vxcontrol/pentagi · error

invalid file name

Error message

invalid file name

What it means

validatePathComponent rejects a single name that is ".", "..", "/", or empty after trimming, returning 'invalid file name'. Called directly by SanitizeFileName (a bare "." or ".." filename) and per-segment by SanitizeContainerCachePath.

Source

Thrown at backend/pkg/flowfiles/files.go:160

		return "", fmt.Errorf("invalid path")
	}

	parts := strings.Split(cleanPath, "/")
	for i, part := range parts {
		cleanPart, err := validatePathComponent(part)
		if err != nil {
			return "", fmt.Errorf("invalid path component '%s': %w", part, err)
		}
		parts[i] = cleanPart
	}

	return path.Join(parts...), nil
}

func validatePathComponent(component string) (string, error) {
	cleanName := strings.TrimSpace(component)
	if cleanName == "." || cleanName == ".." || cleanName == "/" || cleanName == "" {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("invalid file name")
	}
	if len(cleanName) > MaxFileNameLength {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("file name is too long")
	}
	for _, r := range cleanName {
		if r < 0x20 || r == 0x7f {
			return "", fmt.Errorf("file name contains control characters")
		}
		switch r {
		case '/', '\\', ':', '*', '?', '"', '<', '>', '|':
			return "", fmt.Errorf("file name contains unsupported characters")
		}
	}

	return cleanName, nil
}

func NewFile(info os.FileInfo, sourceDir string) File {

View on GitHub (pinned to ea665308ba)

Solutions

1. Supply an actual file name with at least one real character (not '.', '..', '/', or whitespace).
2. Strip '.'/'..' segments client-side before sending the path.
3. If the caller only has a directory, pass a directory-aware API path rather than using SanitizeFileName on a '.' placeholder.

Example fix

// before
name, err := flowfiles.SanitizeFileName("..")
// after
name, err := flowfiles.SanitizeFileName("report.pdf")

func isRealFileName(s string) bool {
    t := strings.TrimSpace(s)
    return t != "" && t != "." && t != ".." && t != "/"
}

func isRealFileName(s string) bool {
    switch strings.TrimSpace(s) {
    case "", ".", "..", "/":
        return false
    }
    return true
}

if err != nil {
    if err.Error() == "invalid file name" {
        return fmt.Errorf("%q is not a usable file name", fileName)
    }
    return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: SanitizeFileName(".") or SanitizeFileName(".."); SanitizeContainerCachePath with a segment that is ".", "..", "/" or trims to empty (e.g. "logs/ /x"); tar/zip extraction names whose base is '.'.

Common situations: Upload requests whose multipart filename is '.'; agent tool calls passing '.' as the file name meaning 'current directory'; paths containing double slashes with whitespace between them; hidden traversal attempts like 'a/../b'.

Related errors

• file name contains control characters
• file name contains unsupported characters
• path is required
• invalid path component '%s': %w
• file name is too long

AI-assisted analysis of vxcontrol/pentagi@ea665308ba (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/8da37ff9686b39ad. Report an issue: GitHub.