HOW-TO: Email notification of SFTP file upload

Following on from my post, 'HOW-TO: Chrooted SFTP only access' I wanted to find a way to get an email notification of when a client had uploaded a file to my work's SFTP area. I had Sendmail already installed.

Each client has their own subdirectory under /home/sftp/ and I wanted to monitor them all and trigger an email when a new file was created.

Ok, I don't know how much use this will be to others but I am just going to throw down what I did to achieve what I wanted. These are personal notes and use them at your peril.

Code:   

sudo apt-get install iwatch

   

installs iWatch, written in Perl and based on inotify, a file change notification system, a kernel feature that allows applications to request the monitoring of a set of files against a list of events.

Code:   

sudo touch /etc/init.d/sftp-iwatch

   

creates an empty file. I edited the file and typed

Code:   

iwatch -r -e create -c "(w;ps -ef)|/home/david/file_notify_email.sh %f '$($(which date))'" /home/sftp >> /dev/null 2>&1 &

   

which basically executes a script /home/david/file_notify_email.sh when a new file is created under /home/sftp/.

/home/david/file_notify_email.sh
Code:   

#!/bin/bash
# 20110723 David Humble

FILE="$1"
CREATED="$2"
DATE=$($(which date))
FROM="aadfiler"
SUBJECT="File upload notification"
EMAIL="technical@xxx.co.uk"
EMAILMESSAGE="/var/upload.txt"

echo "Date: $DATE" > /var/upload.txt
echo "To: $EMAIL" >> /var/upload.txt
echo "From: $FROM">>/var/upload.txt
echo "Subject: $SUBJECT">>/var/upload.txt
echo "New file $FILE created at $CREATED on aadfiler SFTP Server.">>/var/upload.txt
echo ".">>/var/upload.txt

cat /var/upload.txt | /usr/sbin/sendmail -t

   


Code:   

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/sftp-iwatch
sudo chmod +x /home/david/file_notify_email.sh

   

makes both files executable.

Code:   

cd /etc/init.d
update-rc.d sftp-iwatch defaults

   

Adds sftp-iwatch to the servers startup processes.

now you can manually start sftp-iwatch by typing
Code:   

sudo /etc/init.d/sftp-iwatch

   


Now whenever a client uploads a file to any subdirectory of /home/sftp/ I get a notification thus:
Quote:   

Date: Wed Aug 3 16:27:02 BST 2011
To: technical@xxx.co.uk
From: aadfiler@xxx.local
Subject: File upload notification

New file /home/sftp/clientsname/upload/AAD013 GE eNewsletter Day 3.csv created at Sat Jul 23 13:36:37 BST 2011 on aadfiler SFTP Server.

References
http://iwatch.sourceforge.net/index.html

Categories: How-To, Linux, OS, Open-SSH, SFTP server, Chrooted SFTP only access
Tags: kde, ubuntu server, Linux, open-ssh, chroot, sftp, File upload email notification, iwatch, notify, dnotify