sftpwarden 1.1.0

Container-native SFTP gateway with OpenSSH, chroot isolation, and declarative user provisioning.

Container-native SFTP for teams that want a small, auditable OpenSSH runtime with declarative users, predictable Docker deployment, and a CLI that works the same locally and on remote hosts.

Key Features  ·  Installation  ·  Quick Start  ·  Deployment  ·  Providers  ·  Docs  ·  Contributing

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SFTPWarden runs OpenSSH in a container and keeps users, host keys, data, and runtime state outside the image. You manage environments with sftpwarden, and the runtime keeps Linux users synchronized from YAML, CSV, SQLite, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, or MongoDB.

Table of Contents

• Key Features
• Installation
• Shell Autocomplete
• 5-Minute Quick Start
• Deployment Choices
• Project Files
• User Management
• Providers
• Operations
• Security
• Documentation
• Roadmap
• Contributing

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Key Features

• Fast adoption for real SFTP needs: create a local or remote SFTP environment with sftpwarden init, add users, and deploy with Docker Compose without hand-writing OpenSSH container plumbing.
• Declarative user sources: manage accounts from YAML, CSV, SQLite, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, or MongoDB, so small teams can start with files and larger systems can use databases.
• Safe user isolation: every SFTP user is forced into OpenSSH internal-sftp and isolated under /data/<username> with chroot-oriented defaults.
• Docker-native operations: generated Compose files, sftpwarden deploy, plan, refresh, watch, --dry-run, and --json make it practical for local development, CI, and production runbooks.
• Context-based workflow: use Docker-style active contexts for dev, prod, remote local-sync, and remote-only deployments instead of repeating long flags on every command.
• Remote deployment built in: deploy through SSH, rsync, and Docker Compose, with systemd or Docker watcher modes for syncing user-provider changes.
• Portable operations: copy users between providers, export/import user snapshots, create backups, restore safely, and run project/runtime healthchecks.
• Operationally conservative defaults: secrets are not baked into images, plaintext provider passwords are rejected, host keys and state are persisted, and user data is never deleted unless explicitly requested.

SFTPWarden is intentionally lightweight. It is not a full identity platform, a file sharing suite, or VM-grade isolation. It gives you a conservative OpenSSH-based SFTP runtime that is easy to understand, deploy, and operate.

Installation

Install the CLI:

pip install sftpwarden
sftpwarden --version

For local development:

git clone https://github.com/kithuto/sftpwarden.git
cd sftpwarden
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
python -m pip install -e ".[mysql,postgres,mongodb]"
sftpwarden --version

Optional extras:

Need	Install
SQLite provider	Included, no extra
MySQL provider	pip install "sftpwarden[mysql]"
MariaDB provider	pip install "sftpwarden[mariadb]"
PostgreSQL provider	pip install "sftpwarden[postgres]"
MongoDB provider	pip install "sftpwarden[mongodb]"
Documentation/development	pip install -e ".[dev,docs,mysql,postgres,mongodb]"

mariadb is an alias of the MySQL extra. Installing either sftpwarden[mysql] or sftpwarden[mariadb] enables both MySQL and MariaDB providers because they share PyMySQL.

Build the runtime image locally:

docker build -t sftpwarden:local -f docker/runtime/Dockerfile .

Shell Autocomplete

SFTPWarden can install shell autocomplete through the Typer/Click helpers included in the CLI:

sftpwarden --install-completion

Open a new terminal, then use <TAB> to complete commands and options:

sftpwarden con<TAB>
sftpwarden user add --<TAB>

To inspect the generated completion script without installing it:

sftpwarden --show-completion

5-Minute Quick Start

Create a local SFTP project:

sftpwarden config default-provider yaml
mkdir -p ~/sftpwarden-dev
cd ~/sftpwarden-dev
sftpwarden init dev --yes
sftpwarden validate
sftpwarden deploy

Add a user:

sftpwarden user add alice \
  --password "correct horse battery staple" \
  --comment "Main upload account"

Connect with any SFTP client:

sftp -P 2222 alice@localhost

Preview and apply runtime changes:

sftpwarden plan
sftpwarden refresh

sftpwarden init makes the created context active, so day-to-day commands do not need --context. This follows the same friendly idea people know from Docker: work in a project directory, keep an active context, and pass an explicit context only when you need to override it. To switch later, run sftpwarden context use dev.

Read or update project settings without opening YAML:

sftpwarden config project.name dev2
sftpwarden config server.port 2200
sftpwarden context root ~/sftpwarden-dev2 --yes

Deployment Choices

Pick the model that matches how your team works.

Model	Best for	Source of truth	Watcher
Local	Development, demos, single-host testing	Local project folder	No
Remote local-sync	Production managed from a workstation or CI runner	Local project folder synced to remote host	Yes
Remote-only	Existing remote deployments managed in-place	Remote project folder	No

Local:

mkdir -p ~/sftpwarden-dev
cd ~/sftpwarden-dev
sftpwarden init dev --yes
sftpwarden deploy

Remote local-sync:

mkdir -p ~/sftpwarden-prod
cd ~/sftpwarden-prod
sftpwarden init prod --remote [e-mail]:/opt/sftpwarden \
  --critical

sftpwarden deploy --dry-run
sftpwarden deploy --yes

Remote-only:

sftpwarden init archive --remote [e-mail]:/opt/sftpwarden \
  --remote-only \
  --critical

sftpwarden refresh --dry-run

Use sftpwarden context add when a SFTPWarden project already exists and you only want to register it on this machine:

sftpwarden context add prod [e-mail]:/opt/sftpwarden --critical
sftpwarden context use prod

Production-like names such as prod, production, prd, live, and main require confirmation unless marked with --critical or accepted with --yes.

Project Files

sftpwarden init creates a small project directory:

sftpwarden.yaml
users.yaml              # or users.csv / users.sqlite
docker-compose.yml
data/
state/
host_keys/

The container always listens on port 22 internally. Configure the host-facing port with server.port in sftpwarden.yaml.

Runtime state is stored in /var/lib/sftpwarden/state.json inside the container and should be backed by the state/ volume. Host keys are stored in host_keys/ to keep SSH fingerprints stable across restarts.

User Management

List and inspect users:

sftpwarden users
sftpwarden user show alice

Add users:

sftpwarden user add alice --password "correct horse battery staple"
sftpwarden user add bob --password-hash '$6$rounds=500000$...'
sftpwarden user add carol --public-key "ssh-ed25519 AAAA..."

Update users:

sftpwarden user update alice --upload-dir inbound
sftpwarden user update alice --uid 12001 --gid 12001
sftpwarden user update alice --comment "Finance inbox"
sftpwarden user update alice --disabled

Removing a user disables access but does not delete user data:

sftpwarden user remove alice --yes

To permanently remove the user's data directory too:

sftpwarden user remove alice --delete-files --yes

Updating only comment does not refresh the runtime because comments are metadata.

Providers

Provider	Runtime reads	CLI mutations	Good fit
YAML	Yes	Yes	Quick start, GitOps-style small deployments
CSV	Yes	Yes	Spreadsheet-friendly user handoff
SQLite	Yes	Yes	Single-host/self-hosted deployments without an external database
MySQL	Yes	Yes	Existing application databases
MariaDB	Yes	Yes	MySQL-compatible MariaDB deployments
PostgreSQL	Yes	Yes	Existing platform or product databases
MongoDB	Yes	Yes	Existing document databases

SQL providers read from sftp_users by default. The table should include:

username, public_keys, password_hash, uid, gid, upload_dir, comment, disabled

See examples/mysql/schema.sql, examples/mariadb/schema.sql, and examples/postgres/schema.sql.

SQLite is built in:

sftpwarden init dev --provider sqlite --yes

SQLite is a good lightweight option for one host and one writer. Avoid it for NFS, high-concurrency, or multi-writer deployments.

During init, SFTPWarden checks whether external provider storage exists. For MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL that means the configured SQL table. For MongoDB that means the configured collection and username index. If storage is missing, interactive init asks whether to create it or abort so you can create it manually:

sftpwarden init prod \
  --provider postgresql \
  --dsn 'postgresql://sftpwarden:[e-mail]:5432/sftpwarden' \
  --create-table

MariaDB uses the same compatible implementation as MySQL:

sftpwarden init prod \
  --provider mariadb \
  --dsn 'mariadb://sftpwarden:[e-mail]:3306/sftpwarden' \
  --create-table

MongoDB stores one document per user with _id = username:

sftpwarden init prod \
  --provider mongodb \
  --dsn 'mongodb://mongo.example.com:27017/sftpwarden' \
  --collection sftp_users

--dsn uses the standard database URL/DSN convention:

postgresql://user:password@host:5432/database
mysql://user:password@host:3306/database
mariadb://user:password@host:3306/database
mongodb://user:password@host:27017/database

For real environments, prefer an environment variable so the secret is not typed directly in shell history or committed in project files:

export SFTPWARDEN_POSTGRES_DSN='postgresql://sftpwarden:[e-mail]:5432/sftpwarden'

sftpwarden init prod \
  --provider postgresql \
  --dsn '${SFTPWARDEN_POSTGRES_DSN}' \
  --create-table

If you run interactive init with MySQL, MariaDB, or PostgreSQL and omit --dsn, SFTPWarden asks for host, port, database, username, and password, then writes the equivalent DSN for you. For MongoDB, interactive init asks for the MongoDB DSN directly.

Operations

Common operational commands:

sftpwarden doctor
sftpwarden validate --config sftpwarden.yaml
sftpwarden compose --write
sftpwarden deploy --dry-run
sftpwarden plan --json
sftpwarden refresh --dry-run
sftpwarden watcher status --json
sftpwarden health --json
sftpwarden backup --output sftpwarden-dev.tar.gz --yes
sftpwarden provider export --format json > users.json

watch and refresh are different on purpose:

• sftpwarden watch syncs YAML/CSV/SQLite user provider files for remote local-sync contexts.
• sftpwarden refresh tells a running runtime to reload users immediately.
• Configuration and Docker Compose changes require sftpwarden deploy.
• sftpwarden health validates config, provider readability, Compose drift, and runtime health where available.
• sftpwarden backup stores config, provider snapshot, host keys, and runtime state. It excludes data/ unless --include-data is explicitly used.
• sftpwarden provider copy moves users between contexts/providers with explicit --merge or --replace semantics.

sftpwarden deploy checks for Docker Compose before starting local deployments. For remote deployments, the remote host must have Docker Compose v2 available as docker compose.

For production watcher installs, prefer systemd so SSH uses the host's normal identity, agent, ~/.ssh/config, known hosts, bastions, and ProxyJump settings. Docker watcher mode is stricter and requires explicit dedicated deployment keys.

Security

SFTPWarden follows conservative defaults:

• users and secrets are not baked into images;
• plaintext passwords are rejected in provider data;
• sftpwarden user add --password stores only a system password hash;
• SFTP users are forced into internal-sftp;
• root login, empty passwords, forwarding, tunneling, X11, and user environments are disabled;
• user data is not deleted automatically;
• sftpwarden user remove --delete-files is explicit and irreversible;
• .env, data/, state/, host_keys/, Git metadata, and Python caches are not watched or synced.

Key-only deployment:

auth:
  allow_public_key: true
  allow_password: false
  recommended: public_key

Read the security guide before exposing a deployment to a public or customer-facing network.

Documentation

The README is the adoption path. Detailed guides live in:

• Configuration
• Operations
• Security
• CLI Reference
• Contributing, development, and testing

The Sphinx documentation is built from docs/ and published to GitHub Pages.

Build it locally:

python -m pip install -e ".[docs]"
sphinx-build -b html docs docs/_build/html

Roadmap

v1.1 - Providers, Backup, Import/Export, and Health

Released in 1.1.0: SQLite, MariaDB, MongoDB, provider transfer, backup/restore, and healthchecks.

v1.2 - Kubernetes

• Add Helm chart and Kubernetes manifests.
• Add ConfigMap/Secret/PVC examples.
• Add liveness/readiness probes.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome: bug reports, docs fixes, examples, tests, provider work, and operational feedback are all useful.

Contribution workflow:

1. Fork the repository.
2. Create your own branch from dev.
3. Develop and validate your change in that branch.
4. Open a Pull Request from your branch to dev.

Normal contribution PRs should target dev, not main. The maintainer promotes accepted changes from dev to main for production and release work.

Start here:

• CONTRIBUTING.md for the GitHub workflow.
• docs/contributing.md for install, development, testing, docs, and release checks.
• SECURITY.md for responsible vulnerability reporting.
• CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md for participation expectations.