README.md

March 16, 2026 Β· View on GitHub

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This is terraform-aws-transfer-sftp project provides all the scaffolding for a typical well-built Cloud Posse module. It's a template repository you can use when creating new repositories.

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Usage

For a complete example, see examples/complete.

For automated tests of the complete example using bats and Terratest (which tests and deploys the example on AWS), see test.

module "example" {
  source = "https://github.com/cloudposse/terraform-aws-transfer-sftp.git?ref=master"
  example = "Hello world!"
}

Important

In Cloud Posse's examples, we avoid pinning modules to specific versions to prevent discrepancies between the documentation and the latest released versions. However, for your own projects, we strongly advise pinning each module to the exact version you're using. This practice ensures the stability of your infrastructure. Additionally, we recommend implementing a systematic approach for updating versions to avoid unexpected changes.

Examples

Here is an example of using this module:

Requirements

NameVersion
terraform>= 1.1.0
aws>= 3.0, != 4.0.0, != 4.1.0, != 4.2.0, != 4.3.0, != 4.4.0, != 4.5.0, != 4.6.0, != 4.7.0, != 4.8.0

Providers

NameVersion
aws>= 3.0, != 4.0.0, != 4.1.0, != 4.2.0, != 4.3.0, != 4.4.0, != 4.5.0, != 4.6.0, != 4.7.0, != 4.8.0

Modules

NameSourceVersion
iam_labelcloudposse/label/null0.25.0
logging_labelcloudposse/label/null0.25.0
thiscloudposse/label/null0.25.0

Resources

NameType
aws_eip.sftpresource
aws_iam_policy.loggingresource
aws_iam_policy.s3_access_for_sftp_usersresource
aws_iam_role.loggingresource
aws_iam_role.s3_access_for_sftp_usersresource
aws_iam_role_policy_attachment.loggingresource
aws_iam_role_policy_attachment.s3_access_for_sftp_usersresource
aws_route53_record.mainresource
aws_transfer_server.defaultresource
aws_transfer_ssh_key.defaultresource
aws_transfer_user.defaultresource
aws_iam_policy_document.assume_role_policydata source
aws_iam_policy_document.loggingdata source
aws_iam_policy_document.s3_access_for_sftp_usersdata source
aws_partition.defaultdata source
aws_s3_bucket.landingdata source

Inputs

NameDescriptionTypeDefaultRequired
additional_tag_mapAdditional key-value pairs to add to each map in tags_as_list_of_maps. Not added to tags or id.
This is for some rare cases where resources want additional configuration of tags
and therefore take a list of maps with tag key, value, and additional configuration.
map(string){}no
address_allocation_idsA list of address allocation IDs that are required to attach an Elastic IP address to your SFTP server's endpoint. This property can only be used when endpoint_type is set to VPC.list(string)[]no
attributesID element. Additional attributes (e.g. workers or cluster) to add to id,
in the order they appear in the list. New attributes are appended to the
end of the list. The elements of the list are joined by the delimiter
and treated as a single ID element.
list(string)[]no
contextSingle object for setting entire context at once.
See description of individual variables for details.
Leave string and numeric variables as null to use default value.
Individual variable settings (non-null) override settings in context object,
except for attributes, tags, and additional_tag_map, which are merged.
any
{
"additional_tag_map": {},
"attributes": [],
"delimiter": null,
"descriptor_formats": {},
"enabled": true,
"environment": null,
"id_length_limit": null,
"label_key_case": null,
"label_order": [],
"label_value_case": null,
"labels_as_tags": [
"unset"
],
"name": null,
"namespace": null,
"regex_replace_chars": null,
"stage": null,
"tags": {},
"tenant": null
}
no
delimiterDelimiter to be used between ID elements.
Defaults to - (hyphen). Set to "" to use no delimiter at all.
stringnullno
descriptor_formatsDescribe additional descriptors to be output in the descriptors output map.
Map of maps. Keys are names of descriptors. Values are maps of the form
{<br/> format = string<br/> labels = list(string)<br/>}
(Type is any so the map values can later be enhanced to provide additional options.)
format is a Terraform format string to be passed to the format() function.
labels is a list of labels, in order, to pass to format() function.
Label values will be normalized before being passed to format() so they will be
identical to how they appear in id.
Default is {} (descriptors output will be empty).
any{}no
domainWhere your files are stored. S3 or EFSstring"S3"no
domain_nameDomain to use when connecting to the SFTP endpointstring""no
eip_enabledWhether to provision and attach an Elastic IP to be used as the SFTP endpoint. An EIP will be provisioned per subnet.boolfalseno
enabledSet to false to prevent the module from creating any resourcesboolnullno
environmentID element. Usually used for region e.g. 'uw2', 'us-west-2', OR role 'prod', 'staging', 'dev', 'UAT'stringnullno
force_destroyForces the AWS Transfer Server to be destroyedboolfalseno
id_length_limitLimit id to this many characters (minimum 6).
Set to 0 for unlimited length.
Set to null for keep the existing setting, which defaults to 0.
Does not affect id_full.
numbernullno
label_key_caseControls the letter case of the tags keys (label names) for tags generated by this module.
Does not affect keys of tags passed in via the tags input.
Possible values: lower, title, upper.
Default value: title.
stringnullno
label_orderThe order in which the labels (ID elements) appear in the id.
Defaults to ["namespace", "environment", "stage", "name", "attributes"].
You can omit any of the 6 labels ("tenant" is the 6th), but at least one must be present.
list(string)nullno
label_value_caseControls the letter case of ID elements (labels) as included in id,
set as tag values, and output by this module individually.
Does not affect values of tags passed in via the tags input.
Possible values: lower, title, upper and none (no transformation).
Set this to title and set delimiter to "" to yield Pascal Case IDs.
Default value: lower.
stringnullno
labels_as_tagsSet of labels (ID elements) to include as tags in the tags output.
Default is to include all labels.
Tags with empty values will not be included in the tags output.
Set to [] to suppress all generated tags.
Notes:
The value of the name tag, if included, will be the id, not the name.
Unlike other null-label inputs, the initial setting of labels_as_tags cannot be
changed in later chained modules. Attempts to change it will be silently ignored.
set(string)
[
"default"
]
no
nameID element. Usually the component or solution name, e.g. 'app' or 'jenkins'.
This is the only ID element not also included as a tag.
The "name" tag is set to the full id string. There is no tag with the value of the name input.
stringnullno
namespaceID element. Usually an abbreviation of your organization name, e.g. 'eg' or 'cp', to help ensure generated IDs are globally uniquestringnullno
post_authentication_login_bannerSpecify a string to display when users connect to a server. This string is displayed after the user authenticates. The SFTP protocol does not support post-authentication display banners.stringnullno
pre_authentication_login_bannerSpecify a string to display when users connect to a server. This string is displayed before the user authenticates. The SFTP protocol does not support post-authentication display banners.stringnullno
regex_replace_charsTerraform regular expression (regex) string.
Characters matching the regex will be removed from the ID elements.
If not set, "/[^a-zA-Z0-9-]/" is used to remove all characters other than hyphens, letters and digits.
stringnullno
restricted_homeRestricts SFTP users so they only have access to their home directories.booltrueno
s3_bucket_nameThis is the bucket that the SFTP users will use when managing filesstringn/ayes
security_policy_nameSpecifies the name of the security policy that is attached to the server. Possible values are TransferSecurityPolicy-2018-11, TransferSecurityPolicy-2020-06, and TransferSecurityPolicy-FIPS-2020-06. Default value is: TransferSecurityPolicy-2018-11.string"TransferSecurityPolicy-2018-11"no
sftp_usersMap of SFTP users and their configurations. Required: user_name, public_key. Optional: s3_bucket_name, bucket_permissions, home_directory_type, home_directory, home_directory_mappings
map(object({
user_name = string
public_key = string
s3_bucket_name = optional(string)
bucket_permissions = optional(list(string))
home_directory_type = optional(string)
home_directory = optional(string)
home_directory_mappings = optional(list(object({
entry = string
target = string
})))
}))
{}no
stageID element. Usually used to indicate role, e.g. 'prod', 'staging', 'source', 'build', 'test', 'deploy', 'release'stringnullno
subnet_idsA list of subnet IDs that are required to host your SFTP server endpoint in your VPC. This property can only be used when endpoint_type is set to VPC.list(string)[]no
tagsAdditional tags (e.g. {'BusinessUnit': 'XYZ'}).
Neither the tag keys nor the tag values will be modified by this module.
map(string){}no
tenantID element _(Rarely used, not included by default)_. A customer identifier, indicating who this instance of a resource is forstringnullno
vpc_idVPC ID that the AWS Transfer Server will be deployed tostringnullno
vpc_security_group_idsA list of security groups IDs that are available to attach to your server's endpoint. If no security groups are specified, the VPC's default security groups are automatically assigned to your endpoint. This property can only be used when endpoint_type is set to VPC.list(string)[]no
zone_idRoute53 Zone ID to add the CNAMEstring""no

Outputs

NameDescription
arnARN of the created Transfer Server
elastic_ipsProvisioned Elastic IPs
endpoint_detailsEndpoints details
host_key_fingerprintThe message-digest algorithm (MD5) hash of the Transfer Server's host key
idID of the created example
s3_access_role_arnsRole ARNs for the S3 access
transfer_endpointThe endpoint of the Transfer Server

Check out these related projects.

  • terraform-null-label - Terraform module designed to generate consistent names and tags for resources. Use terraform-null-label to implement a strict naming convention.

References

For additional context, refer to some of these links.

  • Terraform Standard Module Structure - HashiCorp's standard module structure is a file and directory layout we recommend for reusable modules distributed in separate repositories.
  • Terraform Module Requirements - HashiCorp's guidance on all the requirements for publishing a module. Meeting the requirements for publishing a module is extremely easy.
  • Terraform random_integer Resource - The resource random_integer generates random values from a given range, described by the min and max attributes of a given resource.
  • Terraform Version Pinning - The required_version setting can be used to constrain which versions of the Terraform CLI can be used with your configuration

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✨ Contributing

This project is under active development, and we encourage contributions from our community.

Many thanks to our outstanding contributors:

For πŸ› bug reports & feature requests, please use the issue tracker.

In general, PRs are welcome. We follow the typical "fork-and-pull" Git workflow.

  1. Review our Code of Conduct and Contributor Guidelines.
  2. Fork the repo on GitHub
  3. Clone the project to your own machine
  4. Commit changes to your own branch
  5. Push your work back up to your fork
  6. Submit a Pull Request so that we can review your changes

NOTE: Be sure to merge the latest changes from "upstream" before making a pull request!

Running Terraform Tests

We use Atmos to streamline how Terraform tests are run. It centralizes configuration and wraps common test workflows with easy-to-use commands.

All tests are located in the test/ folder.

Under the hood, tests are powered by Terratest together with our internal Test Helpers library, providing robust infrastructure validation.

Setup dependencies:

To run tests:

  • Run all tests:
    atmos test run
    
  • Clean up test artifacts:
    atmos test clean
    
  • Explore additional test options:
    atmos test --help
    

The configuration for test commands is centrally managed. To review what's being imported, see the atmos.yaml file.

Learn more about our automated testing in our documentation or implementing custom commands with atmos.

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License

License

Preamble to the Apache License, Version 2.0

Complete license is available in the LICENSE file.

Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
distributed with this work for additional information
regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
"License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at

  https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
software distributed under the License is distributed on an
"AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
specific language governing permissions and limitations
under the License.

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All other trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.

Copyrights

Copyright Β© 2020-2026 Cloud Posse, LLC

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