Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi Guys,

I suspect what I'm trying to do isn't possible, but I'm hoping someone can either confirm this or point me in the right direction.

We have a third-party application which transfers a collection of files to our SFTP server ( Ubuntu 12.04 with OpenSSH ) . Once the app disconnects, we want to trigger the running of a script to organise the files into relevant subfolders. The server is only for this application so the script can be run on every disconnect.

From what I've seen, sftp doesn't seem to have any hooks to external sources. I've looked into using inotify but I don't think this will suffice. The number of files transferred and their size will change continuously so combining inotify-on-fileclose with a timeout would be unreliable.

So my question is: Is this possible at all or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Thanks in advance.
James

Well it will depend on a few things...
- Is that directory entirely dedicated to that specific application for it s dowload?
( Understand when you have moved the files found to relevant files, its can be considered as empty... and no one else but that application writes here...)
- Is the deposit RANDOM or you have a littel idea of the schedule

to start with...

Set up a cron job to scan the inbound directory as frequently as nesessary. Use fuser to bypass files that are in use.

@vbe

- The directory is dedicated to the sftp uploads. The script moves the files into relevant folders and then the folder is empty. There are no other apps that write to this directory.
- The deposit is controlled by a user. They press a deploy button and the content is dumped into our server. so, logically we know roughly when it should be, but the system will not. The system is also aimed at untrained/partially-trained personnel and the fewer steps to go through, the easier it is to use.

@jgt

I thought about a cron job but if the cron job fires as the files are being uploaded, only half the files will be sorted.

Thanks for your input.

James

If you have control of the sending function, send two files. First the data file and secondly a trigger file. Have the cron job only orocess data files for which there is a corresponding trigger file.

Yep, I think that's possibly my best option (or do it with cron/manually). We don't have control of the app but we are in communication with the developers so they may be able to accommodate.

Thanks for your input.

You might want to watch the sftp-server process - once it disappears from the ps listing, the script can be run. Or you could look into /var/log/auth.log:

Code:

Apr 22 16:21:46 RFreeBSD sshd[1195]: subsystem request for sftp by user RUDIC
Apr 22 16:23:27 RFreeBSD sshd[1195]: Received disconnect from 10.1.1.1: 11: disconnected by user