Transfer Watcher

Transfer Watcher is a highly efficient, lightweight containerized tool written in Rust that monitors a local directory for file changes and automatically transfers new or modified files to a remote host natively via SFTP over SSH. It’s ideal for automated offsite backups or syncing NAS directories efficiently with strict bandwidth control.

Features

• 🕵️‍♂️ Watches for file changes natively using filesystem events.
• 🚀 Transfers files in batches via high-performance native SFTP.
• 🔐 Ultra-secure, shell-free Docker image (Google Distroless Static, under ~3MB!).
• 🌐 Configurable bandwidth limit natively built into the transfer engine.
• 🧹 Automatically removes source files after successful transfer.
• 🛡️ Collision Handling: Automatically detects if a remote file already exists and appends a timestamp (e.g., file_20260710_115000.txt) to prevent accidental overwrites.
• ⏰ Full timezone support for logs (just set the TZ environment variable).

Environment Variables

Variable	Description	Required	Default
REMOTE_DEST	Remote SFTP destination (user@hostname:/data/backup).	✅	—
SSH_PORT	Remote server's SSH port	❌	222
BWLIMIT_KB	Bandwidth limit in KB/s	❌	9375
SYNC_INTERVAL	Interval between sync checks (seconds)	❌	10
TZ	Container timezone (e.g., Australia/Melbourne) for logs	❌	UTC

Docker Compose Example

version: '3.8'
services:
  transfer-watcher:
    image: ghcr.io/buzzmoody/transfer-watcher:latest
    container_name: watcher
    restart: always
    environment:
      - REMOTE_DEST=user@hostname:/data/backup
      - SSH_PORT=222
      - BWLIMIT_KB=9375
      - SYNC_INTERVAL=10
      - TZ=Australia/Melbourne
    volumes:
      # the local directory you want to transfer files from
      - /path/to/local/source:/transfer
      # your SSH private key to the remote server
      - /path/to/ssh/key/id_rsa:/root/.ssh/id_rsa:ro

Install from the command line

docker pull ghcr.io/buzzmoody/transfer-watcher:latest

---

License: MIT
Author: Buzz Moody