sftpgo/docs/full-configuration.md

Configuring SFTPGo

Command line options

The SFTPGo executable can be used this way:

Usage:
  sftpgo [command]

Available Commands:
  gen          A collection of useful generators
  help         Help about any command
  initprovider Initializes and/or updates the configured data provider
  portable     Serve a single directory
  serve        Start the SFTP Server

Flags:
  -h, --help      help for sftpgo
  -v, --version

 Use "sftpgo [command] --help" for more information about a command

The serve command supports the following flags:

• --config-dir string. Location of the config dir. This directory should contain the configuration file and is used as the base directory for any files that use a relative path (eg. the private keys for the SFTP server, the SQLite or bblot database if you use SQLite or bbolt as data provider). The default value is "." or the value of SFTPGO_CONFIG_DIR environment variable.
• --config-file string. Name of the configuration file. It must be the name of a file stored in config-dir, not the absolute path to the configuration file. The specified file name must have no extension because we automatically append JSON, YAML, TOML, HCL and Java extensions when we search for the file. The default value is "sftpgo" (and therefore sftpgo.json, sftpgo.yaml and so on are searched) or the value of SFTPGO_CONFIG_FILE environment variable.
• --loaddata-from string. Load users and folders from this file. The file must be specified as absolute path and it must contain a backup obtained using the dumpdata REST API or compatible content. The default value is empty or the value of SFTPGO_LOADDATA_FROM environment variable.
• --loaddata-clean boolean. Determine if the loaddata-from file should be removed after a successful load. Default false or the value of SFTPGO_LOADDATA_CLEAN environment variable (1 or true, 0 or false).
• --loaddata-mode, integer. Restore mode for data to load. 0 means new users are added, existing users are updated. 1 means new users are added, existing users are not modified. Default 1 or the value of SFTPGO_LOADDATA_MODE environment variable.
• --loaddata-scan, integer. Quota scan mode after data load. 0 means no quota scan. 1 means quota scan. 2 means scan quota if the user has quota restrictions. Default 0 or the value of SFTPGO_LOADDATA_QUOTA_SCAN environment variable.
• --log-compress boolean. Determine if the rotated log files should be compressed using gzip. Default false or the value of SFTPGO_LOG_COMPRESS environment variable (1 or true, 0 or false). It is unused if log-file-path is empty.
• --log-file-path string. Location for the log file, default "sftpgo.log" or the value of SFTPGO_LOG_FILE_PATH environment variable. Leave empty to write logs to the standard error.
• --log-max-age int. Maximum number of days to retain old log files. Default 28 or the value of SFTPGO_LOG_MAX_AGE environment variable. It is unused if log-file-path is empty.
• --log-max-backups int. Maximum number of old log files to retain. Default 5 or the value of SFTPGO_LOG_MAX_BACKUPS environment variable. It is unused if log-file-path is empty.
• --log-max-size int. Maximum size in megabytes of the log file before it gets rotated. Default 10 or the value of SFTPGO_LOG_MAX_SIZE environment variable. It is unused if log-file-path is empty.
• --log-verbose boolean. Enable verbose logs. Default true or the value of SFTPGO_LOG_VERBOSE environment variable (1 or true, 0 or false).
• --profiler boolean. Enable the built-in profiler. The profiler will be accessible via HTTP/HTTPS using the base URL "/debug/pprof/". Default false or the value of SFTPGO_PROFILER environment variable (1 or true, 0 or false).

Log file can be rotated on demand sending a SIGUSR1 signal on Unix based systems and using the command sftpgo service rotatelogs on Windows.

If you don't configure any private host key, the daemon will use id_rsa, id_ecdsa and id_ed25519 in the configuration directory. If these files don't exist, the daemon will attempt to autogenerate them. The server supports any private key format supported by crypto/ssh.

The gen command allows to generate completion scripts for your shell and man pages.

Configuration file

The configuration file contains the following sections:

• "common", configuration parameters shared among all the supported protocols
  • idle_timeout, integer. Time in minutes after which an idle client will be disconnected. 0 means disabled. Default: 15
  • upload_mode integer. 0 means standard: the files are uploaded directly to the requested path. 1 means atomic: files are uploaded to a temporary path and renamed to the requested path when the client ends the upload. Atomic mode avoids problems such as a web server that serves partial files when the files are being uploaded. In atomic mode, if there is an upload error, the temporary file is deleted and so the requested upload path will not contain a partial file. 2 means atomic with resume support: same as atomic but if there is an upload error, the temporary file is renamed to the requested path and not deleted. This way, a client can reconnect and resume the upload.
  • actions, struct. It contains the command to execute and/or the HTTP URL to notify and the trigger conditions. See Custom Actions for more details
  • execute_on, list of strings. Valid values are download, upload, pre-delete, delete, rename, ssh_cmd. Leave empty to disable actions.
  • hook, string. Absolute path to the command to execute or HTTP URL to notify.
  • setstat_mode, integer. 0 means "normal mode": requests for changing permissions, owner/group and access/modification times are executed. 1 means "ignore mode": requests for changing permissions, owner/group and access/modification times are silently ignored. 2 means "ignore mode for cloud based filesystems": requests for changing permissions, owner/group and access/modification times are silently ignored for cloud filesystems and executed for local filesystem.
  • proxy_protocol, integer. Support for HAProxy PROXY protocol. If you are running SFTPGo behind a proxy server such as HAProxy, AWS ELB or NGNIX, you can enable the proxy protocol. It provides a convenient way to safely transport connection information such as a client's address across multiple layers of NAT or TCP proxies to get the real client IP address instead of the proxy IP. Both protocol versions 1 and 2 are supported. If the proxy protocol is enabled in SFTPGo then you have to enable the protocol in your proxy configuration too. For example, for HAProxy, add send-proxy or send-proxy-v2 to each server configuration line. The following modes are supported:
  • 0, disabled
  • 1, enabled. Proxy header will be used and requests without proxy header will be accepted
  • 2, required. Proxy header will be used and requests without proxy header will be rejected
  • proxy_allowed, List of IP addresses and IP ranges allowed to send the proxy header:
  • If proxy_protocol is set to 1 and we receive a proxy header from an IP that is not in the list then the connection will be accepted and the header will be ignored
  • If proxy_protocol is set to 2 and we receive a proxy header from an IP that is not in the list then the connection will be rejected
  • post_connect_hook, string. Absolute path to the command to execute or HTTP URL to notify. See Post connect hook for more details. Leave empty to disable
• "sftpd", the configuration for the SFTP server
  • bind_port, integer. The port used for serving SFTP requests. 0 means disabled. Default: 2022
  • bind_address, string. Leave blank to listen on all available network interfaces. Default: ""
  • idle_timeout, integer. Deprecated, please use the same key in common section.
  • max_auth_tries integer. Maximum number of authentication attempts permitted per connection. If set to a negative number, the number of attempts is unlimited. If set to zero, the number of attempts is limited to 6.
  • banner, string. Identification string used by the server. Leave empty to use the default banner. Default SFTPGo_<version>, for example SSH-2.0-SFTPGo_0.9.5
  • upload_mode integer. Deprecated, please use the same key in common section.
  • actions, struct. Deprecated, please use the same key in common section.
  • keys, struct array. Deprecated, please use host_keys.
  • private_key, path to the private key file. It can be a path relative to the config dir or an absolute one.
  • host_keys, list of strings. It contains the daemon's private host keys. Each host key can be defined as a path relative to the configuration directory or an absolute one. If empty, the daemon will search or try to generate id_rsa, id_ecdsa and id_ed25519 keys inside the configuration directory. If you configure absolute paths to files named id_rsa, id_ecdsa and/or id_ed25519 then SFTPGo will try to generate these keys using the default settings.
  • kex_algorithms, list of strings. Available KEX (Key Exchange) algorithms in preference order. Leave empty to use default values. The supported values can be found here: crypto/ssh
  • ciphers, list of strings. Allowed ciphers. Leave empty to use default values. The supported values can be found here: crypto/ssh
  • macs, list of strings. Available MAC (message authentication code) algorithms in preference order. Leave empty to use default values. The supported values can be found here: crypto/ssh
  • trusted_user_ca_keys, list of public keys paths of certificate authorities that are trusted to sign user certificates for authentication. The paths can be absolute or relative to the configuration directory.
  • login_banner_file, path to the login banner file. The contents of the specified file, if any, are sent to the remote user before authentication is allowed. It can be a path relative to the config dir or an absolute one. Leave empty to disable login banner.
  • setstat_mode, integer. Deprecated, please use the same key in common section.
  • enabled_ssh_commands, list of enabled SSH commands. * enables all supported commands. More information can be found here.
  • keyboard_interactive_auth_hook, string. Absolute path to an external program or an HTTP URL to invoke for keyboard interactive authentication. See Keyboard Interactive Authentication for more details.
  • password_authentication, boolean. Set to false to disable password authentication. This setting will disable multi-step authentication method using public key + password too. It is useful for public key only configurations if you need to manage old clients that will not attempt to authenticate with public keys if the password login method is advertised. Default: true.
  • proxy_protocol, integer. Deprecated, please use the same key in common section.
  • proxy_allowed, list of strings. Deprecated, please use the same key in common section.
• "ftpd", the configuration for the FTP server
  • bind_port, integer. The port used for serving FTP requests. 0 means disabled. Default: 0.
  • bind_address, string. Leave blank to listen on all available network interfaces. Default: "".
  • banner, string. Greeting banner displayed when a connection first comes in. Leave empty to use the default banner. Default SFTPGo <version> ready, for example SFTPGo 1.0.0-dev ready.
  • banner_file, path to the banner file. The contents of the specified file, if any, are displayed when someone connects to the server. It can be a path relative to the config dir or an absolute one. If set, it overrides the banner string provided by the banner option. Leave empty to disable.
  • active_transfers_port_non_20, boolean. Do not impose the port 20 for active data transfers. Enabling this option allows to run SFTPGo with less privilege. Default: false.
  • force_passive_ip, ip address. External IP address to expose for passive connections. Leavy empty to autodetect. Defaut: "".
  • passive_port_range, struct containing the key start and end. Port Range for data connections. Random if not specified. Default range is 50000-50100.
  • certificate_file, string. Certificate for FTPS. This can be an absolute path or a path relative to the config dir.
  • certificate_key_file, string. Private key matching the above certificate. This can be an absolute path or a path relative to the config dir. If both the certificate and the private key are provided the server will accept both plain FTP an explicit FTP over TLS. Certificate and key files can be reloaded on demand sending a SIGHUP signal on Unix based systems and a paramchange request to the running service on Windows.
  • tls_mode, integer. 0 means accept both cleartext and encrypted sessions. 1 means TLS is required for both control and data connection. Do not enable this blindly, please check that a proper TLS config is in place or no login will be allowed if tls_mode is 1.
• webdavd, the configuration for the WebDAV server, more info here
  • bind_port, integer. The port used for serving WebDAV requests. 0 means disabled. Default: 0.
  • bind_address, string. Leave blank to listen on all available network interfaces. Default: "".
  • certificate_file, string. Certificate for WebDAV over HTTPS. This can be an absolute path or a path relative to the config dir.
  • certificate_key_file, string. Private key matching the above certificate. This can be an absolute path or a path relative to the config dir. If both the certificate and the private key are provided the server will expect HTTPS connections. Certificate and key files can be reloaded on demand sending a SIGHUP signal on Unix based systems and a paramchange request to the running service on Windows.
  • cors struct containing CORS configuration. SFTPGo uses Go CORS handler, please refer to upstream documentation for fields meaning and their default values.
  • enabled, boolean, set to true to enable CORS.
  • allowed_origins, list of strings.
  • allowed_methods, list of strings.
  • allowed_headers, list of strings.
  • exposed_headers, list of strings.
  • allow_credentials boolean.
  • max_age, integer.
  • cache struct containing cache configuration for the authenticated users.
  • enabled, boolean, set to true to enable user caching. Default: true.
  • expiration_time, integer. Expiration time, in minutes, for the cached users. 0 means unlimited. Default: 0.
  • max_size, integer. Maximum number of users to cache. 0 means unlimited. Default: 50.
• "data_provider", the configuration for the data provider
  • driver, string. Supported drivers are sqlite, mysql, postgresql, bolt, memory
  • name, string. Database name. For driver sqlite this can be the database name relative to the config dir or the absolute path to the SQLite database. For driver memory this is the (optional) path relative to the config dir or the absolute path to the provider dump, obtained using the dumpdata REST API, to load. This dump will be loaded at startup and can be reloaded on demand sending a SIGHUP signal on Unix based systems and a paramchange request to the running service on Windows. The memory provider will not modify the provided file so quota usage and last login will not be persisted. If you plan to use a SQLite database over a cifs network share (this is not recommended in general) you must use the nobrl mount option otherwise you will get the database is locked error. Some users reported that the bolt provider works fine over cifs shares.
  • host, string. Database host. Leave empty for drivers sqlite, bolt and memory
  • port, integer. Database port. Leave empty for drivers sqlite, bolt and memory
  • username, string. Database user. Leave empty for drivers sqlite, bolt and memory
  • password, string. Database password. Leave empty for drivers sqlite, bolt and memory
  • sslmode, integer. Used for drivers mysql and postgresql. 0 disable SSL/TLS connections, 1 require ssl, 2 set ssl mode to verify-ca for driver postgresql and skip-verify for driver mysql, 3 set ssl mode to verify-full for driver postgresql and preferred for driver mysql
  • connectionstring, string. Provide a custom database connection string. If not empty, this connection string will be used instead of building one using the previous parameters. Leave empty for drivers bolt and memory
  • sql_tables_prefix, string. Prefix for SQL tables
  • manage_users, integer. Set to 0 to disable users management, 1 to enable
  • track_quota, integer. Set the preferred mode to track users quota between the following choices:
  • 0, disable quota tracking. REST API to scan users home directories/virtual folders and update quota will do nothing
  • 1, quota is updated each time a user uploads or deletes a file, even if the user has no quota restrictions
  • 2, quota is updated each time a user uploads or deletes a file, but only for users with quota restrictions and for virtual folders. With this configuration, the quota scan and folder_quota_scan REST API can still be used to periodically update space usage for users without quota restrictions and for folders
  • pool_size, integer. Sets the maximum number of open connections for mysql and postgresql driver. Default 0 (unlimited)
  • users_base_dir, string. Users default base directory. If no home dir is defined while adding a new user, and this value is a valid absolute path, then the user home dir will be automatically defined as the path obtained joining the base dir and the username
  • actions, struct. It contains the command to execute and/or the HTTP URL to notify and the trigger conditions. See Custom Actions for more details
  • execute_on, list of strings. Valid values are add, update, delete. update action will not be fired for internal updates such as the last login or the user quota fields.
  • hook, string. Absolute path to the command to execute or HTTP URL to notify.
  • external_auth_program, string. Deprecated, please use external_auth_hook.
  • external_auth_hook, string. Absolute path to an external program or an HTTP URL to invoke for users authentication. See External Authentication for more details. Leave empty to disable.
  • external_auth_scope, integer. 0 means all supported authentication scopes (passwords, public keys and keyboard interactive). 1 means passwords only. 2 means public keys only. 4 means key keyboard interactive only. The flags can be combined, for example 6 means public keys and keyboard interactive
  • credentials_path, string. It defines the directory for storing user provided credential files such as Google Cloud Storage credentials. This can be an absolute path or a path relative to the config dir
  • prefer_database_credentials, boolean. When true, users' Google Cloud Storage credentials will be written to the data provider instead of disk, though pre-existing credentials on disk will be used as a fallback. When false, they will be written to the directory specified by credentials_path.
  • pre_login_program, string. Deprecated, please use pre_login_hook.
  • pre_login_hook, string. Absolute path to an external program or an HTTP URL to invoke to modify user details just before the login. See Dynamic user modification for more details. Leave empty to disable.
  • post_login_hook, string. Absolute path to an external program or an HTTP URL to invoke to notify a successful or failed login. See Post-login hook for more details. Leave empty to disable.
  • post_login_scope, defines the scope for the post-login hook. 0 means notify both failed and successful logins. 1 means notify failed logins. 2 means notify successful logins.
  • check_password_hook, string. Absolute path to an external program or an HTTP URL to invoke to check the user provided password. See Check password hook for more details. Leave empty to disable.
  • check_password_scope, defines the scope for the check password hook. 0 means all protocols, 1 means SSH, 2 means FTP, 4 means WebDAV. You can combine the scopes, for example 6 means FTP and WebDAV.
  • password_hashing, struct. It contains the configuration parameters to be used to generate the password hash. SFTPGo can verify passwords in several formats and uses the argon2id algorithm to hash passwords in plain-text before storing them inside the data provider. These options allow you to customize how the hash is generated.
  • argon2_options struct containing the options for argon2id hashing algorithm. The memory and iterations parameters control the computational cost of hashing the password. The higher these figures are, the greater the cost of generating the hash and the longer the runtime. It also follows that the greater the cost will be for any attacker trying to guess the password. If the code is running on a machine with multiple cores, then you can decrease the runtime without reducing the cost by increasing the parallelism parameter. This controls the number of threads that the work is spread across.
    • memory, unsigned integer. The amount of memory used by the algorithm (in kibibytes). Default: 65536.
    • iterations, unsigned integer. The number of iterations over the memory. Default: 1.
    • parallelism. unsigned 8 bit integer. The number of threads (or lanes) used by the algorithm. Default: 2.
  • update_mode, integer. Defines how the database will be initialized/updated. 0 means automatically. 1 means manually using the initprovider sub-command.
• "httpd", the configuration for the HTTP server used to serve REST API and to expose the built-in web interface
  • bind_port, integer. The port used for serving HTTP requests. Set to 0 to disable HTTP server. Default: 8080
  • bind_address, string. Leave blank to listen on all available network interfaces. Default: "127.0.0.1"
  • templates_path, string. Path to the HTML web templates. This can be an absolute path or a path relative to the config dir
  • static_files_path, string. Path to the static files for the web interface. This can be an absolute path or a path relative to the config dir. If both templates_path and static_files_path are empty the built-in web interface will be disabled
  • backups_path, string. Path to the backup directory. This can be an absolute path or a path relative to the config dir. We don't allow backups in arbitrary paths for security reasons
  • auth_user_file, string. Path to a file used to store usernames and passwords for basic authentication. This can be an absolute path or a path relative to the config dir. We support HTTP basic authentication, and the file format must conform to the one generated using the Apache htpasswd tool. The supported password formats are bcrypt ($2y$ prefix) and md5 crypt ($apr1$ prefix). If empty, HTTP authentication is disabled.
  • certificate_file, string. Certificate for HTTPS. This can be an absolute path or a path relative to the config dir.
  • certificate_key_file, string. Private key matching the above certificate. This can be an absolute path or a path relative to the config dir. If both the certificate and the private key are provided, the server will expect HTTPS connections. Certificate and key files can be reloaded on demand sending a SIGHUP signal on Unix based systems and a paramchange request to the running service on Windows.
• "http", the configuration for HTTP clients. HTTP clients are used for executing hooks such as the ones used for custom actions, external authentication and pre-login user modifications
  • timeout, integer. Timeout specifies a time limit, in seconds, for requests.
  • ca_certificates, list of strings. List of paths to extra CA certificates to trust. The paths can be absolute or relative to the config dir. Adding trusted CA certificates is a convenient way to use self-signed certificates without defeating the purpose of using TLS.
  • skip_tls_verify, boolean. if enabled the HTTP client accepts any TLS certificate presented by the server and any host name in that certificate. In this mode, TLS is susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks. This should be used only for testing.
• kms, configuration for the Key Management Service, more details can be found here
  • secrets
  • url
  • master_key_path

A full example showing the default config (in JSON format) can be found here.

If you want to use a private host key that uses an algorithm/setting different from the auto generated RSA/ECDSA keys, or more than two private keys, you can generate your own keys and replace the empty keys array with something like this:

"host_keys": [
  "id_rsa",
  "id_ecdsa",
  "id_ed25519"
]

where id_rsa, id_ecdsa and id_ed25519, in this example, are files containing your generated keys. You can use absolute paths or paths relative to the configuration directory specified via the --config-dir serve flag. By default the configuration directory is the working directory.

If you want the default host keys generation in a directory different from the config dir, please specify absolute paths to files named id_rsa, id_ecdsa or id_ed25519 like this:

"host_keys": [
  "/etc/sftpgo/keys/id_rsa",
  "/etc/sftpgo/keys/id_ecdsa",
  "/etc/sftpgo/keys/id_ed25519"
]

then SFTPGo will try to create id_rsa, id_ecdsa and id_ed25519, if they are missing, inside the directory /etc/sftpgo/keys.

The configuration can be read from JSON, TOML, YAML, HCL, envfile and Java properties config files. If your config-file flag is set to sftpgo (default value), you need to create a configuration file called sftpgo.json or sftpgo.yaml and so on inside config-dir.

Environment variables

You can also override all the available configuration options using environment variables. SFTPGo will check for environment variables with a name matching the key uppercased and prefixed with the SFTPGO_. You need to use __ to traverse a struct.

Let's see some examples:

• To set sftpd bind_port, you need to define the env var SFTPGO_SFTPD__BIND_PORT
• To set the execute_on actions, you need to define the env var SFTPGO_COMMON__ACTIONS__EXECUTE_ON. For example SFTPGO_COMMON__ACTIONS__EXECUTE_ON=upload,download