero error-checking in the Python scripts (especially checking the sequence and content of the various arguments that are passed from Node-RED to the script).
My students and I hope someone finds this useful.
