Command Line Droplet Creation

DropDat To assist with automation and remote management, you can create droplets by running the DropDat master from a terminal, command shell, or script.  In this non-interactive mode, all arguments must be provided on the command line.  If you have not previously registered the DropDat master license on a machine, you must do so by double clicking on it prior to using the command line.

macOS

To run DropDat for macOS on the command-line, you must run the Contents/MacOS/DropDat executable located inside the DropDat.app bundle.  The simplest way to do this is to open a Terminal window, drag DropDat.app to the window, and then add /Contents/MacOS/DropDat to the path.  For example:

/Applications/DropDat.app/Contents/MacOS/DropDat -target ~/Desktop/droplet -server example.com -username user -password pass

DropDat will run synchronously like any other command line application.  You may redirect or pipe output using standard shell syntax.

Windows

To run DropDat for Windows on the command-line, type the path of the DropDat.exe in a command shell.  For example:

C:\ExpeDat\DropDat.exe -target C:\Windows\ExpeDat\droplet -server example.com -username user -password password

DropDat will run asynchronously and attempt to output results to command shell window.  Use the "-output" option to redirect results to a file.

Result

On success, DropDat will output its version number on line one, followed by "SUCCESS" and a description of the action on line two.

DropDat 1.7.0 Command Line Mode SUCCESS: Created droplet /Users/me/Desktop/droplet.app from master /Applications/DropDatD.app

On failure, a description of the error will be output.

Options

-target <path> The location to create the new droplet.  It must be different the DropDat master.  For example, "To Home Office".  You must have write permission for the target path to create a droplet.
-server <name> The DNS name or IP address of the host or the host group to which files will be sent.  The port number of the server can also be specified using a colon.  For example: server.example.com:8080.  The server name or address will be evaluated on the system running the droplet at the time of each file transfer.  If you use an internal name or private address, the droplet will not work on systems outside your network.
-folder <path> The path to the folder on the server where files will be uploaded.  Remember that ExpeDat servers always use forward slashes ('/') to delimit path names.  Omit this to deliver files to the home directory.  See the Home Directories section of the server documentation for details.
-username <string> The username to send for authentication to the server, if required.  Usernames must be less than 64 bytes when UTF-8 encoded and should consist of only ASCII letters, numbers, and symbols.  When targeting a Windows server, you may specify an Active Directory domain as "username@ad_domain".
-password <string> Provide a password when authenticating with a username.  The password will be AES encrypted prior to storage in the droplet.  Passwords must be less than 96 bytes when UTF-8 encoded and should consist of only ASCII letters, numbers, and symbols.
-handler <string> Omit this for regular file uploads.  If the server has been configured to accept data for an Object Handler, provide the Object Handler's action code.  For example, if you are uploading to the CloudDat gateway for Amazon S3, use "-handler S3".  An Object Handler cannot be used with Streaming Folders.
-encrypt <true|false> AES encryption of file contents is enabled by default.  Use "-encrypt false" to disable content encryption.  Request information, including usernames, passwords, file paths, and meta data, are always encrypted regardless of this option.  Encryption increases the CPU load of both the server and the client computers which may limit performance at high speeds on CPU bound systems.  One or two available CPU cores are needed to support each gigabit per second of encrypted throughput.
-stream <true|false> When Streaming Folders is enabled, folders and their contents will be sent as a real-time data stream, instead of one file at a time.  This may be faster for large numbers of small files, but if the transfer is interrupted it will have to start over from the beginning.  See the ExpeDat Desktop Copying Folders section for more details.  Streaming Folders cannot be used with an Object Handler.
-output <path> Windows Only.  Write output messages to the given file.  Due to limitations of the Windows console environment, stdio redirects do not work with DropDat.exe.  Use this option to direct DropDat's output to a file so that scripts can test the result.

See the Creating Droplets section for additional information about droplet creation.