SFTP server + automatic drop stock pipeline

Context

Cobra receives stock files from its dropshipping suppliers (Sogetronic, CNSI-SD) by email or manually. The goal: automate reception via a secure SFTP server and inject files into Odoo automatically, no human intervention needed.

Server infrastructure (51.15.223.154 — Ubuntu 26.04)

fail2ban: SSH jail, maxretry=5, bantime=1h, banaction via ufw
ufw: deny all in, allow 22/tcp only
OpenSSH in SFTP-only mode with per-user chroot (Match Group sftpusers, ForceCommand internal-sftp)
Isolated SFTP users: sogetronic and cnsi-sd, chrooted in /srv/sftp/.../files/

sync_sogetronic.py script (v3)

Detects any dropped .xlsx/.csv, base64-encodes it, creates a cobra.dropship.import record via XML-RPC
Calls action_run_import() — Odoo processes in a single transaction (~8 s for 2,312 lines)
Archives the processed file, fcntl lock to prevent concurrency, cron 0 * * * *

What was tricky

PasswordAuthentication globally blocked by 60-cloudimg-settings.conf — must be re-enabled only within the Match Group sftpusers block
Script v1: ~7,000 XML-RPC calls = 9 min. The solution wasn't to optimize the script but to hook into the existing Odoo module that handles everything server-side — ×60 speed gain

Stack

Bash/SSH, Python 3, xmlrpc.client, base64, fcntl, ufw, fail2ban, OpenSSH (chroot SFTP), Odoo 18 Enterprise.

What this illustrates

Long multi-layer session: system infrastructure (SSH hardening, firewall, users) and application logic (Odoo pipeline). The key moment: Claude read the existing code before writing a line, avoiding a rewrite and landing directly on the right architecture.