How to Access Your Reports Using FTP on MacOS

Overview: 

This tutorial assumes you received reports via email or via FTP that were encrypted with the public key you sent to IBKR. If you need guidance to set up the encrypted statement delivery, please refer to this article, which is a prerequisite to the instructions below.

There are multiple methods to access the IBKR FTP server. FTP clients such as Filezilla can be used or you could as well use Finder. In this article we explain how to realize the connection to the IBKR FTP server using Finder.

Important Note: You will not be able to connect using your browser.

Once you are connected to the IBKR FTP Server, you will have both read and write access to your folder. The retention policy for the files is 100 days - IBKR will automatically purge files after that.

To access your reports using macOS Finder:

1. Open the Finder app. From the top menu Go, select  Connect to Server...  Alternatively, you can press Command + K on the keyboard while the Finder app is open.

2. Type the FTP address ftp://ftp2.interactivebrokers.com in to the Connect to Server field and click Connect.

3. A login dialog window will then appear. Select 'Registered User' for the Connect As field. Enter the FTP username and password IBKR provided you with in to the corresponding fields. Then press Connect.

4. A Finder window will open and you will now have direct access to your FTP folder. Documents and files present there can now be decrypted using your PGP key, as explained in IBKB4210.

 

Common issues and solutions

A. Could not log in to the FTP server with the username and password specified

Ensure the correct login details are being used to connect to the FTP server. The username and password you are entering should match the ones you have received from the Reporting Integration Team.

B. Connection Timed Out
  1. Enable the Passive (PASV) mode for FTP connections. Click on the Apple icon on the top left of your Desktop and choose System Preferences. Launch Network. Select your active network connection, then click on the button Advanced and select the Proxies tab. Activate the option Use Passive FTP mode (PASV). The passive mode is more firewall friendly then the active one, since all the connections are initiated from the Client side. If you are using a specific FTP Client, check its connection settings or advanced settings in order to find and enable the Passive (PASV) mode switch.
  2. In case you have an antivirus or a security software installed on your machine, make sure it is not blocking the FTP connection attempt. Normally, security software allow to set up exceptions for specific connections in order to whitelist them.
  3. Should the above steps be unable to resolve the issue, ask your network administrator/s to confirm that your firewall allows traffic from/to ftp2.interactivebrokers.com. Note: Your network administrator should consider that every time your FTP Client attempts connecting to our FTP server with Passive mode, it establishes two connections: a command channel (outbound, from random TCP port above 1024 to TCP port 21) and a data channel (outbound, from a random TCP port above 1024 to the TCP port above 1024 which was negotiated through the command channel). Both connections are initiated by the Client side. In the picture below, you can find an example of this connections schema. Please notice that the ports 2000, 3000, 4000 are examples of randomly selected ports and may very well not correspond to the ones used within your specific FTP connection attempt.

 

 
References

KB3968 - Generate a key pair using GPG for Windows
KB4205 - Generate a key pair using GPG Suite on macOS
KB4108 - Decrypt your Reports using GPG for Windows
KB4210 - Decrypting Reports using your PGP Key pair on macOS
KB4407 - Generate RSA Key Pair on Windows
KB4578 - How to Access your Reports using FTP on Windows
KB4409 - How to set up sFTP for using Certificate Authentication on Windows
KB4410 - How to set up sFTP for using Certificate Authentication on macOS
KB4411 - How to backup your public/private Key pair 
KB4323 - How to transfer your public/private key pair from one computer to another