How to capture the transfer file name of HTTPS and SFTP by using CSharp?

Question

1.00/5 (1 vote)

See more:

, +

I am developing a file transfer monitor system. For HTTP and FTP file transfer, it no problem to monitor the Port 80(HTTP) and Port 21(FTP) to capture the file transfer information. However, for SFTP(Port 22) and HTTPS(Port 443),the file name cannot be captured because of the encryption.
Is there any approach to capture the file name and file size on HTTPS and SFTP protocol by using C#?
Thanks a lot.

Posted 26-Nov-13 14:30pm

wusir371

Updated 26-Nov-13 15:53pm

v3

Add a Solution

Comments

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 26-Nov-13 20:53pm

Not clear. It's a big difference, upload or download. Why capture? When I do it, nothing "popped up". You something which pops up something and then want to get rid of it... What? Any code sample?
—SA

walterhevedeich 26-Nov-13 20:55pm

Are you using a browser to download and upload files, or do you have your own application for that?

BillWoodruff 26-Nov-13 20:56pm

Please say more about how your application will work.

Is it a browser-specific application; or, does it need to work when any browser is used ?

If you can monitor the results of a file change in a specific directory, will that meet your needs ?

Is your application going to be "always on," and watching for any file save dialog ?

wusir371 26-Nov-13 21:38pm

I will improved the question. Thanks.

Dave Kreskowiak 26-Nov-13 21:43pm

This doesn't make any sense. Are you trying to monitor the percentage progress of the download??

wusir371 26-Nov-13 21:54pm

have improved the question. Wanna to monitor the file transfer(upload/download)

2 solutions

Add a Solution

Add your solution here

Treat my content as plain text, not as HTML

Preview 0

…

Existing Members

Sign in to your account

...or Join us

Download, Vote, Comment, Publish.

Your Email
Password
Forgot your password?

Your Email
This email is in use. Do you need your password?
Optional Password

I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Please subscribe me to the CodeProject newsletters

When answering a question please:

Read the question carefully.
Understand that English isn't everyone's first language so be lenient of bad spelling and grammar.
If a question is poorly phrased then either ask for clarification, ignore it, or edit the question and fix the problem. Insults are not welcome.
Don't tell someone to read the manual. Chances are they have and don't get it. Provide an answer or move on to the next question.

Let's work to help developers, not make them feel stupid.

This content, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

walterhevedeich · Answer 1 · 2013-11-26T18:10:00

Solution 1

I think that's the whole idea behind putting the transmission under HTTPS/SFTP: to prevent your data from being sniffed. I think a better approach would be to scan the source or destination, if you have access.

Posted 26-Nov-13 18:10pm

walterhevedeich

Comments

wusir371 27-Nov-13 1:38am

May I understand your approach this way: scan the source or destination drive, record the new created file name and monitor the HTTPS/SFTP port, combine the file created time and HTTPS/SFTP transfer time, the transfer file name can be monitored/analyzed.
One problem is: I really can install the monitor application on Intranet's client or server, but I have no access to remote server. If the file is uploaded to remote server by SFTP, no file name information can be captured, although the SFTP connection can be monitored.

walterhevedeich 27-Nov-13 3:29am

I'm not sure how you are uploading your file, but for SFTP, if you are using some third party component like SSHNet, there is an event that is triggered when the upload is complete.

wusir371 27-Nov-13 3:42am

That makes sense. How can I capture the event (or process) when the upload is complete.
Thanks.

Dave Kreskowiak · Answer 2 · 2013-11-27T01:52:00

Solution 2

You can't. It's that simple.

Unless your app is the one doing the transfer, you can't get the filename or any other data about the transfer. You're trying to be the "man in the middle" that encryption protects against!

Events really aren't going to help you because not every browser exposes events, not every browser exposes the events you're looking for and you'd have to write specific functionality for every browser you want to support.

Posted 27-Nov-13 1:52am

Dave Kreskowiak

Comments

wusir371 27-Nov-13 20:12pm

Is there an event in OS? So no matter which ever browser is used, the OS exposes an event and can be captured by app.

Dave Kreskowiak 27-Nov-13 21:05pm

Why would the O/S care about a very specific type of application?

No, there is no event. The O/S doesn't know what the browser is doing.

wusir371 28-Nov-13 20:22pm

I mean: if somebody access a HTTPS website and wanna upload a file to this website, a dialog box is poped up to get the uploaded file/files. Is it possible to exposes an event or create a process in the OS when this dialog box is poped up? If it's possible, a file name may be parsed. The app can be installed in client as a service. Thanks

Dave Kreskowiak 28-Nov-13 22:45pm

FOR THE LAST TIME, THERE IS NO SUCH EVENT! Also services cannot truly interact with the users desktop anymore, so writing a service to do this is impossible. This is because of security concerns.