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OCLC Support

About exchanging files with OCLC

Discover the data center and account credentials associated with your institution's account as well as how to navigate your OCLC file exchange account.

OCLC supports SFTP for institutions to exchange data with OCLC.

OpenSSH and OpenSSL

The OCLC servers are on OpenSSH 7.4, which no longer supports versions of OpenSSL that are older than 1.0.1.

Client machines must use a version of OpenSSH/OpenSSL that is not older than OpenSSH_5.3p1, OpenSSL 1.0.1e-fips 11 Feb 2013.

Available data centers

The data center associated with your institution's account depends on the region in which you are located. You will receive your data center assignment along with your file exchange account credentials.

 Note: You must always use your assigned data center.

Data center Regional host name Port
United States Data Center filex-m1.oclc.org 22
European Data Center filex-r1.oclc.org 22
Australian Data Center filex-r2.oclc.org 22
Canadian Data Center filex-r3.oclc.org 22

File exchange account credentials

Your file exchange account username:

  • Is based on your existing OCLC symbol; however, if your symbol contains an @, $ or #, it will be converted as follows:
    • @ will be replaced with _64
    • $ will be replaced with _36
    • # will be replaced with _35 
  • Is always lowercase; however, your account password is case-sensitive
  • Will have one of the following formats:
    • fx_zzzzz (replace zzzzz with your institution's OCLC symbol) – Used for OCLC products that do not exchange files containing Personal Identifiable Information (PII) data. This prefix applies to WorldShare Collection Manager and WorldShare Collection Evaluation.
    • wx_xxxxx (replace xxxxx with your institution's OCLC symbol) –Used for OCLC products that do exchange files containing PII data. This prefix applies to WorldShare Circulation, WorldShare Reports and Report Designer, and Tipasa.

Please contact OCLC Support to retrieve file exchange account credentials for your institution.

Product directories

The directories available in your account will vary according to your OCLC product subscriptions. You may not delete directories or add new ones.

File retention

Files will automatically be deleted by OCLC at the established retention period (typically 90 days for non-PII data and 30 days or less for PII data). You will not be able to delete files from output directories.

Navigate your OCLC file exchange account

Find your home directory

After you have signed in, you will be in the home directory of your file exchange account. Your home directory will correspond to your file exchange account username (e.g., /fx_zzz, /wx_ocwms).

Change directories

 Note: All product directory paths are found under  /xfer.

Linux

If you are using Linux commands, you will "cd" directly into the desired product directory (e.g., cd /xfer/metacoll/in/bib). All directory paths must always begin with /xfer.

Open source SFTP client

If you are using an open source SFTP client, you will need to navigate to your desired directory. To navigate in Filezilla, which is recommended as it works consistently with multiple operating systems:

filex-filezilla-change-directories.png

 

 

  1. In the Remote pane, you will be in the home directory which corresponds to your username.
  2. Navigate to the root directory.
  3. Click the xfer directory.
  4. Navigate to the desired upload or download product directory.