FTP Task and Temporary Internet Files

I have created a package within SQL Server SSIS which includes an FTP Task, deployed it to our SQL Server (2005 SP1) msdb database and am running this job under SQL Agent on Windows Server 2003. Due to company security requirements this job has to be run under a service account within SQL Agent. The problem with this is that even though a directory is specified within the FTP Task to place any downloaded files into, the files are first written to the TIF (Temporary Internet Files) directory of "Default User" which is on the system drive. Based on corporate standards the system drive (C:) on our servers are only configured with enough space for the OS and other system files. All of the files being transferred are compressed, but some are still well over 1GB in size. The result is that many of our downloads are failing due to the system drive running out of space.

I have attempted to run IE by using "Run As" with the service account credentials, and have changed the location of the TIFs to a different drive, rebooted and verified the settings. When the SQL Agent job was run again, the files were still being written to the "Default User" directory on the system drive. I also created a new template account with the TIFs pointing to a non-system drive and used the User Profiles functionality of System Properties to copy the new template account to "Default User", but still the files are being written to the system drive.

My questions are:

is there a way to stop the FTP Task from using TIF (i.e. just directly write the file to the location specified) is there a best practice around how to setup a service account and have it create a proper user profile that can be managed separate from "Default User" short of specifying during the OS install, is there a way to move the "Default User" profile directory to a different drive

In case anyone else runs into this situation, I thought I would describe what ended up happening.

The page file was moved off of the system drive; otherwise the server was locking up when the system drive ran out or space. Now that the page file is on a separate drive, once the system drive runs completely out of space during a download the FTP Task (or whatever is managing the FTP transfer in the background) just starts writing the file being downloaded to the specified location (apparently it's smart enough to stop caching without crashing once there is no space left). Once the file that filled up the system drive completes downloading then it is removed from the TIF; normally the files aren't removed from the TIF until the entire package finishes execution.

The only downside to this is that the time period between the system drive becoming full and the file download completing, there are difficulties with logging into the machine. The difficulty is that some error messages are displayed and not being able to use your user profile - the Default User profile is used instead.

|||I am experiencing a similar problem. Does anybody out there know how to address this issue please?

Chris Lund, Software Installation Limited, Manchester UKsql