Innovative File Transfer and Management

Gigabyte Express™



 About Gigabyte Express™
 Frequently Asked Questions

 
   
  1. What are the firewall requirements? For Windows, the default for DSL (4+4) products is to allow incoming TCP connections to ports 167 and 32780 through 32783. For Windows, the default for T1 and T2 products is to allow incoming TCP connections to ports 167, 168, and ports 32780 through 32783. UDP packets should be allowed in to ports 168 and the ports from 32770 through 32783.

Click here to read in-depth Firewall Notes in the User Manual

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  2. Why is Gigabyte Express so fast? Routers and long distances introduce delay, and the IP protocols popular today don't cope well with this delay on high speed (megabit) connections. A satellite link usually has a ping time of over 600 milliseconds. In addition to testing our products over satellite delays, Niwot has also licensed the STAC™ compression algorithm, and integrates it into the Gigabyte Express file transfer application.

To experience the blazing performance of Gigabyte Express, you will need:

  • High Speed Internet Connection -- The higher your connection speed the better!. We recommend you test Gigabyte Express with an ISDN, xDSL, cable modem or T1 connection. (Performance improvement with a standard dial-up connection is nominal.)
  • Gigabyte Express on Both Computers - Gigabyte Express must be installed on both the sending and receiving computers. Our Free Trial software may be tested with our Gigabyte Express Test Site on the Internet, or you may install Gigabyte Express Demo on up to three machines for testing purposes.
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  3. Is your software required at both ends? The on-the-fly compressor requires an on-the-fly decompressor at the other end, so we need Gigabyte Express at both ends of the connection.

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  4. Are you FTP compatible? You may run an FTP server (and an FTP client) on the same machine at the same time as you are running Gigabyte Express. Gigabyte Express does not talk directly with or interfere with FTP.

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  5. What is a Link Rate Governor? Gigabyte Express is so fast it can "fill up the pipe". The Link Rate Governor allows you to limit the amount of bandwidth consumed by Gigabyte Express, so other applications can still use the link.

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  6. Do we need special hardware to run Gigabyte Express? Gigabyte Express is a software product. It runs on Windows 2000/2003/NT/XP/98/Me and Macintosh platforms with Internet Protocol connections. Windows 200X, XP, and NT can best make use of Gigabyte Express 5's RELIA transport. Windows 2000 and Me can best make use of Gigabyte Express 5's RFC 1323 support.

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 About You've Got Files!™
 Frequently Asked Questions

 Installation Questions:  Directory Monitoring Questions:  Email Notification Questions:  Email Setup Questions:  Support Questions:
 
   
  What's the latest version of You've Got Files!?
Please look at the You've Got Files! manual here.

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  Does my production serial number work for future updated versions?You've Got Files! Version 3.000 and later production serial numbers are expiring serial numbers. If they have not yet expired, they will work with future versions until expiration. You've Got Files! version 2.429 and earlier serial numbers will not work with You've Got Files! version 3.000 and later. Contact Niwot Networks for a new serial number.

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  Installation Questions
   
  Can a newer version just be installed over an older version or does the older version need to be removed/uninstalled before installing a newer version? If your current installation is version 2.403 or later then you can install without first stopping and uninstalling the older version. You've Got Files! You've Got Files! version 2.429 and earlier serial numbers will not work with You've Got Files! version 3.000 and later. Contact Niwot Networks for a new serial number before upgrading.

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  When a new version is installed, what does it do to the existing configuration files? Are system default files/entries created, or will existing configuration files be used by the new version? The existing ygfconf.txt is not altered by the new installation itself, but the You've Got Files! program does copy it to a file named ygfconf.pre, re-parse it, and write it back (with the new version number at the top) as ygfconf.txt. If the installer does not find a ygfconf.txt file in the installation directory it does create a ygfconf.txt with the information that the installing person input during the install process.

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  If after installing YGF, we decide it would be better to have it on a different server; what is the best way to move it? Is just uninstalling it from its current location and installing it at a different location sufficient, or are there other considerations we should keep in mind? The file that controls everything is the ygfconf.txt file, and any passwords in it have been re-written with an encryption that may possibly make the encrypted form no longer return the correct password on a different machine. You should create the "C:\Program Files\Niwot\You've Got Files!" directory on your new machine and place the ygfconf.txt file in it BEFORE running the installer. After the installation you could then look at the runlog.txt to see if there were any password problems and be prepared to re-enter the plain text passwords as needed (they will be re-encrypted correctly for the new server).

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  Directory Monitoring Questions
   
  Does You've Got Files! have to be installed on the FTP or Gigabyte Express server it is monitoring? No, You've Got Files! has the ability to monitor file systems on other computers on your network.

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  My FTP Server is hosted at my ISP. Can I monitor those files? Yes, YGF has an internal FTP client with encrypted password allowing you to monitor remotely hosted FTP servers.

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  My FTP server runs on Linux Red Hat. All the Hot folders/directories I want to monitor are in the Linux OS. Is there a way to map these folders/directories from the Linux side to my PC running XP? Yes, running Samba (or its equivalent) on the Linux machine allows client PCs running Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista to access directories on the Linux machine. For additional information click here for the User Manual or contact us
Niwot Networks, Inc. Contact Us at: 721 Ninth Avenue, Longmont, Colorado 80501 303-772-8664 or 800-657-3278

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  My runlog.txt file says it cannot access a directory. How do I fix this? This error may be found in the runlog.txt file in the form:

Wed Dec 18 09:50:16 2002
ERROR: Cannot access E:\ftp\john

Assuming that the "E:\ftp\john" directory exists and that the filepath is correctly spelled, this is usually a permissions problem. The user that runs as the You've Got Files! service needs to have permission to access the directories that you wish to scan. This can be configured via the Services control panel. Information on this may be found in the You've Got Files! user manual under [Monitoring Windows Computers On Your Network]

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  Email Notification Questions
   
  Will You've Got Files! send only 1 email notification at the end of the FTP file upload? We don't want a bunch of emails for 1 big file. Yes! You've Got Files! works pretty hard on not sending emails until large files are completely received.

In most ftp/file systems the file length keeps changing while it is being written. When you specify to scan a directory every X minutes, we actually scan the directory at an interval that is one half of what you specified (X/2). We make the decision to notify based on 3 directory scans: 1. the latest scan (in a temporary file), 2. the previous scan, 3. the previous previous scan. If the size in the latest (temporary file) is different than the previous previous size and it is the same as the previous size, then it has quit changing and we generate a notification email. Some systems leave a file at zero length until it is complete. You've Got Files! handles that with the IgnoreZeroLengthFiles feature.

The very first You've Got Files! customer in 2001 had a mixture of customers sending them files to be printed. One of these was doing an ftp upload over a plain-old-telephone modem, while another was doing the upload over a megabit connection. They wanted one email when the first file was uploaded, then a final email after the job should all have arrived. That is why this functionality was created.

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  Will I get 100 emails if 100 files are uploaded to my server? Not necessarily. You determine how often your directories are scanned (ScanIntervalInMinutes) and how often an email is generated (WaitBeforeSendingNextEmailInMinutes).

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  Can You've Got Files! automatically forward the new files as an attachment to an E-Mail address? If the directory being monitored is on a local drive or network drive we use the Launch Application feature to launch a batch file that uses Blat(http://www.blat.net) to email the file. Niwot Networks can provide you sample batch files to accomplish this. If the directory being monitored is on an FTP drive we have included a NiwotFTPtool utility which can bring down the new files from the FTP site. Please contact
Niwot Networks, Inc. Contact Us at: 721 Ninth Avenue, Longmont, Colorado 80501 303-772-8664 or 800-657-3278
for assistance.

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  I'm trying to use the LaunchApplication feature with a batch file, but it's not working!? The LaunchApplication feature is enabled in the Demo version, and with a licensed Professional or Corporate version of You've Got Files! ... it will not work with the Basic version. If you are not running a Basic version and LaunchApplication does not seem to be accomplishing what you want, it may be a permissions problem.

For example, imagine that you are enabling LaunchApplication using the following entry in your "ygfconf.txt" configuration file:

Ygf1LaunchApplication=usexcopy.bat $file

and that your "usexcopy.bat" file contained the following 2 lines:

rem use xcopy to copy files to I: drive
xcopy %1 I:"%~p1%~nx1" /i /c /y /f < f.txt


and you had a file "f.txt" with just the single character "f" like so:

f

[Note: the "f.txt" file is used to simply return the single character "f" when xcopy asks for confirmation if item to copy is file "f" or directory "d"]

The above batch file would attempt to copy every new file to your I: drive using the same directory structure as the original file, i.e. a new file C:\clients\eastern.doc would be copied to I:\clients\eastern.doc

This will not work if the user assigned to run the You've Got Files! service does not have permissions to write to the I: drive, this copy operation would fail. We have even seen examples of this copy operation working across different domains once the permissions have been put in order. This required the creation of the same username/password for each domain with adequate permissions to read/write the files. We suggest using the username 'ygfuser' to run the You've Got Files! service and have access to the drives/domains.

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  Would I be able to launch some kind of utility for each file to log its arrival or take a particular action?
Please see the LaunchApplication section of the User Manual.
The LaunchApplication feature does allow you to launch an application for each individual file. It will be called 1 time for each file before the notification email is sent to the SMTP server.

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  Does You've Got Files! also send notifications when files are renamed, deleted, or moved? You've Got Files! basically takes periodic snapshots of the directory structure, comparing the new contents to the old contents, and emailing notifications if it finds a file in the new structure that wasn't in the old (with the same name, size, modification date).

A renamed file or a moved file would generate an email (if it was moved into or within the directory structure we were monitoring).

A deleted file would generate an email if the NotifyOnDelete configuration entry is enabled.

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  How do I make the notifications into clickable links? If you set Alias= to start with http://, ftp://, file:// or \\ then You've Got Files! will replace the Directory spec you put in Ygf*Dir= with the Alias string and replace the spaces in the notification string with %20. If the resulting notification string is not chopped off by your email client (usually at 70 characters) it should be clickable. If the Alias string starts with something else, then the spaces will not be replaced with %20.

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  The notification email "Subject" can be configured to give a file name, which is only the first file found, and file count. Will YGF show all files that have arrived in each directory? Yes, all of the files that have newly arrived or have changed are listed with their path in the notification email.

This is a sample email received after renaming 4 files (with the word "renamed" in front of their name) and changing the time stamps on 4 files in the test2006 subdirectory directory on an ftp site being monitored:

Email sent: Mon Mar 13 10:46:35 2006
From: supportATyouvegotfiles.com
To: supportATyouvegotfiles.com
Subject: You've Got 8 Files
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 10:46:29 -0700
Added: bill/test2006/renamed scandir1.txt Mar 13 10:44 820 bytes
Added: bill/test2006/renamed setuplog.txt Mar 13 10:44 138 bytes
Added: bill/test2006/renamedRTCPHdr.txt Mar 13 10:44 1018 bytes
Added: bill/test2006/renamedRTF_DCA.TXT Mar 13 10:44 1911 bytes
Changed: bill/test2006/sfbmconf.txt Mar 13 10:44 255 bytes
Changed: bill/test2006/Soft Boot Log.txt Mar 13 10:44 930 bytes
Changed: bill/test2006/splash.txt Mar 13 10:44 1239 bytes
Changed: bill/test2006/system.LOG Mar 13 10:44 1024 bytes

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  Email Setup Questions
   
  How do I use an Exchange Server to send Email?
Please see the Exchange Server section of the User Manual.
Usually entering the IP address of the Exchange Server in SmtpServerName= in ygfconf.txt is sufficient.

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  How do I use "AUTH" authentication?
Please see the MailUserName section of the User Manual.
DO NOT ENTER A "MailUserName" unless you are sure your mail server requires authentication. Few servers require it.

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  Support Questions
   
  What should I include in any emails requesting assistance, or to show we have purchased update services?
Please see the Troubleshooting section of the User Manual. We track the license status with serial numbers and the domain name in the email address that purchased the license. When you need assistance, the most powerful information is a zipfile of all the text files in the installation directory and a mention in the email of the symptoms you are getting and what you are trying to accomplish. If you cannot send all of the files for some reason (maybe they are confidential) then the runlog.txt is usually enough to get us started. Setting the Debug=3 flag in the ygfconf.txt file is a big help as well.

Niwot Networks, Inc. Contact Us at: 721 Ninth Avenue, Longmont, Colorado 80501 303-772-8664 or 800-657-3278

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Gigabyte Express, You've Got Files!, and RELIA are trademarks of Niwot Networks, Inc.