Use inotifywait and lftp to synchronize servers

Question

I have two servers:

Server A (CentOS), where people can upload files to (upload root is /files)
Server B (Win 2008), with FileZilla FTP Server (FTP root is C:\content)

I want that whenever a file is uploaded to Server A, to any subfolder under /files, the file is automatically copied to the exact same subfolder on Server B. Thus, if a user uploads "flowers.jpg" to /files/photos/12345/ then the file must be copied over FTP to C:\content\photos\12345

So far I have this bash script, it does copy the files to server B, but all files are placed in C:\content, and not in the corresponding subfolders. Who can help me find the correct syntax?

#!/bin/bash
cd /files

inotifywait -q -r -m -e close_write,moved_to . --format %w%f | 
  while read FILE; do
    lftp -e "put $FILE; exit" -u user,password -p 2121 ftp.server-a.com
  done

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 02 '14 at 12:37

2

That's because the FTP command put $FILE will put the file $FILE into whatever the 'current directory' is in the FTP Server side; hence, into the root directory of the FTP Server (which is located in C:\content).

You need to first extract the subdirectory from inotifywait's %w output, then prepend a cd FTP command to the lftp parameter.

I have never used inotifywait before, but I think the script should be like this:

inotifywait -q -r -m -e close_write,moved_to . --format "%w %f" | 
  while read DIR FILE; do
    lftp -e "cd $DIR; put $FILE; exit" -u user,password -p 2121 ftp.server-a.com
  done

PS: It's never a good idea to explicitly write a password in a script. Use rsync instead; on Windows, you'll need to install an rsync server. I personally use Cygwin, and use cygrunsrv to make rsync run as a Windows service.

answered Jun 02 '14 at 12:37

pepoluan

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2

Thanks for the rsync tip; I assume you mean something like rsync over SSH with public/private keys, so that you never need to store a user/pass anywhere on the server (see http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2008/11/3-steps-to-perform-ssh-login-without-password-using-ssh-keygen-ssh-copy-id) – KBoek Jun 03 '14 at 08:19
ah, yes, forgot to mention the public keys, hehe :-) – pepoluan Jun 03 '14 at 08:23
lftp supports SFTP as well, so you don't necessarily need to switch to rsync in order to use private SSH key based authentication. All you have to do is provide lftp with a `sftp://host` url, where `host` can also be an alias you've defined in `~/.ssh/config` with key options, user names, and any other ssh options you may need. – Brian Cline Apr 09 '17 at 01:29

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 03 '14 at 08:15

@pepoluan gave me the answer, but I wanted to inform about the script I ended up with, which is slightly different (reason I did this in an answer and not in a comment: you can't markup code in a comment)

#!/bin/bash 
cd /files
inotifywait -q -r -m -e close_write,moved_to . --format "%w %w%f" |
  while read DIR FILE; do
    lftp -e "mkdir -p $DIR; cd $DIR; put $FILE; exit" -u user,pass -p 2121 ftp.server-a.com
  done

Use inotifywait and lftp to synchronize servers

2 Answers2