Send Email Notification When Object Is Uploaded to OCI Object Storage

In cloud environments mostly Object Storage is used as a landing zone for files, documents, logs, reports, images, and application data. Once a file is uploaded, teams often need an alert so that the next process can begin. This could be a manual review, downstream processing, file validation, or simply an operational notification. The desired requirement is to get alerted when an object is uploaded to bucket.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure provides a simple event-driven approach for this requirement. We can use OCI Object Storage, OCI Events, and OCI Notifications to send an email whenever a new object is uploaded to a bucket.

In this article, we will configure an automated email notification flow. When a file is uploaded to an Object Storage bucket, OCI Events will detect the object creation event and send an email through OCI Notifications. We user OCI services OCI Object Storage, OCI Events, OCI Notifications.

OCI Object Storage is used to store the uploaded files.

OCI Events is used to detect the object upload activity.

OCI Notifications is used to send the email alert.

This is a serverless notification pattern. We do not need to manage any compute instance, scheduler, or custom polling script.

Prerequisites

Before starting the configuration, the following items should be available:

OCI tenancy access
Required compartment
Permission to create Object Storage bucket
Permission to create Notification topic
Permission to create Events rule
Valid email address for subscription

For this article, we will use a simple Object Storage bucket and one email subscription.

Create Object Storage Bucket

We will start by creating an Object Storage bucket.

From the OCI Console, we can navigate to Object Storage and create a new bucket in the required compartment.

 

Example bucket name:

object-upload-notification-bucket

The default bucket settings can be used for this activity. Once the bucket is created, it will be used as the source for upload events.

Enable Object Events for the Bucket

After creating the bucket, object events must be enabled for the bucket.

This is an important step. If object events are not enabled, OCI Events will not receive object-level activities from the bucket.

In the bucket console page, setting is available under the bucket details.

We can edit the bucket and enable:

Emit Object Events

After enabling this option, Object Storage can publish events when objects are created, updated, or deleted.

Create Notification Topic

Next, we will create a Notification topic. Click Developer Services -> Application Integration -> Notifications.

The Notification topic acts as the target for the Events rule. When the Events rule matches an object upload event, it sends the message to this topic.

 

Example topic name:

object-upload-email-topic

After the topic is created, it will be used as the action target in the Events rule.

Create Email Subscription

After creating the topic, we need to add an email subscription.

The subscription has multiple protocols; in this article we use Email. The email address should be the recipient address where upload alerts need to be sent.

Once the subscription is created, OCI sends a confirmation email to the recipient. The subscription remains in pending status until the confirmation link is accepted.

The email subscription must be confirmed before notifications can be received.

After confirmation, the subscription status changes to active.

Create Events Rule

Now we will create an Events rule.

The Events rule is responsible for capturing the Object Storage upload event and triggering the Notification topic.

From the OCI Console, we can navigate to Events Service through observability & Managemetn -> Events service -> Rules. and create a new rule.

Example rule name:

object-upload-email-rule

The rule condition should match the Object Storage object creation event.

The event type should be related to:

Object Storage - Create Object

This event is generated when a new object is uploaded into Object Storage.

To keep the rule specific, we can also add a condition for the bucket name. This helps us avoid sending alerts for every bucket in the compartment.

Example condition:

bucketName = object-upload-notification-bucket

This means the rule will only match object upload events from this specific bucket.

Configure Rule Action

After defining the rule condition, we need to configure the action.

The action type should be:

Notifications

The target topic should be:

object-upload-email-topic

Once the rule is created, OCI Events will monitor object creation events and send matching events to the Notification topic.

Upload Test File

After the Events rule is created, we can test the setup by uploading a file to the Object Storage bucket.

Example file name:

Sample_test.txt

Once the file is uploaded, Object Storage emits a create object event. OCI Events evaluates the event and sends it to the Notification topic. The subscribed email address receives the alert.

In most cases, the email is delivered within a short time. A small delay is normal.

Validate Email Notification

After the test file is uploaded, we can check the subscribed email inbox.

The notification email usually contains event details in JSON format. The message includes useful information such as:

eventType
eventTime
compartmentId
bucketName
objectName
namespace
resourceName

The most important values for this use case are:

bucketName
objectName
eventType
eventTime

These values confirm which object was uploaded and when the event occurred.

Sample Notification Payload

The email message may include an event payload similar to the following:

This payload confirms that the uploaded object triggered the event successfully.