Accessing data via SFTP

Bulk Data Requests
1

Hello,

I had some questions on how data can be accessed via the SFTP server. Can anybody help answer the below?

• What is the folder path in the SFTP server? Are all data products in the same folder or are they in separate? Is this different for prod and dev data?
• What is the maximum file size across all products? Are they split into chunks when accessing?
• Does the SFTP server have an IP address on top the end point? If so, what is this?
• What is the frequency each of the below data products are updated?
Prod 183, Prod 199, Prod 200 and Prod 202

Thank you very much.

2
  • the file paths are formatted like this:
/free/prod{code}/YYYY/MM/DD/Prod{code}_{run number}_{part number}.dat

The file names might vary, but that directory path structure is generally followed.
So eg for prod 183, a path might be:

/free/prod183/2025/06/08/Prod183_3977_1.dat
  • they usually split up the files by number of records, so file size can vary a bit but is usually a few hundred megabytes in my experience.
  • for the IP address, I just ran this command, output shown:
> nslookup bulk-live.companieshouse.gov.uk
Server:         10.255.255.254
Address:        10.255.255.254#53

Non-authoritative answer:
bulk-live.companieshouse.gov.uk canonical name = bulk-gateway-live-lb-4344c1a7439a1e59.elb.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com.
Name:   bulk-gateway-live-lb-4344c1a7439a1e59.elb.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com
Address: 18.130.20.220
Name:   bulk-gateway-live-lb-4344c1a7439a1e59.elb.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com
Address: 18.133.63.185
Name:   bulk-gateway-live-lb-4344c1a7439a1e59.elb.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com
Address: 18.132.94.9
  • the frequency of the snapshot products is not on a set schedule, and seems to be on a request basis. the idea is that you’ll only need the snapshot once to get setup and then use the update files to stay up to date. you can use an old snapshot and just bulk apply the update files since then.
3

Hi Brian. Thank you very much for your response, this is really helpful. One follow up question I have is this IP address looks like the address of the load balancer, do we know the IP address of the SFTP server behind this?