SSH Setup

Page Summary

Actions Center necessitates a Secure Shell (SSH) connection for secure data transfer to its feeds dropbox.
This secure connection is established using a pair of keys: a private key on your client and a public key registered in Actions Center.
To generate these keys, use the ssh-keygen command, and then copy the content of the public key file (e.g., google_actions_center.pub) into the Actions Center configuration.
After setup, SFTP connectivity can be tested using the sftp command with your generated key and the provided connection information.
Troubleshooting SFTP connection issues can involve checking network firewalls or verifying the public key's validity using ssh-keygen -l -f.

Actions Center requires that you connect to your feeds dropbox using a Secure Shell (SSH) connection. SSH is a network protocol that ensures secure data transfer.

You create a pair of keys: a private key that resides on your client computer, or can be retrieved securely by your application, and a public key that you will set in Actions Center.

The public key is a string that starts with ssh-rsa, ends with your email address, and has a long generated string in the middle. For example:

ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQCXsM9ycbHV6E6t2L+B4p/uYHn9Q0jmu5gUXMYnFnnf4l39xrznfDo8KCASzRrqUkRnuzrno059CvZVzcljkbwWLzKKoE1EwbzHL3nYahMB4MdYNWhBbHbB+ybq6RNO7hkoKDBIQCfqQDY0FEB6sV3d3F1WYl0bAMjp15yyZJzMKa/rRnZKWetHlcL1X+gFWmW2hQ93foPD463gb58/25GujjsS/tzjngw7UJMVkm08U1QEY3z3DE/R++7ovJozTCzH0CTNDN0AH3/oSC3dmG+yDh3ZXFATjWjyPXJSOziNrp9TXgJhlqSmoHcPvpotMVjx21kIZ+T+SusQmnG+hK+L user@yourdomain.com

Steps to generate the key

Create a pair of keys, for example using the ssh-keygen command line program (available on Windows, Linux and Mac): ssh-keygen -t rsa -f google_actions_center. You can use any name for the key filename, google_actions_center is just an example.
Press enter to create a key without a passphrase or include a passphrase that is used to encrypt and decrypt the private key. You won't need to share the private key passphrase with Google.
Open google_actions_center.pub and copy the contents (this is the public key).
Provide the public key in the Actions Center account Onboarding Tasks during account setup or in the Feeds Configuration to update the key after account setup.

Steps to test SFTP connectivity

View your SFTP dropbox connection information in Feeds Configuration.
With the connection information for the respective dropbox, connect to the SFTP. For example using the sftp command line program (available on Windows, Linux and Mac):

sftp -P <port> -i google_actions_center <user>@partnerupload.google.com

Upload feed files:

put <filename>

Note: In this example, the file is uploaded to the SFTP root directory. Uploading to the root is easiest and won't create a large list of files at the root since files will be deleted by Google several days after they are processed. You can upload to a specific directory, but remember to use the absolute path in the data_file list when uploading feeds that require a filesetdesc.json.
If you experience issues when connecting to the SFTP server, try running with verbose information sftp -v. Issues can occur due to network firewalls blocking outgoing connections or ssh client configurations that are not compatible with the server.

Check that your public key is correct by running ssh-keygen -l -f google_actions_center.pub.

If the key is not valid, the program will output google_actions_center.pub is not a public key file.

Brands Configuration