L10n Vendors and Integration

What are L10n Vendors?

Localyzer packages the resources files and send them to localization service providers (LSP) and translation management systems (TMS) to translate the files. There are many ways to send the files and they can be done a number of different ways that depend on different factors including the translation management system.

Supported L10n Vendors

To get a current list of LSP (localization service provider) and TMS (translation management system) companies that are integrated with Localyzer, please email sales@lingoport.com.

Recommended Approach

Lingoport FTP Protocol

Lingoport strongly recommends using the FTP protocol. With that approach,

• Lingoport automatically pushes valid resource files to be translated following a specific naming convention to an FTP end point
• The translation group picks up the files and on-boards them in the TMS following their own automated pattern
• The translation group returns the translated resource files to another FTP end point as per their system
• Localyzer picks up the translated files, validates them, and imports them into the proper repository

Advantages

• Robustness: FTP has been in place for decades and is one of the most reliable protocols for transmitting files from one system to another
• Simplicity: FTP and zip are well known and are well understood in the industry
• Security: FTP support SSH and SSL encryption; The FTP system can allow only some IP ranges to access the FTP port(s)
• Automation:Localyzer pushes and retrieves files automatically; The translation group supplies the automation to and from the automation end point
• Network Failure Handling: If the network goes down when accessing FTP, files are resent later when the network is up; Files are not lost due to downtime
• Asynchronicity: The Localyzer system and the TMS do not need any special connection; Files can be sent and received independently
• Scalability: The volume sent to an FTP system does not slow down either Localyzer or a TMS due to traffic. Each system can push or retrieve files without slowing down the other. FTP supports large volume of data
• Configurability: Configuring the FTP end point location is something well understood by IT departments and simple to configure (for Localyzer, see below)
• Testability: Checking the proper configuration is straightforward
• Fast Set Up: Given the above, setting up Localyzer with FTP is the fastest and simplest route

Note: Lingoport has set up Localyzer over FTP with many Translation Groups and the TMS of their choice and any TMS vendor can add their system to this integration pattern.

Resource File Transmission Protocols

For most use cases, Lingoport recommends sending files to translation over SFTP. Direct API-based connections are also available to some TMS systems.

Overall, Localyzer supports several localization paths for sending files to be translated. They are:

Typical:

• Local
  • Files are kept on the system Localyzer resides on. Good for debugging.
• FTP
  • FTP/SFTP. Typical method of sending resource files to/from translation.

API Based:

• Lingotek
• WorldServer
• Memsource
• XTM
• Machine Translation
  • AWS Amazon Translate
  • SYSTRAN Pure Neural® Server

How do I set the transmission protocol?

Setting the transmission protocol has changed significantly over the releases. Setting the protocol is now done through Jenkins configuration. In Jenkins, select Manage Jenkins in the left menu and then Configure System. Scroll down to Localyzer L10n Vendor Setup.

Standard Vendor Info

Name

The vendor name is used by a Jenkins job/Localyzer Project to define the L10n Vendor configuration to use. Vendor Name must be unique across all defined L10n Vendors.

Access Level

Group Level

If the group access level is selected, then the configuration will be available to a Localyzer project at the group level. When these settings are saved, a L10n Vendor configuration file will be created in the selected group's configuration folder. If the access level is changed to project or configuration deleted, then on save, the group's configuration file will be deleted.

The group drop-down is populated with all the Localyzer groups. The selected group must be unique across all the L10n Vendors otherwise a fatal error will occur when the global settings are saved.

Linking the Localyzer project to the defined group vendor

When setting up the L10n Vendor with a group access level, a Localyzer group was selected. When the Localyzer Automation Job is configured for a particular Localyzer project then the corresponding group L10n Vendor information is displayed. If there is no corresponding group L10n Vendor that has been created then a message will be displayed. See On Boarding the Localyzer Automation Job for more information.

In the example below, a group access level L10n Vendor has been created for group Acme. The Use Group Vendor option is selected because the project can use the L10 Vendor config file that was created during the Vendor config setup.

Project Level

When setting up the L10n Vendor with a project access level, a Localyzer group was not selected. This means that the L10n Vendor configuration can be used by any Localyzer project.
If the configuration access level is changed from project to group (or deleted), then the configuration file for any Localyzer Automation Job that use this vendor name's configuration will be deleted.

Linking the Localyzer project to a project vendor

There can be multiple L10n Vendors defined with a project access level. When the Localyzer Automation Job is configured for a particular Localyzer project then the user can select the L10n Vendor type, such as FTP to see what project access level vendors have been defined.

In the example below, a project access level L10n Vendor has been created for a FTP vendor. The Use Project Specific Vendor option is selected because the project has a different protocol then the group level vendor. The next time that the job is built, the configuration defined for the FtpVendor will be used to create the L10n Vendor Config file in the L10nStreamling project's config file.

Incontext Translation

For more info see Incontext User Guide

InContext URL

The URL of your InContext Server for InContext Translation.

InContext Token

The Incontext Token value must match one of the tokens configured on the Settings page of the InContext Server. Together with the InContext Server URL, the token is used to display the content to the translator for InContext Translation. This authorization token will be supplied by your InContext Server administrator.

InContext Unique Tag

A special tag is used when sending changed content to your L10n Vendor. The default tag is LRM_INCONTEXT. Some L10nVendors may require their own tag to delineate InContext information. If so then enter the tag here.

InContext File Decoration

Example of Default Incontext Tag

When prepping a kit where there is a valid InContext server configuration as above, each of the keys that need to be translated will have an InContext tag above the key. The default tag prefix is LRM_INCONTEXT since there is no InContext Unique Tag.
Below are examples of the decoration that occurs in the prep kit files.

XML type prep kit file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!--MyProject_8_6 - CHANGES-ONLY-->
<resources>
<!--LRM_INCONTEXT http://ec5-4-3-2-1.amazonaws.com:8081/incontext-server/lookup?key=3130_192&token=0qhZ9yTvtW5-->
<string name="Hello">Hello</string>

Properties type prep kit file

#MyProject_1_4 - CHANGES-ONLY
#LRM_INCONTEXT http://ec5-4-3-2-1.amazonaws.com:8081/incontext-server/lookup?key=422_238&token=0qhZ9yTvtW5
myString=Hello

Example of Unique Incontext Tag

When prepping a kit where there is a Incontext Unique Tag defined, each of the keys that need to be translated will have the defined InContext Unique Tag above the key.
Below are examples of the decoration that occurs in the prep kit files for a unique incontext tag.

XML type prep kit file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!--MyProject_8_6 - CHANGES-ONLY-->
<resources>
<!--SOME_UNIQUE_TAG http://ec5-4-3-2-1.amazonaws.com:8081/incontext-server/lookup?key=3130_192&token=0qhZ9yTvtW5-->
<string name="Hello">Hello</string>

Properties type prep kit file

#MyProject_1_4 - CHANGES-ONLY
#SOME_UNIQUE_TAG http://ec5-4-3-2-1.amazonaws.com:8081/incontext-server/lookup?key=422_238&token=0qhZ9yTvtW5
myString=Hello

Vendor has unsupported file types

Some L10 Vendors do not supported all the extensions types that Localyzer supports. If this is true for one of your Vendors then select the checkbox to display the supported extensions that have an OTB conversion. If an extension cannot be transformed by Localyzer (not in the drop down) then special transforms can be created by Lingoport.

Local Vendor

A local vendor uses the current system for the incoming and outgoing files.

• Set the name of the vendor. This can be anything descriptive that can be selected in the automation jobs.
• Set the names of the incoming and outgoing file locations.
• XTM and Memsource use the local vendor for their configurations. Continuing to these links gives more information.

Translation Local Vendor Integration

See advanced Local vendor info for more vendor details.

FTP Vendor

• Set the name of the vendor. This can be anything descriptive that can be selected in the automation jobs.
• Set the hostname for uploading files and for downloading files and the respective file location, username, and password. Test the Connection to make sure that the system can communicate with the host.
• Often FTP uses port 22 and SSH. Change this if the configuration differs.

Translation FTP Vendor Integration

See Prep/Import Zip Files for more information.

Lingotek Vendor

• Set the name of the vendor. This can be anything descriptive that can be selected in the automation jobs.
• Set the Lingotek credentials. If these are unknown, contact Lingotek or support@lingoport.com.
• The Jenkins URL will be something like: https://<IP address>/jenkins. Probably of the current system.

Configuration Details

See advanced Lingotek vendor info for more Lingotek configuration details.

WorldServer Vendor

• Set the name of the vendor. This can be anything descriptive that can be selected in the automation jobs.
• Set the credentials for WorldServer. Contact WorldServer for these values.
• Set the host, port, location and username and password for the files to download and import.
• Enable the following Jenkins Jobs under the Jenkins 'TMS' tab - WorldserverCheckDownloads, WorldserverDownload, WorldserverImport
• See advanced WorldServer vendor issues for more WorldServer configuration details.

Historically, the type of L10n Vendor was defined in the config_l10n_vendor.properties file that can exist at either the group or project level. However, since it is now part of the Jenkins configuration, this is obsolete. Manual changes to this file may be overwritten by the Jenkins configuration.

The default location of the config_l10n_vendor.properties file is at the group level in /var/lib/jenkins/Lingoport_Data/L10nStreamlining/<group-name>/config.

Configuration Details

See advanced WorldServer vendor info for more WorldServer configuration details.

Machine Translation Vendors

AWS Amazon Translate

See the AWS Amazon Translate wiki page for information on how to set up a AWS Amazon Translate Vendor.

Systran

See the Systran wiki page for information on how to set up a Systran Vendor.

Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services Translator

See the Microsoft Translator wiki page for information on how to set up a Microsoft Vendor.

Google Cloud Platform Translation Service

See the Google Translate wiki page for information on how to set up a Google Vendor.

Advanced FTP Vendor issues

How do I create the SSH keys?

See http://www.linuxproblem.org/art_9.html.

How do I hide the password?

Use a .netrc file, The .netrc file is located in the $HOME directory.

Example of a .netrc:

machine ftp.company.net
login username
password myPassword

Then ftp ftp.company.net will use the login and username in the .netrc file to connect and the username password are not visible.

I configured a vanilla FTP (not SSH or SSL) and I get an SSH error

If you configure an FTP end point and you get a message from SSH, it means you are reaching an SSH FTP endpoint and that endpoint does not understand the request which follows a different protocol (FTP).

For instance, you may get this error:

   org.apache.commons.net.MalformedServerReplyException: Could not parse response code.
   Server Reply: SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_4.3

A possible issue may be the port number: port 22 is typically used for FTP/SSH; port 21 is typically used for vanilla FTP. Change the port number in config_l10n_vendor.properties and test again.

How do I setup a proxy for a project's FTP server?

SSH/SFTP proxy server

If the ftp.out.protocol/ftp.in.protocol is SSH and there is a SFTP proxy server then the proxy host and proxy port are set up via java options.

There are 3 proxy protocols supported

• ProxyHTTP
• ProxySOCKS4
• ProxySOCKS5

ProxyHTTP

The expected java options for ProxyHTTP are:

• ftp.proxyHost
• ftp.proxyPort

Linux example if setting java options within a shell session.

export _JAVA_OPTIONS='-Dftp.proxyHost=theproxyhost -Dftp.proxyPort=123'

ProxySOCKS4

The expected java options for ProxySOCKS4 are:

• ftp.socks4.proxyHost
• ftp.socks4.proxyPort

Linux example if setting java options within a shell session.

export _JAVA_OPTIONS='-Dftp.socks4.proxyHost=theproxyhost -Dftp.socks4.proxyPort=123'

ProxySOCKS5

The expected java options for ProxySOCKS5 are:

• ftp.socks5.proxyHost
• ftp.socks5.proxyPort

Linux example if setting java options within a shell session.

export _JAVA_OPTIONS='-Dftp.socks5.proxyHost=theproxyhost -Dftp.socks5.proxyPort=123'

Encoding of translated files

We are expecting the .properties to be returned in UTF-8 (no BOM) and so they should not have Unicode escaped characters.