The End Of WeatherCat

[wx-watch]

I have just received this email from IONOS my hosting company -

You are currently still using the outdated File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to transfer data to or from your IONOS webspace. To ensure that your data remains safe and secure, we are pleased to announce that we will be completely migrating our platform to Secure FTP (SFTP) by 31.12.2023.
 
What does this mean for you?
Only secure and encrypted SFTP connections to and from IONOS webspaces will be allowed. FTP connections will be automatically rejected and no longer be possible. Please make sure that your used transfer program or used applications only establish a secure connection with SFTP.

So I will no longer be able to use WeatherCat - shame as it has been running since 2018!

I wonder how many other users this will affect

[elagache]

Dear wx-watch and WeatherCat faithful,

You are currently still using the outdated File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to transfer data to or from your IONOS webspace. To ensure that your data remains safe and secure, we are pleased to announce that we will be completely migrating our platform to Secure FTP (SFTP) by 31.12.2023

. . . .

So I will no longer be able to use WeatherCat - shame as it has been running since 2018!

I understand that this isn't a particularly appealing alternative.  However, you might consider changing web hosting provider to one that still supports FTP.

I wonder how many other users this will affect

Unfortunately, this problem has been around for some number of years.  I believe there are many WeatherCat users (myself included) who would prefer to switch to SFTP if that option were available.  It has reached the point that certainly some power WeatherCat users would probably be willing to install a newer version of curl if that is what would be required.  MacPorts is still available:

https://www.macports.org/

However, installing it requires some UNIX experience and more courage than some WeatherCat users can probably muster.

I'm sure that Stu is aware of all this.  He is working on WeatherCat when he manages to pry some free time.  All we can do is hope he can incorporate this change when he is able.

Sorry to not be able to be more encouraging.

Edouard

[wx-watch]

I am afraid I host quite a few websites with them with a plethora of associated emails so changing would be very problematic! Just a thought - if I turn off FTP upload do the files still generate locally? If so perhaps I could find another way to SFTP/Rsync the files to my website. This would be way above my skill set but I have a few months to learn. If the file generation needs the FTP upload turned on perhaps I could run a local FTP server (I have a spare Raspberry Pi) and upload from there.

[elagache]

Dear wx-watch and WeatherCat tinkerers,

. . . .
Just a thought - if I turn off FTP upload do the files still generate locally? If so perhaps I could find another way to SFTP/Rsync the files to my website.

Yes, I'm sure something like that might work.  I can't think of an obvious way to do this at the moment, but certainly with a little UNIX tinkering it is possible.  Another possibility is to use a utility that monitors the folder where WeatherCat creates the files and automatically uploads files when the creation date is newer on your Mac than on the server.  You might check MacUpdate to see if a low-cost utility like this exists.  Do a search on SFTP and see what you find.

Let us know what you discover.

Edouard