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Event Manager

The Event Manager allows an administrator to configure HTTP notifications, commands execution, email notifications and carry out certain server operations based on server events or schedules.

The following actions are supported:

  • HTTP notification. You can notify an HTTP/S endpoing via GET, POST, PUT, DELETE methods. You can define custom headers, query parameters and a body for POST and PUT request. Placeholders are supported for username, body, header and query parameter values.
  • Command execution. You can launch custom commands passing parameters via environment variables. Placeholders are supported for environment variable values. ⚠ Allowing any system command could pose a security risk, they are disabled by default.
  • Email notification. Placeholders are supported in subject and body. The email will be sent as plain text. For this action to work you have to configure an SMTP server in the SFTPGo configuration file.
  • Backup. A backup will be saved in the configured backup directory. The backup will contain the week day and the hour in the file name.
  • Rotate log file. If file logging is enabled, the log file will be rotated regardless of its size.
  • User quota reset. The quota used by users will be updated based on current usage.
  • Folder quota reset. The quota used by virtual folders will be updated based on current usage.
  • Transfer quota reset. The transfer quota values will be reset to 0.
  • Data retention check. You can define per-folder retention policies.
  • Password expiration check. You can send an email notification to users whose password is about to expire.
  • User expiration check. You can receive notifications with expired users.
  • User inactivity check. Allow to disable or delete inactive users.
  • Identity Provider account check. You can create/update accounts for users/admins logging in using an Identity Provider.
  • Filesystem. For these actions, the required permissions are automatically granted. This is the same as executing the actions from an SFTP client and the same restrictions applies. Supported actions:
    • Rename. You can rename one or more files or directories.
    • Delete. You can delete one or more files and directories.
    • Create directories. You can create one or more directories including sub-directories.
    • Path exists. Check if the specified path exists.
    • Copy. You can copy one or more files or directories.
    • Compress paths. You can compress (currently as zip) ore or more files and directories.

The following placeholders are supported:

  • {{Name}}. Username, virtual folder name, admin username for provider events, domain name for TLS certificate events.
  • {{Event}}. Event name, for example upload, download for filesystem events or add, update for provider events.
  • {{Status}}. Status for filesystem events. 1 means no error, 2 means a generic error occurred, 3 means quota exceeded error.
  • {{StatusString}}. Status as string. Possible values "OK", "KO".
  • {{ErrorString}}. Error details. Replaced with an empty string if no errors occur.
  • {{VirtualPath}}. Path seen by SFTPGo users, for example /adir/afile.txt.
  • {{VirtualDirPath}}. Parent directory for VirtualPath, for example if VirtualPath is "/adir/afile.txt", VirtualDirPath is "/adir".
  • {{FsPath}}. Full filesystem path, for example /user/homedir/adir/afile.txt or C:/data/user/homedir/adir/afile.txt on Windows.
  • {{ObjectName}}. File/directory name, for example afile.txt or provider object name.
  • {{ObjectType}}. Object type for provider events: user, group, admin, etc.
  • {{Ext}}. File extension, for example .txt if the filename is afile.txt.
  • {{VirtualTargetPath}}. Virtual target path for rename and copy operations.
  • {{VirtualTargetDirPath}}. Parent directory for VirtualTargetPath.
  • {{TargetName}}. Target object name for rename and copy operations.
  • {{FsTargetPath}}. Full filesystem target path for rename and copy operations.
  • {{FileSize}}. File size.
  • {{Elapsed}}. Elapsed time as milliseconds for filesystem events.
  • {{Protocol}}. Used protocol, for example SFTP, FTP.
  • {{IP}}. Client IP address.
  • {{Role}}. User or admin role.
  • {{Timestamp}}. Event timestamp as nanoseconds since epoch.
  • {{DateTime}}. Event timestamp formatted as YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.ZZZ.
  • {{Email}}. For filesystem events, this is the email associated with the user performing the action. For the provider events, this is the email associated with the affected user or admin. Blank in all other cases.
  • {{ObjectData}}. Provider object data serialized as JSON with sensitive fields removed.
  • {{ObjectDataString}}. Provider object data as JSON escaped string with sensitive fields removed.
  • {{RetentionReports}}. Data retention reports as zip compressed CSV files. Supported as email attachment, file path for multipart HTTP request and as single parameter for HTTP requests body. Data retention reports contain details on the number of files deleted and the total size deleted for each folder.
  • {{IDPField<fieldname>}}. Identity Provider custom fields containing a string.
  • {{Metadata}}. Cloud storage metadata for the downloaded file serialized as JSON.
  • {{MetadataString}}. Cloud storage metadata for the downloaded file as JSON escaped string.
  • {{UID}}. Unique ID.

Event rules are based on the premise that an event occours. To each rule you can associate one or more actions. The following trigger events are supported:

  • Filesystem events, for example upload, download etc.
  • Provider events, for example add, update, delete user or other resources.
  • Schedules. The scheduler uses UTC time.
  • IP Blocked, this event can be generated if you enable the defender.
  • Certificate, this event is generated when a certificate is renewed using the built-in ACME protocol. Both successful and failed renewals are notified.
  • On demand, this trigger is generated manually using the WebAdmin or the REST API.
  • Identity Provider login, this trigger is generated when a user/admin logs in using an external Identity Provider.

You can further restrict a rule by specifying additional conditions that must be met before the rule’s actions are taken. For example you can react to uploads only if they are performed by a particular user or using a specified protocol.

Actions such as user quota reset, transfer quota reset, data retention check, folder quota reset and filesystem events are executed for all matching users if the trigger is a schedule or for the affected user if the trigger is a provider event or a filesystem action.

Actions are executed in a sequential order except for sync actions that are executed before the others. For each action associated to a rule you can define the following settings:

  • Stop on failure, the next action will not be executed if the current one fails.
  • Failure action, this action will be executed only if at least another one fails. ⚠ Please note that a failure action isn't executed if the event fails, for example if a download fails the main action is executed. The failure action is executed only if one of the non-failure actions associated to a rule fails.
  • Execute sync, for upload events, you can execute the action(s) synchronously. Executing an action synchronously means that SFTPGo will not return a result code to the client (which is waiting for it) until your action have completed its execution. If your acion takes a long time to complete this could cause a timeout on the client side, which wouldn't receive the server response in a timely manner and eventually drop the connection. For pre-* events at least a sync action is required. If pre-delete,pre-upload, pre-download sync action(s) completes successfully, SFTPGo will allow the operation, otherwise the client will get a permission denied error.

If you are running multiple SFTPGo instances connected to the same data provider, you can choose whether to allow simultaneous execution for scheduled actions.

Some actions are not supported for some triggers, rules containing incompatible actions are skipped at runtime:

  • Filesystem events, folder quota reset cannot be executed, we don't have a direct way to get the affected folder.
  • Provider events, user quota reset, transfer quota reset, data retention check and filesystem actions can be executed only if a user is updated. They will be executed for the affected user. Folder quota reset can be executed only for folders. Filesystem actions are not executed for delete user events because the actions is executed after the user deletion.
  • IP Blocked, user quota reset, folder quota reset, transfer quota reset, data retention check and filesystem actions cannot be executed, we only have an IP.
  • Certificate, user quota reset, folder quota reset, transfer quota reset, data retention check and filesystem actions cannot be executed.
  • Email with attachments are supported for filesystem events and provider events if a user is added/updated. We need a user to get the files to attach.
  • HTTP multipart requests with files as attachments are supported for filesystem events and provider events if a user is added/updated. We need a user to get the files to attach.