rclone - Man Page
Rclone syncs your files to cloud storage
- About rclone
- What can rclone do for you?
- What features does rclone have?
- What providers does rclone support?
- Download (https://rclone.org/downloads/)
- Install (https://rclone.org/install/)
- Donate. (https://rclone.org/donate/)
About rclone
Rclone is a command-line program to manage files on cloud storage. It is a feature-rich alternative to cloud vendors' web storage interfaces. Over 40 cloud storage products support rclone including S3 object stores, business & consumer file storage services, as well as standard transfer protocols.
Rclone has powerful cloud equivalents to the unix commands rsync, cp, mv, mount, ls, ncdu, tree, rm, and cat. Rclone's familiar syntax includes shell pipeline support, and --dry-run
protection. It is used at the command line, in scripts or via its API.
Users call rclone "The Swiss army knife of cloud storage", and "Technology indistinguishable from magic".
Rclone really looks after your data. It preserves timestamps and verifies checksums at all times. Transfers over limited bandwidth; intermittent connections, or subject to quota can be restarted, from the last good file transferred. You can check (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_check/) the integrity of your files. Where possible, rclone employs server-side transfers to minimise local bandwidth use and transfers from one provider to another without using local disk.
Virtual backends wrap local and cloud file systems to apply encryption (https://rclone.org/crypt/), compression (https://rclone.org/compress/), chunking (https://rclone.org/chunker/), hashing (https://rclone.org/hasher/) and joining (https://rclone.org/union/).
Rclone mounts (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_mount/) any local, cloud or virtual filesystem as a disk on Windows, macOS, linux and FreeBSD, and also serves these over SFTP (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_sftp/), HTTP (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_http/), WebDAV (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_webdav/), FTP (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_ftp/) and DLNA (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_dlna/).
Rclone is mature, open-source software originally inspired by rsync and written in Go (https://golang.org). The friendly support community is familiar with varied use cases. Official Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Brew and Chocolatey repos. include rclone. For the latest version downloading from rclone.org (https://rclone.org/downloads/) is recommended.
Rclone is widely used on Linux, Windows and Mac. Third-party developers create innovative backup, restore, GUI and business process solutions using the rclone command line or API.
Rclone does the heavy lifting of communicating with cloud storage.
What can rclone do for you?
Rclone helps you:
- Backup (and encrypt) files to cloud storage
- Restore (and decrypt) files from cloud storage
- Mirror cloud data to other cloud services or locally
- Migrate data to the cloud, or between cloud storage vendors
- Mount multiple, encrypted, cached or diverse cloud storage as a disk
- Analyse and account for data held on cloud storage using lsf (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_lsf/), ljson (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_lsjson/), size (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_size/), ncdu (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_ncdu/)
- Union (https://rclone.org/union/) file systems together to present multiple local and/or cloud file systems as one
Features
Transfers
- MD5, SHA1 hashes are checked at all times for file integrity
- Timestamps are preserved on files
- Operations can be restarted at any time
- Can be to and from network, e.g. two different cloud providers
- Can use multi-threaded downloads to local disk
- Copy (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_copy/) new or changed files to cloud storage
- Sync (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_sync/) (one way) to make a directory identical
- Move (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_move/) files to cloud storage deleting the local after verification
- Check (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_check/) hashes and for missing/extra files
- Mount (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_mount/) your cloud storage as a network disk
- Serve (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve/) local or remote files over HTTP (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_http/)/WebDav (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_webdav/)/FTP (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_ftp/)/SFTP (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_sftp/)/DLNA (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_dlna/)
- Experimental Web based GUI (https://rclone.org/gui/)
Supported providers
(There are many others, built on standard protocols such as WebDAV or S3, that work out of the box.)
- 1Fichier
- Akamai Netstorage
- Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun) Object Storage System (OSS)
- Amazon Drive
- Amazon S3
- Backblaze B2
- Box
- Ceph
- China Mobile Ecloud Elastic Object Storage (EOS)
- Arvan Cloud Object Storage (AOS)
- Citrix ShareFile
- Cloudflare R2
- DigitalOcean Spaces
- Digi Storage
- Dreamhost
- Dropbox
- Enterprise File Fabric
- FTP
- Google Cloud Storage
- Google Drive
- Google Photos
- HDFS
- Hetzner Storage Box
- HiDrive
- HTTP
- Internet Archive
- Jottacloud
- IBM COS S3
- IDrive e2
- IONOS Cloud
- Koofr
- Mail.ru Cloud
- Memset Memstore
- Mega
- Memory
- Microsoft Azure Blob Storage
- Microsoft OneDrive
- Minio
- Nextcloud
- OVH
- OpenDrive
- OpenStack Swift
- Oracle Cloud Storage Swift
- Oracle Object Storage
- ownCloud
- pCloud
- premiumize.me
- put.io
- QingStor
- Qiniu Cloud Object Storage (Kodo)
- Rackspace Cloud Files
- rsync.net
- Scaleway
- Seafile
- Seagate Lyve Cloud
- SeaweedFS
- SFTP
- Sia
- SMB / CIFS
- StackPath
- Storj
- SugarSync
- Tencent Cloud Object Storage (COS)
- Uptobox
- Wasabi
- WebDAV
- Yandex Disk
- Zoho WorkDrive
- The local filesystem
Virtual providers
These backends adapt or modify other storage providers:
- Alias: Rename existing remotes
- Cache: Cache remotes (DEPRECATED)
- Chunker: Split large files
- Combine: Combine multiple remotes into a directory tree
- Compress: Compress files
- Crypt: Encrypt files
- Hasher: Hash files
- Union: Join multiple remotes to work together
Links
- Home page (https://rclone.org/)
- GitHub project page for source and bug tracker (https://github.com/rclone/rclone)
- Rclone Forum (https://forum.rclone.org)
- Downloads (https://rclone.org/downloads/)
Install
Rclone is a Go program and comes as a single binary file.
Quickstart
- Download (https://rclone.org/downloads/) the relevant binary.
- Extract the
rclone
executable,rclone.exe
on Windows, from the archive. - Run
rclone config
to setup. See rclone config docs (https://rclone.org/docs/) for more details. - Optionally configure automatic execution.
See below for some expanded Linux / macOS / Windows instructions.
See the usage (https://rclone.org/docs/) docs for how to use rclone, or run rclone -h
.
Already installed rclone can be easily updated to the latest version using the rclone selfupdate (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_selfupdate/) command.
Script installation
To install rclone on Linux/macOS/BSD systems, run:
sudo -v ; curl https://rclone.org/install.sh | sudo bash
For beta installation, run:
sudo -v ; curl https://rclone.org/install.sh | sudo bash -s beta
Note that this script checks the version of rclone installed first and won't re-download if not needed.
Linux installation
Precompiled binary
Fetch and unpack
curl -O https://downloads.rclone.org/rclone-current-linux-amd64.zip unzip rclone-current-linux-amd64.zip cd rclone-*-linux-amd64
Copy binary file
sudo cp rclone /usr/bin/ sudo chown root:root /usr/bin/rclone sudo chmod 755 /usr/bin/rclone
Install manpage
sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/share/man/man1 sudo cp rclone.1 /usr/local/share/man/man1/ sudo mandb
Run rclone config
to setup. See rclone config docs (https://rclone.org/docs/) for more details.
rclone config
macOS installation
Installation with brew
brew install rclone
NOTE: This version of rclone will not support mount
any more (see #5373 (https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/5373)). If mounting is wanted on macOS, either install a precompiled binary or enable the relevant option when installing from source.
Note that this is a third party installer not controlled by the rclone developers so it may be out of date. Its current version is as below.
[IMAGE: Homebrew package (https://repology.org/badge/version-for-repo/homebrew/rclone.svg)] (https://repology.org/project/rclone/versions)
Precompiled binary, using curl
To avoid problems with macOS gatekeeper enforcing the binary to be signed and notarized it is enough to download with curl
.
Download the latest version of rclone.
cd && curl -O https://downloads.rclone.org/rclone-current-osx-amd64.zip
Unzip the download and cd to the extracted folder.
unzip -a rclone-current-osx-amd64.zip && cd rclone-*-osx-amd64
Move rclone to your $PATH. You will be prompted for your password.
sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin sudo mv rclone /usr/local/bin/
(the mkdir
command is safe to run, even if the directory already exists).
Remove the leftover files.
cd .. && rm -rf rclone-*-osx-amd64 rclone-current-osx-amd64.zip
Run rclone config
to setup. See rclone config docs (https://rclone.org/docs/) for more details.
rclone config
Precompiled binary, using a web browser
When downloading a binary with a web browser, the browser will set the macOS gatekeeper quarantine attribute. Starting from Catalina, when attempting to run rclone
, a pop-up will appear saying:
"rclone" cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified. macOS cannot verify that this app is free from malware.
The simplest fix is to run
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine rclone
Windows installation
Precompiled binary
Fetch the correct binary for your processor type by clicking on these links. If not sure, use the first link.
- Intel/AMD - 64 Bit (https://downloads.rclone.org/rclone-current-windows-amd64.zip)
- Intel/AMD - 32 Bit (https://downloads.rclone.org/rclone-current-windows-386.zip)
- ARM - 64 Bit (https://downloads.rclone.org/rclone-current-windows-arm64.zip)
Open this file in the Explorer and extract rclone.exe
. Rclone is a portable executable so you can place it wherever is convenient.
Open a CMD window (or powershell) and run the binary. Note that rclone does not launch a GUI by default, it runs in the CMD Window.
- Run
rclone.exe config
to setup. See rclone config docs (https://rclone.org/docs/) for more details. - Optionally configure automatic execution.
If you are planning to use the rclone mount (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_mount/) feature then you will need to install the third party utility WinFsp (https://winfsp.dev/) also.
Chocolatey package manager
Make sure you have Choco (https://chocolatey.org/) installed
choco search rclone choco install rclone
This will install rclone on your Windows machine. If you are planning to use rclone mount (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_mount/) then
choco install winfsp
will install that too.
Note that this is a third party installer not controlled by the rclone developers so it may be out of date. Its current version is as below.
[IMAGE: Chocolatey package (https://repology.org/badge/version-for-repo/chocolatey/rclone.svg)] (https://repology.org/project/rclone/versions)
Package manager installation
Many Linux, Windows, macOS and other OS distributions package and distribute rclone.
The distributed versions of rclone are often quite out of date and for this reason we recommend one of the other installation methods if possible.
You can get an idea of how up to date or not your OS distribution's package is here.
[IMAGE: Packaging status (https://repology.org/badge/vertical-allrepos/rclone.svg?columns=3)] (https://repology.org/project/rclone/versions)
Docker installation
The rclone developers maintain a docker image for rclone (https://hub.docker.com/r/rclone/rclone).
These images are built as part of the release process based on a minimal Alpine Linux.
The :latest
tag will always point to the latest stable release. You can use the :beta
tag to get the latest build from master. You can also use version tags, e.g. :1.49.1
, :1.49
or :1
.
$ docker pull rclone/rclone:latest latest: Pulling from rclone/rclone Digest: sha256:0e0ced72671989bb837fea8e88578b3fc48371aa45d209663683e24cfdaa0e11 ... $ docker run --rm rclone/rclone:latest version rclone v1.49.1 - os/arch: linux/amd64 - go version: go1.12.9
There are a few command line options to consider when starting an rclone Docker container from the rclone image.
- You need to mount the host rclone config dir at
/config/rclone
into the Docker container. Due to the fact that rclone updates tokens inside its config file, and that the update process involves a file rename, you need to mount the whole host rclone config dir, not just the single host rclone config file. - You need to mount a host data dir at
/data
into the Docker container. - By default, the rclone binary inside a Docker container runs with UID=0 (root). As a result, all files created in a run will have UID=0. If your config and data files reside on the host with a non-root UID:GID, you need to pass these on the container start command line.
If you want to access the RC interface (either via the API or the Web UI), it is required to set the
--rc-addr
to:5572
in order to connect to it from outside the container. An explanation about why this is necessary is present here (https://web.archive.org/web/20200808071950/https://pythonspeed.com/articles/docker-connection-refused/).- NOTE: Users running this container with the docker network set to
host
should probably set it to listen to localhost only, with127.0.0.1:5572
as the value for--rc-addr
- NOTE: Users running this container with the docker network set to
It is possible to use
rclone mount
inside a userspace Docker container, and expose the resulting fuse mount to the host. The exactdocker run
options to do that might vary slightly between hosts. See, e.g. the discussion in this thread (https://github.com/moby/moby/issues/9448).You also need to mount the host
/etc/passwd
and/etc/group
for fuse to work inside the container.
Here are some commands tested on an Ubuntu 18.04.3 host:
# config on host at ~/.config/rclone/rclone.conf # data on host at ~/data # make sure the config is ok by listing the remotes docker run --rm \ --volume ~/.config/rclone:/config/rclone \ --volume ~/data:/data:shared \ --user $(id -u):$(id -g) \ rclone/rclone \ listremotes # perform mount inside Docker container, expose result to host mkdir -p ~/data/mount docker run --rm \ --volume ~/.config/rclone:/config/rclone \ --volume ~/data:/data:shared \ --user $(id -u):$(id -g) \ --volume /etc/passwd:/etc/passwd:ro --volume /etc/group:/etc/group:ro \ --device /dev/fuse --cap-add SYS_ADMIN --security-opt apparmor:unconfined \ rclone/rclone \ mount dropbox:Photos /data/mount & ls ~/data/mount kill %1
Source installation
Make sure you have git and Go (https://golang.org/) installed. Go version 1.17 or newer is required, latest release is recommended. You can get it from your package manager, or download it from golang.org/dl (https://golang.org/dl/). Then you can run the following:
git clone https://github.com/rclone/rclone.git cd rclone go build
This will check out the rclone source in subfolder rclone, which you can later modify and send pull requests with. Then it will build the rclone executable in the same folder. As an initial check you can now run ./rclone version
(.\rclone version
on Windows).
Note that on macOS and Windows the mount (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_mount/) command will not be available unless you specify an additional build tag cmount
.
go build -tags cmount
This assumes you have a GCC compatible C compiler (GCC or Clang) in your PATH, as it uses cgo (https://pkg.go.dev/cmd/cgo). But on Windows, the cgofuse (https://github.com/winfsp/cgofuse) library that the cmount implementation is based on, also supports building without cgo (https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/WindowsDLLs), i.e. by setting environment variable CGO_ENABLED to value 0 (static linking). This is how the official Windows release of rclone is being built, starting with version 1.59. It is still possible to build with cgo on Windows as well, by using the MinGW port of GCC, e.g. by installing it in a MSYS2 (https://www.msys2.org) distribution (make sure you install it in the classic mingw64 subsystem, the ucrt64 version is not compatible).
Additionally, on Windows, you must install the third party utility WinFsp (https://winfsp.dev/), with the "Developer" feature selected. If building with cgo, you must also set environment variable CPATH pointing to the fuse include directory within the WinFsp installation (normally C:\Program Files (x86)\WinFsp\inc\fuse
).
You may also add arguments -ldflags -s
(with or without -tags cmount
), to omit symbol table and debug information, making the executable file smaller, and -trimpath
to remove references to local file system paths. This is how the official rclone releases are built.
go build -trimpath -ldflags -s -tags cmount
Instead of executing the go build
command directly, you can run it via the Makefile. It changes the version number suffix from "-DEV" to "-beta" and appends commit details. It also copies the resulting rclone executable into your GOPATH bin folder ($(go env GOPATH)/bin
, which corresponds to ~/go/bin/rclone
by default).
make
To include mount command on macOS and Windows with Makefile build:
make GOTAGS=cmount
There are other make targets that can be used for more advanced builds, such as cross-compiling for all supported os/architectures, embedding icon and version info resources into windows executable, and packaging results into release artifacts. See Makefile (https://github.com/rclone/rclone/blob/master/Makefile) and cross-compile.go (https://github.com/rclone/rclone/blob/master/bin/cross-compile.go) for details.
Another alternative is to download the source, build and install rclone in one operation, as a regular Go package. The source will be stored it in the Go module cache, and the resulting executable will be in your GOPATH bin folder ($(go env GOPATH)/bin
, which corresponds to ~/go/bin/rclone
by default).
With Go version 1.17 or newer:
go install github.com/rclone/rclone@latest
With Go versions older than 1.17 (do not use the -u
flag, it causes Go to try to update the dependencies that rclone uses and sometimes these don't work with the current version):
go get github.com/rclone/rclone
Ansible installation
This can be done with Stefan Weichinger's ansible role (https://github.com/stefangweichinger/ansible-rclone).
Instructions
git clone https://github.com/stefangweichinger/ansible-rclone.git
into your local roles-directoryadd the role to the hosts you want rclone installed to:
- hosts: rclone-hosts roles: - rclone
Portable installation
As mentioned above (https://rclone.org/install/#quickstart), rclone is single executable (rclone
, or rclone.exe
on Windows) that you can download as a zip archive and extract into a location of your choosing. When executing different commands, it may create files in different locations, such as a configuration file and various temporary files. By default the locations for these are according to your operating system, e.g. configuration file in your user profile directory and temporary files in the standard temporary directory, but you can customize all of them, e.g. to make a completely self-contained, portable installation.
Run the config paths (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_paths/) command to see the locations that rclone will use.
To override them set the corresponding options (as command-line arguments, or as environment variables (https://rclone.org/docs/#environment-variables)): - --config (https://rclone.org/docs/#config-config-file) - --cache-dir (https://rclone.org/docs/#cache-dir-dir) - --temp-dir (https://rclone.org/docs/#temp-dir-dir)
Autostart
After installing and configuring rclone, as described above, you are ready to use rclone as an interactive command line utility. If your goal is to perform periodic operations, such as a regular sync (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_sync/), you will probably want to configure your rclone command in your operating system's scheduler. If you need to expose service-like features, such as remote control (https://rclone.org/rc/), GUI (https://rclone.org/gui/), serve (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve/) or mount (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_mount/), you will often want an rclone command always running in the background, and configuring it to run in a service infrastructure may be a better option. Below are some alternatives on how to achieve this on different operating systems.
NOTE: Before setting up autorun it is highly recommended that you have tested your command manually from a Command Prompt first.
Autostart on Windows
The most relevant alternatives for autostart on Windows are: - Run at user log on using the Startup folder - Run at user log on, at system startup or at schedule using Task Scheduler - Run at system startup using Windows service
Running in background
Rclone is a console application, so if not starting from an existing Command Prompt, e.g. when starting rclone.exe from a shortcut, it will open a Command Prompt window. When configuring rclone to run from task scheduler and windows service you are able to set it to run hidden in background. From rclone version 1.54 you can also make it run hidden from anywhere by adding option --no-console
(it may still flash briefly when the program starts). Since rclone normally writes information and any error messages to the console, you must redirect this to a file to be able to see it. Rclone has a built-in option --log-file
for that.
Example command to run a sync in background:
c:\rclone\rclone.exe sync c:\files remote:/files --no-console --log-file c:\rclone\logs\sync_files.txt
User account
As mentioned in the mount (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_mount/) documentation, mounted drives created as Administrator are not visible to other accounts, not even the account that was elevated as Administrator. By running the mount command as the built-in SYSTEM
user account, it will create drives accessible for everyone on the system. Both scheduled task and Windows service can be used to achieve this.
NOTE: Remember that when rclone runs as the SYSTEM
user, the user profile that it sees will not be yours. This means that if you normally run rclone with configuration file in the default location, to be able to use the same configuration when running as the system user you must explicitly tell rclone where to find it with the --config
(https://rclone.org/docs/#config-config-file) option, or else it will look in the system users profile path (C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile
). To test your command manually from a Command Prompt, you can run it with the PsExec (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/psexec) utility from Microsoft's Sysinternals suite, which takes option -s
to execute commands as the SYSTEM
user.
Start from Startup folder
To quickly execute an rclone command you can simply create a standard Windows Explorer shortcut for the complete rclone command you want to run. If you store this shortcut in the special "Startup" start-menu folder, Windows will automatically run it at login. To open this folder in Windows Explorer, enter path %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
, or C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp
if you want the command to start for every user that logs in.
This is the easiest approach to autostarting of rclone, but it offers no functionality to set it to run as different user, or to set conditions or actions on certain events. Setting up a scheduled task as described below will often give you better results.
Start from Task Scheduler
Task Scheduler is an administrative tool built into Windows, and it can be used to configure rclone to be started automatically in a highly configurable way, e.g. periodically on a schedule, on user log on, or at system startup. It can run be configured to run as the current user, or for a mount command that needs to be available to all users it can run as the SYSTEM
user. For technical information, see https://docs.microsoft.com/windows/win32/taskschd/task-scheduler-start-page.
Run as service
For running rclone at system startup, you can create a Windows service that executes your rclone command, as an alternative to scheduled task configured to run at startup.
Mount command built-in service integration
For mount commands, rclone has a built-in Windows service integration via the third-party WinFsp library it uses. Registering as a regular Windows service easy, as you just have to execute the built-in PowerShell command New-Service
(requires administrative privileges).
Example of a PowerShell command that creates a Windows service for mounting some remote:/files
as drive letter X:
, for all users (service will be running as the local system account):
New-Service -Name Rclone -BinaryPathName 'c:\rclone\rclone.exe mount remote:/files X: --config c:\rclone\config\rclone.conf --log-file c:\rclone\logs\mount.txt'
The WinFsp service infrastructure (https://github.com/billziss-gh/winfsp/wiki/WinFsp-Service-Architecture) supports incorporating services for file system implementations, such as rclone, into its own launcher service, as kind of "child services". This has the additional advantage that it also implements a network provider that integrates into Windows standard methods for managing network drives. This is currently not officially supported by Rclone, but with WinFsp version 2019.3 B2 / v1.5B2 or later it should be possible through path rewriting as described here (https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/3340).
Third-party service integration
To Windows service running any rclone command, the excellent third-party utility NSSM (http://nssm.cc), the "Non-Sucking Service Manager", can be used. It includes some advanced features such as adjusting process priority, defining process environment variables, redirect to file anything written to stdout, and customized response to different exit codes, with a GUI to configure everything from (although it can also be used from command line ).
There are also several other alternatives. To mention one more, WinSW (https://github.com/winsw/winsw), "Windows Service Wrapper", is worth checking out. It requires .NET Framework, but it is preinstalled on newer versions of Windows, and it also provides alternative standalone distributions which includes necessary runtime (.NET 5). WinSW is a command-line only utility, where you have to manually create an XML file with service configuration. This may be a drawback for some, but it can also be an advantage as it is easy to back up and re-use the configuration settings, without having go through manual steps in a GUI. One thing to note is that by default it does not restart the service on error, one have to explicit enable this in the configuration file (via the "onfailure" parameter).
Autostart on Linux
Start as a service
To always run rclone in background, relevant for mount commands etc, you can use systemd to set up rclone as a system or user service. Running as a system service ensures that it is run at startup even if the user it is running as has no active session. Running rclone as a user service ensures that it only starts after the configured user has logged into the system.
Run periodically from cron
To run a periodic command, such as a copy/sync, you can set up a cron job.
Usage
Rclone is a command line program to manage files on cloud storage. After download (https://rclone.org/downloads/) and install, continue here to learn how to use it: Initial configuration, what the basic syntax looks like, describes the various subcommands, the various options, and more.
Configure
First, you'll need to configure rclone. As the object storage systems have quite complicated authentication these are kept in a config file. (See the --config
entry for how to find the config file and choose its location.)
The easiest way to make the config is to run rclone with the config option:
rclone config
See the following for detailed instructions for
- 1Fichier (https://rclone.org/fichier/)
- Akamai Netstorage (https://rclone.org/netstorage/)
- Alias (https://rclone.org/alias/)
- Amazon Drive (https://rclone.org/amazonclouddrive/)
- Amazon S3 (https://rclone.org/s3/)
- Backblaze B2 (https://rclone.org/b2/)
- Box (https://rclone.org/box/)
- Chunker (https://rclone.org/chunker/) - transparently splits large files for other remotes
- Citrix ShareFile (https://rclone.org/sharefile/)
- Compress (https://rclone.org/compress/)
- Combine (https://rclone.org/combine/)
- Crypt (https://rclone.org/crypt/) - to encrypt other remotes
- DigitalOcean Spaces (https://rclone.org/s3/#digitalocean-spaces)
- Digi Storage (https://rclone.org/koofr/#digi-storage)
- Dropbox (https://rclone.org/dropbox/)
- Enterprise File Fabric (https://rclone.org/filefabric/)
- FTP (https://rclone.org/ftp/)
- Google Cloud Storage (https://rclone.org/googlecloudstorage/)
- Google Drive (https://rclone.org/drive/)
- Google Photos (https://rclone.org/googlephotos/)
- Hasher (https://rclone.org/hasher/) - to handle checksums for other remotes
- HDFS (https://rclone.org/hdfs/)
- HiDrive (https://rclone.org/hidrive/)
- HTTP (https://rclone.org/http/)
- Internet Archive (https://rclone.org/internetarchive/)
- Jottacloud (https://rclone.org/jottacloud/)
- Koofr (https://rclone.org/koofr/)
- Mail.ru Cloud (https://rclone.org/mailru/)
- Mega (https://rclone.org/mega/)
- Memory (https://rclone.org/memory/)
- Microsoft Azure Blob Storage (https://rclone.org/azureblob/)
- Microsoft OneDrive (https://rclone.org/onedrive/)
- OpenStack Swift / Rackspace Cloudfiles / Memset Memstore (https://rclone.org/swift/)
- OpenDrive (https://rclone.org/opendrive/)
- Oracle Object Storage (https://rclone.org/oracleobjectstorage/)
- Pcloud (https://rclone.org/pcloud/)
- premiumize.me (https://rclone.org/premiumizeme/)
- put.io (https://rclone.org/putio/)
- QingStor (https://rclone.org/qingstor/)
- Seafile (https://rclone.org/seafile/)
- SFTP (https://rclone.org/sftp/)
- Sia (https://rclone.org/sia/)
- SMB (https://rclone.org/smb/)
- Storj (https://rclone.org/storj/)
- SugarSync (https://rclone.org/sugarsync/)
- Union (https://rclone.org/union/)
- Uptobox (https://rclone.org/uptobox/)
- WebDAV (https://rclone.org/webdav/)
- Yandex Disk (https://rclone.org/yandex/)
- Zoho WorkDrive (https://rclone.org/zoho/)
- The local filesystem (https://rclone.org/local/)
Basic syntax
Rclone syncs a directory tree from one storage system to another.
Its syntax is like this
Syntax: [options] subcommand <parameters> <parameters...>
Source and destination paths are specified by the name you gave the storage system in the config file then the sub path, e.g. "drive:myfolder" to look at "myfolder" in Google drive.
You can define as many storage paths as you like in the config file.
Please use the -i
/ --interactive
flag while learning rclone to avoid accidental data loss.
Subcommands
rclone uses a system of subcommands. For example
rclone ls remote:path # lists a remote rclone copy /local/path remote:path # copies /local/path to the remote rclone sync -i /local/path remote:path # syncs /local/path to the remote
rclone config
Enter an interactive configuration session.
Synopsis
Enter an interactive configuration session where you can setup new remotes and manage existing ones. You may also set or remove a password to protect your configuration.
rclone config [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for config
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
- rclone config create (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_create/) - Create a new remote with name, type and options.
- rclone config delete (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_delete/) - Delete an existing remote.
- rclone config disconnect (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_disconnect/) - Disconnects user from remote
- rclone config dump (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_dump/) - Dump the config file as JSON.
- rclone config file (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_file/) - Show path of configuration file in use.
- rclone config password (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_password/) - Update password in an existing remote.
- rclone config paths (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_paths/) - Show paths used for configuration, cache, temp etc.
- rclone config providers (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_providers/) - List in JSON format all the providers and options.
- rclone config reconnect (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_reconnect/) - Re-authenticates user with remote.
- rclone config show (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_show/) - Print (decrypted) config file, or the config for a single remote.
- rclone config touch (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_touch/) - Ensure configuration file exists.
- rclone config update (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_update/) - Update options in an existing remote.
- rclone config userinfo (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_userinfo/) - Prints info about logged in user of remote.
rclone copy
Copy files from source to dest, skipping identical files.
Synopsis
Copy the source to the destination. Does not transfer files that are identical on source and destination, testing by size and modification time or MD5SUM. Doesn't delete files from the destination. If you want to also delete files from destination, to make it match source, use the sync (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_sync/) command instead.
Note that it is always the contents of the directory that is synced, not the directory itself. So when source:path is a directory, it's the contents of source:path that are copied, not the directory name and contents.
To copy single files, use the copyto (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_copyto/) command instead.
If dest:path doesn't exist, it is created and the source:path contents go there.
For example
rclone copy source:sourcepath dest:destpath
Let's say there are two files in sourcepath
sourcepath/one.txt sourcepath/two.txt
This copies them to
destpath/one.txt destpath/two.txt
Not to
destpath/sourcepath/one.txt destpath/sourcepath/two.txt
If you are familiar with rsync
, rclone always works as if you had written a trailing /
- meaning "copy the contents of this directory". This applies to all commands and whether you are talking about the source or destination.
See the --no-traverse (https://rclone.org/docs/#no-traverse) option for controlling whether rclone lists the destination directory or not. Supplying this option when copying a small number of files into a large destination can speed transfers up greatly.
For example, if you have many files in /path/to/src but only a few of them change every day, you can copy all the files which have changed recently very efficiently like this:
rclone copy --max-age 24h --no-traverse /path/to/src remote:
Note: Use the -P
/--progress
flag to view real-time transfer statistics.
Note: Use the --dry-run
or the --interactive
/-i
flag to test without copying anything.
rclone copy source:path dest:path [flags]
Options
--create-empty-src-dirs Create empty source dirs on destination after copy -h, --help help for copy
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone sync
Make source and dest identical, modifying destination only.
Synopsis
Sync the source to the destination, changing the destination only. Doesn't transfer files that are identical on source and destination, testing by size and modification time or MD5SUM. Destination is updated to match source, including deleting files if necessary (except duplicate objects, see below). If you don't want to delete files from destination, use the copy (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_copy/) command instead.
Important: Since this can cause data loss, test first with the --dry-run
or the --interactive
/-i
flag.
rclone sync -i SOURCE remote:DESTINATION
Note that files in the destination won't be deleted if there were any errors at any point. Duplicate objects (files with the same name, on those providers that support it) are also not yet handled.
It is always the contents of the directory that is synced, not the directory itself. So when source:path is a directory, it's the contents of source:path that are copied, not the directory name and contents. See extended explanation in the copy (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_copy/) command if unsure.
If dest:path doesn't exist, it is created and the source:path contents go there.
It is not possible to sync overlapping remotes. However, you may exclude the destination from the sync with a filter rule or by putting an exclude-if-present file inside the destination directory and sync to a destination that is inside the source directory.
Note: Use the -P
/--progress
flag to view real-time transfer statistics
Note: Use the rclone dedupe
command to deal with "Duplicate object/directory found in source/destination - ignoring" errors. See this forum post (https://forum.rclone.org/t/sync-not-clearing-duplicates/14372) for more info.
rclone sync source:path dest:path [flags]
Options
--create-empty-src-dirs Create empty source dirs on destination after sync -h, --help help for sync
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone move
Move files from source to dest.
Synopsis
Moves the contents of the source directory to the destination directory. Rclone will error if the source and destination overlap and the remote does not support a server-side directory move operation.
To move single files, use the moveto (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_moveto/) command instead.
If no filters are in use and if possible this will server-side move source:path
into dest:path
. After this source:path
will no longer exist.
Otherwise for each file in source:path
selected by the filters (if any) this will move it into dest:path
. If possible a server-side move will be used, otherwise it will copy it (server-side if possible) into dest:path
then delete the original (if no errors on copy) in source:path
.
If you want to delete empty source directories after move, use the --delete-empty-src-dirs
flag.
See the --no-traverse (https://rclone.org/docs/#no-traverse) option for controlling whether rclone lists the destination directory or not. Supplying this option when moving a small number of files into a large destination can speed transfers up greatly.
Important: Since this can cause data loss, test first with the --dry-run
or the --interactive
/-i
flag.
Note: Use the -P
/--progress
flag to view real-time transfer statistics.
rclone move source:path dest:path [flags]
Options
--create-empty-src-dirs Create empty source dirs on destination after move --delete-empty-src-dirs Delete empty source dirs after move -h, --help help for move
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone delete
Remove the files in path.
Synopsis
Remove the files in path. Unlike purge (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_purge/) it obeys include/exclude filters so can be used to selectively delete files.
rclone delete
only deletes files but leaves the directory structure alone. If you want to delete a directory and all of its contents use the purge (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_purge/) command.
If you supply the --rmdirs
flag, it will remove all empty directories along with it. You can also use the separate command rmdir (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_rmdir/) or rmdirs (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_rmdirs/) to delete empty directories only.
For example, to delete all files bigger than 100 MiB, you may first want to check what would be deleted (use either):
rclone --min-size 100M lsl remote:path rclone --dry-run --min-size 100M delete remote:path
Then proceed with the actual delete:
rclone --min-size 100M delete remote:path
That reads "delete everything with a minimum size of 100 MiB", hence delete all files bigger than 100 MiB.
Important: Since this can cause data loss, test first with the --dry-run
or the --interactive
/-i
flag.
rclone delete remote:path [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for delete --rmdirs rmdirs removes empty directories but leaves root intact
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone purge
Remove the path and all of its contents.
Synopsis
Remove the path and all of its contents. Note that this does not obey include/exclude filters - everything will be removed. Use the delete (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_delete/) command if you want to selectively delete files. To delete empty directories only, use command rmdir (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_rmdir/) or rmdirs (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_rmdirs/).
Important: Since this can cause data loss, test first with the --dry-run
or the --interactive
/-i
flag.
rclone purge remote:path [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for purge
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone mkdir
Make the path if it doesn't already exist.
rclone mkdir remote:path [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for mkdir
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone rmdir
Remove the empty directory at path.
Synopsis
This removes empty directory given by path. Will not remove the path if it has any objects in it, not even empty subdirectories. Use command rmdirs (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_rmdirs/) (or delete (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_delete/) with option --rmdirs
) to do that.
To delete a path and any objects in it, use purge (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_purge/) command.
rclone rmdir remote:path [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for rmdir
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone check
Checks the files in the source and destination match.
Synopsis
Checks the files in the source and destination match. It compares sizes and hashes (MD5 or SHA1) and logs a report of files that don't match. It doesn't alter the source or destination.
For the crypt (https://rclone.org/crypt/) remote there is a dedicated command, cryptcheck (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_cryptcheck/), that are able to check the checksums of the crypted files.
If you supply the --size-only
flag, it will only compare the sizes not the hashes as well. Use this for a quick check.
If you supply the --download
flag, it will download the data from both remotes and check them against each other on the fly. This can be useful for remotes that don't support hashes or if you really want to check all the data.
If you supply the --checkfile HASH
flag with a valid hash name, the source:path
must point to a text file in the SUM format.
If you supply the --one-way
flag, it will only check that files in the source match the files in the destination, not the other way around. This means that extra files in the destination that are not in the source will not be detected.
The --differ
, --missing-on-dst
, --missing-on-src
, --match
and --error
flags write paths, one per line, to the file name (or stdout if it is -
) supplied. What they write is described in the help below. For example --differ
will write all paths which are present on both the source and destination but different.
The --combined
flag will write a file (or stdout) which contains all file paths with a symbol and then a space and then the path to tell you what happened to it. These are reminiscent of diff files.
= path
means path was found in source and destination and was identical- `- path` means path was missing on the source, so only in the destination
- `+ path` means path was missing on the destination, so only in the source
- `* path` means path was present in source and destination but different.
! path
means there was an error reading or hashing the source or dest.rclone check source:path dest:path [flags]
Options
-C, --checkfile string Treat source:path as a SUM file with hashes of given type --combined string Make a combined report of changes to this file --differ string Report all non-matching files to this file --download Check by downloading rather than with hash --error string Report all files with errors (hashing or reading) to this file -h, --help help for check --match string Report all matching files to this file --missing-on-dst string Report all files missing from the destination to this file --missing-on-src string Report all files missing from the source to this file --one-way Check one way only, source files must exist on remote
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone ls
List the objects in the path with size and path.
Synopsis
Lists the objects in the source path to standard output in a human readable format with size and path. Recurses by default.
Eg
$ rclone ls swift:bucket 60295 bevajer5jef 90613 canole 94467 diwogej7 37600 fubuwic
Any of the filtering options can be applied to this command.
There are several related list commands
ls
to list size and path of objects onlylsl
to list modification time, size and path of objects onlylsd
to list directories onlylsf
to list objects and directories in easy to parse formatlsjson
to list objects and directories in JSON format
ls
,lsl
,lsd
are designed to be human-readable. lsf
is designed to be human and machine-readable. lsjson
is designed to be machine-readable.
Note that ls
and lsl
recurse by default - use --max-depth 1
to stop the recursion.
The other list commands lsd
,lsf
,lsjson
do not recurse by default - use -R
to make them recurse.
Listing a nonexistent directory will produce an error except for remotes which can't have empty directories (e.g. s3, swift, or gcs - the bucket-based remotes).
rclone ls remote:path [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for ls
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone lsd
List all directories/containers/buckets in the path.
Synopsis
Lists the directories in the source path to standard output. Does not recurse by default. Use the -R
flag to recurse.
This command lists the total size of the directory (if known, -1 if not), the modification time (if known, the current time if not), the number of objects in the directory (if known, -1 if not) and the name of the directory, Eg
$ rclone lsd swift: 494000 2018-04-26 08:43:20 10000 10000files 65 2018-04-26 08:43:20 1 1File
Or
$ rclone lsd drive:test -1 2016-10-17 17:41:53 -1 1000files -1 2017-01-03 14:40:54 -1 2500files -1 2017-07-08 14:39:28 -1 4000files
If you just want the directory names use rclone lsf --dirs-only
.
Any of the filtering options can be applied to this command.
There are several related list commands
ls
to list size and path of objects onlylsl
to list modification time, size and path of objects onlylsd
to list directories onlylsf
to list objects and directories in easy to parse formatlsjson
to list objects and directories in JSON format
ls
,lsl
,lsd
are designed to be human-readable. lsf
is designed to be human and machine-readable. lsjson
is designed to be machine-readable.
Note that ls
and lsl
recurse by default - use --max-depth 1
to stop the recursion.
The other list commands lsd
,lsf
,lsjson
do not recurse by default - use -R
to make them recurse.
Listing a nonexistent directory will produce an error except for remotes which can't have empty directories (e.g. s3, swift, or gcs - the bucket-based remotes).
rclone lsd remote:path [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for lsd -R, --recursive Recurse into the listing
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone lsl
List the objects in path with modification time, size and path.
Synopsis
Lists the objects in the source path to standard output in a human readable format with modification time, size and path. Recurses by default.
Eg
$ rclone lsl swift:bucket 60295 2016-06-25 18:55:41.062626927 bevajer5jef 90613 2016-06-25 18:55:43.302607074 canole 94467 2016-06-25 18:55:43.046609333 diwogej7 37600 2016-06-25 18:55:40.814629136 fubuwic
Any of the filtering options can be applied to this command.
There are several related list commands
ls
to list size and path of objects onlylsl
to list modification time, size and path of objects onlylsd
to list directories onlylsf
to list objects and directories in easy to parse formatlsjson
to list objects and directories in JSON format
ls
,lsl
,lsd
are designed to be human-readable. lsf
is designed to be human and machine-readable. lsjson
is designed to be machine-readable.
Note that ls
and lsl
recurse by default - use --max-depth 1
to stop the recursion.
The other list commands lsd
,lsf
,lsjson
do not recurse by default - use -R
to make them recurse.
Listing a nonexistent directory will produce an error except for remotes which can't have empty directories (e.g. s3, swift, or gcs - the bucket-based remotes).
rclone lsl remote:path [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for lsl
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone md5sum
Produces an md5sum file for all the objects in the path.
Synopsis
Produces an md5sum file for all the objects in the path. This is in the same format as the standard md5sum tool produces.
By default, the hash is requested from the remote. If MD5 is not supported by the remote, no hash will be returned. With the download flag, the file will be downloaded from the remote and hashed locally enabling MD5 for any remote.
For other algorithms, see the hashsum (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_hashsum/) command. Running rclone md5sum remote:path
is equivalent to running rclone hashsum MD5 remote:path
.
This command can also hash data received on standard input (stdin), by not passing a remote:path, or by passing a hyphen as remote:path when there is data to read (if not, the hyphen will be treated literally, as a relative path).
rclone md5sum remote:path [flags]
Options
--base64 Output base64 encoded hashsum -C, --checkfile string Validate hashes against a given SUM file instead of printing them --download Download the file and hash it locally; if this flag is not specified, the hash is requested from the remote -h, --help help for md5sum --output-file string Output hashsums to a file rather than the terminal
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone sha1sum
Produces an sha1sum file for all the objects in the path.
Synopsis
Produces an sha1sum file for all the objects in the path. This is in the same format as the standard sha1sum tool produces.
By default, the hash is requested from the remote. If SHA-1 is not supported by the remote, no hash will be returned. With the download flag, the file will be downloaded from the remote and hashed locally enabling SHA-1 for any remote.
For other algorithms, see the hashsum (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_hashsum/) command. Running rclone sha1sum remote:path
is equivalent to running rclone hashsum SHA1 remote:path
.
This command can also hash data received on standard input (stdin), by not passing a remote:path, or by passing a hyphen as remote:path when there is data to read (if not, the hyphen will be treated literally, as a relative path).
This command can also hash data received on STDIN, if not passing a remote:path.
rclone sha1sum remote:path [flags]
Options
--base64 Output base64 encoded hashsum -C, --checkfile string Validate hashes against a given SUM file instead of printing them --download Download the file and hash it locally; if this flag is not specified, the hash is requested from the remote -h, --help help for sha1sum --output-file string Output hashsums to a file rather than the terminal
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone size
Prints the total size and number of objects in remote:path.
Synopsis
Counts objects in the path and calculates the total size. Prints the result to standard output.
By default the output is in human-readable format, but shows values in both human-readable format as well as the raw numbers (global option --human-readable
is not considered). Use option --json
to format output as JSON instead.
Recurses by default, use --max-depth 1
to stop the recursion.
Some backends do not always provide file sizes, see for example Google Photos (https://rclone.org/googlephotos/#size) and Google Drive (https://rclone.org/drive/#limitations-of-google-docs). Rclone will then show a notice in the log indicating how many such files were encountered, and count them in as empty files in the output of the size command.
rclone size remote:path [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for size --json Format output as JSON
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone version
Show the version number.
Synopsis
Show the rclone version number, the go version, the build target OS and architecture, the runtime OS and kernel version and bitness, build tags and the type of executable (static or dynamic).
For example:
$ rclone version rclone v1.55.0 - os/version: ubuntu 18.04 (64 bit) - os/kernel: 4.15.0-136-generic (x86_64) - os/type: linux - os/arch: amd64 - go/version: go1.16 - go/linking: static - go/tags: none
Note: before rclone version 1.55 the os/type and os/arch lines were merged, and the "go/version" line was tagged as "go version".
If you supply the --check flag, then it will do an online check to compare your version with the latest release and the latest beta.
$ rclone version --check yours: 1.42.0.6 latest: 1.42 (released 2018-06-16) beta: 1.42.0.5 (released 2018-06-17)
Or
$ rclone version --check yours: 1.41 latest: 1.42 (released 2018-06-16) upgrade: https://downloads.rclone.org/v1.42 beta: 1.42.0.5 (released 2018-06-17) upgrade: https://beta.rclone.org/v1.42-005-g56e1e820
rclone version [flags]
Options
--check Check for new version -h, --help help for version
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone cleanup
Clean up the remote if possible.
Synopsis
Clean up the remote if possible. Empty the trash or delete old file versions. Not supported by all remotes.
rclone cleanup remote:path [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for cleanup
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone dedupe
Interactively find duplicate filenames and delete/rename them.
Synopsis
By default dedupe
interactively finds files with duplicate names and offers to delete all but one or rename them to be different. This is known as deduping by name.
Deduping by name is only useful with a small group of backends (e.g. Google Drive, Opendrive) that can have duplicate file names. It can be run on wrapping backends (e.g. crypt) if they wrap a backend which supports duplicate file names.
However if --by-hash
is passed in then dedupe will find files with duplicate hashes instead which will work on any backend which supports at least one hash. This can be used to find files with duplicate content. This is known as deduping by hash.
If deduping by name, first rclone will merge directories with the same name. It will do this iteratively until all the identically named directories have been merged.
Next, if deduping by name, for every group of duplicate file names / hashes, it will delete all but one identical file it finds without confirmation. This means that for most duplicated files the dedupe
command will not be interactive.
dedupe
considers files to be identical if they have the same file path and the same hash. If the backend does not support hashes (e.g. crypt wrapping Google Drive) then they will never be found to be identical. If you use the --size-only
flag then files will be considered identical if they have the same size (any hash will be ignored). This can be useful on crypt backends which do not support hashes.
Next rclone will resolve the remaining duplicates. Exactly which action is taken depends on the dedupe mode. By default, rclone will interactively query the user for each one.
Important: Since this can cause data loss, test first with the --dry-run
or the --interactive
/-i
flag.
Here is an example run.
Before - with duplicates
$ rclone lsl drive:dupes 6048320 2016-03-05 16:23:16.798000000 one.txt 6048320 2016-03-05 16:23:11.775000000 one.txt 564374 2016-03-05 16:23:06.731000000 one.txt 6048320 2016-03-05 16:18:26.092000000 one.txt 6048320 2016-03-05 16:22:46.185000000 two.txt 1744073 2016-03-05 16:22:38.104000000 two.txt 564374 2016-03-05 16:22:52.118000000 two.txt
Now the dedupe
session
$ rclone dedupe drive:dupes 2016/03/05 16:24:37 Google drive root 'dupes': Looking for duplicates using interactive mode. one.txt: Found 4 files with duplicate names one.txt: Deleting 2/3 identical duplicates (MD5 "1eedaa9fe86fd4b8632e2ac549403b36") one.txt: 2 duplicates remain 1: 6048320 bytes, 2016-03-05 16:23:16.798000000, MD5 1eedaa9fe86fd4b8632e2ac549403b36 2: 564374 bytes, 2016-03-05 16:23:06.731000000, MD5 7594e7dc9fc28f727c42ee3e0749de81 s) Skip and do nothing k) Keep just one (choose which in next step) r) Rename all to be different (by changing file.jpg to file-1.jpg) s/k/r> k Enter the number of the file to keep> 1 one.txt: Deleted 1 extra copies two.txt: Found 3 files with duplicate names two.txt: 3 duplicates remain 1: 564374 bytes, 2016-03-05 16:22:52.118000000, MD5 7594e7dc9fc28f727c42ee3e0749de81 2: 6048320 bytes, 2016-03-05 16:22:46.185000000, MD5 1eedaa9fe86fd4b8632e2ac549403b36 3: 1744073 bytes, 2016-03-05 16:22:38.104000000, MD5 851957f7fb6f0bc4ce76be966d336802 s) Skip and do nothing k) Keep just one (choose which in next step) r) Rename all to be different (by changing file.jpg to file-1.jpg) s/k/r> r two-1.txt: renamed from: two.txt two-2.txt: renamed from: two.txt two-3.txt: renamed from: two.txt
The result being
$ rclone lsl drive:dupes 6048320 2016-03-05 16:23:16.798000000 one.txt 564374 2016-03-05 16:22:52.118000000 two-1.txt 6048320 2016-03-05 16:22:46.185000000 two-2.txt 1744073 2016-03-05 16:22:38.104000000 two-3.txt
Dedupe can be run non interactively using the --dedupe-mode
flag or by using an extra parameter with the same value
--dedupe-mode interactive
- interactive as above.--dedupe-mode skip
- removes identical files then skips anything left.--dedupe-mode first
- removes identical files then keeps the first one.--dedupe-mode newest
- removes identical files then keeps the newest one.--dedupe-mode oldest
- removes identical files then keeps the oldest one.--dedupe-mode largest
- removes identical files then keeps the largest one.--dedupe-mode smallest
- removes identical files then keeps the smallest one.--dedupe-mode rename
- removes identical files then renames the rest to be different.--dedupe-mode list
- lists duplicate dirs and files only and changes nothing.
For example, to rename all the identically named photos in your Google Photos directory, do
rclone dedupe --dedupe-mode rename "drive:Google Photos"
Or
rclone dedupe rename "drive:Google Photos"
rclone dedupe [mode] remote:path [flags]
Options
--by-hash Find identical hashes rather than names --dedupe-mode string Dedupe mode interactive|skip|first|newest|oldest|largest|smallest|rename (default "interactive") -h, --help help for dedupe
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone about
Get quota information from the remote.
Synopsis
rclone about
prints quota information about a remote to standard output. The output is typically used, free, quota and trash contents.
E.g. Typical output from rclone about remote:
is:
Total: 17 GiB Used: 7.444 GiB Free: 1.315 GiB Trashed: 100.000 MiB Other: 8.241 GiB
Where the fields are:
- Total: Total size available.
- Used: Total size used.
- Free: Total space available to this user.
- Trashed: Total space used by trash.
- Other: Total amount in other storage (e.g. Gmail, Google Photos).
- Objects: Total number of objects in the storage.
All sizes are in number of bytes.
Applying a --full
flag to the command prints the bytes in full, e.g.
Total: 18253611008 Used: 7993453766 Free: 1411001220 Trashed: 104857602 Other: 8849156022
A --json
flag generates conveniently machine-readable output, e.g.
{ "total": 18253611008, "used": 7993453766, "trashed": 104857602, "other": 8849156022, "free": 1411001220 }
Not all backends print all fields. Information is not included if it is not provided by a backend. Where the value is unlimited it is omitted.
Some backends does not support the rclone about
command at all, see complete list in documentation (https://rclone.org/overview/#optional-features).
rclone about remote: [flags]
Options
--full Full numbers instead of human-readable -h, --help help for about --json Format output as JSON
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone backend
Run a backend-specific command.
Synopsis
This runs a backend-specific command. The commands themselves (except for "help" and "features") are defined by the backends and you should see the backend docs for definitions.
You can discover what commands a backend implements by using
rclone backend help remote: rclone backend help <backendname>
You can also discover information about the backend using (see operations/fsinfo (https://rclone.org/rc/#operations-fsinfo) in the remote control docs for more info).
rclone backend features remote:
Pass options to the backend command with -o. This should be key=value or key, e.g.:
rclone backend stats remote:path stats -o format=json -o long
Pass arguments to the backend by placing them on the end of the line
rclone backend cleanup remote:path file1 file2 file3
Note to run these commands on a running backend then see backend/command (https://rclone.org/rc/#backend-command) in the rc docs.
rclone backend <command> remote:path [opts] <args> [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for backend --json Always output in JSON format -o, --option stringArray Option in the form name=value or name
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone bisync
Perform bidirectional synchronization between two paths.
Synopsis
Perform bidirectional synchronization between two paths.
Bisync (https://rclone.org/bisync/) provides a bidirectional cloud sync solution in rclone. It retains the Path1 and Path2 filesystem listings from the prior run. On each successive run it will: - list files on Path1 and Path2, and check for changes on each side. Changes include New
, Newer
, Older
, and Deleted
files. - Propagate changes on Path1 to Path2, and vice-versa.
See full bisync description (https://rclone.org/bisync/) for details.
rclone bisync remote1:path1 remote2:path2 [flags]
Options
--check-access Ensure expected RCLONE_TEST files are found on both Path1 and Path2 filesystems, else abort. --check-filename string Filename for --check-access (default: RCLONE_TEST) --check-sync string Controls comparison of final listings: true|false|only (default: true) (default "true") --filters-file string Read filtering patterns from a file --force Bypass --max-delete safety check and run the sync. Consider using with --verbose -h, --help help for bisync --localtime Use local time in listings (default: UTC) --no-cleanup Retain working files (useful for troubleshooting and testing). --remove-empty-dirs Remove empty directories at the final cleanup step. -1, --resync Performs the resync run. Path1 files may overwrite Path2 versions. Consider using --verbose or --dry-run first. --workdir string Use custom working dir - useful for testing. (default: $HOME/.cache/rclone/bisync)
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone cat
Concatenates any files and sends them to stdout.
Synopsis
rclone cat sends any files to standard output.
You can use it like this to output a single file
rclone cat remote:path/to/file
Or like this to output any file in dir or its subdirectories.
rclone cat remote:path/to/dir
Or like this to output any .txt files in dir or its subdirectories.
rclone --include "*.txt" cat remote:path/to/dir
Use the --head
flag to print characters only at the start, --tail
for the end and --offset
and --count
to print a section in the middle. Note that if offset is negative it will count from the end, so --offset -1 --count 1
is equivalent to --tail 1
.
rclone cat remote:path [flags]
Options
--count int Only print N characters (default -1) --discard Discard the output instead of printing --head int Only print the first N characters -h, --help help for cat --offset int Start printing at offset N (or from end if -ve) --tail int Only print the last N characters
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone checksum
Checks the files in the source against a SUM file.
Synopsis
Checks that hashsums of source files match the SUM file. It compares hashes (MD5, SHA1, etc) and logs a report of files which don't match. It doesn't alter the file system.
If you supply the --download
flag, it will download the data from remote and calculate the contents hash on the fly. This can be useful for remotes that don't support hashes or if you really want to check all the data.
Note that hash values in the SUM file are treated as case insensitive.
If you supply the --one-way
flag, it will only check that files in the source match the files in the destination, not the other way around. This means that extra files in the destination that are not in the source will not be detected.
The --differ
, --missing-on-dst
, --missing-on-src
, --match
and --error
flags write paths, one per line, to the file name (or stdout if it is -
) supplied. What they write is described in the help below. For example --differ
will write all paths which are present on both the source and destination but different.
The --combined
flag will write a file (or stdout) which contains all file paths with a symbol and then a space and then the path to tell you what happened to it. These are reminiscent of diff files.
= path
means path was found in source and destination and was identical- `- path` means path was missing on the source, so only in the destination
- `+ path` means path was missing on the destination, so only in the source
- `* path` means path was present in source and destination but different.
! path
means there was an error reading or hashing the source or dest.rclone checksum <hash> sumfile src:path [flags]
Options
--combined string Make a combined report of changes to this file --differ string Report all non-matching files to this file --download Check by hashing the contents --error string Report all files with errors (hashing or reading) to this file -h, --help help for checksum --match string Report all matching files to this file --missing-on-dst string Report all files missing from the destination to this file --missing-on-src string Report all files missing from the source to this file --one-way Check one way only, source files must exist on remote
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone completion
Generate the autocompletion script for the specified shell
Synopsis
Generate the autocompletion script for rclone for the specified shell. See each sub-command's help for details on how to use the generated script.
Options
-h, --help help for completion
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
- rclone completion bash (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_completion_bash/) - Generate the autocompletion script for bash
- rclone completion fish (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_completion_fish/) - Generate the autocompletion script for fish
- rclone completion powershell (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_completion_powershell/) - Generate the autocompletion script for powershell
- rclone completion zsh (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_completion_zsh/) - Generate the autocompletion script for zsh
rclone completion bash
Generate the autocompletion script for bash
Synopsis
Generate the autocompletion script for the bash shell.
This script depends on the 'bash-completion' package. If it is not installed already, you can install it via your OS's package manager.
To load completions in your current shell session:
source <(rclone completion bash)
To load completions for every new session, execute once:
Linux
rclone completion bash > /etc/bash_completion.d/rclone
macOS
rclone completion bash > $(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion.d/rclone
You will need to start a new shell for this setup to take effect.
rclone completion bash
Options
-h, --help help for bash --no-descriptions disable completion descriptions
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone completion (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_completion/) - Generate the autocompletion script for the specified shell
rclone completion fish
Generate the autocompletion script for fish
Synopsis
Generate the autocompletion script for the fish shell.
To load completions in your current shell session:
rclone completion fish | source
To load completions for every new session, execute once:
rclone completion fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/rclone.fish
You will need to start a new shell for this setup to take effect.
rclone completion fish [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for fish --no-descriptions disable completion descriptions
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone completion (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_completion/) - Generate the autocompletion script for the specified shell
rclone completion powershell
Generate the autocompletion script for powershell
Synopsis
Generate the autocompletion script for powershell.
To load completions in your current shell session:
rclone completion powershell | Out-String | Invoke-Expression
To load completions for every new session, add the output of the above command to your powershell profile.
rclone completion powershell [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for powershell --no-descriptions disable completion descriptions
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone completion (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_completion/) - Generate the autocompletion script for the specified shell
rclone completion zsh
Generate the autocompletion script for zsh
Synopsis
Generate the autocompletion script for the zsh shell.
If shell completion is not already enabled in your environment you will need to enable it. You can execute the following once:
echo "autoload -U compinit; compinit" >> ~/.zshrc
To load completions in your current shell session:
source <(rclone completion zsh); compdef _rclone rclone
To load completions for every new session, execute once:
Linux
rclone completion zsh > "${fpath[1]}/_rclone"
macOS
rclone completion zsh > $(brew --prefix)/share/zsh/site-functions/_rclone
You will need to start a new shell for this setup to take effect.
rclone completion zsh [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for zsh --no-descriptions disable completion descriptions
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone completion (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_completion/) - Generate the autocompletion script for the specified shell
rclone config create
Create a new remote with name, type and options.
Synopsis
Create a new remote of name
with type
and options. The options should be passed in pairs of key value
or as key=value
.
For example, to make a swift remote of name myremote using auto config you would do:
rclone config create myremote swift env_auth true rclone config create myremote swift env_auth=true
So for example if you wanted to configure a Google Drive remote but using remote authorization you would do this:
rclone config create mydrive drive config_is_local=false
Note that if the config process would normally ask a question the default is taken (unless --non-interactive
is used). Each time that happens rclone will print or DEBUG a message saying how to affect the value taken.
If any of the parameters passed is a password field, then rclone will automatically obscure them if they aren't already obscured before putting them in the config file.
NB If the password parameter is 22 characters or longer and consists only of base64 characters then rclone can get confused about whether the password is already obscured or not and put unobscured passwords into the config file. If you want to be 100% certain that the passwords get obscured then use the --obscure
flag, or if you are 100% certain you are already passing obscured passwords then use --no-obscure
. You can also set obscured passwords using the rclone config password
command.
The flag --non-interactive
is for use by applications that wish to configure rclone themselves, rather than using rclone's text based configuration questions. If this flag is set, and rclone needs to ask the user a question, a JSON blob will be returned with the question in it.
This will look something like (some irrelevant detail removed):
{ "State": "*oauth-islocal,teamdrive,,", "Option": { "Name": "config_is_local", "Help": "Use auto config?\n * Say Y if not sure\n * Say N if you are working on a remote or headless machine\n", "Default": true, "Examples": [ { "Value": "true", "Help": "Yes" }, { "Value": "false", "Help": "No" } ], "Required": false, "IsPassword": false, "Type": "bool", "Exclusive": true, }, "Error": "", }
The format of Option
is the same as returned by rclone config providers
. The question should be asked to the user and returned to rclone as the --result
option along with the --state
parameter.
The keys of Option
are used as follows:
Name
- name of variable - show to userHelp
- help text. Hard wrapped at 80 chars. Any URLs should be clicky.Default
- default value - return this if the user just wants the default.Examples
- the user should be able to choose one of theseRequired
- the value should be non-emptyIsPassword
- the value is a password and should be edited as suchType
- type of value, egbool
,string
,int
and othersExclusive
- if set no free-form entry allowed only theExamples
- Irrelevant keys
Provider
,ShortOpt
,Hide
,NoPrefix
,Advanced
If Error
is set then it should be shown to the user at the same time as the question.
rclone config update name --continue --state "*oauth-islocal,teamdrive,," --result "true"
Note that when using --continue
all passwords should be passed in the clear (not obscured). Any default config values should be passed in with each invocation of --continue
.
At the end of the non interactive process, rclone will return a result with State
as empty string.
If --all
is passed then rclone will ask all the config questions, not just the post config questions. Any parameters are used as defaults for questions as usual.
Note that bin/config.py
in the rclone source implements this protocol as a readable demonstration.
rclone config create name type [key value]* [flags]
Options
--all Ask the full set of config questions --continue Continue the configuration process with an answer -h, --help help for create --no-obscure Force any passwords not to be obscured --non-interactive Don't interact with user and return questions --obscure Force any passwords to be obscured --result string Result - use with --continue --state string State - use with --continue
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone config (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config/) - Enter an interactive configuration session.
rclone config delete
Delete an existing remote.
rclone config delete name [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for delete
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone config (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config/) - Enter an interactive configuration session.
rclone config disconnect
Disconnects user from remote
Synopsis
This disconnects the remote: passed in to the cloud storage system.
This normally means revoking the oauth token.
To reconnect use "rclone config reconnect".
rclone config disconnect remote: [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for disconnect
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone config (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config/) - Enter an interactive configuration session.
rclone config dump
Dump the config file as JSON.
rclone config dump [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for dump
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone config (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config/) - Enter an interactive configuration session.
rclone config edit
Enter an interactive configuration session.
Synopsis
Enter an interactive configuration session where you can setup new remotes and manage existing ones. You may also set or remove a password to protect your configuration.
rclone config edit [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for edit
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone config (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config/) - Enter an interactive configuration session.
rclone config file
Show path of configuration file in use.
rclone config file [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for file
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone config (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config/) - Enter an interactive configuration session.
rclone config password
Update password in an existing remote.
Synopsis
Update an existing remote's password. The password should be passed in pairs of key password
or as key=password
. The password
should be passed in in clear (unobscured).
For example, to set password of a remote of name myremote you would do:
rclone config password myremote fieldname mypassword rclone config password myremote fieldname=mypassword
This command is obsolete now that "config update" and "config create" both support obscuring passwords directly.
rclone config password name [key value]+ [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for password
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone config (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config/) - Enter an interactive configuration session.
rclone config paths
Show paths used for configuration, cache, temp etc.
rclone config paths [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for paths
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone config (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config/) - Enter an interactive configuration session.
rclone config providers
List in JSON format all the providers and options.
rclone config providers [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for providers
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone config (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config/) - Enter an interactive configuration session.
rclone config reconnect
Re-authenticates user with remote.
Synopsis
This reconnects remote: passed in to the cloud storage system.
To disconnect the remote use "rclone config disconnect".
This normally means going through the interactive oauth flow again.
rclone config reconnect remote: [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for reconnect
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone config (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config/) - Enter an interactive configuration session.
rclone config show
Print (decrypted) config file, or the config for a single remote.
rclone config show [<remote>] [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for show
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone config (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config/) - Enter an interactive configuration session.
rclone config touch
Ensure configuration file exists.
rclone config touch [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for touch
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone config (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config/) - Enter an interactive configuration session.
rclone config update
Update options in an existing remote.
Synopsis
Update an existing remote's options. The options should be passed in pairs of key value
or as key=value
.
For example, to update the env_auth field of a remote of name myremote you would do:
rclone config update myremote env_auth true rclone config update myremote env_auth=true
If the remote uses OAuth the token will be updated, if you don't require this add an extra parameter thus:
rclone config update myremote env_auth=true config_refresh_token=false
Note that if the config process would normally ask a question the default is taken (unless --non-interactive
is used). Each time that happens rclone will print or DEBUG a message saying how to affect the value taken.
If any of the parameters passed is a password field, then rclone will automatically obscure them if they aren't already obscured before putting them in the config file.
NB If the password parameter is 22 characters or longer and consists only of base64 characters then rclone can get confused about whether the password is already obscured or not and put unobscured passwords into the config file. If you want to be 100% certain that the passwords get obscured then use the --obscure
flag, or if you are 100% certain you are already passing obscured passwords then use --no-obscure
. You can also set obscured passwords using the rclone config password
command.
The flag --non-interactive
is for use by applications that wish to configure rclone themselves, rather than using rclone's text based configuration questions. If this flag is set, and rclone needs to ask the user a question, a JSON blob will be returned with the question in it.
This will look something like (some irrelevant detail removed):
{ "State": "*oauth-islocal,teamdrive,,", "Option": { "Name": "config_is_local", "Help": "Use auto config?\n * Say Y if not sure\n * Say N if you are working on a remote or headless machine\n", "Default": true, "Examples": [ { "Value": "true", "Help": "Yes" }, { "Value": "false", "Help": "No" } ], "Required": false, "IsPassword": false, "Type": "bool", "Exclusive": true, }, "Error": "", }
The format of Option
is the same as returned by rclone config providers
. The question should be asked to the user and returned to rclone as the --result
option along with the --state
parameter.
The keys of Option
are used as follows:
Name
- name of variable - show to userHelp
- help text. Hard wrapped at 80 chars. Any URLs should be clicky.Default
- default value - return this if the user just wants the default.Examples
- the user should be able to choose one of theseRequired
- the value should be non-emptyIsPassword
- the value is a password and should be edited as suchType
- type of value, egbool
,string
,int
and othersExclusive
- if set no free-form entry allowed only theExamples
- Irrelevant keys
Provider
,ShortOpt
,Hide
,NoPrefix
,Advanced
If Error
is set then it should be shown to the user at the same time as the question.
rclone config update name --continue --state "*oauth-islocal,teamdrive,," --result "true"
Note that when using --continue
all passwords should be passed in the clear (not obscured). Any default config values should be passed in with each invocation of --continue
.
At the end of the non interactive process, rclone will return a result with State
as empty string.
If --all
is passed then rclone will ask all the config questions, not just the post config questions. Any parameters are used as defaults for questions as usual.
Note that bin/config.py
in the rclone source implements this protocol as a readable demonstration.
rclone config update name [key value]+ [flags]
Options
--all Ask the full set of config questions --continue Continue the configuration process with an answer -h, --help help for update --no-obscure Force any passwords not to be obscured --non-interactive Don't interact with user and return questions --obscure Force any passwords to be obscured --result string Result - use with --continue --state string State - use with --continue
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone config (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config/) - Enter an interactive configuration session.
rclone config userinfo
Prints info about logged in user of remote.
Synopsis
This prints the details of the person logged in to the cloud storage system.
rclone config userinfo remote: [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for userinfo --json Format output as JSON
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone config (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config/) - Enter an interactive configuration session.
rclone copyto
Copy files from source to dest, skipping identical files.
Synopsis
If source:path is a file or directory then it copies it to a file or directory named dest:path.
This can be used to upload single files to other than their current name. If the source is a directory then it acts exactly like the copy (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_copy/) command.
So
rclone copyto src dst
where src and dst are rclone paths, either remote:path or /path/to/local or C:.
This will:
if src is file copy it to dst, overwriting an existing file if it exists if src is directory copy it to dst, overwriting existing files if they exist see copy command for full details
This doesn't transfer files that are identical on src and dst, testing by size and modification time or MD5SUM. It doesn't delete files from the destination.
Note: Use the -P
/--progress
flag to view real-time transfer statistics
rclone copyto source:path dest:path [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for copyto
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone copyurl
Copy url content to dest.
Synopsis
Download a URL's content and copy it to the destination without saving it in temporary storage.
Setting --auto-filename
will attempt to automatically determine the filename from the URL (after any redirections) and used in the destination path. With --auto-filename-header
in addition, if a specific filename is set in HTTP headers, it will be used instead of the name from the URL. With --print-filename
in addition, the resulting file name will be printed.
Setting --no-clobber
will prevent overwriting file on the destination if there is one with the same name.
Setting --stdout
or making the output file name -
will cause the output to be written to standard output.
rclone copyurl https://example.com dest:path [flags]
Options
-a, --auto-filename Get the file name from the URL and use it for destination file path --header-filename Get the file name from the Content-Disposition header -h, --help help for copyurl --no-clobber Prevent overwriting file with same name -p, --print-filename Print the resulting name from --auto-filename --stdout Write the output to stdout rather than a file
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone cryptcheck
Cryptcheck checks the integrity of a crypted remote.
Synopsis
rclone cryptcheck checks a remote against a crypted (https://rclone.org/crypt/) remote. This is the equivalent of running rclone check (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_check/), but able to check the checksums of the crypted remote.
For it to work the underlying remote of the cryptedremote must support some kind of checksum.
It works by reading the nonce from each file on the cryptedremote: and using that to encrypt each file on the remote:. It then checks the checksum of the underlying file on the cryptedremote: against the checksum of the file it has just encrypted.
Use it like this
rclone cryptcheck /path/to/files encryptedremote:path
You can use it like this also, but that will involve downloading all the files in remote:path.
rclone cryptcheck remote:path encryptedremote:path
After it has run it will log the status of the encryptedremote:.
If you supply the --one-way
flag, it will only check that files in the source match the files in the destination, not the other way around. This means that extra files in the destination that are not in the source will not be detected.
The --differ
, --missing-on-dst
, --missing-on-src
, --match
and --error
flags write paths, one per line, to the file name (or stdout if it is -
) supplied. What they write is described in the help below. For example --differ
will write all paths which are present on both the source and destination but different.
The --combined
flag will write a file (or stdout) which contains all file paths with a symbol and then a space and then the path to tell you what happened to it. These are reminiscent of diff files.
= path
means path was found in source and destination and was identical- `- path` means path was missing on the source, so only in the destination
- `+ path` means path was missing on the destination, so only in the source
- `* path` means path was present in source and destination but different.
! path
means there was an error reading or hashing the source or dest.rclone cryptcheck remote:path cryptedremote:path [flags]
Options
--combined string Make a combined report of changes to this file --differ string Report all non-matching files to this file --error string Report all files with errors (hashing or reading) to this file -h, --help help for cryptcheck --match string Report all matching files to this file --missing-on-dst string Report all files missing from the destination to this file --missing-on-src string Report all files missing from the source to this file --one-way Check one way only, source files must exist on remote
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone cryptdecode
Cryptdecode returns unencrypted file names.
Synopsis
rclone cryptdecode returns unencrypted file names when provided with a list of encrypted file names. List limit is 10 items.
If you supply the --reverse
flag, it will return encrypted file names.
use it like this
rclone cryptdecode encryptedremote: encryptedfilename1 encryptedfilename2 rclone cryptdecode --reverse encryptedremote: filename1 filename2
Another way to accomplish this is by using the rclone backend encode
(or decode
) command. See the documentation on the crypt (https://rclone.org/crypt/) overlay for more info.
rclone cryptdecode encryptedremote: encryptedfilename [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for cryptdecode --reverse Reverse cryptdecode, encrypts filenames
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone deletefile
Remove a single file from remote.
Synopsis
Remove a single file from remote. Unlike delete
it cannot be used to remove a directory and it doesn't obey include/exclude filters - if the specified file exists, it will always be removed.
rclone deletefile remote:path [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for deletefile
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone genautocomplete
Output completion script for a given shell.
Synopsis
Generates a shell completion script for rclone. Run with --help
to list the supported shells.
Options
-h, --help help for genautocomplete
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
- rclone genautocomplete bash (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_genautocomplete_bash/) - Output bash completion script for rclone.
- rclone genautocomplete fish (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_genautocomplete_fish/) - Output fish completion script for rclone.
- rclone genautocomplete zsh (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_genautocomplete_zsh/) - Output zsh completion script for rclone.
rclone genautocomplete bash
Output bash completion script for rclone.
Synopsis
Generates a bash shell autocompletion script for rclone.
This writes to /etc/bash_completion.d/rclone by default so will probably need to be run with sudo or as root, e.g.
sudo rclone genautocomplete bash
Logout and login again to use the autocompletion scripts, or source them directly
. /etc/bash_completion
If you supply a command line argument the script will be written there.
If output_file is "-", then the output will be written to stdout.
rclone genautocomplete bash [output_file] [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for bash
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone genautocomplete (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_genautocomplete/) - Output completion script for a given shell.
rclone genautocomplete fish
Output fish completion script for rclone.
Synopsis
Generates a fish autocompletion script for rclone.
This writes to /etc/fish/completions/rclone.fish by default so will probably need to be run with sudo or as root, e.g.
sudo rclone genautocomplete fish
Logout and login again to use the autocompletion scripts, or source them directly
. /etc/fish/completions/rclone.fish
If you supply a command line argument the script will be written there.
If output_file is "-", then the output will be written to stdout.
rclone genautocomplete fish [output_file] [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for fish
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone genautocomplete (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_genautocomplete/) - Output completion script for a given shell.
rclone genautocomplete zsh
Output zsh completion script for rclone.
Synopsis
Generates a zsh autocompletion script for rclone.
This writes to /usr/share/zsh/vendor-completions/_rclone by default so will probably need to be run with sudo or as root, e.g.
sudo rclone genautocomplete zsh
Logout and login again to use the autocompletion scripts, or source them directly
autoload -U compinit && compinit
If you supply a command line argument the script will be written there.
If output_file is "-", then the output will be written to stdout.
rclone genautocomplete zsh [output_file] [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for zsh
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone genautocomplete (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_genautocomplete/) - Output completion script for a given shell.
rclone gendocs
Output markdown docs for rclone to the directory supplied.
Synopsis
This produces markdown docs for the rclone commands to the directory supplied. These are in a format suitable for hugo to render into the rclone.org website.
rclone gendocs output_directory [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for gendocs
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone hashsum
Produces a hashsum file for all the objects in the path.
Synopsis
Produces a hash file for all the objects in the path using the hash named. The output is in the same format as the standard md5sum/sha1sum tool.
By default, the hash is requested from the remote. If the hash is not supported by the remote, no hash will be returned. With the download flag, the file will be downloaded from the remote and hashed locally enabling any hash for any remote.
For the MD5 and SHA1 algorithms there are also dedicated commands, md5sum (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_md5sum/) and sha1sum (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_sha1sum/).
This command can also hash data received on standard input (stdin), by not passing a remote:path, or by passing a hyphen as remote:path when there is data to read (if not, the hyphen will be treated literally, as a relative path).
Run without a hash to see the list of all supported hashes, e.g.
$ rclone hashsum Supported hashes are: * md5 * sha1 * whirlpool * crc32 * sha256 * dropbox * hidrive * mailru * quickxor
Then
$ rclone hashsum MD5 remote:path
Note that hash names are case insensitive and values are output in lower case.
rclone hashsum <hash> remote:path [flags]
Options
--base64 Output base64 encoded hashsum -C, --checkfile string Validate hashes against a given SUM file instead of printing them --download Download the file and hash it locally; if this flag is not specified, the hash is requested from the remote -h, --help help for hashsum --output-file string Output hashsums to a file rather than the terminal
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone link
Generate public link to file/folder.
Synopsis
rclone link will create, retrieve or remove a public link to the given file or folder.
rclone link remote:path/to/file rclone link remote:path/to/folder/ rclone link --unlink remote:path/to/folder/ rclone link --expire 1d remote:path/to/file
If you supply the --expire flag, it will set the expiration time otherwise it will use the default (100 years). Note not all backends support the --expire flag - if the backend doesn't support it then the link returned won't expire.
Use the --unlink flag to remove existing public links to the file or folder. Note not all backends support "--unlink" flag - those that don't will just ignore it.
If successful, the last line of the output will contain the link. Exact capabilities depend on the remote, but the link will always by default be created with the least constraints – e.g. no expiry, no password protection, accessible without account.
rclone link remote:path [flags]
Options
--expire Duration The amount of time that the link will be valid (default off) -h, --help help for link --unlink Remove existing public link to file/folder
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone listremotes
List all the remotes in the config file.
Synopsis
rclone listremotes lists all the available remotes from the config file.
When used with the --long
flag it lists the types too.
rclone listremotes [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for listremotes --long Show the type as well as names
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone lsf
List directories and objects in remote:path formatted for parsing.
Synopsis
List the contents of the source path (directories and objects) to standard output in a form which is easy to parse by scripts. By default this will just be the names of the objects and directories, one per line. The directories will have a / suffix.
Eg
$ rclone lsf swift:bucket bevajer5jef canole diwogej7 ferejej3gux/ fubuwic
Use the --format
option to control what gets listed. By default this is just the path, but you can use these parameters to control the output:
p - path s - size t - modification time h - hash i - ID of object o - Original ID of underlying object m - MimeType of object if known e - encrypted name T - tier of storage if known, e.g. "Hot" or "Cool" M - Metadata of object in JSON blob format, eg {"key":"value"}
So if you wanted the path, size and modification time, you would use --format "pst"
, or maybe --format "tsp"
to put the path last.
Eg
$ rclone lsf --format "tsp" swift:bucket 2016-06-25 18:55:41;60295;bevajer5jef 2016-06-25 18:55:43;90613;canole 2016-06-25 18:55:43;94467;diwogej7 2018-04-26 08:50:45;0;ferejej3gux/ 2016-06-25 18:55:40;37600;fubuwic
If you specify "h" in the format you will get the MD5 hash by default, use the --hash
flag to change which hash you want. Note that this can be returned as an empty string if it isn't available on the object (and for directories), "ERROR" if there was an error reading it from the object and "UNSUPPORTED" if that object does not support that hash type.
For example, to emulate the md5sum command you can use
rclone lsf -R --hash MD5 --format hp --separator " " --files-only .
Eg
$ rclone lsf -R --hash MD5 --format hp --separator " " --files-only swift:bucket 7908e352297f0f530b84a756f188baa3 bevajer5jef cd65ac234e6fea5925974a51cdd865cc canole 03b5341b4f234b9d984d03ad076bae91 diwogej7 8fd37c3810dd660778137ac3a66cc06d fubuwic 99713e14a4c4ff553acaf1930fad985b gixacuh7ku
(Though "rclone md5sum ." is an easier way of typing this.)
By default the separator is ";" this can be changed with the --separator
flag. Note that separators aren't escaped in the path so putting it last is a good strategy.
Eg
$ rclone lsf --separator "," --format "tshp" swift:bucket 2016-06-25 18:55:41,60295,7908e352297f0f530b84a756f188baa3,bevajer5jef 2016-06-25 18:55:43,90613,cd65ac234e6fea5925974a51cdd865cc,canole 2016-06-25 18:55:43,94467,03b5341b4f234b9d984d03ad076bae91,diwogej7 2018-04-26 08:52:53,0,,ferejej3gux/ 2016-06-25 18:55:40,37600,8fd37c3810dd660778137ac3a66cc06d,fubuwic
You can output in CSV standard format. This will escape things in " if they contain ,
Eg
$ rclone lsf --csv --files-only --format ps remote:path test.log,22355 test.sh,449 "this file contains a comma, in the file name.txt",6
Note that the --absolute
parameter is useful for making lists of files to pass to an rclone copy with the --files-from-raw
flag.
For example, to find all the files modified within one day and copy those only (without traversing the whole directory structure):
rclone lsf --absolute --files-only --max-age 1d /path/to/local > new_files rclone copy --files-from-raw new_files /path/to/local remote:path
Any of the filtering options can be applied to this command.
There are several related list commands
ls
to list size and path of objects onlylsl
to list modification time, size and path of objects onlylsd
to list directories onlylsf
to list objects and directories in easy to parse formatlsjson
to list objects and directories in JSON format
ls
,lsl
,lsd
are designed to be human-readable. lsf
is designed to be human and machine-readable. lsjson
is designed to be machine-readable.
Note that ls
and lsl
recurse by default - use --max-depth 1
to stop the recursion.
The other list commands lsd
,lsf
,lsjson
do not recurse by default - use -R
to make them recurse.
Listing a nonexistent directory will produce an error except for remotes which can't have empty directories (e.g. s3, swift, or gcs - the bucket-based remotes).
rclone lsf remote:path [flags]
Options
--absolute Put a leading / in front of path names --csv Output in CSV format -d, --dir-slash Append a slash to directory names (default true) --dirs-only Only list directories --files-only Only list files -F, --format string Output format - see help for details (default "p") --hash h Use this hash when h is used in the format MD5|SHA-1|DropboxHash (default "md5") -h, --help help for lsf -R, --recursive Recurse into the listing -s, --separator string Separator for the items in the format (default ";")
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone lsjson
List directories and objects in the path in JSON format.
Synopsis
List directories and objects in the path in JSON format.
The output is an array of Items, where each Item looks like this
{ "Hashes" : { "SHA-1" : "f572d396fae9206628714fb2ce00f72e94f2258f", "MD5" : "b1946ac92492d2347c6235b4d2611184", "DropboxHash" : "ecb65bb98f9d905b70458986c39fcbad7715e5f2fcc3b1f07767d7c83e2438cc" }, "ID": "y2djkhiujf83u33", "OrigID": "UYOJVTUW00Q1RzTDA", "IsBucket" : false, "IsDir" : false, "MimeType" : "application/octet-stream", "ModTime" : "2017-05-31T16:15:57.034468261+01:00", "Name" : "file.txt", "Encrypted" : "v0qpsdq8anpci8n929v3uu9338", "EncryptedPath" : "kja9098349023498/v0qpsdq8anpci8n929v3uu9338", "Path" : "full/path/goes/here/file.txt", "Size" : 6, "Tier" : "hot", }
If --hash
is not specified the Hashes property won't be emitted. The types of hash can be specified with the --hash-type
parameter (which may be repeated). If --hash-type
is set then it implies --hash
.
If --no-modtime
is specified then ModTime will be blank. This can speed things up on remotes where reading the ModTime takes an extra request (e.g. s3, swift).
If --no-mimetype
is specified then MimeType will be blank. This can speed things up on remotes where reading the MimeType takes an extra request (e.g. s3, swift).
If --encrypted
is not specified the Encrypted won't be emitted.
If --dirs-only
is not specified files in addition to directories are returned
If --files-only
is not specified directories in addition to the files will be returned.
If --metadata
is set then an additional Metadata key will be returned. This will have metadata in rclone standard format as a JSON object.
if --stat
is set then a single JSON blob will be returned about the item pointed to. This will return an error if the item isn't found. However on bucket based backends (like s3, gcs, b2, azureblob etc) if the item isn't found it will return an empty directory as it isn't possible to tell empty directories from missing directories there.
The Path field will only show folders below the remote path being listed. If "remote:path" contains the file "subfolder/file.txt", the Path for "file.txt" will be "subfolder/file.txt", not "remote:path/subfolder/file.txt". When used without --recursive
the Path will always be the same as Name.
If the directory is a bucket in a bucket-based backend, then "IsBucket" will be set to true. This key won't be present unless it is "true".
The time is in RFC3339 format with up to nanosecond precision. The number of decimal digits in the seconds will depend on the precision that the remote can hold the times, so if times are accurate to the nearest millisecond (e.g. Google Drive) then 3 digits will always be shown ("2017-05-31T16:15:57.034+01:00") whereas if the times are accurate to the nearest second (Dropbox, Box, WebDav, etc.) no digits will be shown ("2017-05-31T16:15:57+01:00").
The whole output can be processed as a JSON blob, or alternatively it can be processed line by line as each item is written one to a line.
Any of the filtering options can be applied to this command.
There are several related list commands
ls
to list size and path of objects onlylsl
to list modification time, size and path of objects onlylsd
to list directories onlylsf
to list objects and directories in easy to parse formatlsjson
to list objects and directories in JSON format
ls
,lsl
,lsd
are designed to be human-readable. lsf
is designed to be human and machine-readable. lsjson
is designed to be machine-readable.
Note that ls
and lsl
recurse by default - use --max-depth 1
to stop the recursion.
The other list commands lsd
,lsf
,lsjson
do not recurse by default - use -R
to make them recurse.
Listing a nonexistent directory will produce an error except for remotes which can't have empty directories (e.g. s3, swift, or gcs - the bucket-based remotes).
rclone lsjson remote:path [flags]
Options
--dirs-only Show only directories in the listing --encrypted Show the encrypted names --files-only Show only files in the listing --hash Include hashes in the output (may take longer) --hash-type stringArray Show only this hash type (may be repeated) -h, --help help for lsjson --no-mimetype Don't read the mime type (can speed things up) --no-modtime Don't read the modification time (can speed things up) --original Show the ID of the underlying Object -R, --recursive Recurse into the listing --stat Just return the info for the pointed to file
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone mount
Mount the remote as file system on a mountpoint.
Synopsis
rclone mount allows Linux, FreeBSD, macOS and Windows to mount any of Rclone's cloud storage systems as a file system with FUSE.
First set up your remote using rclone config
. Check it works with rclone ls
etc.
On Linux and macOS, you can run mount in either foreground or background (aka daemon) mode. Mount runs in foreground mode by default. Use the --daemon
flag to force background mode. On Windows you can run mount in foreground only, the flag is ignored.
In background mode rclone acts as a generic Unix mount program: the main program starts, spawns background rclone process to setup and maintain the mount, waits until success or timeout and exits with appropriate code (killing the child process if it fails).
On Linux/macOS/FreeBSD start the mount like this, where /path/to/local/mount
is an empty existing directory:
rclone mount remote:path/to/files /path/to/local/mount
On Windows you can start a mount in different ways. See below for details. If foreground mount is used interactively from a console window, rclone will serve the mount and occupy the console so another window should be used to work with the mount until rclone is interrupted e.g. by pressing Ctrl-C.
The following examples will mount to an automatically assigned drive, to specific drive letter X:
, to path C:\path\parent\mount
(where parent directory or drive must exist, and mount must not exist, and is not supported when mounting as a network drive), and the last example will mount as network share \\cloud\remote
and map it to an automatically assigned drive:
rclone mount remote:path/to/files * rclone mount remote:path/to/files X: rclone mount remote:path/to/files C:\path\parent\mount rclone mount remote:path/to/files \\cloud\remote
When the program ends while in foreground mode, either via Ctrl+C or receiving a SIGINT or SIGTERM signal, the mount should be automatically stopped.
When running in background mode the user will have to stop the mount manually:
# Linux fusermount -u /path/to/local/mount # OS X umount /path/to/local/mount
The umount operation can fail, for example when the mountpoint is busy. When that happens, it is the user's responsibility to stop the mount manually.
The size of the mounted file system will be set according to information retrieved from the remote, the same as returned by the rclone about (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_about/) command. Remotes with unlimited storage may report the used size only, then an additional 1 PiB of free space is assumed. If the remote does not support (https://rclone.org/overview/#optional-features) the about feature at all, then 1 PiB is set as both the total and the free size.
Installing on Windows
To run rclone mount on Windows, you will need to download and install WinFsp (http://www.secfs.net/winfsp/).
WinFsp (https://github.com/winfsp/winfsp) is an open-source Windows File System Proxy which makes it easy to write user space file systems for Windows. It provides a FUSE emulation layer which rclone uses combination with cgofuse (https://github.com/winfsp/cgofuse). Both of these packages are by Bill Zissimopoulos who was very helpful during the implementation of rclone mount for Windows.
Mounting modes on windows
Unlike other operating systems, Microsoft Windows provides a different filesystem type for network and fixed drives. It optimises access on the assumption fixed disk drives are fast and reliable, while network drives have relatively high latency and less reliability. Some settings can also be differentiated between the two types, for example that Windows Explorer should just display icons and not create preview thumbnails for image and video files on network drives.
In most cases, rclone will mount the remote as a normal, fixed disk drive by default. However, you can also choose to mount it as a remote network drive, often described as a network share. If you mount an rclone remote using the default, fixed drive mode and experience unexpected program errors, freezes or other issues, consider mounting as a network drive instead.
When mounting as a fixed disk drive you can either mount to an unused drive letter, or to a path representing a nonexistent subdirectory of an existing parent directory or drive. Using the special value *
will tell rclone to automatically assign the next available drive letter, starting with Z: and moving backward. Examples:
rclone mount remote:path/to/files * rclone mount remote:path/to/files X: rclone mount remote:path/to/files C:\path\parent\mount rclone mount remote:path/to/files X:
Option --volname
can be used to set a custom volume name for the mounted file system. The default is to use the remote name and path.
To mount as network drive, you can add option --network-mode
to your mount command. Mounting to a directory path is not supported in this mode, it is a limitation Windows imposes on junctions, so the remote must always be mounted to a drive letter.
rclone mount remote:path/to/files X: --network-mode
A volume name specified with --volname
will be used to create the network share path. A complete UNC path, such as \\cloud\remote
, optionally with path \\cloud\remote\madeup\path
, will be used as is. Any other string will be used as the share part, after a default prefix \\server\
. If no volume name is specified then \\server\share
will be used. You must make sure the volume name is unique when you are mounting more than one drive, or else the mount command will fail. The share name will treated as the volume label for the mapped drive, shown in Windows Explorer etc, while the complete \\server\share
will be reported as the remote UNC path by net use
etc, just like a normal network drive mapping.
If you specify a full network share UNC path with --volname
, this will implicitly set the --network-mode
option, so the following two examples have same result:
rclone mount remote:path/to/files X: --network-mode rclone mount remote:path/to/files X: --volname \\server\share
You may also specify the network share UNC path as the mountpoint itself. Then rclone will automatically assign a drive letter, same as with *
and use that as mountpoint, and instead use the UNC path specified as the volume name, as if it were specified with the --volname
option. This will also implicitly set the --network-mode
option. This means the following two examples have same result:
rclone mount remote:path/to/files \\cloud\remote rclone mount remote:path/to/files * --volname \\cloud\remote
There is yet another way to enable network mode, and to set the share path, and that is to pass the "native" libfuse/WinFsp option directly: --fuse-flag --VolumePrefix=\server\share
. Note that the path must be with just a single backslash prefix in this case.
Note: In previous versions of rclone this was the only supported method.
Read more about drive mapping (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive_mapping)
See also Limitations section below.
Windows filesystem permissions
The FUSE emulation layer on Windows must convert between the POSIX-based permission model used in FUSE, and the permission model used in Windows, based on access-control lists (ACL).
The mounted filesystem will normally get three entries in its access-control list (ACL), representing permissions for the POSIX permission scopes: Owner, group and others. By default, the owner and group will be taken from the current user, and the built-in group "Everyone" will be used to represent others. The user/group can be customized with FUSE options "UserName" and "GroupName", e.g. -o UserName=user123 -o GroupName="Authenticated Users"
. The permissions on each entry will be set according to options --dir-perms
and --file-perms
, which takes a value in traditional numeric notation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File-system_permissions#Numeric_notation).
The default permissions corresponds to --file-perms 0666 --dir-perms 0777
, i.e. read and write permissions to everyone. This means you will not be able to start any programs from the mount. To be able to do that you must add execute permissions, e.g. --file-perms 0777 --dir-perms 0777
to add it to everyone. If the program needs to write files, chances are you will have to enable VFS File Caching as well (see also limitations).
Note that the mapping of permissions is not always trivial, and the result you see in Windows Explorer may not be exactly like you expected. For example, when setting a value that includes write access, this will be mapped to individual permissions "write attributes", "write data" and "append data", but not "write extended attributes". Windows will then show this as basic permission "Special" instead of "Write", because "Write" includes the "write extended attributes" permission.
If you set POSIX permissions for only allowing access to the owner, using --file-perms 0600 --dir-perms 0700
, the user group and the built-in "Everyone" group will still be given some special permissions, such as "read attributes" and "read permissions", in Windows. This is done for compatibility reasons, e.g. to allow users without additional permissions to be able to read basic metadata about files like in UNIX. One case that may arise is that other programs (incorrectly) interprets this as the file being accessible by everyone. For example an SSH client may warn about "unprotected private key file".
WinFsp 2021 (version 1.9) introduces a new FUSE option "FileSecurity", that allows the complete specification of file security descriptors using SDDL (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/secauthz/security-descriptor-string-format). With this you can work around issues such as the mentioned "unprotected private key file" by specifying -o FileSecurity="D:P(A;;FA;;;OW)"
, for file all access (FA) to the owner (OW).
Windows caveats
Drives created as Administrator are not visible to other accounts, not even an account that was elevated to Administrator with the User Account Control (UAC) feature. A result of this is that if you mount to a drive letter from a Command Prompt run as Administrator, and then try to access the same drive from Windows Explorer (which does not run as Administrator), you will not be able to see the mounted drive.
If you don't need to access the drive from applications running with administrative privileges, the easiest way around this is to always create the mount from a non-elevated command prompt.
To make mapped drives available to the user account that created them regardless if elevated or not, there is a special Windows setting called linked connections (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/networking/mapped-drives-not-available-from-elevated-command#detail-to-configure-the-enablelinkedconnections-registry-entry) that can be enabled.
It is also possible to make a drive mount available to everyone on the system, by running the process creating it as the built-in SYSTEM account. There are several ways to do this: One is to use the command-line utility PsExec (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/psexec), from Microsoft's Sysinternals suite, which has option -s
to start processes as the SYSTEM account. Another alternative is to run the mount command from a Windows Scheduled Task, or a Windows Service, configured to run as the SYSTEM account. A third alternative is to use the WinFsp.Launcher infrastructure (https://github.com/winfsp/winfsp/wiki/WinFsp-Service-Architecture)). Note that when running rclone as another user, it will not use the configuration file from your profile unless you tell it to with the --config
(https://rclone.org/docs/#config-config-file) option. Read more in the install documentation (https://rclone.org/install/).
Note that mapping to a directory path, instead of a drive letter, does not suffer from the same limitations.
Limitations
Without the use of --vfs-cache-mode
this can only write files sequentially, it can only seek when reading. This means that many applications won't work with their files on an rclone mount without --vfs-cache-mode writes
or --vfs-cache-mode full
. See the VFS File Caching section for more info.
The bucket-based remotes (e.g. Swift, S3, Google Compute Storage, B2) do not support the concept of empty directories, so empty directories will have a tendency to disappear once they fall out of the directory cache.
When rclone mount
is invoked on Unix with --daemon
flag, the main rclone program will wait for the background mount to become ready or until the timeout specified by the --daemon-wait
flag. On Linux it can check mount status using ProcFS so the flag in fact sets maximum time to wait, while the real wait can be less. On macOS / BSD the time to wait is constant and the check is performed only at the end. We advise you to set wait time on macOS reasonably.
Only supported on Linux, FreeBSD, OS X and Windows at the moment.
rclone mount vs rclone sync/copy
File systems expect things to be 100% reliable, whereas cloud storage systems are a long way from 100% reliable. The rclone sync/copy commands cope with this with lots of retries. However rclone mount can't use retries in the same way without making local copies of the uploads. Look at the VFS File Caching for solutions to make mount more reliable.
Attribute caching
You can use the flag --attr-timeout
to set the time the kernel caches the attributes (size, modification time, etc.) for directory entries.
The default is 1s
which caches files just long enough to avoid too many callbacks to rclone from the kernel.
In theory 0s should be the correct value for filesystems which can change outside the control of the kernel. However this causes quite a few problems such as rclone using too much memory (https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/2157), rclone not serving files to samba (https://forum.rclone.org/t/rclone-1-39-vs-1-40-mount-issue/5112) and excessive time listing directories (https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/2095#issuecomment-371141147).
The kernel can cache the info about a file for the time given by --attr-timeout
. You may see corruption if the remote file changes length during this window. It will show up as either a truncated file or a file with garbage on the end. With --attr-timeout 1s
this is very unlikely but not impossible. The higher you set --attr-timeout
the more likely it is. The default setting of "1s" is the lowest setting which mitigates the problems above.
If you set it higher (10s
or 1m
say) then the kernel will call back to rclone less often making it more efficient, however there is more chance of the corruption issue above.
If files don't change on the remote outside of the control of rclone then there is no chance of corruption.
This is the same as setting the attr_timeout option in mount.fuse.
Filters
Note that all the rclone filters can be used to select a subset of the files to be visible in the mount.
systemd
When running rclone mount as a systemd service, it is possible to use Type=notify. In this case the service will enter the started state after the mountpoint has been successfully set up. Units having the rclone mount service specified as a requirement will see all files and folders immediately in this mode.
Note that systemd runs mount units without any environment variables including PATH
or HOME
. This means that tilde (~
) expansion will not work and you should provide --config
and --cache-dir
explicitly as absolute paths via rclone arguments. Since mounting requires the fusermount
program, rclone will use the fallback PATH of /bin:/usr/bin
in this scenario. Please ensure that fusermount
is present on this PATH.
Rclone as Unix mount helper
The core Unix program /bin/mount
normally takes the -t FSTYPE
argument then runs the /sbin/mount.FSTYPE
helper program passing it mount options as -o key=val,...
or --opt=...
. Automount (classic or systemd) behaves in a similar way.
rclone by default expects GNU-style flags --key val
. To run it as a mount helper you should symlink rclone binary to /sbin/mount.rclone
and optionally /usr/bin/rclonefs
, e.g. ln -s /usr/bin/rclone /sbin/mount.rclone
. rclone will detect it and translate command-line arguments appropriately.
Now you can run classic mounts like this:
mount sftp1:subdir /mnt/data -t rclone -o vfs_cache_mode=writes,sftp_key_file=/path/to/pem
or create systemd mount units:
# /etc/systemd/system/mnt-data.mount [Unit] After=network-online.target [Mount] Type=rclone What=sftp1:subdir Where=/mnt/data Options=rw,allow_other,args2env,vfs-cache-mode=writes,config=/etc/rclone.conf,cache-dir=/var/rclone
optionally accompanied by systemd automount unit
# /etc/systemd/system/mnt-data.automount [Unit] After=network-online.target Before=remote-fs.target [Automount] Where=/mnt/data TimeoutIdleSec=600 [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
or add in /etc/fstab
a line like
sftp1:subdir /mnt/data rclone rw,noauto,nofail,_netdev,x-systemd.automount,args2env,vfs_cache_mode=writes,config=/etc/rclone.conf,cache_dir=/var/cache/rclone 0 0
or use classic Automountd. Remember to provide explicit config=...,cache-dir=...
as a workaround for mount units being run without HOME
.
Rclone in the mount helper mode will split -o
argument(s) by comma, replace _
by -
and prepend --
to get the command-line flags. Options containing commas or spaces can be wrapped in single or double quotes. Any inner quotes inside outer quotes of the same type should be doubled.
Mount option syntax includes a few extra options treated specially:
env.NAME=VALUE
will set an environment variable for the mount process. This helps with Automountd and Systemd.mount which don't allow setting custom environment for mount helpers. Typically you will useenv.HTTPS_PROXY=proxy.host:3128
orenv.HOME=/root
command=cmount
can be used to runcmount
or any other rclone command rather than the defaultmount
.args2env
will pass mount options to the mount helper running in background via environment variables instead of command line arguments. This allows to hide secrets from such commands asps
orpgrep
.vv...
will be transformed into appropriate--verbose=N
- standard mount options like
x-systemd.automount
,_netdev
,nosuid
and alike are intended only for Automountd and ignored by rclone.
VFS - Virtual File System
This command uses the VFS layer. This adapts the cloud storage objects that rclone uses into something which looks much more like a disk filing system.
Cloud storage objects have lots of properties which aren't like disk files - you can't extend them or write to the middle of them, so the VFS layer has to deal with that. Because there is no one right way of doing this there are various options explained below.
The VFS layer also implements a directory cache - this caches info about files and directories (but not the data) in memory.
VFS Directory Cache
Using the --dir-cache-time
flag, you can control how long a directory should be considered up to date and not refreshed from the backend. Changes made through the VFS will appear immediately or invalidate the cache.
--dir-cache-time duration Time to cache directory entries for (default 5m0s) --poll-interval duration Time to wait between polling for changes. Must be smaller than dir-cache-time. Only on supported remotes. Set to 0 to disable (default 1m0s)
However, changes made directly on the cloud storage by the web interface or a different copy of rclone will only be picked up once the directory cache expires if the backend configured does not support polling for changes. If the backend supports polling, changes will be picked up within the polling interval.
You can send a SIGHUP
signal to rclone for it to flush all directory caches, regardless of how old they are. Assuming only one rclone instance is running, you can reset the cache like this:
kill -SIGHUP $(pidof rclone)
If you configure rclone with a remote control then you can use rclone rc to flush the whole directory cache:
rclone rc vfs/forget
Or individual files or directories:
rclone rc vfs/forget file=path/to/file dir=path/to/dir
VFS File Buffering
The --buffer-size
flag determines the amount of memory, that will be used to buffer data in advance.
Each open file will try to keep the specified amount of data in memory at all times. The buffered data is bound to one open file and won't be shared.
This flag is a upper limit for the used memory per open file. The buffer will only use memory for data that is downloaded but not not yet read. If the buffer is empty, only a small amount of memory will be used.
The maximum memory used by rclone for buffering can be up to --buffer-size * open files
.
VFS File Caching
These flags control the VFS file caching options. File caching is necessary to make the VFS layer appear compatible with a normal file system. It can be disabled at the cost of some compatibility.
For example you'll need to enable VFS caching if you want to read and write simultaneously to a file. See below for more details.
Note that the VFS cache is separate from the cache backend and you may find that you need one or the other or both.
--cache-dir string Directory rclone will use for caching. --vfs-cache-mode CacheMode Cache mode off|minimal|writes|full (default off) --vfs-cache-max-age duration Max age of objects in the cache (default 1h0m0s) --vfs-cache-max-size SizeSuffix Max total size of objects in the cache (default off) --vfs-cache-poll-interval duration Interval to poll the cache for stale objects (default 1m0s) --vfs-write-back duration Time to writeback files after last use when using cache (default 5s)
If run with -vv
rclone will print the location of the file cache. The files are stored in the user cache file area which is OS dependent but can be controlled with --cache-dir
or setting the appropriate environment variable.
The cache has 4 different modes selected by --vfs-cache-mode
. The higher the cache mode the more compatible rclone becomes at the cost of using disk space.
Note that files are written back to the remote only when they are closed and if they haven't been accessed for --vfs-write-back
seconds. If rclone is quit or dies with files that haven't been uploaded, these will be uploaded next time rclone is run with the same flags.
If using --vfs-cache-max-size
note that the cache may exceed this size for two reasons. Firstly because it is only checked every --vfs-cache-poll-interval
. Secondly because open files cannot be evicted from the cache.
You should not run two copies of rclone using the same VFS cache with the same or overlapping remotes if using --vfs-cache-mode > off
. This can potentially cause data corruption if you do. You can work around this by giving each rclone its own cache hierarchy with --cache-dir
. You don't need to worry about this if the remotes in use don't overlap.
--vfs-cache-mode off
In this mode (the default) the cache will read directly from the remote and write directly to the remote without caching anything on disk.
This will mean some operations are not possible
- Files can't be opened for both read AND write
- Files opened for write can't be seeked
- Existing files opened for write must have O_TRUNC set
- Files open for read with O_TRUNC will be opened write only
- Files open for write only will behave as if O_TRUNC was supplied
- Open modes O_APPEND, O_TRUNC are ignored
- If an upload fails it can't be retried
--vfs-cache-mode minimal
This is very similar to "off" except that files opened for read AND write will be buffered to disk. This means that files opened for write will be a lot more compatible, but uses the minimal disk space.
These operations are not possible
- Files opened for write only can't be seeked
- Existing files opened for write must have O_TRUNC set
- Files opened for write only will ignore O_APPEND, O_TRUNC
- If an upload fails it can't be retried
--vfs-cache-mode writes
In this mode files opened for read only are still read directly from the remote, write only and read/write files are buffered to disk first.
This mode should support all normal file system operations.
If an upload fails it will be retried at exponentially increasing intervals up to 1 minute.
--vfs-cache-mode full
In this mode all reads and writes are buffered to and from disk. When data is read from the remote this is buffered to disk as well.
In this mode the files in the cache will be sparse files and rclone will keep track of which bits of the files it has downloaded.
So if an application only reads the starts of each file, then rclone will only buffer the start of the file. These files will appear to be their full size in the cache, but they will be sparse files with only the data that has been downloaded present in them.
This mode should support all normal file system operations and is otherwise identical to --vfs-cache-mode
writes.
When reading a file rclone will read --buffer-size
plus --vfs-read-ahead
bytes ahead. The --buffer-size
is buffered in memory whereas the --vfs-read-ahead
is buffered on disk.
When using this mode it is recommended that --buffer-size
is not set too large and --vfs-read-ahead
is set large if required.
IMPORTANT not all file systems support sparse files. In particular FAT/exFAT do not. Rclone will perform very badly if the cache directory is on a filesystem which doesn't support sparse files and it will log an ERROR message if one is detected.
Fingerprinting
Various parts of the VFS use fingerprinting to see if a local file copy has changed relative to a remote file. Fingerprints are made from:
- size
- modification time
- hash
where available on an object.
On some backends some of these attributes are slow to read (they take an extra API call per object, or extra work per object).
For example hash
is slow with the local
and sftp
backends as they have to read the entire file and hash it, and modtime
is slow with the s3
, swift
, ftp
and qinqstor
backends because they need to do an extra API call to fetch it.
If you use the --vfs-fast-fingerprint
flag then rclone will not include the slow operations in the fingerprint. This makes the fingerprinting less accurate but much faster and will improve the opening time of cached files.
If you are running a vfs cache over local
, s3
or swift
backends then using this flag is recommended.
Note that if you change the value of this flag, the fingerprints of the files in the cache may be invalidated and the files will need to be downloaded again.
VFS Chunked Reading
When rclone reads files from a remote it reads them in chunks. This means that rather than requesting the whole file rclone reads the chunk specified. This can reduce the used download quota for some remotes by requesting only chunks from the remote that are actually read, at the cost of an increased number of requests.
These flags control the chunking:
--vfs-read-chunk-size SizeSuffix Read the source objects in chunks (default 128M) --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit SizeSuffix Max chunk doubling size (default off)
Rclone will start reading a chunk of size --vfs-read-chunk-size
, and then double the size for each read. When --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit
is specified, and greater than --vfs-read-chunk-size
, the chunk size for each open file will get doubled only until the specified value is reached. If the value is "off", which is the default, the limit is disabled and the chunk size will grow indefinitely.
With --vfs-read-chunk-size 100M
and --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit 0
the following parts will be downloaded: 0-100M, 100M-200M, 200M-300M, 300M-400M and so on. When --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit 500M
is specified, the result would be 0-100M, 100M-300M, 300M-700M, 700M-1200M, 1200M-1700M and so on.
Setting --vfs-read-chunk-size
to 0
or "off" disables chunked reading.
VFS Performance
These flags may be used to enable/disable features of the VFS for performance or other reasons. See also the chunked reading feature.
In particular S3 and Swift benefit hugely from the --no-modtime
flag (or use --use-server-modtime
for a slightly different effect) as each read of the modification time takes a transaction.
--no-checksum Don't compare checksums on up/download. --no-modtime Don't read/write the modification time (can speed things up). --no-seek Don't allow seeking in files. --read-only Only allow read-only access.
Sometimes rclone is delivered reads or writes out of order. Rather than seeking rclone will wait a short time for the in sequence read or write to come in. These flags only come into effect when not using an on disk cache file.
--vfs-read-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence read before seeking (default 20ms) --vfs-write-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence write before giving error (default 1s)
When using VFS write caching (--vfs-cache-mode
with value writes or full), the global flag --transfers
can be set to adjust the number of parallel uploads of modified files from the cache (the related global flag --checkers
has no effect on the VFS).
--transfers int Number of file transfers to run in parallel (default 4)
VFS Case Sensitivity
Linux file systems are case-sensitive: two files can differ only by case, and the exact case must be used when opening a file.
File systems in modern Windows are case-insensitive but case-preserving: although existing files can be opened using any case, the exact case used to create the file is preserved and available for programs to query. It is not allowed for two files in the same directory to differ only by case.
Usually file systems on macOS are case-insensitive. It is possible to make macOS file systems case-sensitive but that is not the default.
The --vfs-case-insensitive
VFS flag controls how rclone handles these two cases. If its value is "false", rclone passes file names to the remote as-is. If the flag is "true" (or appears without a value on the command line), rclone may perform a "fixup" as explained below.
The user may specify a file name to open/delete/rename/etc with a case different than what is stored on the remote. If an argument refers to an existing file with exactly the same name, then the case of the existing file on the disk will be used. However, if a file name with exactly the same name is not found but a name differing only by case exists, rclone will transparently fixup the name. This fixup happens only when an existing file is requested. Case sensitivity of file names created anew by rclone is controlled by the underlying remote.
Note that case sensitivity of the operating system running rclone (the target) may differ from case sensitivity of a file system presented by rclone (the source). The flag controls whether "fixup" is performed to satisfy the target.
If the flag is not provided on the command line, then its default value depends on the operating system where rclone runs: "true" on Windows and macOS, "false" otherwise. If the flag is provided without a value, then it is "true".
VFS Disk Options
This flag allows you to manually set the statistics about the filing system. It can be useful when those statistics cannot be read correctly automatically.
--vfs-disk-space-total-size Manually set the total disk space size (example: 256G, default: -1)
Alternate report of used bytes
Some backends, most notably S3, do not report the amount of bytes used. If you need this information to be available when running df
on the filesystem, then pass the flag --vfs-used-is-size
to rclone. With this flag set, instead of relying on the backend to report this information, rclone will scan the whole remote similar to rclone size
and compute the total used space itself.
WARNING. Contrary to rclone size
, this flag ignores filters so that the result is accurate. However, this is very inefficient and may cost lots of API calls resulting in extra charges. Use it as a last resort and only with caching.
rclone mount remote:path /path/to/mountpoint [flags]
Options
--allow-non-empty Allow mounting over a non-empty directory (not supported on Windows) --allow-other Allow access to other users (not supported on Windows) --allow-root Allow access to root user (not supported on Windows) --async-read Use asynchronous reads (not supported on Windows) (default true) --attr-timeout duration Time for which file/directory attributes are cached (default 1s) --daemon Run mount in background and exit parent process (as background output is suppressed, use --log-file with --log-format=pid,... to monitor) (not supported on Windows) --daemon-timeout duration Time limit for rclone to respond to kernel (not supported on Windows) --daemon-wait duration Time to wait for ready mount from daemon (maximum time on Linux, constant sleep time on OSX/BSD) (not supported on Windows) (default 1m0s) --debug-fuse Debug the FUSE internals - needs -v --default-permissions Makes kernel enforce access control based on the file mode (not supported on Windows) --devname string Set the device name - default is remote:path --dir-cache-time duration Time to cache directory entries for (default 5m0s) --dir-perms FileMode Directory permissions (default 0777) --file-perms FileMode File permissions (default 0666) --fuse-flag stringArray Flags or arguments to be passed direct to libfuse/WinFsp (repeat if required) --gid uint32 Override the gid field set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 1000) -h, --help help for mount --max-read-ahead SizeSuffix The number of bytes that can be prefetched for sequential reads (not supported on Windows) (default 128Ki) --network-mode Mount as remote network drive, instead of fixed disk drive (supported on Windows only) --no-checksum Don't compare checksums on up/download --no-modtime Don't read/write the modification time (can speed things up) --no-seek Don't allow seeking in files --noappledouble Ignore Apple Double (._) and .DS_Store files (supported on OSX only) (default true) --noapplexattr Ignore all "com.apple.*" extended attributes (supported on OSX only) -o, --option stringArray Option for libfuse/WinFsp (repeat if required) --poll-interval duration Time to wait between polling for changes, must be smaller than dir-cache-time and only on supported remotes (set 0 to disable) (default 1m0s) --read-only Only allow read-only access --uid uint32 Override the uid field set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 1000) --umask int Override the permission bits set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 2) --vfs-cache-max-age duration Max age of objects in the cache (default 1h0m0s) --vfs-cache-max-size SizeSuffix Max total size of objects in the cache (default off) --vfs-cache-mode CacheMode Cache mode off|minimal|writes|full (default off) --vfs-cache-poll-interval duration Interval to poll the cache for stale objects (default 1m0s) --vfs-case-insensitive If a file name not found, find a case insensitive match --vfs-disk-space-total-size SizeSuffix Specify the total space of disk (default off) --vfs-fast-fingerprint Use fast (less accurate) fingerprints for change detection --vfs-read-ahead SizeSuffix Extra read ahead over --buffer-size when using cache-mode full --vfs-read-chunk-size SizeSuffix Read the source objects in chunks (default 128Mi) --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit SizeSuffix If greater than --vfs-read-chunk-size, double the chunk size after each chunk read, until the limit is reached ('off' is unlimited) (default off) --vfs-read-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence read before seeking (default 20ms) --vfs-used-is-size rclone size Use the rclone size algorithm for Used size --vfs-write-back duration Time to writeback files after last use when using cache (default 5s) --vfs-write-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence write before giving error (default 1s) --volname string Set the volume name (supported on Windows and OSX only) --write-back-cache Makes kernel buffer writes before sending them to rclone (without this, writethrough caching is used) (not supported on Windows)
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone moveto
Move file or directory from source to dest.
Synopsis
If source:path is a file or directory then it moves it to a file or directory named dest:path.
This can be used to rename files or upload single files to other than their existing name. If the source is a directory then it acts exactly like the move (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_move/) command.
So
rclone moveto src dst
where src and dst are rclone paths, either remote:path or /path/to/local or C:.
This will:
if src is file move it to dst, overwriting an existing file if it exists if src is directory move it to dst, overwriting existing files if they exist see move command for full details
This doesn't transfer files that are identical on src and dst, testing by size and modification time or MD5SUM. src will be deleted on successful transfer.
Important: Since this can cause data loss, test first with the --dry-run
or the --interactive
/-i
flag.
Note: Use the -P
/--progress
flag to view real-time transfer statistics.
rclone moveto source:path dest:path [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for moveto
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone ncdu
Explore a remote with a text based user interface.
Synopsis
This displays a text based user interface allowing the navigation of a remote. It is most useful for answering the question - "What is using all my disk space?".
To make the user interface it first scans the entire remote given and builds an in memory representation. rclone ncdu can be used during this scanning phase and you will see it building up the directory structure as it goes along.
You can interact with the user interface using key presses, press '?' to toggle the help on and off. The supported keys are:
↑,↓ or k,j to Move →,l to enter ←,h to return c toggle counts g toggle graph a toggle average size in directory u toggle human-readable format n,s,C,A sort by name,size,count,average size d delete file/directory v select file/directory V enter visual select mode D delete selected files/directories y copy current path to clipboard Y display current path ^L refresh screen (fix screen corruption) ? to toggle help on and off q/ESC/^c to quit
Listed files/directories may be prefixed by a one-character flag, some of them combined with a description in brackets at end of line. These flags have the following meaning:
e means this is an empty directory, i.e. contains no files (but may contain empty subdirectories) ~ means this is a directory where some of the files (possibly in subdirectories) have unknown size, and therefore the directory size may be underestimated (and average size inaccurate, as it is average of the files with known sizes). . means an error occurred while reading a subdirectory, and therefore the directory size may be underestimated (and average size inaccurate) ! means an error occurred while reading this directory
This an homage to the ncdu tool (https://dev.yorhel.nl/ncdu) but for rclone remotes. It is missing lots of features at the moment but is useful as it stands.
Note that it might take some time to delete big files/directories. The UI won't respond in the meantime since the deletion is done synchronously.
For a non-interactive listing of the remote, see the tree (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_tree/) command. To just get the total size of the remote you can also use the size (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_size/) command.
rclone ncdu remote:path [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for ncdu
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone obscure
Obscure password for use in the rclone config file.
Synopsis
In the rclone config file, human-readable passwords are obscured. Obscuring them is done by encrypting them and writing them out in base64. This is not a secure way of encrypting these passwords as rclone can decrypt them - it is to prevent "eyedropping" - namely someone seeing a password in the rclone config file by accident.
Many equally important things (like access tokens) are not obscured in the config file. However it is very hard to shoulder surf a 64 character hex token.
This command can also accept a password through STDIN instead of an argument by passing a hyphen as an argument. This will use the first line of STDIN as the password not including the trailing newline.
echo "secretpassword" | rclone obscure -
If there is no data on STDIN to read, rclone obscure will default to obfuscating the hyphen itself.
If you want to encrypt the config file then please use config file encryption - see rclone config (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config/) for more info.
rclone obscure password [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for obscure
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone rc
Run a command against a running rclone.
Synopsis
This runs a command against a running rclone. Use the --url
flag to specify an non default URL to connect on. This can be either a ":port" which is taken to mean "http://localhost:port" or a "host:port" which is taken to mean "http://host:port"
A username and password can be passed in with --user
and --pass
.
Note that --rc-addr
, --rc-user
, --rc-pass
will be read also for --url
, --user
, --pass
.
Arguments should be passed in as parameter=value.
The result will be returned as a JSON object by default.
The --json
parameter can be used to pass in a JSON blob as an input instead of key=value arguments. This is the only way of passing in more complicated values.
The -o
/--opt
option can be used to set a key "opt" with key, value options in the form -o key=value
or -o key
. It can be repeated as many times as required. This is useful for rc commands which take the "opt" parameter which by convention is a dictionary of strings.
-o key=value -o key2
Will place this in the "opt" value
{"key":"value", "key2","")
The -a
/--arg
option can be used to set strings in the "arg" value. It can be repeated as many times as required. This is useful for rc commands which take the "arg" parameter which by convention is a list of strings.
-a value -a value2
Will place this in the "arg" value
["value", "value2"]
Use --loopback
to connect to the rclone instance running rclone rc
. This is very useful for testing commands without having to run an rclone rc server, e.g.:
rclone rc --loopback operations/about fs=/
Use rclone rc
to see a list of all possible commands.
rclone rc commands parameter [flags]
Options
-a, --arg stringArray Argument placed in the "arg" array -h, --help help for rc --json string Input JSON - use instead of key=value args --loopback If set connect to this rclone instance not via HTTP --no-output If set, don't output the JSON result -o, --opt stringArray Option in the form name=value or name placed in the "opt" array --pass string Password to use to connect to rclone remote control --url string URL to connect to rclone remote control (default "http://localhost:5572/") --user string Username to use to rclone remote control
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone rcat
Copies standard input to file on remote.
Synopsis
rclone rcat reads from standard input (stdin) and copies it to a single remote file.
echo "hello world" | rclone rcat remote:path/to/file ffmpeg - | rclone rcat remote:path/to/file
If the remote file already exists, it will be overwritten.
rcat will try to upload small files in a single request, which is usually more efficient than the streaming/chunked upload endpoints, which use multiple requests. Exact behaviour depends on the remote. What is considered a small file may be set through --streaming-upload-cutoff
. Uploading only starts after the cutoff is reached or if the file ends before that. The data must fit into RAM. The cutoff needs to be small enough to adhere the limits of your remote, please see there. Generally speaking, setting this cutoff too high will decrease your performance.
Use the --size
flag to preallocate the file in advance at the remote end and actually stream it, even if remote backend doesn't support streaming.
--size
should be the exact size of the input stream in bytes. If the size of the stream is different in length to the --size
passed in then the transfer will likely fail.
Note that the upload can also not be retried because the data is not kept around until the upload succeeds. If you need to transfer a lot of data, you're better off caching locally and then rclone move
it to the destination.
rclone rcat remote:path [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for rcat --size int File size hint to preallocate (default -1)
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone rcd
Run rclone listening to remote control commands only.
Synopsis
This runs rclone so that it only listens to remote control commands.
This is useful if you are controlling rclone via the rc API.
If you pass in a path to a directory, rclone will serve that directory for GET requests on the URL passed in. It will also open the URL in the browser when rclone is run.
See the rc documentation (https://rclone.org/rc/) for more info on the rc flags.
rclone rcd <path to files to serve>* [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for rcd
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone rmdirs
Remove empty directories under the path.
Synopsis
This recursively removes any empty directories (including directories that only contain empty directories), that it finds under the path. The root path itself will also be removed if it is empty, unless you supply the --leave-root
flag.
Use command rmdir (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_rmdir/) to delete just the empty directory given by path, not recurse.
This is useful for tidying up remotes that rclone has left a lot of empty directories in. For example the delete (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_delete/) command will delete files but leave the directory structure (unless used with option --rmdirs
).
To delete a path and any objects in it, use purge (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_purge/) command.
rclone rmdirs remote:path [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for rmdirs --leave-root Do not remove root directory if empty
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone selfupdate
Update the rclone binary.
Synopsis
This command downloads the latest release of rclone and replaces the currently running binary. The download is verified with a hashsum and cryptographically signed signature.
If used without flags (or with implied --stable
flag), this command will install the latest stable release. However, some issues may be fixed (or features added) only in the latest beta release. In such cases you should run the command with the --beta
flag, i.e. rclone selfupdate --beta
. You can check in advance what version would be installed by adding the --check
flag, then repeat the command without it when you are satisfied.
Sometimes the rclone team may recommend you a concrete beta or stable rclone release to troubleshoot your issue or add a bleeding edge feature. The --version VER
flag, if given, will update to the concrete version instead of the latest one. If you omit micro version from VER
(for example 1.53
), the latest matching micro version will be used.
Upon successful update rclone will print a message that contains a previous version number. You will need it if you later decide to revert your update for some reason. Then you'll have to note the previous version and run the following command: rclone selfupdate [--beta] OLDVER
. If the old version contains only dots and digits (for example v1.54.0
) then it's a stable release so you won't need the --beta
flag. Beta releases have an additional information similar to v1.54.0-beta.5111.06f1c0c61
. (if you are a developer and use a locally built rclone, the version number will end with -DEV
, you will have to rebuild it as it obviously can't be distributed).
If you previously installed rclone via a package manager, the package may include local documentation or configure services. You may wish to update with the flag --package deb
or --package rpm
(whichever is correct for your OS) to update these too. This command with the default --package zip
will update only the rclone executable so the local manual may become inaccurate after it.
The rclone mount
command (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_mount/) may or may not support extended FUSE options depending on the build and OS. selfupdate
will refuse to update if the capability would be discarded.
Note: Windows forbids deletion of a currently running executable so this command will rename the old executable to 'rclone.old.exe' upon success.
Please note that this command was not available before rclone version 1.55. If it fails for you with the message unknown command "selfupdate"
then you will need to update manually following the install instructions located at https://rclone.org/install/
rclone selfupdate [flags]
Options
--beta Install beta release --check Check for latest release, do not download -h, --help help for selfupdate --output string Save the downloaded binary at a given path (default: replace running binary) --package string Package format: zip|deb|rpm (default: zip) --stable Install stable release (this is the default) --version string Install the given rclone version (default: latest)
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone serve
Serve a remote over a protocol.
Synopsis
Serve a remote over a given protocol. Requires the use of a subcommand to specify the protocol, e.g.
rclone serve http remote:
Each subcommand has its own options which you can see in their help.
rclone serve <protocol> [opts] <remote> [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for serve
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
- rclone serve dlna (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_dlna/) - Serve remote:path over DLNA
- rclone serve docker (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_docker/) - Serve any remote on docker's volume plugin API.
- rclone serve ftp (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_ftp/) - Serve remote:path over FTP.
- rclone serve http (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_http/) - Serve the remote over HTTP.
- rclone serve restic (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_restic/) - Serve the remote for restic's REST API.
- rclone serve sftp (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_sftp/) - Serve the remote over SFTP.
- rclone serve webdav (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_webdav/) - Serve remote:path over WebDAV.
rclone serve dlna
Serve remote:path over DLNA
Synopsis
Run a DLNA media server for media stored in an rclone remote. Many devices, such as the Xbox and PlayStation, can automatically discover this server in the LAN and play audio/video from it. VLC is also supported. Service discovery uses UDP multicast packets (SSDP) and will thus only work on LANs.
Rclone will list all files present in the remote, without filtering based on media formats or file extensions. Additionally, there is no media transcoding support. This means that some players might show files that they are not able to play back correctly.
Server options
Use --addr
to specify which IP address and port the server should listen on, e.g. --addr 1.2.3.4:8000
or --addr :8080
to listen to all IPs.
Use --name
to choose the friendly server name, which is by default "rclone (hostname)".
Use --log-trace
in conjunction with -vv
to enable additional debug logging of all UPNP traffic.
VFS - Virtual File System
This command uses the VFS layer. This adapts the cloud storage objects that rclone uses into something which looks much more like a disk filing system.
Cloud storage objects have lots of properties which aren't like disk files - you can't extend them or write to the middle of them, so the VFS layer has to deal with that. Because there is no one right way of doing this there are various options explained below.
The VFS layer also implements a directory cache - this caches info about files and directories (but not the data) in memory.
VFS Directory Cache
Using the --dir-cache-time
flag, you can control how long a directory should be considered up to date and not refreshed from the backend. Changes made through the VFS will appear immediately or invalidate the cache.
--dir-cache-time duration Time to cache directory entries for (default 5m0s) --poll-interval duration Time to wait between polling for changes. Must be smaller than dir-cache-time. Only on supported remotes. Set to 0 to disable (default 1m0s)
However, changes made directly on the cloud storage by the web interface or a different copy of rclone will only be picked up once the directory cache expires if the backend configured does not support polling for changes. If the backend supports polling, changes will be picked up within the polling interval.
You can send a SIGHUP
signal to rclone for it to flush all directory caches, regardless of how old they are. Assuming only one rclone instance is running, you can reset the cache like this:
kill -SIGHUP $(pidof rclone)
If you configure rclone with a remote control then you can use rclone rc to flush the whole directory cache:
rclone rc vfs/forget
Or individual files or directories:
rclone rc vfs/forget file=path/to/file dir=path/to/dir
VFS File Buffering
The --buffer-size
flag determines the amount of memory, that will be used to buffer data in advance.
Each open file will try to keep the specified amount of data in memory at all times. The buffered data is bound to one open file and won't be shared.
This flag is a upper limit for the used memory per open file. The buffer will only use memory for data that is downloaded but not not yet read. If the buffer is empty, only a small amount of memory will be used.
The maximum memory used by rclone for buffering can be up to --buffer-size * open files
.
VFS File Caching
These flags control the VFS file caching options. File caching is necessary to make the VFS layer appear compatible with a normal file system. It can be disabled at the cost of some compatibility.
For example you'll need to enable VFS caching if you want to read and write simultaneously to a file. See below for more details.
Note that the VFS cache is separate from the cache backend and you may find that you need one or the other or both.
--cache-dir string Directory rclone will use for caching. --vfs-cache-mode CacheMode Cache mode off|minimal|writes|full (default off) --vfs-cache-max-age duration Max age of objects in the cache (default 1h0m0s) --vfs-cache-max-size SizeSuffix Max total size of objects in the cache (default off) --vfs-cache-poll-interval duration Interval to poll the cache for stale objects (default 1m0s) --vfs-write-back duration Time to writeback files after last use when using cache (default 5s)
If run with -vv
rclone will print the location of the file cache. The files are stored in the user cache file area which is OS dependent but can be controlled with --cache-dir
or setting the appropriate environment variable.
The cache has 4 different modes selected by --vfs-cache-mode
. The higher the cache mode the more compatible rclone becomes at the cost of using disk space.
Note that files are written back to the remote only when they are closed and if they haven't been accessed for --vfs-write-back
seconds. If rclone is quit or dies with files that haven't been uploaded, these will be uploaded next time rclone is run with the same flags.
If using --vfs-cache-max-size
note that the cache may exceed this size for two reasons. Firstly because it is only checked every --vfs-cache-poll-interval
. Secondly because open files cannot be evicted from the cache.
You should not run two copies of rclone using the same VFS cache with the same or overlapping remotes if using --vfs-cache-mode > off
. This can potentially cause data corruption if you do. You can work around this by giving each rclone its own cache hierarchy with --cache-dir
. You don't need to worry about this if the remotes in use don't overlap.
--vfs-cache-mode off
In this mode (the default) the cache will read directly from the remote and write directly to the remote without caching anything on disk.
This will mean some operations are not possible
- Files can't be opened for both read AND write
- Files opened for write can't be seeked
- Existing files opened for write must have O_TRUNC set
- Files open for read with O_TRUNC will be opened write only
- Files open for write only will behave as if O_TRUNC was supplied
- Open modes O_APPEND, O_TRUNC are ignored
- If an upload fails it can't be retried
--vfs-cache-mode minimal
This is very similar to "off" except that files opened for read AND write will be buffered to disk. This means that files opened for write will be a lot more compatible, but uses the minimal disk space.
These operations are not possible
- Files opened for write only can't be seeked
- Existing files opened for write must have O_TRUNC set
- Files opened for write only will ignore O_APPEND, O_TRUNC
- If an upload fails it can't be retried
--vfs-cache-mode writes
In this mode files opened for read only are still read directly from the remote, write only and read/write files are buffered to disk first.
This mode should support all normal file system operations.
If an upload fails it will be retried at exponentially increasing intervals up to 1 minute.
--vfs-cache-mode full
In this mode all reads and writes are buffered to and from disk. When data is read from the remote this is buffered to disk as well.
In this mode the files in the cache will be sparse files and rclone will keep track of which bits of the files it has downloaded.
So if an application only reads the starts of each file, then rclone will only buffer the start of the file. These files will appear to be their full size in the cache, but they will be sparse files with only the data that has been downloaded present in them.
This mode should support all normal file system operations and is otherwise identical to --vfs-cache-mode
writes.
When reading a file rclone will read --buffer-size
plus --vfs-read-ahead
bytes ahead. The --buffer-size
is buffered in memory whereas the --vfs-read-ahead
is buffered on disk.
When using this mode it is recommended that --buffer-size
is not set too large and --vfs-read-ahead
is set large if required.
IMPORTANT not all file systems support sparse files. In particular FAT/exFAT do not. Rclone will perform very badly if the cache directory is on a filesystem which doesn't support sparse files and it will log an ERROR message if one is detected.
Fingerprinting
Various parts of the VFS use fingerprinting to see if a local file copy has changed relative to a remote file. Fingerprints are made from:
- size
- modification time
- hash
where available on an object.
On some backends some of these attributes are slow to read (they take an extra API call per object, or extra work per object).
For example hash
is slow with the local
and sftp
backends as they have to read the entire file and hash it, and modtime
is slow with the s3
, swift
, ftp
and qinqstor
backends because they need to do an extra API call to fetch it.
If you use the --vfs-fast-fingerprint
flag then rclone will not include the slow operations in the fingerprint. This makes the fingerprinting less accurate but much faster and will improve the opening time of cached files.
If you are running a vfs cache over local
, s3
or swift
backends then using this flag is recommended.
Note that if you change the value of this flag, the fingerprints of the files in the cache may be invalidated and the files will need to be downloaded again.
VFS Chunked Reading
When rclone reads files from a remote it reads them in chunks. This means that rather than requesting the whole file rclone reads the chunk specified. This can reduce the used download quota for some remotes by requesting only chunks from the remote that are actually read, at the cost of an increased number of requests.
These flags control the chunking:
--vfs-read-chunk-size SizeSuffix Read the source objects in chunks (default 128M) --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit SizeSuffix Max chunk doubling size (default off)
Rclone will start reading a chunk of size --vfs-read-chunk-size
, and then double the size for each read. When --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit
is specified, and greater than --vfs-read-chunk-size
, the chunk size for each open file will get doubled only until the specified value is reached. If the value is "off", which is the default, the limit is disabled and the chunk size will grow indefinitely.
With --vfs-read-chunk-size 100M
and --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit 0
the following parts will be downloaded: 0-100M, 100M-200M, 200M-300M, 300M-400M and so on. When --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit 500M
is specified, the result would be 0-100M, 100M-300M, 300M-700M, 700M-1200M, 1200M-1700M and so on.
Setting --vfs-read-chunk-size
to 0
or "off" disables chunked reading.
VFS Performance
These flags may be used to enable/disable features of the VFS for performance or other reasons. See also the chunked reading feature.
In particular S3 and Swift benefit hugely from the --no-modtime
flag (or use --use-server-modtime
for a slightly different effect) as each read of the modification time takes a transaction.
--no-checksum Don't compare checksums on up/download. --no-modtime Don't read/write the modification time (can speed things up). --no-seek Don't allow seeking in files. --read-only Only allow read-only access.
Sometimes rclone is delivered reads or writes out of order. Rather than seeking rclone will wait a short time for the in sequence read or write to come in. These flags only come into effect when not using an on disk cache file.
--vfs-read-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence read before seeking (default 20ms) --vfs-write-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence write before giving error (default 1s)
When using VFS write caching (--vfs-cache-mode
with value writes or full), the global flag --transfers
can be set to adjust the number of parallel uploads of modified files from the cache (the related global flag --checkers
has no effect on the VFS).
--transfers int Number of file transfers to run in parallel (default 4)
VFS Case Sensitivity
Linux file systems are case-sensitive: two files can differ only by case, and the exact case must be used when opening a file.
File systems in modern Windows are case-insensitive but case-preserving: although existing files can be opened using any case, the exact case used to create the file is preserved and available for programs to query. It is not allowed for two files in the same directory to differ only by case.
Usually file systems on macOS are case-insensitive. It is possible to make macOS file systems case-sensitive but that is not the default.
The --vfs-case-insensitive
VFS flag controls how rclone handles these two cases. If its value is "false", rclone passes file names to the remote as-is. If the flag is "true" (or appears without a value on the command line), rclone may perform a "fixup" as explained below.
The user may specify a file name to open/delete/rename/etc with a case different than what is stored on the remote. If an argument refers to an existing file with exactly the same name, then the case of the existing file on the disk will be used. However, if a file name with exactly the same name is not found but a name differing only by case exists, rclone will transparently fixup the name. This fixup happens only when an existing file is requested. Case sensitivity of file names created anew by rclone is controlled by the underlying remote.
Note that case sensitivity of the operating system running rclone (the target) may differ from case sensitivity of a file system presented by rclone (the source). The flag controls whether "fixup" is performed to satisfy the target.
If the flag is not provided on the command line, then its default value depends on the operating system where rclone runs: "true" on Windows and macOS, "false" otherwise. If the flag is provided without a value, then it is "true".
VFS Disk Options
This flag allows you to manually set the statistics about the filing system. It can be useful when those statistics cannot be read correctly automatically.
--vfs-disk-space-total-size Manually set the total disk space size (example: 256G, default: -1)
Alternate report of used bytes
Some backends, most notably S3, do not report the amount of bytes used. If you need this information to be available when running df
on the filesystem, then pass the flag --vfs-used-is-size
to rclone. With this flag set, instead of relying on the backend to report this information, rclone will scan the whole remote similar to rclone size
and compute the total used space itself.
WARNING. Contrary to rclone size
, this flag ignores filters so that the result is accurate. However, this is very inefficient and may cost lots of API calls resulting in extra charges. Use it as a last resort and only with caching.
rclone serve dlna remote:path [flags]
Options
--addr string The ip:port or :port to bind the DLNA http server to (default ":7879") --announce-interval duration The interval between SSDP announcements (default 12m0s) --dir-cache-time duration Time to cache directory entries for (default 5m0s) --dir-perms FileMode Directory permissions (default 0777) --file-perms FileMode File permissions (default 0666) --gid uint32 Override the gid field set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 1000) -h, --help help for dlna --interface stringArray The interface to use for SSDP (repeat as necessary) --log-trace Enable trace logging of SOAP traffic --name string Name of DLNA server --no-checksum Don't compare checksums on up/download --no-modtime Don't read/write the modification time (can speed things up) --no-seek Don't allow seeking in files --poll-interval duration Time to wait between polling for changes, must be smaller than dir-cache-time and only on supported remotes (set 0 to disable) (default 1m0s) --read-only Only allow read-only access --uid uint32 Override the uid field set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 1000) --umask int Override the permission bits set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 2) --vfs-cache-max-age duration Max age of objects in the cache (default 1h0m0s) --vfs-cache-max-size SizeSuffix Max total size of objects in the cache (default off) --vfs-cache-mode CacheMode Cache mode off|minimal|writes|full (default off) --vfs-cache-poll-interval duration Interval to poll the cache for stale objects (default 1m0s) --vfs-case-insensitive If a file name not found, find a case insensitive match --vfs-disk-space-total-size SizeSuffix Specify the total space of disk (default off) --vfs-fast-fingerprint Use fast (less accurate) fingerprints for change detection --vfs-read-ahead SizeSuffix Extra read ahead over --buffer-size when using cache-mode full --vfs-read-chunk-size SizeSuffix Read the source objects in chunks (default 128Mi) --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit SizeSuffix If greater than --vfs-read-chunk-size, double the chunk size after each chunk read, until the limit is reached ('off' is unlimited) (default off) --vfs-read-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence read before seeking (default 20ms) --vfs-used-is-size rclone size Use the rclone size algorithm for Used size --vfs-write-back duration Time to writeback files after last use when using cache (default 5s) --vfs-write-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence write before giving error (default 1s)
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone serve (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve/) - Serve a remote over a protocol.
rclone serve docker
Serve any remote on docker's volume plugin API.
Synopsis
This command implements the Docker volume plugin API allowing docker to use rclone as a data storage mechanism for various cloud providers. rclone provides docker volume plugin based on it.
To create a docker plugin, one must create a Unix or TCP socket that Docker will look for when you use the plugin and then it listens for commands from docker daemon and runs the corresponding code when necessary. Docker plugins can run as a managed plugin under control of the docker daemon or as an independent native service. For testing, you can just run it directly from the command line, for example:
sudo rclone serve docker --base-dir /tmp/rclone-volumes --socket-addr localhost:8787 -vv
Running rclone serve docker
will create the said socket, listening for commands from Docker to create the necessary Volumes. Normally you need not give the --socket-addr
flag. The API will listen on the unix domain socket at /run/docker/plugins/rclone.sock
. In the example above rclone will create a TCP socket and a small file /etc/docker/plugins/rclone.spec
containing the socket address. We use sudo
because both paths are writeable only by the root user.
If you later decide to change listening socket, the docker daemon must be restarted to reconnect to /run/docker/plugins/rclone.sock
or parse new /etc/docker/plugins/rclone.spec
. Until you restart, any volume related docker commands will timeout trying to access the old socket. Running directly is supported on Linux only, not on Windows or MacOS. This is not a problem with managed plugin mode described in details in the full documentation (https://rclone.org/docker).
The command will create volume mounts under the path given by --base-dir
(by default /var/lib/docker-volumes/rclone
available only to root) and maintain the JSON formatted file docker-plugin.state
in the rclone cache directory with book-keeping records of created and mounted volumes.
All mount and VFS options are submitted by the docker daemon via API, but you can also provide defaults on the command line as well as set path to the config file and cache directory or adjust logging verbosity.
VFS - Virtual File System
This command uses the VFS layer. This adapts the cloud storage objects that rclone uses into something which looks much more like a disk filing system.
Cloud storage objects have lots of properties which aren't like disk files - you can't extend them or write to the middle of them, so the VFS layer has to deal with that. Because there is no one right way of doing this there are various options explained below.
The VFS layer also implements a directory cache - this caches info about files and directories (but not the data) in memory.
VFS Directory Cache
Using the --dir-cache-time
flag, you can control how long a directory should be considered up to date and not refreshed from the backend. Changes made through the VFS will appear immediately or invalidate the cache.
--dir-cache-time duration Time to cache directory entries for (default 5m0s) --poll-interval duration Time to wait between polling for changes. Must be smaller than dir-cache-time. Only on supported remotes. Set to 0 to disable (default 1m0s)
However, changes made directly on the cloud storage by the web interface or a different copy of rclone will only be picked up once the directory cache expires if the backend configured does not support polling for changes. If the backend supports polling, changes will be picked up within the polling interval.
You can send a SIGHUP
signal to rclone for it to flush all directory caches, regardless of how old they are. Assuming only one rclone instance is running, you can reset the cache like this:
kill -SIGHUP $(pidof rclone)
If you configure rclone with a remote control then you can use rclone rc to flush the whole directory cache:
rclone rc vfs/forget
Or individual files or directories:
rclone rc vfs/forget file=path/to/file dir=path/to/dir
VFS File Buffering
The --buffer-size
flag determines the amount of memory, that will be used to buffer data in advance.
Each open file will try to keep the specified amount of data in memory at all times. The buffered data is bound to one open file and won't be shared.
This flag is a upper limit for the used memory per open file. The buffer will only use memory for data that is downloaded but not not yet read. If the buffer is empty, only a small amount of memory will be used.
The maximum memory used by rclone for buffering can be up to --buffer-size * open files
.
VFS File Caching
These flags control the VFS file caching options. File caching is necessary to make the VFS layer appear compatible with a normal file system. It can be disabled at the cost of some compatibility.
For example you'll need to enable VFS caching if you want to read and write simultaneously to a file. See below for more details.
Note that the VFS cache is separate from the cache backend and you may find that you need one or the other or both.
--cache-dir string Directory rclone will use for caching. --vfs-cache-mode CacheMode Cache mode off|minimal|writes|full (default off) --vfs-cache-max-age duration Max age of objects in the cache (default 1h0m0s) --vfs-cache-max-size SizeSuffix Max total size of objects in the cache (default off) --vfs-cache-poll-interval duration Interval to poll the cache for stale objects (default 1m0s) --vfs-write-back duration Time to writeback files after last use when using cache (default 5s)
If run with -vv
rclone will print the location of the file cache. The files are stored in the user cache file area which is OS dependent but can be controlled with --cache-dir
or setting the appropriate environment variable.
The cache has 4 different modes selected by --vfs-cache-mode
. The higher the cache mode the more compatible rclone becomes at the cost of using disk space.
Note that files are written back to the remote only when they are closed and if they haven't been accessed for --vfs-write-back
seconds. If rclone is quit or dies with files that haven't been uploaded, these will be uploaded next time rclone is run with the same flags.
If using --vfs-cache-max-size
note that the cache may exceed this size for two reasons. Firstly because it is only checked every --vfs-cache-poll-interval
. Secondly because open files cannot be evicted from the cache.
You should not run two copies of rclone using the same VFS cache with the same or overlapping remotes if using --vfs-cache-mode > off
. This can potentially cause data corruption if you do. You can work around this by giving each rclone its own cache hierarchy with --cache-dir
. You don't need to worry about this if the remotes in use don't overlap.
--vfs-cache-mode off
In this mode (the default) the cache will read directly from the remote and write directly to the remote without caching anything on disk.
This will mean some operations are not possible
- Files can't be opened for both read AND write
- Files opened for write can't be seeked
- Existing files opened for write must have O_TRUNC set
- Files open for read with O_TRUNC will be opened write only
- Files open for write only will behave as if O_TRUNC was supplied
- Open modes O_APPEND, O_TRUNC are ignored
- If an upload fails it can't be retried
--vfs-cache-mode minimal
This is very similar to "off" except that files opened for read AND write will be buffered to disk. This means that files opened for write will be a lot more compatible, but uses the minimal disk space.
These operations are not possible
- Files opened for write only can't be seeked
- Existing files opened for write must have O_TRUNC set
- Files opened for write only will ignore O_APPEND, O_TRUNC
- If an upload fails it can't be retried
--vfs-cache-mode writes
In this mode files opened for read only are still read directly from the remote, write only and read/write files are buffered to disk first.
This mode should support all normal file system operations.
If an upload fails it will be retried at exponentially increasing intervals up to 1 minute.
--vfs-cache-mode full
In this mode all reads and writes are buffered to and from disk. When data is read from the remote this is buffered to disk as well.
In this mode the files in the cache will be sparse files and rclone will keep track of which bits of the files it has downloaded.
So if an application only reads the starts of each file, then rclone will only buffer the start of the file. These files will appear to be their full size in the cache, but they will be sparse files with only the data that has been downloaded present in them.
This mode should support all normal file system operations and is otherwise identical to --vfs-cache-mode
writes.
When reading a file rclone will read --buffer-size
plus --vfs-read-ahead
bytes ahead. The --buffer-size
is buffered in memory whereas the --vfs-read-ahead
is buffered on disk.
When using this mode it is recommended that --buffer-size
is not set too large and --vfs-read-ahead
is set large if required.
IMPORTANT not all file systems support sparse files. In particular FAT/exFAT do not. Rclone will perform very badly if the cache directory is on a filesystem which doesn't support sparse files and it will log an ERROR message if one is detected.
Fingerprinting
Various parts of the VFS use fingerprinting to see if a local file copy has changed relative to a remote file. Fingerprints are made from:
- size
- modification time
- hash
where available on an object.
On some backends some of these attributes are slow to read (they take an extra API call per object, or extra work per object).
For example hash
is slow with the local
and sftp
backends as they have to read the entire file and hash it, and modtime
is slow with the s3
, swift
, ftp
and qinqstor
backends because they need to do an extra API call to fetch it.
If you use the --vfs-fast-fingerprint
flag then rclone will not include the slow operations in the fingerprint. This makes the fingerprinting less accurate but much faster and will improve the opening time of cached files.
If you are running a vfs cache over local
, s3
or swift
backends then using this flag is recommended.
Note that if you change the value of this flag, the fingerprints of the files in the cache may be invalidated and the files will need to be downloaded again.
VFS Chunked Reading
When rclone reads files from a remote it reads them in chunks. This means that rather than requesting the whole file rclone reads the chunk specified. This can reduce the used download quota for some remotes by requesting only chunks from the remote that are actually read, at the cost of an increased number of requests.
These flags control the chunking:
--vfs-read-chunk-size SizeSuffix Read the source objects in chunks (default 128M) --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit SizeSuffix Max chunk doubling size (default off)
Rclone will start reading a chunk of size --vfs-read-chunk-size
, and then double the size for each read. When --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit
is specified, and greater than --vfs-read-chunk-size
, the chunk size for each open file will get doubled only until the specified value is reached. If the value is "off", which is the default, the limit is disabled and the chunk size will grow indefinitely.
With --vfs-read-chunk-size 100M
and --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit 0
the following parts will be downloaded: 0-100M, 100M-200M, 200M-300M, 300M-400M and so on. When --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit 500M
is specified, the result would be 0-100M, 100M-300M, 300M-700M, 700M-1200M, 1200M-1700M and so on.
Setting --vfs-read-chunk-size
to 0
or "off" disables chunked reading.
VFS Performance
These flags may be used to enable/disable features of the VFS for performance or other reasons. See also the chunked reading feature.
In particular S3 and Swift benefit hugely from the --no-modtime
flag (or use --use-server-modtime
for a slightly different effect) as each read of the modification time takes a transaction.
--no-checksum Don't compare checksums on up/download. --no-modtime Don't read/write the modification time (can speed things up). --no-seek Don't allow seeking in files. --read-only Only allow read-only access.
Sometimes rclone is delivered reads or writes out of order. Rather than seeking rclone will wait a short time for the in sequence read or write to come in. These flags only come into effect when not using an on disk cache file.
--vfs-read-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence read before seeking (default 20ms) --vfs-write-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence write before giving error (default 1s)
When using VFS write caching (--vfs-cache-mode
with value writes or full), the global flag --transfers
can be set to adjust the number of parallel uploads of modified files from the cache (the related global flag --checkers
has no effect on the VFS).
--transfers int Number of file transfers to run in parallel (default 4)
VFS Case Sensitivity
Linux file systems are case-sensitive: two files can differ only by case, and the exact case must be used when opening a file.
File systems in modern Windows are case-insensitive but case-preserving: although existing files can be opened using any case, the exact case used to create the file is preserved and available for programs to query. It is not allowed for two files in the same directory to differ only by case.
Usually file systems on macOS are case-insensitive. It is possible to make macOS file systems case-sensitive but that is not the default.
The --vfs-case-insensitive
VFS flag controls how rclone handles these two cases. If its value is "false", rclone passes file names to the remote as-is. If the flag is "true" (or appears without a value on the command line), rclone may perform a "fixup" as explained below.
The user may specify a file name to open/delete/rename/etc with a case different than what is stored on the remote. If an argument refers to an existing file with exactly the same name, then the case of the existing file on the disk will be used. However, if a file name with exactly the same name is not found but a name differing only by case exists, rclone will transparently fixup the name. This fixup happens only when an existing file is requested. Case sensitivity of file names created anew by rclone is controlled by the underlying remote.
Note that case sensitivity of the operating system running rclone (the target) may differ from case sensitivity of a file system presented by rclone (the source). The flag controls whether "fixup" is performed to satisfy the target.
If the flag is not provided on the command line, then its default value depends on the operating system where rclone runs: "true" on Windows and macOS, "false" otherwise. If the flag is provided without a value, then it is "true".
VFS Disk Options
This flag allows you to manually set the statistics about the filing system. It can be useful when those statistics cannot be read correctly automatically.
--vfs-disk-space-total-size Manually set the total disk space size (example: 256G, default: -1)
Alternate report of used bytes
Some backends, most notably S3, do not report the amount of bytes used. If you need this information to be available when running df
on the filesystem, then pass the flag --vfs-used-is-size
to rclone. With this flag set, instead of relying on the backend to report this information, rclone will scan the whole remote similar to rclone size
and compute the total used space itself.
WARNING. Contrary to rclone size
, this flag ignores filters so that the result is accurate. However, this is very inefficient and may cost lots of API calls resulting in extra charges. Use it as a last resort and only with caching.
rclone serve docker [flags]
Options
--allow-non-empty Allow mounting over a non-empty directory (not supported on Windows) --allow-other Allow access to other users (not supported on Windows) --allow-root Allow access to root user (not supported on Windows) --async-read Use asynchronous reads (not supported on Windows) (default true) --attr-timeout duration Time for which file/directory attributes are cached (default 1s) --base-dir string Base directory for volumes (default "/var/lib/docker-volumes/rclone") --daemon Run mount in background and exit parent process (as background output is suppressed, use --log-file with --log-format=pid,... to monitor) (not supported on Windows) --daemon-timeout duration Time limit for rclone to respond to kernel (not supported on Windows) --daemon-wait duration Time to wait for ready mount from daemon (maximum time on Linux, constant sleep time on OSX/BSD) (not supported on Windows) (default 1m0s) --debug-fuse Debug the FUSE internals - needs -v --default-permissions Makes kernel enforce access control based on the file mode (not supported on Windows) --devname string Set the device name - default is remote:path --dir-cache-time duration Time to cache directory entries for (default 5m0s) --dir-perms FileMode Directory permissions (default 0777) --file-perms FileMode File permissions (default 0666) --forget-state Skip restoring previous state --fuse-flag stringArray Flags or arguments to be passed direct to libfuse/WinFsp (repeat if required) --gid uint32 Override the gid field set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 1000) -h, --help help for docker --max-read-ahead SizeSuffix The number of bytes that can be prefetched for sequential reads (not supported on Windows) (default 128Ki) --network-mode Mount as remote network drive, instead of fixed disk drive (supported on Windows only) --no-checksum Don't compare checksums on up/download --no-modtime Don't read/write the modification time (can speed things up) --no-seek Don't allow seeking in files --no-spec Do not write spec file --noappledouble Ignore Apple Double (._) and .DS_Store files (supported on OSX only) (default true) --noapplexattr Ignore all "com.apple.*" extended attributes (supported on OSX only) -o, --option stringArray Option for libfuse/WinFsp (repeat if required) --poll-interval duration Time to wait between polling for changes, must be smaller than dir-cache-time and only on supported remotes (set 0 to disable) (default 1m0s) --read-only Only allow read-only access --socket-addr string Address <host:port> or absolute path (default: /run/docker/plugins/rclone.sock) --socket-gid int GID for unix socket (default: current process GID) (default 1000) --uid uint32 Override the uid field set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 1000) --umask int Override the permission bits set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 2) --vfs-cache-max-age duration Max age of objects in the cache (default 1h0m0s) --vfs-cache-max-size SizeSuffix Max total size of objects in the cache (default off) --vfs-cache-mode CacheMode Cache mode off|minimal|writes|full (default off) --vfs-cache-poll-interval duration Interval to poll the cache for stale objects (default 1m0s) --vfs-case-insensitive If a file name not found, find a case insensitive match --vfs-disk-space-total-size SizeSuffix Specify the total space of disk (default off) --vfs-fast-fingerprint Use fast (less accurate) fingerprints for change detection --vfs-read-ahead SizeSuffix Extra read ahead over --buffer-size when using cache-mode full --vfs-read-chunk-size SizeSuffix Read the source objects in chunks (default 128Mi) --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit SizeSuffix If greater than --vfs-read-chunk-size, double the chunk size after each chunk read, until the limit is reached ('off' is unlimited) (default off) --vfs-read-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence read before seeking (default 20ms) --vfs-used-is-size rclone size Use the rclone size algorithm for Used size --vfs-write-back duration Time to writeback files after last use when using cache (default 5s) --vfs-write-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence write before giving error (default 1s) --volname string Set the volume name (supported on Windows and OSX only) --write-back-cache Makes kernel buffer writes before sending them to rclone (without this, writethrough caching is used) (not supported on Windows)
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone serve (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve/) - Serve a remote over a protocol.
rclone serve ftp
Serve remote:path over FTP.
Synopsis
Run a basic FTP server to serve a remote over FTP protocol. This can be viewed with a FTP client or you can make a remote of type FTP to read and write it.
Server options
Use --addr to specify which IP address and port the server should listen on, e.g. --addr 1.2.3.4:8000 or --addr :8080 to listen to all IPs. By default it only listens on localhost. You can use port :0 to let the OS choose an available port.
If you set --addr to listen on a public or LAN accessible IP address then using Authentication is advised - see the next section for info.
Authentication
By default this will serve files without needing a login.
You can set a single username and password with the --user and --pass flags.
VFS - Virtual File System
This command uses the VFS layer. This adapts the cloud storage objects that rclone uses into something which looks much more like a disk filing system.
Cloud storage objects have lots of properties which aren't like disk files - you can't extend them or write to the middle of them, so the VFS layer has to deal with that. Because there is no one right way of doing this there are various options explained below.
The VFS layer also implements a directory cache - this caches info about files and directories (but not the data) in memory.
VFS Directory Cache
Using the --dir-cache-time
flag, you can control how long a directory should be considered up to date and not refreshed from the backend. Changes made through the VFS will appear immediately or invalidate the cache.
--dir-cache-time duration Time to cache directory entries for (default 5m0s) --poll-interval duration Time to wait between polling for changes. Must be smaller than dir-cache-time. Only on supported remotes. Set to 0 to disable (default 1m0s)
However, changes made directly on the cloud storage by the web interface or a different copy of rclone will only be picked up once the directory cache expires if the backend configured does not support polling for changes. If the backend supports polling, changes will be picked up within the polling interval.
You can send a SIGHUP
signal to rclone for it to flush all directory caches, regardless of how old they are. Assuming only one rclone instance is running, you can reset the cache like this:
kill -SIGHUP $(pidof rclone)
If you configure rclone with a remote control then you can use rclone rc to flush the whole directory cache:
rclone rc vfs/forget
Or individual files or directories:
rclone rc vfs/forget file=path/to/file dir=path/to/dir
VFS File Buffering
The --buffer-size
flag determines the amount of memory, that will be used to buffer data in advance.
Each open file will try to keep the specified amount of data in memory at all times. The buffered data is bound to one open file and won't be shared.
This flag is a upper limit for the used memory per open file. The buffer will only use memory for data that is downloaded but not not yet read. If the buffer is empty, only a small amount of memory will be used.
The maximum memory used by rclone for buffering can be up to --buffer-size * open files
.
VFS File Caching
These flags control the VFS file caching options. File caching is necessary to make the VFS layer appear compatible with a normal file system. It can be disabled at the cost of some compatibility.
For example you'll need to enable VFS caching if you want to read and write simultaneously to a file. See below for more details.
Note that the VFS cache is separate from the cache backend and you may find that you need one or the other or both.
--cache-dir string Directory rclone will use for caching. --vfs-cache-mode CacheMode Cache mode off|minimal|writes|full (default off) --vfs-cache-max-age duration Max age of objects in the cache (default 1h0m0s) --vfs-cache-max-size SizeSuffix Max total size of objects in the cache (default off) --vfs-cache-poll-interval duration Interval to poll the cache for stale objects (default 1m0s) --vfs-write-back duration Time to writeback files after last use when using cache (default 5s)
If run with -vv
rclone will print the location of the file cache. The files are stored in the user cache file area which is OS dependent but can be controlled with --cache-dir
or setting the appropriate environment variable.
The cache has 4 different modes selected by --vfs-cache-mode
. The higher the cache mode the more compatible rclone becomes at the cost of using disk space.
Note that files are written back to the remote only when they are closed and if they haven't been accessed for --vfs-write-back
seconds. If rclone is quit or dies with files that haven't been uploaded, these will be uploaded next time rclone is run with the same flags.
If using --vfs-cache-max-size
note that the cache may exceed this size for two reasons. Firstly because it is only checked every --vfs-cache-poll-interval
. Secondly because open files cannot be evicted from the cache.
You should not run two copies of rclone using the same VFS cache with the same or overlapping remotes if using --vfs-cache-mode > off
. This can potentially cause data corruption if you do. You can work around this by giving each rclone its own cache hierarchy with --cache-dir
. You don't need to worry about this if the remotes in use don't overlap.
--vfs-cache-mode off
In this mode (the default) the cache will read directly from the remote and write directly to the remote without caching anything on disk.
This will mean some operations are not possible
- Files can't be opened for both read AND write
- Files opened for write can't be seeked
- Existing files opened for write must have O_TRUNC set
- Files open for read with O_TRUNC will be opened write only
- Files open for write only will behave as if O_TRUNC was supplied
- Open modes O_APPEND, O_TRUNC are ignored
- If an upload fails it can't be retried
--vfs-cache-mode minimal
This is very similar to "off" except that files opened for read AND write will be buffered to disk. This means that files opened for write will be a lot more compatible, but uses the minimal disk space.
These operations are not possible
- Files opened for write only can't be seeked
- Existing files opened for write must have O_TRUNC set
- Files opened for write only will ignore O_APPEND, O_TRUNC
- If an upload fails it can't be retried
--vfs-cache-mode writes
In this mode files opened for read only are still read directly from the remote, write only and read/write files are buffered to disk first.
This mode should support all normal file system operations.
If an upload fails it will be retried at exponentially increasing intervals up to 1 minute.
--vfs-cache-mode full
In this mode all reads and writes are buffered to and from disk. When data is read from the remote this is buffered to disk as well.
In this mode the files in the cache will be sparse files and rclone will keep track of which bits of the files it has downloaded.
So if an application only reads the starts of each file, then rclone will only buffer the start of the file. These files will appear to be their full size in the cache, but they will be sparse files with only the data that has been downloaded present in them.
This mode should support all normal file system operations and is otherwise identical to --vfs-cache-mode
writes.
When reading a file rclone will read --buffer-size
plus --vfs-read-ahead
bytes ahead. The --buffer-size
is buffered in memory whereas the --vfs-read-ahead
is buffered on disk.
When using this mode it is recommended that --buffer-size
is not set too large and --vfs-read-ahead
is set large if required.
IMPORTANT not all file systems support sparse files. In particular FAT/exFAT do not. Rclone will perform very badly if the cache directory is on a filesystem which doesn't support sparse files and it will log an ERROR message if one is detected.
Fingerprinting
Various parts of the VFS use fingerprinting to see if a local file copy has changed relative to a remote file. Fingerprints are made from:
- size
- modification time
- hash
where available on an object.
On some backends some of these attributes are slow to read (they take an extra API call per object, or extra work per object).
For example hash
is slow with the local
and sftp
backends as they have to read the entire file and hash it, and modtime
is slow with the s3
, swift
, ftp
and qinqstor
backends because they need to do an extra API call to fetch it.
If you use the --vfs-fast-fingerprint
flag then rclone will not include the slow operations in the fingerprint. This makes the fingerprinting less accurate but much faster and will improve the opening time of cached files.
If you are running a vfs cache over local
, s3
or swift
backends then using this flag is recommended.
Note that if you change the value of this flag, the fingerprints of the files in the cache may be invalidated and the files will need to be downloaded again.
VFS Chunked Reading
When rclone reads files from a remote it reads them in chunks. This means that rather than requesting the whole file rclone reads the chunk specified. This can reduce the used download quota for some remotes by requesting only chunks from the remote that are actually read, at the cost of an increased number of requests.
These flags control the chunking:
--vfs-read-chunk-size SizeSuffix Read the source objects in chunks (default 128M) --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit SizeSuffix Max chunk doubling size (default off)
Rclone will start reading a chunk of size --vfs-read-chunk-size
, and then double the size for each read. When --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit
is specified, and greater than --vfs-read-chunk-size
, the chunk size for each open file will get doubled only until the specified value is reached. If the value is "off", which is the default, the limit is disabled and the chunk size will grow indefinitely.
With --vfs-read-chunk-size 100M
and --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit 0
the following parts will be downloaded: 0-100M, 100M-200M, 200M-300M, 300M-400M and so on. When --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit 500M
is specified, the result would be 0-100M, 100M-300M, 300M-700M, 700M-1200M, 1200M-1700M and so on.
Setting --vfs-read-chunk-size
to 0
or "off" disables chunked reading.
VFS Performance
These flags may be used to enable/disable features of the VFS for performance or other reasons. See also the chunked reading feature.
In particular S3 and Swift benefit hugely from the --no-modtime
flag (or use --use-server-modtime
for a slightly different effect) as each read of the modification time takes a transaction.
--no-checksum Don't compare checksums on up/download. --no-modtime Don't read/write the modification time (can speed things up). --no-seek Don't allow seeking in files. --read-only Only allow read-only access.
Sometimes rclone is delivered reads or writes out of order. Rather than seeking rclone will wait a short time for the in sequence read or write to come in. These flags only come into effect when not using an on disk cache file.
--vfs-read-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence read before seeking (default 20ms) --vfs-write-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence write before giving error (default 1s)
When using VFS write caching (--vfs-cache-mode
with value writes or full), the global flag --transfers
can be set to adjust the number of parallel uploads of modified files from the cache (the related global flag --checkers
has no effect on the VFS).
--transfers int Number of file transfers to run in parallel (default 4)
VFS Case Sensitivity
Linux file systems are case-sensitive: two files can differ only by case, and the exact case must be used when opening a file.
File systems in modern Windows are case-insensitive but case-preserving: although existing files can be opened using any case, the exact case used to create the file is preserved and available for programs to query. It is not allowed for two files in the same directory to differ only by case.
Usually file systems on macOS are case-insensitive. It is possible to make macOS file systems case-sensitive but that is not the default.
The --vfs-case-insensitive
VFS flag controls how rclone handles these two cases. If its value is "false", rclone passes file names to the remote as-is. If the flag is "true" (or appears without a value on the command line), rclone may perform a "fixup" as explained below.
The user may specify a file name to open/delete/rename/etc with a case different than what is stored on the remote. If an argument refers to an existing file with exactly the same name, then the case of the existing file on the disk will be used. However, if a file name with exactly the same name is not found but a name differing only by case exists, rclone will transparently fixup the name. This fixup happens only when an existing file is requested. Case sensitivity of file names created anew by rclone is controlled by the underlying remote.
Note that case sensitivity of the operating system running rclone (the target) may differ from case sensitivity of a file system presented by rclone (the source). The flag controls whether "fixup" is performed to satisfy the target.
If the flag is not provided on the command line, then its default value depends on the operating system where rclone runs: "true" on Windows and macOS, "false" otherwise. If the flag is provided without a value, then it is "true".
VFS Disk Options
This flag allows you to manually set the statistics about the filing system. It can be useful when those statistics cannot be read correctly automatically.
--vfs-disk-space-total-size Manually set the total disk space size (example: 256G, default: -1)
Alternate report of used bytes
Some backends, most notably S3, do not report the amount of bytes used. If you need this information to be available when running df
on the filesystem, then pass the flag --vfs-used-is-size
to rclone. With this flag set, instead of relying on the backend to report this information, rclone will scan the whole remote similar to rclone size
and compute the total used space itself.
WARNING. Contrary to rclone size
, this flag ignores filters so that the result is accurate. However, this is very inefficient and may cost lots of API calls resulting in extra charges. Use it as a last resort and only with caching.
Auth Proxy
If you supply the parameter --auth-proxy /path/to/program
then rclone will use that program to generate backends on the fly which then are used to authenticate incoming requests. This uses a simple JSON based protocol with input on STDIN and output on STDOUT.
PLEASE NOTE: --auth-proxy
and --authorized-keys
cannot be used together, if --auth-proxy
is set the authorized keys option will be ignored.
There is an example program bin/test_proxy.py (https://github.com/rclone/rclone/blob/master/test_proxy.py) in the rclone source code.
The program's job is to take a user
and pass
on the input and turn those into the config for a backend on STDOUT in JSON format. This config will have any default parameters for the backend added, but it won't use configuration from environment variables or command line options - it is the job of the proxy program to make a complete config.
This config generated must have this extra parameter - _root
- root to use for the backend
And it may have this parameter - _obscure
- comma separated strings for parameters to obscure
If password authentication was used by the client, input to the proxy process (on STDIN) would look similar to this:
{ "user": "me", "pass": "mypassword" }
If public-key authentication was used by the client, input to the proxy process (on STDIN) would look similar to this:
{ "user": "me", "public_key": "AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQDuwESFdAe14hVS6omeyX7edc...JQdf" }
And as an example return this on STDOUT
{ "type": "sftp", "_root": "", "_obscure": "pass", "user": "me", "pass": "mypassword", "host": "sftp.example.com" }
This would mean that an SFTP backend would be created on the fly for the user
and pass
/public_key
returned in the output to the host given. Note that since _obscure
is set to pass
, rclone will obscure the pass
parameter before creating the backend (which is required for sftp backends).
The program can manipulate the supplied user
in any way, for example to make proxy to many different sftp backends, you could make the user
be user@example.com
and then set the host
to example.com
in the output and the user to user
. For security you'd probably want to restrict the host
to a limited list.
Note that an internal cache is keyed on user
so only use that for configuration, don't use pass
or public_key
. This also means that if a user's password or public-key is changed the cache will need to expire (which takes 5 mins) before it takes effect.
This can be used to build general purpose proxies to any kind of backend that rclone supports.
rclone serve ftp remote:path [flags]
Options
--addr string IPaddress:Port or :Port to bind server to (default "localhost:2121") --auth-proxy string A program to use to create the backend from the auth --cert string TLS PEM key (concatenation of certificate and CA certificate) --dir-cache-time duration Time to cache directory entries for (default 5m0s) --dir-perms FileMode Directory permissions (default 0777) --file-perms FileMode File permissions (default 0666) --gid uint32 Override the gid field set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 1000) -h, --help help for ftp --key string TLS PEM Private key --no-checksum Don't compare checksums on up/download --no-modtime Don't read/write the modification time (can speed things up) --no-seek Don't allow seeking in files --pass string Password for authentication (empty value allow every password) --passive-port string Passive port range to use (default "30000-32000") --poll-interval duration Time to wait between polling for changes, must be smaller than dir-cache-time and only on supported remotes (set 0 to disable) (default 1m0s) --public-ip string Public IP address to advertise for passive connections --read-only Only allow read-only access --uid uint32 Override the uid field set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 1000) --umask int Override the permission bits set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 2) --user string User name for authentication (default "anonymous") --vfs-cache-max-age duration Max age of objects in the cache (default 1h0m0s) --vfs-cache-max-size SizeSuffix Max total size of objects in the cache (default off) --vfs-cache-mode CacheMode Cache mode off|minimal|writes|full (default off) --vfs-cache-poll-interval duration Interval to poll the cache for stale objects (default 1m0s) --vfs-case-insensitive If a file name not found, find a case insensitive match --vfs-disk-space-total-size SizeSuffix Specify the total space of disk (default off) --vfs-fast-fingerprint Use fast (less accurate) fingerprints for change detection --vfs-read-ahead SizeSuffix Extra read ahead over --buffer-size when using cache-mode full --vfs-read-chunk-size SizeSuffix Read the source objects in chunks (default 128Mi) --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit SizeSuffix If greater than --vfs-read-chunk-size, double the chunk size after each chunk read, until the limit is reached ('off' is unlimited) (default off) --vfs-read-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence read before seeking (default 20ms) --vfs-used-is-size rclone size Use the rclone size algorithm for Used size --vfs-write-back duration Time to writeback files after last use when using cache (default 5s) --vfs-write-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence write before giving error (default 1s)
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone serve (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve/) - Serve a remote over a protocol.
rclone serve http
Serve the remote over HTTP.
Synopsis
Run a basic web server to serve a remote over HTTP. This can be viewed in a web browser or you can make a remote of type http read from it.
You can use the filter flags (e.g. --include
, --exclude
) to control what is served.
The server will log errors. Use -v
to see access logs.
--bwlimit
will be respected for file transfers. Use --stats
to control the stats printing.
Server options
Use --addr
to specify which IP address and port the server should listen on, eg --addr 1.2.3.4:8000
or --addr :8080
to listen to all IPs. By default it only listens on localhost. You can use port :0 to let the OS choose an available port.
If you set --addr
to listen on a public or LAN accessible IP address then using Authentication is advised - see the next section for info.
--server-read-timeout
and --server-write-timeout
can be used to control the timeouts on the server. Note that this is the total time for a transfer.
--max-header-bytes
controls the maximum number of bytes the server will accept in the HTTP header.
--baseurl
controls the URL prefix that rclone serves from. By default rclone will serve from the root. If you used --baseurl "/rclone"
then rclone would serve from a URL starting with "/rclone/". This is useful if you wish to proxy rclone serve. Rclone automatically inserts leading and trailing "/" on --baseurl
, so --baseurl "rclone"
, --baseurl "/rclone"
and --baseurl "/rclone/"
are all treated identically.
SSL/TLS
By default this will serve over http. If you want you can serve over https. You will need to supply the --cert
and --key
flags. If you wish to do client side certificate validation then you will need to supply --client-ca
also.
--cert
should be a either a PEM encoded certificate or a concatenation of that with the CA certificate. --key
should be the PEM encoded private key and --client-ca
should be the PEM encoded client certificate authority certificate.
--min-tls-version is minimum TLS version that is acceptable. Valid values are "tls1.0", "tls1.1", "tls1.2" and "tls1.3" (default "tls1.0").
Template
--template
allows a user to specify a custom markup template for HTTP and WebDAV serve functions. The server exports the following markup to be used within the template to server pages:
Parameter | Description |
.Name | The full path of a file/directory. |
.Title | Directory listing of .Name |
.Sort | The current sort used. This is changeable via ?sort= parameter |
Sort Options: namedirfirst,name,size,time (default namedirfirst) | |
.Order | The current ordering used. This is changeable via ?order= parameter |
Order Options: asc,desc (default asc) | |
.Query | Currently unused. |
.Breadcrumb | Allows for creating a relative navigation |
-- .Link | The relative to the root link of the Text. |
-- .Text | The Name of the directory. |
.Entries | Information about a specific file/directory. |
-- .URL | The 'url' of an entry. |
-- .Leaf | Currently same as 'URL' but intended to be 'just' the name. |
-- .IsDir | Boolean for if an entry is a directory or not. |
-- .Size | Size in Bytes of the entry. |
-- .ModTime | The UTC timestamp of an entry. |
Authentication
By default this will serve files without needing a login.
You can either use an htpasswd file which can take lots of users, or set a single username and password with the --user
and --pass
flags.
Use --htpasswd /path/to/htpasswd
to provide an htpasswd file. This is in standard apache format and supports MD5, SHA1 and BCrypt for basic authentication. Bcrypt is recommended.
To create an htpasswd file:
touch htpasswd htpasswd -B htpasswd user htpasswd -B htpasswd anotherUser
The password file can be updated while rclone is running.
Use --realm
to set the authentication realm.
Use --salt
to change the password hashing salt from the default.
VFS - Virtual File System
This command uses the VFS layer. This adapts the cloud storage objects that rclone uses into something which looks much more like a disk filing system.
Cloud storage objects have lots of properties which aren't like disk files - you can't extend them or write to the middle of them, so the VFS layer has to deal with that. Because there is no one right way of doing this there are various options explained below.
The VFS layer also implements a directory cache - this caches info about files and directories (but not the data) in memory.
VFS Directory Cache
Using the --dir-cache-time
flag, you can control how long a directory should be considered up to date and not refreshed from the backend. Changes made through the VFS will appear immediately or invalidate the cache.
--dir-cache-time duration Time to cache directory entries for (default 5m0s) --poll-interval duration Time to wait between polling for changes. Must be smaller than dir-cache-time. Only on supported remotes. Set to 0 to disable (default 1m0s)
However, changes made directly on the cloud storage by the web interface or a different copy of rclone will only be picked up once the directory cache expires if the backend configured does not support polling for changes. If the backend supports polling, changes will be picked up within the polling interval.
You can send a SIGHUP
signal to rclone for it to flush all directory caches, regardless of how old they are. Assuming only one rclone instance is running, you can reset the cache like this:
kill -SIGHUP $(pidof rclone)
If you configure rclone with a remote control then you can use rclone rc to flush the whole directory cache:
rclone rc vfs/forget
Or individual files or directories:
rclone rc vfs/forget file=path/to/file dir=path/to/dir
VFS File Buffering
The --buffer-size
flag determines the amount of memory, that will be used to buffer data in advance.
Each open file will try to keep the specified amount of data in memory at all times. The buffered data is bound to one open file and won't be shared.
This flag is a upper limit for the used memory per open file. The buffer will only use memory for data that is downloaded but not not yet read. If the buffer is empty, only a small amount of memory will be used.
The maximum memory used by rclone for buffering can be up to --buffer-size * open files
.
VFS File Caching
These flags control the VFS file caching options. File caching is necessary to make the VFS layer appear compatible with a normal file system. It can be disabled at the cost of some compatibility.
For example you'll need to enable VFS caching if you want to read and write simultaneously to a file. See below for more details.
Note that the VFS cache is separate from the cache backend and you may find that you need one or the other or both.
--cache-dir string Directory rclone will use for caching. --vfs-cache-mode CacheMode Cache mode off|minimal|writes|full (default off) --vfs-cache-max-age duration Max age of objects in the cache (default 1h0m0s) --vfs-cache-max-size SizeSuffix Max total size of objects in the cache (default off) --vfs-cache-poll-interval duration Interval to poll the cache for stale objects (default 1m0s) --vfs-write-back duration Time to writeback files after last use when using cache (default 5s)
If run with -vv
rclone will print the location of the file cache. The files are stored in the user cache file area which is OS dependent but can be controlled with --cache-dir
or setting the appropriate environment variable.
The cache has 4 different modes selected by --vfs-cache-mode
. The higher the cache mode the more compatible rclone becomes at the cost of using disk space.
Note that files are written back to the remote only when they are closed and if they haven't been accessed for --vfs-write-back
seconds. If rclone is quit or dies with files that haven't been uploaded, these will be uploaded next time rclone is run with the same flags.
If using --vfs-cache-max-size
note that the cache may exceed this size for two reasons. Firstly because it is only checked every --vfs-cache-poll-interval
. Secondly because open files cannot be evicted from the cache.
You should not run two copies of rclone using the same VFS cache with the same or overlapping remotes if using --vfs-cache-mode > off
. This can potentially cause data corruption if you do. You can work around this by giving each rclone its own cache hierarchy with --cache-dir
. You don't need to worry about this if the remotes in use don't overlap.
--vfs-cache-mode off
In this mode (the default) the cache will read directly from the remote and write directly to the remote without caching anything on disk.
This will mean some operations are not possible
- Files can't be opened for both read AND write
- Files opened for write can't be seeked
- Existing files opened for write must have O_TRUNC set
- Files open for read with O_TRUNC will be opened write only
- Files open for write only will behave as if O_TRUNC was supplied
- Open modes O_APPEND, O_TRUNC are ignored
- If an upload fails it can't be retried
--vfs-cache-mode minimal
This is very similar to "off" except that files opened for read AND write will be buffered to disk. This means that files opened for write will be a lot more compatible, but uses the minimal disk space.
These operations are not possible
- Files opened for write only can't be seeked
- Existing files opened for write must have O_TRUNC set
- Files opened for write only will ignore O_APPEND, O_TRUNC
- If an upload fails it can't be retried
--vfs-cache-mode writes
In this mode files opened for read only are still read directly from the remote, write only and read/write files are buffered to disk first.
This mode should support all normal file system operations.
If an upload fails it will be retried at exponentially increasing intervals up to 1 minute.
--vfs-cache-mode full
In this mode all reads and writes are buffered to and from disk. When data is read from the remote this is buffered to disk as well.
In this mode the files in the cache will be sparse files and rclone will keep track of which bits of the files it has downloaded.
So if an application only reads the starts of each file, then rclone will only buffer the start of the file. These files will appear to be their full size in the cache, but they will be sparse files with only the data that has been downloaded present in them.
This mode should support all normal file system operations and is otherwise identical to --vfs-cache-mode
writes.
When reading a file rclone will read --buffer-size
plus --vfs-read-ahead
bytes ahead. The --buffer-size
is buffered in memory whereas the --vfs-read-ahead
is buffered on disk.
When using this mode it is recommended that --buffer-size
is not set too large and --vfs-read-ahead
is set large if required.
IMPORTANT not all file systems support sparse files. In particular FAT/exFAT do not. Rclone will perform very badly if the cache directory is on a filesystem which doesn't support sparse files and it will log an ERROR message if one is detected.
Fingerprinting
Various parts of the VFS use fingerprinting to see if a local file copy has changed relative to a remote file. Fingerprints are made from:
- size
- modification time
- hash
where available on an object.
On some backends some of these attributes are slow to read (they take an extra API call per object, or extra work per object).
For example hash
is slow with the local
and sftp
backends as they have to read the entire file and hash it, and modtime
is slow with the s3
, swift
, ftp
and qinqstor
backends because they need to do an extra API call to fetch it.
If you use the --vfs-fast-fingerprint
flag then rclone will not include the slow operations in the fingerprint. This makes the fingerprinting less accurate but much faster and will improve the opening time of cached files.
If you are running a vfs cache over local
, s3
or swift
backends then using this flag is recommended.
Note that if you change the value of this flag, the fingerprints of the files in the cache may be invalidated and the files will need to be downloaded again.
VFS Chunked Reading
When rclone reads files from a remote it reads them in chunks. This means that rather than requesting the whole file rclone reads the chunk specified. This can reduce the used download quota for some remotes by requesting only chunks from the remote that are actually read, at the cost of an increased number of requests.
These flags control the chunking:
--vfs-read-chunk-size SizeSuffix Read the source objects in chunks (default 128M) --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit SizeSuffix Max chunk doubling size (default off)
Rclone will start reading a chunk of size --vfs-read-chunk-size
, and then double the size for each read. When --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit
is specified, and greater than --vfs-read-chunk-size
, the chunk size for each open file will get doubled only until the specified value is reached. If the value is "off", which is the default, the limit is disabled and the chunk size will grow indefinitely.
With --vfs-read-chunk-size 100M
and --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit 0
the following parts will be downloaded: 0-100M, 100M-200M, 200M-300M, 300M-400M and so on. When --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit 500M
is specified, the result would be 0-100M, 100M-300M, 300M-700M, 700M-1200M, 1200M-1700M and so on.
Setting --vfs-read-chunk-size
to 0
or "off" disables chunked reading.
VFS Performance
These flags may be used to enable/disable features of the VFS for performance or other reasons. See also the chunked reading feature.
In particular S3 and Swift benefit hugely from the --no-modtime
flag (or use --use-server-modtime
for a slightly different effect) as each read of the modification time takes a transaction.
--no-checksum Don't compare checksums on up/download. --no-modtime Don't read/write the modification time (can speed things up). --no-seek Don't allow seeking in files. --read-only Only allow read-only access.
Sometimes rclone is delivered reads or writes out of order. Rather than seeking rclone will wait a short time for the in sequence read or write to come in. These flags only come into effect when not using an on disk cache file.
--vfs-read-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence read before seeking (default 20ms) --vfs-write-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence write before giving error (default 1s)
When using VFS write caching (--vfs-cache-mode
with value writes or full), the global flag --transfers
can be set to adjust the number of parallel uploads of modified files from the cache (the related global flag --checkers
has no effect on the VFS).
--transfers int Number of file transfers to run in parallel (default 4)
VFS Case Sensitivity
Linux file systems are case-sensitive: two files can differ only by case, and the exact case must be used when opening a file.
File systems in modern Windows are case-insensitive but case-preserving: although existing files can be opened using any case, the exact case used to create the file is preserved and available for programs to query. It is not allowed for two files in the same directory to differ only by case.
Usually file systems on macOS are case-insensitive. It is possible to make macOS file systems case-sensitive but that is not the default.
The --vfs-case-insensitive
VFS flag controls how rclone handles these two cases. If its value is "false", rclone passes file names to the remote as-is. If the flag is "true" (or appears without a value on the command line), rclone may perform a "fixup" as explained below.
The user may specify a file name to open/delete/rename/etc with a case different than what is stored on the remote. If an argument refers to an existing file with exactly the same name, then the case of the existing file on the disk will be used. However, if a file name with exactly the same name is not found but a name differing only by case exists, rclone will transparently fixup the name. This fixup happens only when an existing file is requested. Case sensitivity of file names created anew by rclone is controlled by the underlying remote.
Note that case sensitivity of the operating system running rclone (the target) may differ from case sensitivity of a file system presented by rclone (the source). The flag controls whether "fixup" is performed to satisfy the target.
If the flag is not provided on the command line, then its default value depends on the operating system where rclone runs: "true" on Windows and macOS, "false" otherwise. If the flag is provided without a value, then it is "true".
VFS Disk Options
This flag allows you to manually set the statistics about the filing system. It can be useful when those statistics cannot be read correctly automatically.
--vfs-disk-space-total-size Manually set the total disk space size (example: 256G, default: -1)
Alternate report of used bytes
Some backends, most notably S3, do not report the amount of bytes used. If you need this information to be available when running df
on the filesystem, then pass the flag --vfs-used-is-size
to rclone. With this flag set, instead of relying on the backend to report this information, rclone will scan the whole remote similar to rclone size
and compute the total used space itself.
WARNING. Contrary to rclone size
, this flag ignores filters so that the result is accurate. However, this is very inefficient and may cost lots of API calls resulting in extra charges. Use it as a last resort and only with caching.
rclone serve http remote:path [flags]
Options
--addr string IPaddress:Port or :Port to bind server to (default "127.0.0.1:8080") --baseurl string Prefix for URLs - leave blank for root --cert string SSL PEM key (concatenation of certificate and CA certificate) --client-ca string Client certificate authority to verify clients with --dir-cache-time duration Time to cache directory entries for (default 5m0s) --dir-perms FileMode Directory permissions (default 0777) --file-perms FileMode File permissions (default 0666) --gid uint32 Override the gid field set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 1000) -h, --help help for http --htpasswd string A htpasswd file - if not provided no authentication is done --key string SSL PEM Private key --max-header-bytes int Maximum size of request header (default 4096) --min-tls-version string Minimum TLS version that is acceptable (default "tls1.0") --no-checksum Don't compare checksums on up/download --no-modtime Don't read/write the modification time (can speed things up) --no-seek Don't allow seeking in files --pass string Password for authentication --poll-interval duration Time to wait between polling for changes, must be smaller than dir-cache-time and only on supported remotes (set 0 to disable) (default 1m0s) --read-only Only allow read-only access --realm string Realm for authentication --salt string Password hashing salt (default "dlPL2MqE") --server-read-timeout duration Timeout for server reading data (default 1h0m0s) --server-write-timeout duration Timeout for server writing data (default 1h0m0s) --template string User-specified template --uid uint32 Override the uid field set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 1000) --umask int Override the permission bits set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 2) --user string User name for authentication --vfs-cache-max-age duration Max age of objects in the cache (default 1h0m0s) --vfs-cache-max-size SizeSuffix Max total size of objects in the cache (default off) --vfs-cache-mode CacheMode Cache mode off|minimal|writes|full (default off) --vfs-cache-poll-interval duration Interval to poll the cache for stale objects (default 1m0s) --vfs-case-insensitive If a file name not found, find a case insensitive match --vfs-disk-space-total-size SizeSuffix Specify the total space of disk (default off) --vfs-fast-fingerprint Use fast (less accurate) fingerprints for change detection --vfs-read-ahead SizeSuffix Extra read ahead over --buffer-size when using cache-mode full --vfs-read-chunk-size SizeSuffix Read the source objects in chunks (default 128Mi) --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit SizeSuffix If greater than --vfs-read-chunk-size, double the chunk size after each chunk read, until the limit is reached ('off' is unlimited) (default off) --vfs-read-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence read before seeking (default 20ms) --vfs-used-is-size rclone size Use the rclone size algorithm for Used size --vfs-write-back duration Time to writeback files after last use when using cache (default 5s) --vfs-write-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence write before giving error (default 1s)
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone serve (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve/) - Serve a remote over a protocol.
rclone serve restic
Serve the remote for restic's REST API.
Synopsis
Run a basic web server to serve a remove over restic's REST backend API over HTTP. This allows restic to use rclone as a data storage mechanism for cloud providers that restic does not support directly.
Restic (https://restic.net/) is a command-line program for doing backups.
The server will log errors. Use -v to see access logs.
--bwlimit
will be respected for file transfers. Use --stats
to control the stats printing.
Setting up rclone for use by restic
First set up a remote for your chosen cloud provider (https://rclone.org/docs/#configure).
Once you have set up the remote, check it is working with, for example "rclone lsd remote:". You may have called the remote something other than "remote:" - just substitute whatever you called it in the following instructions.
Now start the rclone restic server
rclone serve restic -v remote:backup
Where you can replace "backup" in the above by whatever path in the remote you wish to use.
By default this will serve on "localhost:8080" you can change this with use of the --addr
flag.
You might wish to start this server on boot.
Adding --cache-objects=false
will cause rclone to stop caching objects returned from the List call. Caching is normally desirable as it speeds up downloading objects, saves transactions and uses very little memory.
Setting up restic to use rclone
Now you can follow the restic instructions (http://restic.readthedocs.io/en/latest/030_preparing_a_new_repo.html#rest-server) on setting up restic.
Note that you will need restic 0.8.2 or later to interoperate with rclone.
For the example above you will want to use "http://localhost:8080/" as the URL for the REST server.
For example:
$ export RESTIC_REPOSITORY=rest:http://localhost:8080/ $ export RESTIC_PASSWORD=yourpassword $ restic init created restic backend 8b1a4b56ae at rest:http://localhost:8080/ Please note that knowledge of your password is required to access the repository. Losing your password means that your data is irrecoverably lost. $ restic backup /path/to/files/to/backup scan [/path/to/files/to/backup] scanned 189 directories, 312 files in 0:00 [0:00] 100.00% 38.128 MiB / 38.128 MiB 501 / 501 items 0 errors ETA 0:00 duration: 0:00 snapshot 45c8fdd8 saved
Multiple repositories
Note that you can use the endpoint to host multiple repositories. Do this by adding a directory name or path after the URL. Note that these must end with /. Eg
$ export RESTIC_REPOSITORY=rest:http://localhost:8080/user1repo/ # backup user1 stuff $ export RESTIC_REPOSITORY=rest:http://localhost:8080/user2repo/ # backup user2 stuff
Private repositories
The--private-repos
flag can be used to limit users to repositories starting with a path of /<username>/
.
Server options
Use --addr
to specify which IP address and port the server should listen on, e.g. --addr 1.2.3.4:8000
or --addr :8080
to listen to all IPs. By default it only listens on localhost. You can use port :0 to let the OS choose an available port.
If you set --addr
to listen on a public or LAN accessible IP address then using Authentication is advised - see the next section for info.
--server-read-timeout
and --server-write-timeout
can be used to control the timeouts on the server. Note that this is the total time for a transfer.
--max-header-bytes
controls the maximum number of bytes the server will accept in the HTTP header.
--baseurl
controls the URL prefix that rclone serves from. By default rclone will serve from the root. If you used --baseurl "/rclone"
then rclone would serve from a URL starting with "/rclone/". This is useful if you wish to proxy rclone serve. Rclone automatically inserts leading and trailing "/" on --baseurl
, so --baseurl "rclone"
, --baseurl "/rclone"
and --baseurl "/rclone/"
are all treated identically.
--template
allows a user to specify a custom markup template for HTTP and WebDAV serve functions. The server exports the following markup to be used within the template to server pages:
Parameter | Description |
.Name | The full path of a file/directory. |
.Title | Directory listing of .Name |
.Sort | The current sort used. This is changeable via ?sort= parameter |
Sort Options: namedirfirst,name,size,time (default namedirfirst) | |
.Order | The current ordering used. This is changeable via ?order= parameter |
Order Options: asc,desc (default asc) | |
.Query | Currently unused. |
.Breadcrumb | Allows for creating a relative navigation |
-- .Link | The relative to the root link of the Text. |
-- .Text | The Name of the directory. |
.Entries | Information about a specific file/directory. |
-- .URL | The 'url' of an entry. |
-- .Leaf | Currently same as 'URL' but intended to be 'just' the name. |
-- .IsDir | Boolean for if an entry is a directory or not. |
-- .Size | Size in Bytes of the entry. |
-- .ModTime | The UTC timestamp of an entry. |
Authentication
By default this will serve files without needing a login.
You can either use an htpasswd file which can take lots of users, or set a single username and password with the --user
and --pass
flags.
Use --htpasswd /path/to/htpasswd
to provide an htpasswd file. This is in standard apache format and supports MD5, SHA1 and BCrypt for basic authentication. Bcrypt is recommended.
To create an htpasswd file:
touch htpasswd htpasswd -B htpasswd user htpasswd -B htpasswd anotherUser
The password file can be updated while rclone is running.
Use --realm
to set the authentication realm.
SSL/TLS
By default this will serve over HTTP. If you want you can serve over HTTPS. You will need to supply the --cert
and --key
flags. If you wish to do client side certificate validation then you will need to supply --client-ca
also.
--cert
should be either a PEM encoded certificate or a concatenation of that with the CA certificate. --key
should be the PEM encoded private key and --client-ca
should be the PEM encoded client certificate authority certificate.
--min-tls-version is minimum TLS version that is acceptable. Valid values are "tls1.0", "tls1.1", "tls1.2" and "tls1.3" (default "tls1.0").
rclone serve restic remote:path [flags]
Options
--addr string IPaddress:Port or :Port to bind server to (default "localhost:8080") --append-only Disallow deletion of repository data --baseurl string Prefix for URLs - leave blank for root --cache-objects Cache listed objects (default true) --cert string SSL PEM key (concatenation of certificate and CA certificate) --client-ca string Client certificate authority to verify clients with -h, --help help for restic --htpasswd string htpasswd file - if not provided no authentication is done --key string SSL PEM Private key --max-header-bytes int Maximum size of request header (default 4096) --min-tls-version string Minimum TLS version that is acceptable (default "tls1.0") --pass string Password for authentication --private-repos Users can only access their private repo --realm string Realm for authentication (default "rclone") --server-read-timeout duration Timeout for server reading data (default 1h0m0s) --server-write-timeout duration Timeout for server writing data (default 1h0m0s) --stdio Run an HTTP2 server on stdin/stdout --template string User-specified template --user string User name for authentication
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone serve (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve/) - Serve a remote over a protocol.
rclone serve sftp
Serve the remote over SFTP.
Synopsis
Run an SFTP server to serve a remote over SFTP. This can be used with an SFTP client or you can make a remote of type sftp to use with it.
You can use the filter flags (e.g. --include
, --exclude
) to control what is served.
The server will respond to a small number of shell commands, mainly md5sum, sha1sum and df, which enable it to provide support for checksums and the about feature when accessed from an sftp remote.
Note that this server uses standard 32 KiB packet payload size, which means you must not configure the client to expect anything else, e.g. with the chunk_size (https://rclone.org/sftp/#sftp-chunk-size) option on an sftp remote.
The server will log errors. Use -v
to see access logs.
--bwlimit
will be respected for file transfers. Use --stats
to control the stats printing.
You must provide some means of authentication, either with --user
/--pass
, an authorized keys file (specify location with --authorized-keys
- the default is the same as ssh), an --auth-proxy
, or set the --no-auth
flag for no authentication when logging in.
If you don't supply a host --key
then rclone will generate rsa, ecdsa and ed25519 variants, and cache them for later use in rclone's cache directory (see rclone help flags cache-dir
) in the "serve-sftp" directory.
By default the server binds to localhost:2022 - if you want it to be reachable externally then supply --addr :2022
for example.
Note that the default of --vfs-cache-mode off
is fine for the rclone sftp backend, but it may not be with other SFTP clients.
If --stdio
is specified, rclone will serve SFTP over stdio, which can be used with sshd via ~/.ssh/authorized_keys, for example:
restrict,command="rclone serve sftp --stdio ./photos" ssh-rsa ...
On the client you need to set --transfers 1
when using --stdio
. Otherwise multiple instances of the rclone server are started by OpenSSH which can lead to "corrupted on transfer" errors. This is the case because the client chooses indiscriminately which server to send commands to while the servers all have different views of the state of the filing system.
The "restrict" in authorized_keys prevents SHA1SUMs and MD5SUMs from beeing used. Omitting "restrict" and using --sftp-path-override
to enable checksumming is possible but less secure and you could use the SFTP server provided by OpenSSH in this case.
VFS - Virtual File System
This command uses the VFS layer. This adapts the cloud storage objects that rclone uses into something which looks much more like a disk filing system.
Cloud storage objects have lots of properties which aren't like disk files - you can't extend them or write to the middle of them, so the VFS layer has to deal with that. Because there is no one right way of doing this there are various options explained below.
The VFS layer also implements a directory cache - this caches info about files and directories (but not the data) in memory.
VFS Directory Cache
Using the --dir-cache-time
flag, you can control how long a directory should be considered up to date and not refreshed from the backend. Changes made through the VFS will appear immediately or invalidate the cache.
--dir-cache-time duration Time to cache directory entries for (default 5m0s) --poll-interval duration Time to wait between polling for changes. Must be smaller than dir-cache-time. Only on supported remotes. Set to 0 to disable (default 1m0s)
However, changes made directly on the cloud storage by the web interface or a different copy of rclone will only be picked up once the directory cache expires if the backend configured does not support polling for changes. If the backend supports polling, changes will be picked up within the polling interval.
You can send a SIGHUP
signal to rclone for it to flush all directory caches, regardless of how old they are. Assuming only one rclone instance is running, you can reset the cache like this:
kill -SIGHUP $(pidof rclone)
If you configure rclone with a remote control then you can use rclone rc to flush the whole directory cache:
rclone rc vfs/forget
Or individual files or directories:
rclone rc vfs/forget file=path/to/file dir=path/to/dir
VFS File Buffering
The --buffer-size
flag determines the amount of memory, that will be used to buffer data in advance.
Each open file will try to keep the specified amount of data in memory at all times. The buffered data is bound to one open file and won't be shared.
This flag is a upper limit for the used memory per open file. The buffer will only use memory for data that is downloaded but not not yet read. If the buffer is empty, only a small amount of memory will be used.
The maximum memory used by rclone for buffering can be up to --buffer-size * open files
.
VFS File Caching
These flags control the VFS file caching options. File caching is necessary to make the VFS layer appear compatible with a normal file system. It can be disabled at the cost of some compatibility.
For example you'll need to enable VFS caching if you want to read and write simultaneously to a file. See below for more details.
Note that the VFS cache is separate from the cache backend and you may find that you need one or the other or both.
--cache-dir string Directory rclone will use for caching. --vfs-cache-mode CacheMode Cache mode off|minimal|writes|full (default off) --vfs-cache-max-age duration Max age of objects in the cache (default 1h0m0s) --vfs-cache-max-size SizeSuffix Max total size of objects in the cache (default off) --vfs-cache-poll-interval duration Interval to poll the cache for stale objects (default 1m0s) --vfs-write-back duration Time to writeback files after last use when using cache (default 5s)
If run with -vv
rclone will print the location of the file cache. The files are stored in the user cache file area which is OS dependent but can be controlled with --cache-dir
or setting the appropriate environment variable.
The cache has 4 different modes selected by --vfs-cache-mode
. The higher the cache mode the more compatible rclone becomes at the cost of using disk space.
Note that files are written back to the remote only when they are closed and if they haven't been accessed for --vfs-write-back
seconds. If rclone is quit or dies with files that haven't been uploaded, these will be uploaded next time rclone is run with the same flags.
If using --vfs-cache-max-size
note that the cache may exceed this size for two reasons. Firstly because it is only checked every --vfs-cache-poll-interval
. Secondly because open files cannot be evicted from the cache.
You should not run two copies of rclone using the same VFS cache with the same or overlapping remotes if using --vfs-cache-mode > off
. This can potentially cause data corruption if you do. You can work around this by giving each rclone its own cache hierarchy with --cache-dir
. You don't need to worry about this if the remotes in use don't overlap.
--vfs-cache-mode off
In this mode (the default) the cache will read directly from the remote and write directly to the remote without caching anything on disk.
This will mean some operations are not possible
- Files can't be opened for both read AND write
- Files opened for write can't be seeked
- Existing files opened for write must have O_TRUNC set
- Files open for read with O_TRUNC will be opened write only
- Files open for write only will behave as if O_TRUNC was supplied
- Open modes O_APPEND, O_TRUNC are ignored
- If an upload fails it can't be retried
--vfs-cache-mode minimal
This is very similar to "off" except that files opened for read AND write will be buffered to disk. This means that files opened for write will be a lot more compatible, but uses the minimal disk space.
These operations are not possible
- Files opened for write only can't be seeked
- Existing files opened for write must have O_TRUNC set
- Files opened for write only will ignore O_APPEND, O_TRUNC
- If an upload fails it can't be retried
--vfs-cache-mode writes
In this mode files opened for read only are still read directly from the remote, write only and read/write files are buffered to disk first.
This mode should support all normal file system operations.
If an upload fails it will be retried at exponentially increasing intervals up to 1 minute.
--vfs-cache-mode full
In this mode all reads and writes are buffered to and from disk. When data is read from the remote this is buffered to disk as well.
In this mode the files in the cache will be sparse files and rclone will keep track of which bits of the files it has downloaded.
So if an application only reads the starts of each file, then rclone will only buffer the start of the file. These files will appear to be their full size in the cache, but they will be sparse files with only the data that has been downloaded present in them.
This mode should support all normal file system operations and is otherwise identical to --vfs-cache-mode
writes.
When reading a file rclone will read --buffer-size
plus --vfs-read-ahead
bytes ahead. The --buffer-size
is buffered in memory whereas the --vfs-read-ahead
is buffered on disk.
When using this mode it is recommended that --buffer-size
is not set too large and --vfs-read-ahead
is set large if required.
IMPORTANT not all file systems support sparse files. In particular FAT/exFAT do not. Rclone will perform very badly if the cache directory is on a filesystem which doesn't support sparse files and it will log an ERROR message if one is detected.
Fingerprinting
Various parts of the VFS use fingerprinting to see if a local file copy has changed relative to a remote file. Fingerprints are made from:
- size
- modification time
- hash
where available on an object.
On some backends some of these attributes are slow to read (they take an extra API call per object, or extra work per object).
For example hash
is slow with the local
and sftp
backends as they have to read the entire file and hash it, and modtime
is slow with the s3
, swift
, ftp
and qinqstor
backends because they need to do an extra API call to fetch it.
If you use the --vfs-fast-fingerprint
flag then rclone will not include the slow operations in the fingerprint. This makes the fingerprinting less accurate but much faster and will improve the opening time of cached files.
If you are running a vfs cache over local
, s3
or swift
backends then using this flag is recommended.
Note that if you change the value of this flag, the fingerprints of the files in the cache may be invalidated and the files will need to be downloaded again.
VFS Chunked Reading
When rclone reads files from a remote it reads them in chunks. This means that rather than requesting the whole file rclone reads the chunk specified. This can reduce the used download quota for some remotes by requesting only chunks from the remote that are actually read, at the cost of an increased number of requests.
These flags control the chunking:
--vfs-read-chunk-size SizeSuffix Read the source objects in chunks (default 128M) --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit SizeSuffix Max chunk doubling size (default off)
Rclone will start reading a chunk of size --vfs-read-chunk-size
, and then double the size for each read. When --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit
is specified, and greater than --vfs-read-chunk-size
, the chunk size for each open file will get doubled only until the specified value is reached. If the value is "off", which is the default, the limit is disabled and the chunk size will grow indefinitely.
With --vfs-read-chunk-size 100M
and --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit 0
the following parts will be downloaded: 0-100M, 100M-200M, 200M-300M, 300M-400M and so on. When --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit 500M
is specified, the result would be 0-100M, 100M-300M, 300M-700M, 700M-1200M, 1200M-1700M and so on.
Setting --vfs-read-chunk-size
to 0
or "off" disables chunked reading.
VFS Performance
These flags may be used to enable/disable features of the VFS for performance or other reasons. See also the chunked reading feature.
In particular S3 and Swift benefit hugely from the --no-modtime
flag (or use --use-server-modtime
for a slightly different effect) as each read of the modification time takes a transaction.
--no-checksum Don't compare checksums on up/download. --no-modtime Don't read/write the modification time (can speed things up). --no-seek Don't allow seeking in files. --read-only Only allow read-only access.
Sometimes rclone is delivered reads or writes out of order. Rather than seeking rclone will wait a short time for the in sequence read or write to come in. These flags only come into effect when not using an on disk cache file.
--vfs-read-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence read before seeking (default 20ms) --vfs-write-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence write before giving error (default 1s)
When using VFS write caching (--vfs-cache-mode
with value writes or full), the global flag --transfers
can be set to adjust the number of parallel uploads of modified files from the cache (the related global flag --checkers
has no effect on the VFS).
--transfers int Number of file transfers to run in parallel (default 4)
VFS Case Sensitivity
Linux file systems are case-sensitive: two files can differ only by case, and the exact case must be used when opening a file.
File systems in modern Windows are case-insensitive but case-preserving: although existing files can be opened using any case, the exact case used to create the file is preserved and available for programs to query. It is not allowed for two files in the same directory to differ only by case.
Usually file systems on macOS are case-insensitive. It is possible to make macOS file systems case-sensitive but that is not the default.
The --vfs-case-insensitive
VFS flag controls how rclone handles these two cases. If its value is "false", rclone passes file names to the remote as-is. If the flag is "true" (or appears without a value on the command line), rclone may perform a "fixup" as explained below.
The user may specify a file name to open/delete/rename/etc with a case different than what is stored on the remote. If an argument refers to an existing file with exactly the same name, then the case of the existing file on the disk will be used. However, if a file name with exactly the same name is not found but a name differing only by case exists, rclone will transparently fixup the name. This fixup happens only when an existing file is requested. Case sensitivity of file names created anew by rclone is controlled by the underlying remote.
Note that case sensitivity of the operating system running rclone (the target) may differ from case sensitivity of a file system presented by rclone (the source). The flag controls whether "fixup" is performed to satisfy the target.
If the flag is not provided on the command line, then its default value depends on the operating system where rclone runs: "true" on Windows and macOS, "false" otherwise. If the flag is provided without a value, then it is "true".
VFS Disk Options
This flag allows you to manually set the statistics about the filing system. It can be useful when those statistics cannot be read correctly automatically.
--vfs-disk-space-total-size Manually set the total disk space size (example: 256G, default: -1)
Alternate report of used bytes
Some backends, most notably S3, do not report the amount of bytes used. If you need this information to be available when running df
on the filesystem, then pass the flag --vfs-used-is-size
to rclone. With this flag set, instead of relying on the backend to report this information, rclone will scan the whole remote similar to rclone size
and compute the total used space itself.
WARNING. Contrary to rclone size
, this flag ignores filters so that the result is accurate. However, this is very inefficient and may cost lots of API calls resulting in extra charges. Use it as a last resort and only with caching.
Auth Proxy
If you supply the parameter --auth-proxy /path/to/program
then rclone will use that program to generate backends on the fly which then are used to authenticate incoming requests. This uses a simple JSON based protocol with input on STDIN and output on STDOUT.
PLEASE NOTE: --auth-proxy
and --authorized-keys
cannot be used together, if --auth-proxy
is set the authorized keys option will be ignored.
There is an example program bin/test_proxy.py (https://github.com/rclone/rclone/blob/master/test_proxy.py) in the rclone source code.
The program's job is to take a user
and pass
on the input and turn those into the config for a backend on STDOUT in JSON format. This config will have any default parameters for the backend added, but it won't use configuration from environment variables or command line options - it is the job of the proxy program to make a complete config.
This config generated must have this extra parameter - _root
- root to use for the backend
And it may have this parameter - _obscure
- comma separated strings for parameters to obscure
If password authentication was used by the client, input to the proxy process (on STDIN) would look similar to this:
{ "user": "me", "pass": "mypassword" }
If public-key authentication was used by the client, input to the proxy process (on STDIN) would look similar to this:
{ "user": "me", "public_key": "AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQDuwESFdAe14hVS6omeyX7edc...JQdf" }
And as an example return this on STDOUT
{ "type": "sftp", "_root": "", "_obscure": "pass", "user": "me", "pass": "mypassword", "host": "sftp.example.com" }
This would mean that an SFTP backend would be created on the fly for the user
and pass
/public_key
returned in the output to the host given. Note that since _obscure
is set to pass
, rclone will obscure the pass
parameter before creating the backend (which is required for sftp backends).
The program can manipulate the supplied user
in any way, for example to make proxy to many different sftp backends, you could make the user
be user@example.com
and then set the host
to example.com
in the output and the user to user
. For security you'd probably want to restrict the host
to a limited list.
Note that an internal cache is keyed on user
so only use that for configuration, don't use pass
or public_key
. This also means that if a user's password or public-key is changed the cache will need to expire (which takes 5 mins) before it takes effect.
This can be used to build general purpose proxies to any kind of backend that rclone supports.
rclone serve sftp remote:path [flags]
Options
--addr string IPaddress:Port or :Port to bind server to (default "localhost:2022") --auth-proxy string A program to use to create the backend from the auth --authorized-keys string Authorized keys file (default "~/.ssh/authorized_keys") --dir-cache-time duration Time to cache directory entries for (default 5m0s) --dir-perms FileMode Directory permissions (default 0777) --file-perms FileMode File permissions (default 0666) --gid uint32 Override the gid field set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 1000) -h, --help help for sftp --key stringArray SSH private host key file (Can be multi-valued, leave blank to auto generate) --no-auth Allow connections with no authentication if set --no-checksum Don't compare checksums on up/download --no-modtime Don't read/write the modification time (can speed things up) --no-seek Don't allow seeking in files --pass string Password for authentication --poll-interval duration Time to wait between polling for changes, must be smaller than dir-cache-time and only on supported remotes (set 0 to disable) (default 1m0s) --read-only Only allow read-only access --stdio Run an sftp server on stdin/stdout --uid uint32 Override the uid field set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 1000) --umask int Override the permission bits set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 2) --user string User name for authentication --vfs-cache-max-age duration Max age of objects in the cache (default 1h0m0s) --vfs-cache-max-size SizeSuffix Max total size of objects in the cache (default off) --vfs-cache-mode CacheMode Cache mode off|minimal|writes|full (default off) --vfs-cache-poll-interval duration Interval to poll the cache for stale objects (default 1m0s) --vfs-case-insensitive If a file name not found, find a case insensitive match --vfs-disk-space-total-size SizeSuffix Specify the total space of disk (default off) --vfs-fast-fingerprint Use fast (less accurate) fingerprints for change detection --vfs-read-ahead SizeSuffix Extra read ahead over --buffer-size when using cache-mode full --vfs-read-chunk-size SizeSuffix Read the source objects in chunks (default 128Mi) --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit SizeSuffix If greater than --vfs-read-chunk-size, double the chunk size after each chunk read, until the limit is reached ('off' is unlimited) (default off) --vfs-read-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence read before seeking (default 20ms) --vfs-used-is-size rclone size Use the rclone size algorithm for Used size --vfs-write-back duration Time to writeback files after last use when using cache (default 5s) --vfs-write-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence write before giving error (default 1s)
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone serve (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve/) - Serve a remote over a protocol.
rclone serve webdav
Serve remote:path over WebDAV.
Synopsis
Run a basic WebDAV server to serve a remote over HTTP via the WebDAV protocol. This can be viewed with a WebDAV client, through a web browser, or you can make a remote of type WebDAV to read and write it.
WebDAV options
--etag-hash
This controls the ETag header. Without this flag the ETag will be based on the ModTime and Size of the object.
If this flag is set to "auto" then rclone will choose the first supported hash on the backend or you can use a named hash such as "MD5" or "SHA-1". Use the hashsum (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_hashsum/) command to see the full list.
Server options
Use --addr
to specify which IP address and port the server should listen on, e.g. --addr 1.2.3.4:8000
or --addr :8080
to listen to all IPs. By default it only listens on localhost. You can use port :0 to let the OS choose an available port.
If you set --addr
to listen on a public or LAN accessible IP address then using Authentication is advised - see the next section for info.
--server-read-timeout
and --server-write-timeout
can be used to control the timeouts on the server. Note that this is the total time for a transfer.
--max-header-bytes
controls the maximum number of bytes the server will accept in the HTTP header.
--baseurl
controls the URL prefix that rclone serves from. By default rclone will serve from the root. If you used --baseurl "/rclone"
then rclone would serve from a URL starting with "/rclone/". This is useful if you wish to proxy rclone serve. Rclone automatically inserts leading and trailing "/" on --baseurl
, so --baseurl "rclone"
, --baseurl "/rclone"
and --baseurl "/rclone/"
are all treated identically.
--template
allows a user to specify a custom markup template for HTTP and WebDAV serve functions. The server exports the following markup to be used within the template to server pages:
Parameter | Description |
.Name | The full path of a file/directory. |
.Title | Directory listing of .Name |
.Sort | The current sort used. This is changeable via ?sort= parameter |
Sort Options: namedirfirst,name,size,time (default namedirfirst) | |
.Order | The current ordering used. This is changeable via ?order= parameter |
Order Options: asc,desc (default asc) | |
.Query | Currently unused. |
.Breadcrumb | Allows for creating a relative navigation |
-- .Link | The relative to the root link of the Text. |
-- .Text | The Name of the directory. |
.Entries | Information about a specific file/directory. |
-- .URL | The 'url' of an entry. |
-- .Leaf | Currently same as 'URL' but intended to be 'just' the name. |
-- .IsDir | Boolean for if an entry is a directory or not. |
-- .Size | Size in Bytes of the entry. |
-- .ModTime | The UTC timestamp of an entry. |
Authentication
By default this will serve files without needing a login.
You can either use an htpasswd file which can take lots of users, or set a single username and password with the --user
and --pass
flags.
Use --htpasswd /path/to/htpasswd
to provide an htpasswd file. This is in standard apache format and supports MD5, SHA1 and BCrypt for basic authentication. Bcrypt is recommended.
To create an htpasswd file:
touch htpasswd htpasswd -B htpasswd user htpasswd -B htpasswd anotherUser
The password file can be updated while rclone is running.
Use --realm
to set the authentication realm.
SSL/TLS
By default this will serve over HTTP. If you want you can serve over HTTPS. You will need to supply the --cert
and --key
flags. If you wish to do client side certificate validation then you will need to supply --client-ca
also.
--cert
should be either a PEM encoded certificate or a concatenation of that with the CA certificate. --key
should be the PEM encoded private key and --client-ca
should be the PEM encoded client certificate authority certificate.
--min-tls-version is minimum TLS version that is acceptable. Valid values are "tls1.0", "tls1.1", "tls1.2" and "tls1.3" (default "tls1.0").
VFS - Virtual File System
This command uses the VFS layer. This adapts the cloud storage objects that rclone uses into something which looks much more like a disk filing system.
Cloud storage objects have lots of properties which aren't like disk files - you can't extend them or write to the middle of them, so the VFS layer has to deal with that. Because there is no one right way of doing this there are various options explained below.
The VFS layer also implements a directory cache - this caches info about files and directories (but not the data) in memory.
VFS Directory Cache
Using the --dir-cache-time
flag, you can control how long a directory should be considered up to date and not refreshed from the backend. Changes made through the VFS will appear immediately or invalidate the cache.
--dir-cache-time duration Time to cache directory entries for (default 5m0s) --poll-interval duration Time to wait between polling for changes. Must be smaller than dir-cache-time. Only on supported remotes. Set to 0 to disable (default 1m0s)
However, changes made directly on the cloud storage by the web interface or a different copy of rclone will only be picked up once the directory cache expires if the backend configured does not support polling for changes. If the backend supports polling, changes will be picked up within the polling interval.
You can send a SIGHUP
signal to rclone for it to flush all directory caches, regardless of how old they are. Assuming only one rclone instance is running, you can reset the cache like this:
kill -SIGHUP $(pidof rclone)
If you configure rclone with a remote control then you can use rclone rc to flush the whole directory cache:
rclone rc vfs/forget
Or individual files or directories:
rclone rc vfs/forget file=path/to/file dir=path/to/dir
VFS File Buffering
The --buffer-size
flag determines the amount of memory, that will be used to buffer data in advance.
Each open file will try to keep the specified amount of data in memory at all times. The buffered data is bound to one open file and won't be shared.
This flag is a upper limit for the used memory per open file. The buffer will only use memory for data that is downloaded but not not yet read. If the buffer is empty, only a small amount of memory will be used.
The maximum memory used by rclone for buffering can be up to --buffer-size * open files
.
VFS File Caching
These flags control the VFS file caching options. File caching is necessary to make the VFS layer appear compatible with a normal file system. It can be disabled at the cost of some compatibility.
For example you'll need to enable VFS caching if you want to read and write simultaneously to a file. See below for more details.
Note that the VFS cache is separate from the cache backend and you may find that you need one or the other or both.
--cache-dir string Directory rclone will use for caching. --vfs-cache-mode CacheMode Cache mode off|minimal|writes|full (default off) --vfs-cache-max-age duration Max age of objects in the cache (default 1h0m0s) --vfs-cache-max-size SizeSuffix Max total size of objects in the cache (default off) --vfs-cache-poll-interval duration Interval to poll the cache for stale objects (default 1m0s) --vfs-write-back duration Time to writeback files after last use when using cache (default 5s)
If run with -vv
rclone will print the location of the file cache. The files are stored in the user cache file area which is OS dependent but can be controlled with --cache-dir
or setting the appropriate environment variable.
The cache has 4 different modes selected by --vfs-cache-mode
. The higher the cache mode the more compatible rclone becomes at the cost of using disk space.
Note that files are written back to the remote only when they are closed and if they haven't been accessed for --vfs-write-back
seconds. If rclone is quit or dies with files that haven't been uploaded, these will be uploaded next time rclone is run with the same flags.
If using --vfs-cache-max-size
note that the cache may exceed this size for two reasons. Firstly because it is only checked every --vfs-cache-poll-interval
. Secondly because open files cannot be evicted from the cache.
You should not run two copies of rclone using the same VFS cache with the same or overlapping remotes if using --vfs-cache-mode > off
. This can potentially cause data corruption if you do. You can work around this by giving each rclone its own cache hierarchy with --cache-dir
. You don't need to worry about this if the remotes in use don't overlap.
--vfs-cache-mode off
In this mode (the default) the cache will read directly from the remote and write directly to the remote without caching anything on disk.
This will mean some operations are not possible
- Files can't be opened for both read AND write
- Files opened for write can't be seeked
- Existing files opened for write must have O_TRUNC set
- Files open for read with O_TRUNC will be opened write only
- Files open for write only will behave as if O_TRUNC was supplied
- Open modes O_APPEND, O_TRUNC are ignored
- If an upload fails it can't be retried
--vfs-cache-mode minimal
This is very similar to "off" except that files opened for read AND write will be buffered to disk. This means that files opened for write will be a lot more compatible, but uses the minimal disk space.
These operations are not possible
- Files opened for write only can't be seeked
- Existing files opened for write must have O_TRUNC set
- Files opened for write only will ignore O_APPEND, O_TRUNC
- If an upload fails it can't be retried
--vfs-cache-mode writes
In this mode files opened for read only are still read directly from the remote, write only and read/write files are buffered to disk first.
This mode should support all normal file system operations.
If an upload fails it will be retried at exponentially increasing intervals up to 1 minute.
--vfs-cache-mode full
In this mode all reads and writes are buffered to and from disk. When data is read from the remote this is buffered to disk as well.
In this mode the files in the cache will be sparse files and rclone will keep track of which bits of the files it has downloaded.
So if an application only reads the starts of each file, then rclone will only buffer the start of the file. These files will appear to be their full size in the cache, but they will be sparse files with only the data that has been downloaded present in them.
This mode should support all normal file system operations and is otherwise identical to --vfs-cache-mode
writes.
When reading a file rclone will read --buffer-size
plus --vfs-read-ahead
bytes ahead. The --buffer-size
is buffered in memory whereas the --vfs-read-ahead
is buffered on disk.
When using this mode it is recommended that --buffer-size
is not set too large and --vfs-read-ahead
is set large if required.
IMPORTANT not all file systems support sparse files. In particular FAT/exFAT do not. Rclone will perform very badly if the cache directory is on a filesystem which doesn't support sparse files and it will log an ERROR message if one is detected.
Fingerprinting
Various parts of the VFS use fingerprinting to see if a local file copy has changed relative to a remote file. Fingerprints are made from:
- size
- modification time
- hash
where available on an object.
On some backends some of these attributes are slow to read (they take an extra API call per object, or extra work per object).
For example hash
is slow with the local
and sftp
backends as they have to read the entire file and hash it, and modtime
is slow with the s3
, swift
, ftp
and qinqstor
backends because they need to do an extra API call to fetch it.
If you use the --vfs-fast-fingerprint
flag then rclone will not include the slow operations in the fingerprint. This makes the fingerprinting less accurate but much faster and will improve the opening time of cached files.
If you are running a vfs cache over local
, s3
or swift
backends then using this flag is recommended.
Note that if you change the value of this flag, the fingerprints of the files in the cache may be invalidated and the files will need to be downloaded again.
VFS Chunked Reading
When rclone reads files from a remote it reads them in chunks. This means that rather than requesting the whole file rclone reads the chunk specified. This can reduce the used download quota for some remotes by requesting only chunks from the remote that are actually read, at the cost of an increased number of requests.
These flags control the chunking:
--vfs-read-chunk-size SizeSuffix Read the source objects in chunks (default 128M) --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit SizeSuffix Max chunk doubling size (default off)
Rclone will start reading a chunk of size --vfs-read-chunk-size
, and then double the size for each read. When --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit
is specified, and greater than --vfs-read-chunk-size
, the chunk size for each open file will get doubled only until the specified value is reached. If the value is "off", which is the default, the limit is disabled and the chunk size will grow indefinitely.
With --vfs-read-chunk-size 100M
and --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit 0
the following parts will be downloaded: 0-100M, 100M-200M, 200M-300M, 300M-400M and so on. When --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit 500M
is specified, the result would be 0-100M, 100M-300M, 300M-700M, 700M-1200M, 1200M-1700M and so on.
Setting --vfs-read-chunk-size
to 0
or "off" disables chunked reading.
VFS Performance
These flags may be used to enable/disable features of the VFS for performance or other reasons. See also the chunked reading feature.
In particular S3 and Swift benefit hugely from the --no-modtime
flag (or use --use-server-modtime
for a slightly different effect) as each read of the modification time takes a transaction.
--no-checksum Don't compare checksums on up/download. --no-modtime Don't read/write the modification time (can speed things up). --no-seek Don't allow seeking in files. --read-only Only allow read-only access.
Sometimes rclone is delivered reads or writes out of order. Rather than seeking rclone will wait a short time for the in sequence read or write to come in. These flags only come into effect when not using an on disk cache file.
--vfs-read-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence read before seeking (default 20ms) --vfs-write-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence write before giving error (default 1s)
When using VFS write caching (--vfs-cache-mode
with value writes or full), the global flag --transfers
can be set to adjust the number of parallel uploads of modified files from the cache (the related global flag --checkers
has no effect on the VFS).
--transfers int Number of file transfers to run in parallel (default 4)
VFS Case Sensitivity
Linux file systems are case-sensitive: two files can differ only by case, and the exact case must be used when opening a file.
File systems in modern Windows are case-insensitive but case-preserving: although existing files can be opened using any case, the exact case used to create the file is preserved and available for programs to query. It is not allowed for two files in the same directory to differ only by case.
Usually file systems on macOS are case-insensitive. It is possible to make macOS file systems case-sensitive but that is not the default.
The --vfs-case-insensitive
VFS flag controls how rclone handles these two cases. If its value is "false", rclone passes file names to the remote as-is. If the flag is "true" (or appears without a value on the command line), rclone may perform a "fixup" as explained below.
The user may specify a file name to open/delete/rename/etc with a case different than what is stored on the remote. If an argument refers to an existing file with exactly the same name, then the case of the existing file on the disk will be used. However, if a file name with exactly the same name is not found but a name differing only by case exists, rclone will transparently fixup the name. This fixup happens only when an existing file is requested. Case sensitivity of file names created anew by rclone is controlled by the underlying remote.
Note that case sensitivity of the operating system running rclone (the target) may differ from case sensitivity of a file system presented by rclone (the source). The flag controls whether "fixup" is performed to satisfy the target.
If the flag is not provided on the command line, then its default value depends on the operating system where rclone runs: "true" on Windows and macOS, "false" otherwise. If the flag is provided without a value, then it is "true".
VFS Disk Options
This flag allows you to manually set the statistics about the filing system. It can be useful when those statistics cannot be read correctly automatically.
--vfs-disk-space-total-size Manually set the total disk space size (example: 256G, default: -1)
Alternate report of used bytes
Some backends, most notably S3, do not report the amount of bytes used. If you need this information to be available when running df
on the filesystem, then pass the flag --vfs-used-is-size
to rclone. With this flag set, instead of relying on the backend to report this information, rclone will scan the whole remote similar to rclone size
and compute the total used space itself.
WARNING. Contrary to rclone size
, this flag ignores filters so that the result is accurate. However, this is very inefficient and may cost lots of API calls resulting in extra charges. Use it as a last resort and only with caching.
Auth Proxy
If you supply the parameter --auth-proxy /path/to/program
then rclone will use that program to generate backends on the fly which then are used to authenticate incoming requests. This uses a simple JSON based protocol with input on STDIN and output on STDOUT.
PLEASE NOTE: --auth-proxy
and --authorized-keys
cannot be used together, if --auth-proxy
is set the authorized keys option will be ignored.
There is an example program bin/test_proxy.py (https://github.com/rclone/rclone/blob/master/test_proxy.py) in the rclone source code.
The program's job is to take a user
and pass
on the input and turn those into the config for a backend on STDOUT in JSON format. This config will have any default parameters for the backend added, but it won't use configuration from environment variables or command line options - it is the job of the proxy program to make a complete config.
This config generated must have this extra parameter - _root
- root to use for the backend
And it may have this parameter - _obscure
- comma separated strings for parameters to obscure
If password authentication was used by the client, input to the proxy process (on STDIN) would look similar to this:
{ "user": "me", "pass": "mypassword" }
If public-key authentication was used by the client, input to the proxy process (on STDIN) would look similar to this:
{ "user": "me", "public_key": "AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQDuwESFdAe14hVS6omeyX7edc...JQdf" }
And as an example return this on STDOUT
{ "type": "sftp", "_root": "", "_obscure": "pass", "user": "me", "pass": "mypassword", "host": "sftp.example.com" }
This would mean that an SFTP backend would be created on the fly for the user
and pass
/public_key
returned in the output to the host given. Note that since _obscure
is set to pass
, rclone will obscure the pass
parameter before creating the backend (which is required for sftp backends).
The program can manipulate the supplied user
in any way, for example to make proxy to many different sftp backends, you could make the user
be user@example.com
and then set the host
to example.com
in the output and the user to user
. For security you'd probably want to restrict the host
to a limited list.
Note that an internal cache is keyed on user
so only use that for configuration, don't use pass
or public_key
. This also means that if a user's password or public-key is changed the cache will need to expire (which takes 5 mins) before it takes effect.
This can be used to build general purpose proxies to any kind of backend that rclone supports.
rclone serve webdav remote:path [flags]
Options
--addr string IPaddress:Port or :Port to bind server to (default "localhost:8080") --auth-proxy string A program to use to create the backend from the auth --baseurl string Prefix for URLs - leave blank for root --cert string SSL PEM key (concatenation of certificate and CA certificate) --client-ca string Client certificate authority to verify clients with --dir-cache-time duration Time to cache directory entries for (default 5m0s) --dir-perms FileMode Directory permissions (default 0777) --disable-dir-list Disable HTML directory list on GET request for a directory --etag-hash string Which hash to use for the ETag, or auto or blank for off --file-perms FileMode File permissions (default 0666) --gid uint32 Override the gid field set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 1000) -h, --help help for webdav --htpasswd string htpasswd file - if not provided no authentication is done --key string SSL PEM Private key --max-header-bytes int Maximum size of request header (default 4096) --min-tls-version string Minimum TLS version that is acceptable (default "tls1.0") --no-checksum Don't compare checksums on up/download --no-modtime Don't read/write the modification time (can speed things up) --no-seek Don't allow seeking in files --pass string Password for authentication --poll-interval duration Time to wait between polling for changes, must be smaller than dir-cache-time and only on supported remotes (set 0 to disable) (default 1m0s) --read-only Only allow read-only access --realm string Realm for authentication (default "rclone") --server-read-timeout duration Timeout for server reading data (default 1h0m0s) --server-write-timeout duration Timeout for server writing data (default 1h0m0s) --template string User-specified template --uid uint32 Override the uid field set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 1000) --umask int Override the permission bits set by the filesystem (not supported on Windows) (default 2) --user string User name for authentication --vfs-cache-max-age duration Max age of objects in the cache (default 1h0m0s) --vfs-cache-max-size SizeSuffix Max total size of objects in the cache (default off) --vfs-cache-mode CacheMode Cache mode off|minimal|writes|full (default off) --vfs-cache-poll-interval duration Interval to poll the cache for stale objects (default 1m0s) --vfs-case-insensitive If a file name not found, find a case insensitive match --vfs-disk-space-total-size SizeSuffix Specify the total space of disk (default off) --vfs-fast-fingerprint Use fast (less accurate) fingerprints for change detection --vfs-read-ahead SizeSuffix Extra read ahead over --buffer-size when using cache-mode full --vfs-read-chunk-size SizeSuffix Read the source objects in chunks (default 128Mi) --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit SizeSuffix If greater than --vfs-read-chunk-size, double the chunk size after each chunk read, until the limit is reached ('off' is unlimited) (default off) --vfs-read-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence read before seeking (default 20ms) --vfs-used-is-size rclone size Use the rclone size algorithm for Used size --vfs-write-back duration Time to writeback files after last use when using cache (default 5s) --vfs-write-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence write before giving error (default 1s)
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone serve (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve/) - Serve a remote over a protocol.
rclone settier
Changes storage class/tier of objects in remote.
Synopsis
rclone settier changes storage tier or class at remote if supported. Few cloud storage services provides different storage classes on objects, for example AWS S3 and Glacier, Azure Blob storage - Hot, Cool and Archive, Google Cloud Storage, Regional Storage, Nearline, Coldline etc.
Note that, certain tier changes make objects not available to access immediately. For example tiering to archive in azure blob storage makes objects in frozen state, user can restore by setting tier to Hot/Cool, similarly S3 to Glacier makes object inaccessible.true
You can use it to tier single object
rclone settier Cool remote:path/file
Or use rclone filters to set tier on only specific files
rclone --include "*.txt" settier Hot remote:path/dir
Or just provide remote directory and all files in directory will be tiered
rclone settier tier remote:path/dir
rclone settier tier remote:path [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for settier
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone test
Run a test command
Synopsis
Rclone test is used to run test commands.
Select which test comand you want with the subcommand, eg
rclone test memory remote:
Each subcommand has its own options which you can see in their help.
NB Be careful running these commands, they may do strange things so reading their documentation first is recommended.
Options
-h, --help help for test
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
- rclone test changenotify (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_test_changenotify/) - Log any change notify requests for the remote passed in.
- rclone test histogram (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_test_histogram/) - Makes a histogram of file name characters.
- rclone test info (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_test_info/) - Discovers file name or other limitations for paths.
- rclone test makefile (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_test_makefile/) - Make files with random contents of the size given
- rclone test makefiles (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_test_makefiles/) - Make a random file hierarchy in a directory
- rclone test memory (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_test_memory/) - Load all the objects at remote:path into memory and report memory stats.
rclone test changenotify
Log any change notify requests for the remote passed in.
rclone test changenotify remote: [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for changenotify --poll-interval duration Time to wait between polling for changes (default 10s)
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone test (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_test/) - Run a test command
rclone test histogram
Makes a histogram of file name characters.
Synopsis
This command outputs JSON which shows the histogram of characters used in filenames in the remote:path specified.
The data doesn't contain any identifying information but is useful for the rclone developers when developing filename compression.
rclone test histogram [remote:path] [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for histogram
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone test (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_test/) - Run a test command
rclone test info
Discovers file name or other limitations for paths.
Synopsis
rclone info discovers what filenames and upload methods are possible to write to the paths passed in and how long they can be. It can take some time. It will write test files into the remote:path passed in. It outputs a bit of go code for each one.
NB this can create undeletable files and other hazards - use with care
rclone test info [remote:path]+ [flags]
Options
--all Run all tests --check-control Check control characters --check-length Check max filename length --check-normalization Check UTF-8 Normalization --check-streaming Check uploads with indeterminate file size -h, --help help for info --upload-wait duration Wait after writing a file --write-json string Write results to file
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone test (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_test/) - Run a test command
rclone test makefile
Make files with random contents of the size given
rclone test makefile <size> [<file>]+ [flags]
Options
--ascii Fill files with random ASCII printable bytes only --chargen Fill files with a ASCII chargen pattern -h, --help help for makefile --pattern Fill files with a periodic pattern --seed int Seed for the random number generator (0 for random) (default 1) --sparse Make the files sparse (appear to be filled with ASCII 0x00) --zero Fill files with ASCII 0x00
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone test (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_test/) - Run a test command
rclone test makefiles
Make a random file hierarchy in a directory
rclone test makefiles <dir> [flags]
Options
--ascii Fill files with random ASCII printable bytes only --chargen Fill files with a ASCII chargen pattern --files int Number of files to create (default 1000) --files-per-directory int Average number of files per directory (default 10) -h, --help help for makefiles --max-file-size SizeSuffix Maximum size of files to create (default 100) --max-name-length int Maximum size of file names (default 12) --min-file-size SizeSuffix Minimum size of file to create --min-name-length int Minimum size of file names (default 4) --pattern Fill files with a periodic pattern --seed int Seed for the random number generator (0 for random) (default 1) --sparse Make the files sparse (appear to be filled with ASCII 0x00) --zero Fill files with ASCII 0x00
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone test (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_test/) - Run a test command
rclone test memory
Load all the objects at remote:path into memory and report memory stats.
rclone test memory remote:path [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for memory
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone test (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_test/) - Run a test command
rclone touch
Create new file or change file modification time.
Synopsis
Set the modification time on file(s) as specified by remote:path to have the current time.
If remote:path does not exist then a zero sized file will be created, unless --no-create
or --recursive
is provided.
If --recursive
is used then recursively sets the modification time on all existing files that is found under the path. Filters are supported, and you can test with the --dry-run
or the --interactive
flag.
If --timestamp
is used then sets the modification time to that time instead of the current time. Times may be specified as one of:
- 'YYMMDD' - e.g. 17.10.30
- 'YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS' - e.g. 2006-01-02T15:04:05
- 'YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.SSS' - e.g. 2006-01-02T15:04:05.123456789
Note that value of --timestamp
is in UTC. If you want local time then add the --localtime
flag.
rclone touch remote:path [flags]
Options
-h, --help help for touch --localtime Use localtime for timestamp, not UTC -C, --no-create Do not create the file if it does not exist (implied with --recursive) -R, --recursive Recursively touch all files -t, --timestamp string Use specified time instead of the current time of day
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
rclone tree
List the contents of the remote in a tree like fashion.
Synopsis
rclone tree lists the contents of a remote in a similar way to the unix tree command.
For example
$ rclone tree remote:path / ├── file1 ├── file2 ├── file3 └── subdir ├── file4 └── file5 1 directories, 5 files
You can use any of the filtering options with the tree command (e.g. --include
and --exclude
. You can also use --fast-list
.
The tree command has many options for controlling the listing which are compatible with the tree command, for example you can include file sizes with --size
. Note that not all of them have short options as they conflict with rclone's short options.
For a more interactive navigation of the remote see the ncdu (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_ncdu/) command.
rclone tree remote:path [flags]
Options
-a, --all All files are listed (list . files too) -C, --color Turn colorization on always -d, --dirs-only List directories only --dirsfirst List directories before files (-U disables) --full-path Print the full path prefix for each file -h, --help help for tree --level int Descend only level directories deep -D, --modtime Print the date of last modification. --noindent Don't print indentation lines --noreport Turn off file/directory count at end of tree listing -o, --output string Output to file instead of stdout -p, --protections Print the protections for each file. -Q, --quote Quote filenames with double quotes. -s, --size Print the size in bytes of each file. --sort string Select sort: name,version,size,mtime,ctime --sort-ctime Sort files by last status change time -t, --sort-modtime Sort files by last modification time -r, --sort-reverse Reverse the order of the sort -U, --unsorted Leave files unsorted --version Sort files alphanumerically by version
See the global flags page (https://rclone.org/flags/) for global options not listed here.
See Also
- rclone (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
Copying single files
rclone normally syncs or copies directories. However, if the source remote points to a file, rclone will just copy that file. The destination remote must point to a directory - rclone will give the error Failed to create file system for "remote:file": is a file not a directory
if it isn't.
For example, suppose you have a remote with a file in called test.jpg
, then you could copy just that file like this
rclone copy remote:test.jpg /tmp/download
The file test.jpg
will be placed inside /tmp/download
.
This is equivalent to specifying
rclone copy --files-from /tmp/files remote: /tmp/download
Where /tmp/files
contains the single line
test.jpg
It is recommended to use copy
when copying individual files, not sync
. They have pretty much the same effect but copy
will use a lot less memory.
Syntax of remote paths
The syntax of the paths passed to the rclone command are as follows.
/path/to/dir
This refers to the local file system.
On Windows \
may be used instead of /
in local paths only, non local paths must use /
. See local filesystem (https://rclone.org/local/#paths-on-windows) documentation for more about Windows-specific paths.
These paths needn't start with a leading /
- if they don't then they will be relative to the current directory.
remote:path/to/dir
This refers to a directory path/to/dir
on remote:
as defined in the config file (configured with rclone config
).
remote:/path/to/dir
On most backends this is refers to the same directory as remote:path/to/dir
and that format should be preferred. On a very small number of remotes (FTP, SFTP, Dropbox for business) this will refer to a different directory. On these, paths without a leading /
will refer to your "home" directory and paths with a leading /
will refer to the root.
backend:path/to/dir
This is an advanced form for creating remotes on the fly. backend
should be the name or prefix of a backend (the type
in the config file) and all the configuration for the backend should be provided on the command line (or in environment variables).
Here are some examples:
rclone lsd --http-url https://pub.rclone.org :http:
To list all the directories in the root of https://pub.rclone.org/
.
rclone lsf --http-url https://example.com :http:path/to/dir
To list files and directories in https://example.com/path/to/dir/
rclone copy --http-url https://example.com :http:path/to/dir /tmp/dir
To copy files and directories in https://example.com/path/to/dir
to /tmp/dir
.
rclone copy --sftp-host example.com :sftp:path/to/dir /tmp/dir
To copy files and directories from example.com
in the relative directory path/to/dir
to /tmp/dir
using sftp.
Connection strings
The above examples can also be written using a connection string syntax, so instead of providing the arguments as command line parameters --http-url https://pub.rclone.org
they are provided as part of the remote specification as a kind of connection string.
rclone lsd ":http,url='https://pub.rclone.org':" rclone lsf ":http,url='https://example.com':path/to/dir" rclone copy ":http,url='https://example.com':path/to/dir" /tmp/dir rclone copy :sftp,host=example.com:path/to/dir /tmp/dir
These can apply to modify existing remotes as well as create new remotes with the on the fly syntax. This example is equivalent to adding the --drive-shared-with-me
parameter to the remote gdrive:
.
rclone lsf "gdrive,shared_with_me:path/to/dir"
The major advantage to using the connection string style syntax is that it only applies to the remote, not to all the remotes of that type of the command line. A common confusion is this attempt to copy a file shared on google drive to the normal drive which does not work because the --drive-shared-with-me
flag applies to both the source and the destination.
rclone copy --drive-shared-with-me gdrive:shared-file.txt gdrive:
However using the connection string syntax, this does work.
rclone copy "gdrive,shared_with_me:shared-file.txt" gdrive:
Note that the connection string only affects the options of the immediate backend. If for example gdriveCrypt is a crypt based on gdrive, then the following command will not work as intended, because shared_with_me
is ignored by the crypt backend:
rclone copy "gdriveCrypt,shared_with_me:shared-file.txt" gdriveCrypt:
The connection strings have the following syntax
remote,parameter=value,parameter2=value2:path/to/dir :backend,parameter=value,parameter2=value2:path/to/dir
If the parameter
has a :
or ,
then it must be placed in quotes "
or '
, so
remote,parameter="colon:value",parameter2="comma,value":path/to/dir :backend,parameter='colon:value',parameter2='comma,value':path/to/dir
If a quoted value needs to include that quote, then it should be doubled, so
remote,parameter="with""quote",parameter2='with''quote':path/to/dir
This will make parameter
be with"quote
and parameter2
be with'quote
.
If you leave off the =parameter
then rclone will substitute =true
which works very well with flags. For example, to use s3 configured in the environment you could use:
rclone lsd :s3,env_auth:
Which is equivalent to
rclone lsd :s3,env_auth=true:
Note that on the command line you might need to surround these connection strings with "
or '
to stop the shell interpreting any special characters within them.
If you are a shell master then you'll know which strings are OK and which aren't, but if you aren't sure then enclose them in "
and use '
as the inside quote. This syntax works on all OSes.
rclone copy ":http,url='https://example.com':path/to/dir" /tmp/dir
On Linux/macOS some characters are still interpreted inside "
strings in the shell (notably \
and $
and "
) so if your strings contain those you can swap the roles of "
and '
thus. (This syntax does not work on Windows.)
rclone copy ':http,url="https://example.com":path/to/dir' /tmp/dir
Connection strings, config and logging
If you supply extra configuration to a backend by command line flag, environment variable or connection string then rclone will add a suffix based on the hash of the config to the name of the remote, eg
rclone -vv lsf --s3-chunk-size 20M s3:
Has the log message
DEBUG : s3: detected overridden config - adding "{Srj1p}" suffix to name
This is so rclone can tell the modified remote apart from the unmodified remote when caching the backends.
This should only be noticeable in the logs.
This means that on the fly backends such as
rclone -vv lsf :s3,env_auth:
Will get their own names
DEBUG : :s3: detected overridden config - adding "{YTu53}" suffix to name
Valid remote names
Remote names are case sensitive, and must adhere to the following rules: - May only contain 0
-9
, A
-Z
, a
-z
, _
, -
, .
and space. - May not start with -
or space.
Quoting and the shell
When you are typing commands to your computer you are using something called the command line shell. This interprets various characters in an OS specific way.
Here are some gotchas which may help users unfamiliar with the shell rules
Linux / OSX
If your names have spaces or shell metacharacters (e.g. *
, ?
, $
, '
, "
, etc.) then you must quote them. Use single quotes '
by default.
rclone copy 'Important files?' remote:backup
If you want to send a '
you will need to use "
, e.g.
rclone copy "O'Reilly Reviews" remote:backup
The rules for quoting metacharacters are complicated and if you want the full details you'll have to consult the manual page for your shell.
Windows
If your names have spaces in you need to put them in "
, e.g.
rclone copy "E:\folder name\folder name\folder name" remote:backup
If you are using the root directory on its own then don't quote it (see #464 (https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/464) for why), e.g.
rclone copy E:\ remote:backup
Copying files or directories with : in the names
rclone uses :
to mark a remote name. This is, however, a valid filename component in non-Windows OSes. The remote name parser will only search for a :
up to the first /
so if you need to act on a file or directory like this then use the full path starting with a /
, or use ./
as a current directory prefix.
So to sync a directory called sync:me
to a remote called remote:
use
rclone sync -i ./sync:me remote:path
or
rclone sync -i /full/path/to/sync:me remote:path
Server Side Copy
Most remotes (but not all - see the overview (https://rclone.org/overview/#optional-features)) support server-side copy.
This means if you want to copy one folder to another then rclone won't download all the files and re-upload them; it will instruct the server to copy them in place.
Eg
rclone copy s3:oldbucket s3:newbucket
Will copy the contents of oldbucket
to newbucket
without downloading and re-uploading.
Remotes which don't support server-side copy will download and re-upload in this case.
Server side copies are used with sync
and copy
and will be identified in the log when using the -v
flag. The move
command may also use them if remote doesn't support server-side move directly. This is done by issuing a server-side copy then a delete which is much quicker than a download and re-upload.
Server side copies will only be attempted if the remote names are the same.
This can be used when scripting to make aged backups efficiently, e.g.
rclone sync -i remote:current-backup remote:previous-backup rclone sync -i /path/to/files remote:current-backup
Metadata support
Metadata is data about a file which isn't the contents of the file. Normally rclone only preserves the modification time and the content (MIME) type where possible.
Rclone supports preserving all the available metadata on files (not directories) when using the --metadata
or -M
flag.
Exactly what metadata is supported and what that support means depends on the backend. Backends that support metadata have a metadata section in their docs and are listed in the features table (https://rclone.org/overview/#features) (Eg local (https://rclone.org/local/#metadata), s3)
Rclone only supports a one-time sync of metadata. This means that metadata will be synced from the source object to the destination object only when the source object has changed and needs to be re-uploaded. If the metadata subsequently changes on the source object without changing the object itself then it won't be synced to the destination object. This is in line with the way rclone syncs Content-Type
without the --metadata
flag.
Using --metadata
when syncing from local to local will preserve file attributes such as file mode, owner, extended attributes (not Windows).
Note that arbitrary metadata may be added to objects using the --metadata-set key=value
flag when the object is first uploaded. This flag can be repeated as many times as necessary.
Types of metadata
Metadata is divided into two type. System metadata and User metadata.
Metadata which the backend uses itself is called system metadata. For example on the local backend the system metadata uid
will store the user ID of the file when used on a unix based platform.
Arbitrary metadata is called user metadata and this can be set however is desired.
When objects are copied from backend to backend, they will attempt to interpret system metadata if it is supplied. Metadata may change from being user metadata to system metadata as objects are copied between different backends. For example copying an object from s3 sets the content-type
metadata. In a backend which understands this (like azureblob
) this will become the Content-Type of the object. In a backend which doesn't understand this (like the local
backend) this will become user metadata. However should the local object be copied back to s3, the Content-Type will be set correctly.
Metadata framework
Rclone implements a metadata framework which can read metadata from an object and write it to the object when (and only when) it is being uploaded.
This metadata is stored as a dictionary with string keys and string values.
There are some limits on the names of the keys (these may be clarified further in the future).
- must be lower case
- may be
a-z 0-9
containing. -
or_
- length is backend dependent
Each backend can provide system metadata that it understands. Some backends can also store arbitrary user metadata.
Where possible the key names are standardized, so, for example, it is possible to copy object metadata from s3 to azureblob for example and metadata will be translated appropriately.
Some backends have limits on the size of the metadata and rclone will give errors on upload if they are exceeded.
Metadata preservation
The goal of the implementation is to
- Preserve metadata if at all possible
- Interpret metadata if at all possible
The consequences of 1 is that you can copy an S3 object to a local disk then back to S3 losslessly. Likewise you can copy a local file with file attributes and xattrs from local disk to s3 and back again losslessly.
The consequence of 2 is that you can copy an S3 object with metadata to Azureblob (say) and have the metadata appear on the Azureblob object also.
Standard system metadata
Here is a table of standard system metadata which, if appropriate, a backend may implement.
key | description | example |
mode | File type and mode: octal, unix style | 0100664 |
uid | User ID of owner: decimal number | 500 |
gid | Group ID of owner: decimal number | 500 |
rdev | Device ID (if special file) => hexadecimal | 0 |
atime | Time of last access: RFC 3339 | 2006-01-02T15:04:05.999999999Z07:00 |
mtime | Time of last modification: RFC 3339 | 2006-01-02T15:04:05.999999999Z07:00 |
btime | Time of file creation (birth): RFC 3339 | 2006-01-02T15:04:05.999999999Z07:00 |
cache-control | Cache-Control header | no-cache |
content-disposition | Content-Disposition header | inline |
content-encoding | Content-Encoding header | gzip |
content-language | Content-Language header | en-US |
content-type | Content-Type header | text/plain |
The metadata keys mtime
and content-type
will take precedence if supplied in the metadata over reading the Content-Type
or modification time of the source object.
Hashes are not included in system metadata as there is a well defined way of reading those already.
Options
Rclone has a number of options to control its behaviour.
Options that take parameters can have the values passed in two ways, --option=value
or --option value
. However boolean (true/false) options behave slightly differently to the other options in that --boolean
sets the option to true
and the absence of the flag sets it to false
. It is also possible to specify --boolean=false
or --boolean=true
. Note that --boolean false
is not valid - this is parsed as --boolean
and the false
is parsed as an extra command line argument for rclone.
Time or duration options
TIME or DURATION options can be specified as a duration string or a time string.
A duration string is a possibly signed sequence of decimal numbers, each with optional fraction and a unit suffix, such as "300ms", "-1.5h" or "2h45m". Default units are seconds or the following abbreviations are valid:
ms
- Millisecondss
- Secondsm
- Minutesh
- Hoursd
- Daysw
- WeeksM
- Monthsy
- Years
These can also be specified as an absolute time in the following formats:
- RFC3339 - e.g.
2006-01-02T15:04:05Z
or2006-01-02T15:04:05+07:00
- ISO8601 Date and time, local timezone -
2006-01-02T15:04:05
- ISO8601 Date and time, local timezone -
2006-01-02 15:04:05
- ISO8601 Date -
2006-01-02
(YYYY-MM-DD)
Size options
Options which use SIZE use KiB (multiples of 1024 bytes) by default. However, a suffix of B
for Byte, K
for KiB, M
for MiB, G
for GiB, T
for TiB and P
for PiB may be used. These are the binary units, e.g. 1, 2**10, 2**20, 2**30 respectively.
--backup-dir=DIR
When using sync
, copy
or move
any files which would have been overwritten or deleted are moved in their original hierarchy into this directory.
If --suffix
is set, then the moved files will have the suffix added to them. If there is a file with the same path (after the suffix has been added) in DIR, then it will be overwritten.
The remote in use must support server-side move or copy and you must use the same remote as the destination of the sync. The backup directory must not overlap the destination directory without it being excluded by a filter rule.
For example
rclone sync -i /path/to/local remote:current --backup-dir remote:old
will sync /path/to/local
to remote:current
, but for any files which would have been updated or deleted will be stored in remote:old
.
If running rclone from a script you might want to use today's date as the directory name passed to --backup-dir
to store the old files, or you might want to pass --suffix
with today's date.
See --compare-dest
and --copy-dest
.
--bind string
Local address to bind to for outgoing connections. This can be an IPv4 address (1.2.3.4), an IPv6 address (1234::789A) or host name. If the host name doesn't resolve or resolves to more than one IP address it will give an error.
--bwlimit=BANDWIDTH_SPEC
This option controls the bandwidth limit. For example
--bwlimit 10M
would mean limit the upload and download bandwidth to 10 MiB/s. NB this is bytes per second not bits per second. To use a single limit, specify the desired bandwidth in KiB/s, or use a suffix B|K|M|G|T|P. The default is 0
which means to not limit bandwidth.
The upload and download bandwidth can be specified separately, as --bwlimit UP:DOWN
, so
--bwlimit 10M:100k
would mean limit the upload bandwidth to 10 MiB/s and the download bandwidth to 100 KiB/s. Either limit can be "off" meaning no limit, so to just limit the upload bandwidth you would use
--bwlimit 10M:off
this would limit the upload bandwidth to 10 MiB/s but the download bandwidth would be unlimited.
When specified as above the bandwidth limits last for the duration of run of the rclone binary.
It is also possible to specify a "timetable" of limits, which will cause certain limits to be applied at certain times. To specify a timetable, format your entries as WEEKDAY-HH:MM,BANDWIDTH WEEKDAY-HH:MM,BANDWIDTH...
where: WEEKDAY
is optional element.
BANDWIDTH
can be a single number, e.g.100k
or a pair of numbers for upload:download, e.g.10M:1M
.WEEKDAY
can be written as the whole word or only using the first 3 characters. It is optional.HH:MM
is an hour from 00:00 to 23:59.
An example of a typical timetable to avoid link saturation during daytime working hours could be:
--bwlimit "08:00,512k 12:00,10M 13:00,512k 18:00,30M 23:00,off"
In this example, the transfer bandwidth will be set to 512 KiB/s at 8am every day. At noon, it will rise to 10 MiB/s, and drop back to 512 KiB/sec at 1pm. At 6pm, the bandwidth limit will be set to 30 MiB/s, and at 11pm it will be completely disabled (full speed). Anything between 11pm and 8am will remain unlimited.
An example of timetable with WEEKDAY
could be:
--bwlimit "Mon-00:00,512 Fri-23:59,10M Sat-10:00,1M Sun-20:00,off"
It means that, the transfer bandwidth will be set to 512 KiB/s on Monday. It will rise to 10 MiB/s before the end of Friday. At 10:00 on Saturday it will be set to 1 MiB/s. From 20:00 on Sunday it will be unlimited.
Timeslots without WEEKDAY
are extended to the whole week. So this example:
--bwlimit "Mon-00:00,512 12:00,1M Sun-20:00,off"
Is equivalent to this:
--bwlimit "Mon-00:00,512Mon-12:00,1M Tue-12:00,1M Wed-12:00,1M Thu-12:00,1M Fri-12:00,1M Sat-12:00,1M Sun-12:00,1M Sun-20:00,off"
Bandwidth limit apply to the data transfer for all backends. For most backends the directory listing bandwidth is also included (exceptions being the non HTTP backends, ftp
, sftp
and storj
).
Note that the units are Byte/s, not bit/s. Typically connections are measured in bit/s - to convert divide by 8. For example, let's say you have a 10 Mbit/s connection and you wish rclone to use half of it - 5 Mbit/s. This is 5/8 = 0.625 MiB/s so you would use a --bwlimit 0.625M
parameter for rclone.
On Unix systems (Linux, macOS, ...) the bandwidth limiter can be toggled by sending a SIGUSR2
signal to rclone. This allows to remove the limitations of a long running rclone transfer and to restore it back to the value specified with --bwlimit
quickly when needed. Assuming there is only one rclone instance running, you can toggle the limiter like this:
kill -SIGUSR2 $(pidof rclone)
If you configure rclone with a remote control then you can use change the bwlimit dynamically:
rclone rc core/bwlimit rate=1M
--bwlimit-file=BANDWIDTH_SPEC
This option controls per file bandwidth limit. For the options see the --bwlimit
flag.
For example use this to allow no transfers to be faster than 1 MiB/s
--bwlimit-file 1M
This can be used in conjunction with --bwlimit
.
Note that if a schedule is provided the file will use the schedule in effect at the start of the transfer.
--buffer-size=SIZE
Use this sized buffer to speed up file transfers. Each --transfer
will use this much memory for buffering.
When using mount
or cmount
each open file descriptor will use this much memory for buffering. See the mount (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_mount/#file-buffering) documentation for more details.
Set to 0
to disable the buffering for the minimum memory usage.
Note that the memory allocation of the buffers is influenced by the --use-mmap flag.
--cache-dir=DIR
Specify the directory rclone will use for caching, to override the default.
Default value is depending on operating system: - Windows %LocalAppData%\rclone
, if LocalAppData
is defined. - macOS $HOME/Library/Caches/rclone
if HOME
is defined. - Unix $XDG_CACHE_HOME/rclone
if XDG_CACHE_HOME
is defined, else $HOME/.cache/rclone
if HOME
is defined. - Fallback (on all OS) to $TMPDIR/rclone
, where TMPDIR
is the value from --temp-dir.
You can use the config paths (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_paths/) command to see the current value.
Cache directory is heavily used by the VFS File Caching (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_mount/#vfs-file-caching) mount feature, but also by serve (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve/), GUI and other parts of rclone.
--check-first
If this flag is set then in a sync
, copy
or move
, rclone will do all the checks to see whether files need to be transferred before doing any of the transfers. Normally rclone would start running transfers as soon as possible.
This flag can be useful on IO limited systems where transfers interfere with checking.
It can also be useful to ensure perfect ordering when using --order-by
.
Using this flag can use more memory as it effectively sets --max-backlog
to infinite. This means that all the info on the objects to transfer is held in memory before the transfers start.
--checkers=N
Originally controlling just the number of file checkers to run in parallel, e.g. by rclone copy
. Now a fairly universal parallelism control used by rclone
in several places.
Note: checkers do the equality checking of files during a sync. For some storage systems (e.g. S3, Swift, Dropbox) this can take a significant amount of time so they are run in parallel.
The default is to run 8 checkers in parallel. However, in case of slow-reacting backends you may need to lower (rather than increase) this default by setting --checkers
to 4 or less threads. This is especially advised if you are experiencing backend server crashes during file checking phase (e.g. on subsequent or top-up backups where little or no file copying is done and checking takes up most of the time). Increase this setting only with utmost care, while monitoring your server health and file checking throughput.
-c, --checksum
Normally rclone will look at modification time and size of files to see if they are equal. If you set this flag then rclone will check the file hash and size to determine if files are equal.
This is useful when the remote doesn't support setting modified time and a more accurate sync is desired than just checking the file size.
This is very useful when transferring between remotes which store the same hash type on the object, e.g. Drive and Swift. For details of which remotes support which hash type see the table in the overview section (https://rclone.org/overview/).
Eg rclone --checksum sync s3:/bucket swift:/bucket
would run much quicker than without the --checksum
flag.
When using this flag, rclone won't update mtimes of remote files if they are incorrect as it would normally.
--compare-dest=DIR
When using sync
, copy
or move
DIR is checked in addition to the destination for files. If a file identical to the source is found that file is NOT copied from source. This is useful to copy just files that have changed since the last backup.
You must use the same remote as the destination of the sync. The compare directory must not overlap the destination directory.
See --copy-dest
and --backup-dir
.
--config=CONFIG_FILE
Specify the location of the rclone configuration file, to override the default. E.g. rclone config --config="rclone.conf"
.
The exact default is a bit complex to describe, due to changes introduced through different versions of rclone while preserving backwards compatibility, but in most cases it is as simple as:
%APPDATA%/rclone/rclone.conf
on Windows~/.config/rclone/rclone.conf
on other
The complete logic is as follows: Rclone will look for an existing configuration file in any of the following locations, in priority order:
rclone.conf
(in program directory, where rclone executable is)%APPDATA%/rclone/rclone.conf
(only on Windows)$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/rclone/rclone.conf
(on all systems, including Windows)~/.config/rclone/rclone.conf
(see below for explanation of ~ symbol)~/.rclone.conf
If no existing configuration file is found, then a new one will be created in the following location:
- On Windows: Location 2 listed above, except in the unlikely event that
APPDATA
is not defined, then location 4 is used instead. - On Unix: Location 3 if
XDG_CONFIG_HOME
is defined, else location 4. - Fallback to location 5 (on all OS), when the rclone directory cannot be created, but if also a home directory was not found then path
.rclone.conf
relative to current working directory will be used as a final resort.
The ~
symbol in paths above represent the home directory of the current user on any OS, and the value is defined as following:
- On Windows:
%HOME%
if defined, else%USERPROFILE%
, or else%HOMEDRIVE%\%HOMEPATH%
. - On Unix:
$HOME
if defined, else by looking up current user in OS-specific user database (e.g. passwd file), or else use the result from shell commandcd && pwd
.
If you run rclone config file
you will see where the default location is for you.
The fact that an existing file rclone.conf
in the same directory as the rclone executable is always preferred, means that it is easy to run in "portable" mode by downloading rclone executable to a writable directory and then create an empty file rclone.conf
in the same directory.
If the location is set to empty string ""
or path to a file with name notfound
, or the os null device represented by value NUL
on Windows and /dev/null
on Unix systems, then rclone will keep the config file in memory only.
The file format is basic INI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INI_file#Format): Sections of text, led by a [section]
header and followed by key=value
entries on separate lines. In rclone each remote is represented by its own section, where the section name defines the name of the remote. Options are specified as the key=value
entries, where the key is the option name without the --backend-
prefix, in lowercase and with _
instead of -
. E.g. option --mega-hard-delete
corresponds to key hard_delete
. Only backend options can be specified. A special, and required, key type
identifies the storage system (https://rclone.org/overview/), where the value is the internal lowercase name as returned by command rclone help backends
. Comments are indicated by ;
or #
at the beginning of a line.
Example:
[megaremote] type = mega user = you@example.com pass = PDPcQVVjVtzFY-GTdDFozqBhTdsPg3qH
Note that passwords are in obscured (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_obscure/) form. Also, many storage systems uses token-based authentication instead of passwords, and this requires additional steps. It is easier, and safer, to use the interactive command rclone config
instead of manually editing the configuration file.
The configuration file will typically contain login information, and should therefore have restricted permissions so that only the current user can read it. Rclone tries to ensure this when it writes the file. You may also choose to encrypt the file.
When token-based authentication are used, the configuration file must be writable, because rclone needs to update the tokens inside it.
--contimeout=TIME
Set the connection timeout. This should be in go time format which looks like 5s
for 5 seconds, 10m
for 10 minutes, or 3h30m
.
The connection timeout is the amount of time rclone will wait for a connection to go through to a remote object storage system. It is 1m
by default.
--copy-dest=DIR
When using sync
, copy
or move
DIR is checked in addition to the destination for files. If a file identical to the source is found that file is server-side copied from DIR to the destination. This is useful for incremental backup.
The remote in use must support server-side copy and you must use the same remote as the destination of the sync. The compare directory must not overlap the destination directory.
See --compare-dest
and --backup-dir
.
--dedupe-mode MODE
Mode to run dedupe command in. One of interactive
, skip
, first
, newest
, oldest
, rename
. The default is interactive
.
See the dedupe command for more information as to what these options mean.
--disable FEATURE,FEATURE,...
This disables a comma separated list of optional features. For example to disable server-side move and server-side copy use:
--disable move,copy
The features can be put in any case.
To see a list of which features can be disabled use:
--disable help
See the overview features (https://rclone.org/overview/#features) and optional features (https://rclone.org/overview/#optional-features) to get an idea of which feature does what.
This flag can be useful for debugging and in exceptional circumstances (e.g. Google Drive limiting the total volume of Server Side Copies to 100 GiB/day).
--disable-http2
This stops rclone from trying to use HTTP/2 if available. This can sometimes speed up transfers due to a problem in the Go standard library (https://github.com/golang/go/issues/37373).
--dscp VALUE
Specify a DSCP value or name to use in connections. This could help QoS system to identify traffic class. BE, EF, DF, LE, CSx and AFxx are allowed.
See the description of differentiated services (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differentiated_services) to get an idea of this field. Setting this to 1 (LE) to identify the flow to SCAVENGER class can avoid occupying too much bandwidth in a network with DiffServ support (RFC 8622 (https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8622)).
For example, if you configured QoS on router to handle LE properly. Running:
rclone copy --dscp LE from:/from to:/to
would make the priority lower than usual internet flows.
This option has no effect on Windows (see golang/go#42728 (https://github.com/golang/go/issues/42728)).
-n, --dry-run
Do a trial run with no permanent changes. Use this to see what rclone would do without actually doing it. Useful when setting up the sync
command which deletes files in the destination.
--expect-continue-timeout=TIME
This specifies the amount of time to wait for a server's first response headers after fully writing the request headers if the request has an "Expect: 100-continue" header. Not all backends support using this.
Zero means no timeout and causes the body to be sent immediately, without waiting for the server to approve. This time does not include the time to send the request header.
The default is 1s
. Set to 0
to disable.
--error-on-no-transfer
By default, rclone will exit with return code 0 if there were no errors.
This option allows rclone to return exit code 9 if no files were transferred between the source and destination. This allows using rclone in scripts, and triggering follow-on actions if data was copied, or skipping if not.
NB: Enabling this option turns a usually non-fatal error into a potentially fatal one - please check and adjust your scripts accordingly!
--fs-cache-expire-duration=TIME
When using rclone via the API rclone caches created remotes for 5 minutes by default in the "fs cache". This means that if you do repeated actions on the same remote then rclone won't have to build it again from scratch, which makes it more efficient.
This flag sets the time that the remotes are cached for. If you set it to 0
(or negative) then rclone won't cache the remotes at all.
Note that if you use some flags, eg --backup-dir
and if this is set to 0
rclone may build two remotes (one for the source or destination and one for the --backup-dir
where it may have only built one before.
--fs-cache-expire-interval=TIME
This controls how often rclone checks for cached remotes to expire. See the --fs-cache-expire-duration
documentation above for more info. The default is 60s, set to 0 to disable expiry.
--header
Add an HTTP header for all transactions. The flag can be repeated to add multiple headers.
If you want to add headers only for uploads use --header-upload
and if you want to add headers only for downloads use --header-download
.
This flag is supported for all HTTP based backends even those not supported by --header-upload
and --header-download
so may be used as a workaround for those with care.
rclone ls remote:test --header "X-Rclone: Foo" --header "X-LetMeIn: Yes"
--header-download
Add an HTTP header for all download transactions. The flag can be repeated to add multiple headers.
rclone sync -i s3:test/src ~/dst --header-download "X-Amz-Meta-Test: Foo" --header-download "X-Amz-Meta-Test2: Bar"
See the GitHub issue here (https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/59) for currently supported backends.
--header-upload
Add an HTTP header for all upload transactions. The flag can be repeated to add multiple headers.
rclone sync -i ~/src s3:test/dst --header-upload "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='cool.html'" --header-upload "X-Amz-Meta-Test: FooBar"
See the GitHub issue here (https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/59) for currently supported backends.
--human-readable
Rclone commands output values for sizes (e.g. number of bytes) and counts (e.g. number of files) either as raw numbers, or in human-readable format.
In human-readable format the values are scaled to larger units, indicated with a suffix shown after the value, and rounded to three decimals. Rclone consistently uses binary units (powers of 2) for sizes and decimal units (powers of 10) for counts. The unit prefix for size is according to IEC standard notation, e.g. Ki
for kibi. Used with byte unit, 1 KiB
means 1024 Byte. In list type of output, only the unit prefix appended to the value (e.g. 9.762Ki
), while in more textual output the full unit is shown (e.g. 9.762 KiB
). For counts the SI standard notation is used, e.g. prefix k
for kilo. Used with file counts, 1k
means 1000 files.
The various list (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_ls/) commands output raw numbers by default. Option --human-readable
will make them output values in human-readable format instead (with the short unit prefix).
The about (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_about/) command outputs human-readable by default, with a command-specific option --full
to output the raw numbers instead.
Command size (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_size/) outputs both human-readable and raw numbers in the same output.
The tree (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_tree/) command also considers --human-readable
, but it will not use the exact same notation as the other commands: It rounds to one decimal, and uses single letter suffix, e.g. K
instead of Ki
. The reason for this is that it relies on an external library.
The interactive command ncdu (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_ncdu/) shows human-readable by default, and responds to key u
for toggling human-readable format.
--ignore-case-sync
Using this option will cause rclone to ignore the case of the files when synchronizing so files will not be copied/synced when the existing filenames are the same, even if the casing is different.
--ignore-checksum
Normally rclone will check that the checksums of transferred files match, and give an error "corrupted on transfer" if they don't.
You can use this option to skip that check. You should only use it if you have had the "corrupted on transfer" error message and you are sure you might want to transfer potentially corrupted data.
--ignore-existing
Using this option will make rclone unconditionally skip all files that exist on the destination, no matter the content of these files.
While this isn't a generally recommended option, it can be useful in cases where your files change due to encryption. However, it cannot correct partial transfers in case a transfer was interrupted.
When performing a move
/moveto
command, this flag will leave skipped files in the source location unchanged when a file with the same name exists on the destination.
--ignore-size
Normally rclone will look at modification time and size of files to see if they are equal. If you set this flag then rclone will check only the modification time. If --checksum
is set then it only checks the checksum.
It will also cause rclone to skip verifying the sizes are the same after transfer.
This can be useful for transferring files to and from OneDrive which occasionally misreports the size of image files (see #399 (https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/399) for more info).
-I, --ignore-times
Using this option will cause rclone to unconditionally upload all files regardless of the state of files on the destination.
Normally rclone would skip any files that have the same modification time and are the same size (or have the same checksum if using --checksum
).
--immutable
Treat source and destination files as immutable and disallow modification.
With this option set, files will be created and deleted as requested, but existing files will never be updated. If an existing file does not match between the source and destination, rclone will give the error Source and destination exist but do not match: immutable file modified
.
Note that only commands which transfer files (e.g. sync
, copy
, move
) are affected by this behavior, and only modification is disallowed. Files may still be deleted explicitly (e.g. delete
, purge
) or implicitly (e.g. sync
, move
). Use copy --immutable
if it is desired to avoid deletion as well as modification.
This can be useful as an additional layer of protection for immutable or append-only data sets (notably backup archives), where modification implies corruption and should not be propagated.
-i / --interactive
This flag can be used to tell rclone that you wish a manual confirmation before destructive operations.
It is recommended that you use this flag while learning rclone especially with rclone sync
.
For example
$ rclone delete -i /tmp/dir rclone: delete "important-file.txt"? y) Yes, this is OK (default) n) No, skip this s) Skip all delete operations with no more questions !) Do all delete operations with no more questions q) Exit rclone now. y/n/s/!/q> n
The options mean
y
: Yes, this operation should go ahead. You can also press Return for this to happen. You'll be asked every time unless you chooses
or!
.n
: No, do not do this operation. You'll be asked every time unless you chooses
or!
.s
: Skip all the following operations of this type with no more questions. This takes effect until rclone exits. If there are any different kind of operations you'll be prompted for them.!
: Do all the following operations with no more questions. Useful if you've decided that you don't mind rclone doing that kind of operation. This takes effect until rclone exits . If there are any different kind of operations you'll be prompted for them.q
: Quit rclone now, just in case!
--leave-root
During rmdirs it will not remove root directory, even if it's empty.
--log-file=FILE
Log all of rclone's output to FILE. This is not active by default. This can be useful for tracking down problems with syncs in combination with the -v
flag. See the Logging section for more info.
If FILE exists then rclone will append to it.
Note that if you are using the logrotate
program to manage rclone's logs, then you should use the copytruncate
option as rclone doesn't have a signal to rotate logs.
--log-format LIST
Comma separated list of log format options. Accepted options are date
, time
, microseconds
, pid
, longfile
, shortfile
, UTC
. Any other keywords will be silently ignored. pid
will tag log messages with process identifier which useful with rclone mount --daemon
. Other accepted options are explained in the go documentation (https://pkg.go.dev/log#pkg-constants). The default log format is "date
,time
".
--log-level LEVEL
This sets the log level for rclone. The default log level is NOTICE
.
DEBUG
is equivalent to -vv
. It outputs lots of debug info - useful for bug reports and really finding out what rclone is doing.
INFO
is equivalent to -v
. It outputs information about each transfer and prints stats once a minute by default.
NOTICE
is the default log level if no logging flags are supplied. It outputs very little when things are working normally. It outputs warnings and significant events.
ERROR
is equivalent to -q
. It only outputs error messages.
--use-json-log
This switches the log format to JSON for rclone. The fields of json log are level, msg, source, time.
--low-level-retries NUMBER
This controls the number of low level retries rclone does.
A low level retry is used to retry a failing operation - typically one HTTP request. This might be uploading a chunk of a big file for example. You will see low level retries in the log with the -v
flag.
This shouldn't need to be changed from the default in normal operations. However, if you get a lot of low level retries you may wish to reduce the value so rclone moves on to a high level retry (see the --retries
flag) quicker.
Disable low level retries with --low-level-retries 1
.
--max-backlog=N
This is the maximum allowable backlog of files in a sync/copy/move queued for being checked or transferred.
This can be set arbitrarily large. It will only use memory when the queue is in use. Note that it will use in the order of N KiB of memory when the backlog is in use.
Setting this large allows rclone to calculate how many files are pending more accurately, give a more accurate estimated finish time and make --order-by
work more accurately.
Setting this small will make rclone more synchronous to the listings of the remote which may be desirable.
Setting this to a negative number will make the backlog as large as possible.
--max-delete=N
This tells rclone not to delete more than N files. If that limit is exceeded then a fatal error will be generated and rclone will stop the operation in progress.
--max-depth=N
This modifies the recursion depth for all the commands except purge.
So if you do rclone --max-depth 1 ls remote:path
you will see only the files in the top level directory. Using --max-depth 2
means you will see all the files in first two directory levels and so on.
For historical reasons the lsd
command defaults to using a --max-depth
of 1 - you can override this with the command line flag.
You can use this command to disable recursion (with --max-depth 1
).
Note that if you use this with sync
and --delete-excluded
the files not recursed through are considered excluded and will be deleted on the destination. Test first with --dry-run
if you are not sure what will happen.
--max-duration=TIME
Rclone will stop scheduling new transfers when it has run for the duration specified.
Defaults to off.
When the limit is reached any existing transfers will complete.
Rclone won't exit with an error if the transfer limit is reached.
--max-transfer=SIZE
Rclone will stop transferring when it has reached the size specified. Defaults to off.
When the limit is reached all transfers will stop immediately.
Rclone will exit with exit code 8 if the transfer limit is reached.
--metadata / -M
Setting this flag enables rclone to copy the metadata from the source to the destination. For local backends this is ownership, permissions, xattr etc. See the #metadata for more info.
--metadata-set key=value
Add metadata key
= value
when uploading. This can be repeated as many times as required. See the #metadata for more info.
--cutoff-mode=hard|soft|cautious
This modifies the behavior of --max-transfer
Defaults to --cutoff-mode=hard
.
Specifying --cutoff-mode=hard
will stop transferring immediately when Rclone reaches the limit.
Specifying --cutoff-mode=soft
will stop starting new transfers when Rclone reaches the limit.
Specifying --cutoff-mode=cautious
will try to prevent Rclone from reaching the limit.
--modify-window=TIME
When checking whether a file has been modified, this is the maximum allowed time difference that a file can have and still be considered equivalent.
The default is 1ns
unless this is overridden by a remote. For example OS X only stores modification times to the nearest second so if you are reading and writing to an OS X filing system this will be 1s
by default.
This command line flag allows you to override that computed default.
--multi-thread-cutoff=SIZE
When downloading files to the local backend above this size, rclone will use multiple threads to download the file (default 250M).
Rclone preallocates the file (using fallocate(FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE)
on unix or NTSetInformationFile
on Windows both of which takes no time) then each thread writes directly into the file at the correct place. This means that rclone won't create fragmented or sparse files and there won't be any assembly time at the end of the transfer.
The number of threads used to download is controlled by --multi-thread-streams
.
Use -vv
if you wish to see info about the threads.
This will work with the sync
/copy
/move
commands and friends copyto
/moveto
. Multi thread downloads will be used with rclone mount
and rclone serve
if --vfs-cache-mode
is set to writes
or above.
NB that this only works for a local destination but will work with any source.
NB that multi thread copies are disabled for local to local copies as they are faster without unless --multi-thread-streams
is set explicitly.
NB on Windows using multi-thread downloads will cause the resulting files to be sparse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparse_file). Use --local-no-sparse
to disable sparse files (which may cause long delays at the start of downloads) or disable multi-thread downloads with --multi-thread-streams 0
--multi-thread-streams=N
When using multi thread downloads (see above --multi-thread-cutoff
) this sets the maximum number of streams to use. Set to 0
to disable multi thread downloads (Default 4).
Exactly how many streams rclone uses for the download depends on the size of the file. To calculate the number of download streams Rclone divides the size of the file by the --multi-thread-cutoff
and rounds up, up to the maximum set with --multi-thread-streams
.
So if --multi-thread-cutoff 250M
and --multi-thread-streams 4
are in effect (the defaults):
- 0..250 MiB files will be downloaded with 1 stream
- 250..500 MiB files will be downloaded with 2 streams
- 500..750 MiB files will be downloaded with 3 streams
- 750+ MiB files will be downloaded with 4 streams
--no-check-dest
The --no-check-dest
can be used with move
or copy
and it causes rclone not to check the destination at all when copying files.
This means that:
- the destination is not listed minimising the API calls
- files are always transferred
- this can cause duplicates on remotes which allow it (e.g. Google Drive)
--retries 1
is recommended otherwise you'll transfer everything again on a retry
This flag is useful to minimise the transactions if you know that none of the files are on the destination.
This is a specialized flag which should be ignored by most users!
--no-gzip-encoding
Don't set Accept-Encoding: gzip
. This means that rclone won't ask the server for compressed files automatically. Useful if you've set the server to return files with Content-Encoding: gzip
but you uploaded compressed files.
There is no need to set this in normal operation, and doing so will decrease the network transfer efficiency of rclone.
--no-traverse
The --no-traverse
flag controls whether the destination file system is traversed when using the copy
or move
commands. --no-traverse
is not compatible with sync
and will be ignored if you supply it with sync
.
If you are only copying a small number of files (or are filtering most of the files) and/or have a large number of files on the destination then --no-traverse
will stop rclone listing the destination and save time.
However, if you are copying a large number of files, especially if you are doing a copy where lots of the files under consideration haven't changed and won't need copying then you shouldn't use --no-traverse
.
See rclone copy (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_copy/) for an example of how to use it.
--no-unicode-normalization
Don't normalize unicode characters in filenames during the sync routine.
Sometimes, an operating system will store filenames containing unicode parts in their decomposed form (particularly macOS). Some cloud storage systems will then recompose the unicode, resulting in duplicate files if the data is ever copied back to a local filesystem.
Using this flag will disable that functionality, treating each unicode character as unique. For example, by default é and é will be normalized into the same character. With --no-unicode-normalization
they will be treated as unique characters.
--no-update-modtime
When using this flag, rclone won't update modification times of remote files if they are incorrect as it would normally.
This can be used if the remote is being synced with another tool also (e.g. the Google Drive client).
--order-by string
The --order-by
flag controls the order in which files in the backlog are processed in rclone sync
, rclone copy
and rclone move
.
The order by string is constructed like this. The first part describes what aspect is being measured:
size
- order by the size of the filesname
- order by the full path of the filesmodtime
- order by the modification date of the files
This can have a modifier appended with a comma:
ascending
orasc
- order so that the smallest (or oldest) is processed firstdescending
ordesc
- order so that the largest (or newest) is processed firstmixed
- order so that the smallest is processed first for some threads and the largest for others
If the modifier is mixed
then it can have an optional percentage (which defaults to 50
), e.g. size,mixed,25
which means that 25% of the threads should be taking the smallest items and 75% the largest. The threads which take the smallest first will always take the smallest first and likewise the largest first threads. The mixed
mode can be useful to minimise the transfer time when you are transferring a mixture of large and small files - the large files are guaranteed upload threads and bandwidth and the small files will be processed continuously.
If no modifier is supplied then the order is ascending
.
For example
--order-by size,desc
- send the largest files first--order-by modtime,ascending
- send the oldest files first--order-by name
- send the files with alphabetically by path first
If the --order-by
flag is not supplied or it is supplied with an empty string then the default ordering will be used which is as scanned. With --checkers 1
this is mostly alphabetical, however with the default --checkers 8
it is somewhat random.
Limitations
The --order-by
flag does not do a separate pass over the data. This means that it may transfer some files out of the order specified if
- there are no files in the backlog or the source has not been fully scanned yet
- there are more than --max-backlog files in the backlog
Rclone will do its best to transfer the best file it has so in practice this should not cause a problem. Think of --order-by
as being more of a best efforts flag rather than a perfect ordering.
If you want perfect ordering then you will need to specify --check-first which will find all the files which need transferring first before transferring any.
--password-command SpaceSepList
This flag supplies a program which should supply the config password when run. This is an alternative to rclone prompting for the password or setting the RCLONE_CONFIG_PASS
variable.
The argument to this should be a command with a space separated list of arguments. If one of the arguments has a space in then enclose it in "
, if you want a literal "
in an argument then enclose the argument in "
and double the "
. See CSV encoding (https://godoc.org/encoding/csv) for more info.
Eg
--password-command echo hello --password-command echo "hello with space" --password-command echo "hello with ""quotes"" and space"
See the Configuration Encryption for more info.
See a Windows PowerShell example on the Wiki (https://github.com/rclone/rclone/wiki/Windows-Powershell-use-rclone-password-command-for-Config-file-password).
-P, --progress
This flag makes rclone update the stats in a static block in the terminal providing a realtime overview of the transfer.
Any log messages will scroll above the static block. Log messages will push the static block down to the bottom of the terminal where it will stay.
Normally this is updated every 500mS but this period can be overridden with the --stats
flag.
This can be used with the --stats-one-line
flag for a simpler display.
Note: On Windows until this bug (https://github.com/Azure/go-ansiterm/issues/26) is fixed all non-ASCII characters will be replaced with .
when --progress
is in use.
--progress-terminal-title
This flag, when used with -P/--progress
, will print the string ETA: %s
to the terminal title.
-q, --quiet
This flag will limit rclone's output to error messages only.
--refresh-times
The --refresh-times
flag can be used to update modification times of existing files when they are out of sync on backends which don't support hashes.
This is useful if you uploaded files with the incorrect timestamps and you now wish to correct them.
This flag is only useful for destinations which don't support hashes (e.g. crypt
).
This can be used any of the sync commands sync
, copy
or move
.
To use this flag you will need to be doing a modification time sync (so not using --size-only
or --checksum
). The flag will have no effect when using --size-only
or --checksum
.
If this flag is used when rclone comes to upload a file it will check to see if there is an existing file on the destination. If this file matches the source with size (and checksum if available) but has a differing timestamp then instead of re-uploading it, rclone will update the timestamp on the destination file. If the checksum does not match rclone will upload the new file. If the checksum is absent (e.g. on a crypt
backend) then rclone will update the timestamp.
Note that some remotes can't set the modification time without re-uploading the file so this flag is less useful on them.
Normally if you are doing a modification time sync rclone will update modification times without --refresh-times
provided that the remote supports checksums and the checksums match on the file. However if the checksums are absent then rclone will upload the file rather than setting the timestamp as this is the safe behaviour.
--retries int
Retry the entire sync if it fails this many times it fails (default 3).
Some remotes can be unreliable and a few retries help pick up the files which didn't get transferred because of errors.
Disable retries with --retries 1
.
--retries-sleep=TIME
This sets the interval between each retry specified by --retries
The default is 0
. Use 0
to disable.
--server-side-across-configs
Allow server-side operations (e.g. copy or move) to work across different configurations.
This can be useful if you wish to do a server-side copy or move between two remotes which use the same backend but are configured differently.
Note that this isn't enabled by default because it isn't easy for rclone to tell if it will work between any two configurations.
--size-only
Normally rclone will look at modification time and size of files to see if they are equal. If you set this flag then rclone will check only the size.
This can be useful transferring files from Dropbox which have been modified by the desktop sync client which doesn't set checksums of modification times in the same way as rclone.
--stats=TIME
Commands which transfer data (sync
, copy
, copyto
, move
, moveto
) will print data transfer stats at regular intervals to show their progress.
This sets the interval.
The default is 1m
. Use 0
to disable.
If you set the stats interval then all commands can show stats. This can be useful when running other commands, check
or mount
for example.
Stats are logged at INFO
level by default which means they won't show at default log level NOTICE
. Use --stats-log-level NOTICE
or -v
to make them show. See the Logging section for more info on log levels.
Note that on macOS you can send a SIGINFO (which is normally ctrl-T in the terminal) to make the stats print immediately.
--stats-file-name-length integer
By default, the --stats
output will truncate file names and paths longer than 40 characters. This is equivalent to providing --stats-file-name-length 40
. Use --stats-file-name-length 0
to disable any truncation of file names printed by stats.
--stats-log-level string
Log level to show --stats
output at. This can be DEBUG
, INFO
, NOTICE
, or ERROR
. The default is INFO
. This means at the default level of logging which is NOTICE
the stats won't show - if you want them to then use --stats-log-level NOTICE
. See the Logging section for more info on log levels.
--stats-one-line
When this is specified, rclone condenses the stats into a single line showing the most important stats only.
--stats-one-line-date
When this is specified, rclone enables the single-line stats and prepends the display with a date string. The default is 2006/01/02 15:04:05 -
--stats-one-line-date-format
When this is specified, rclone enables the single-line stats and prepends the display with a user-supplied date string. The date string MUST be enclosed in quotes. Follow golang specs (https://golang.org/pkg/time/#Time.Format) for date formatting syntax.
--stats-unit=bits|bytes
By default, data transfer rates will be printed in bytes per second.
This option allows the data rate to be printed in bits per second.
Data transfer volume will still be reported in bytes.
The rate is reported as a binary unit, not SI unit. So 1 Mbit/s equals 1,048,576 bit/s and not 1,000,000 bit/s.
The default is bytes
.
--suffix=SUFFIX
When using sync
, copy
or move
any files which would have been overwritten or deleted will have the suffix added to them. If there is a file with the same path (after the suffix has been added), then it will be overwritten.
The remote in use must support server-side move or copy and you must use the same remote as the destination of the sync.
This is for use with files to add the suffix in the current directory or with --backup-dir
. See --backup-dir
for more info.
For example
rclone copy -i /path/to/local/file remote:current --suffix .bak
will copy /path/to/local
to remote:current
, but for any files which would have been updated or deleted have .bak added.
If using rclone sync
with --suffix
and without --backup-dir
then it is recommended to put a filter rule in excluding the suffix otherwise the sync
will delete the backup files.
rclone sync -i /path/to/local/file remote:current --suffix .bak --exclude "*.bak"
--suffix-keep-extension
When using --suffix
, setting this causes rclone put the SUFFIX before the extension of the files that it backs up rather than after.
So let's say we had --suffix -2019-01-01
, without the flag file.txt
would be backed up to file.txt-2019-01-01
and with the flag it would be backed up to file-2019-01-01.txt
. This can be helpful to make sure the suffixed files can still be opened.
--syslog
On capable OSes (not Windows or Plan9) send all log output to syslog.
This can be useful for running rclone in a script or rclone mount
.
--syslog-facility string
If using --syslog
this sets the syslog facility (e.g. KERN
, USER
). See man syslog
for a list of possible facilities. The default facility is DAEMON
.
--temp-dir=DIR
Specify the directory rclone will use for temporary files, to override the default. Make sure the directory exists and have accessible permissions.
By default the operating system's temp directory will be used: - On Unix systems, $TMPDIR
if non-empty, else /tmp
. - On Windows, the first non-empty value from %TMP%
, %TEMP%
, %USERPROFILE%
, or the Windows directory.
When overriding the default with this option, the specified path will be set as value of environment variable TMPDIR
on Unix systems and TMP
and TEMP
on Windows.
You can use the config paths (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_paths/) command to see the current value.
--tpslimit float
Limit transactions per second to this number. Default is 0 which is used to mean unlimited transactions per second.
A transaction is roughly defined as an API call; its exact meaning will depend on the backend. For HTTP based backends it is an HTTP PUT/GET/POST/etc and its response. For FTP/SFTP it is a round trip transaction over TCP.
For example, to limit rclone to 10 transactions per second use --tpslimit 10
, or to 1 transaction every 2 seconds use --tpslimit 0.5
.
Use this when the number of transactions per second from rclone is causing a problem with the cloud storage provider (e.g. getting you banned or rate limited).
This can be very useful for rclone mount
to control the behaviour of applications using it.
This limit applies to all HTTP based backends and to the FTP and SFTP backends. It does not apply to the local backend or the Storj backend.
See also --tpslimit-burst
.
--tpslimit-burst int
Max burst of transactions for --tpslimit
(default 1
).
Normally --tpslimit
will do exactly the number of transaction per second specified. However if you supply --tps-burst
then rclone can save up some transactions from when it was idle giving a burst of up to the parameter supplied.
For example if you provide --tpslimit-burst 10
then if rclone has been idle for more than 10*--tpslimit
then it can do 10 transactions very quickly before they are limited again.
This may be used to increase performance of --tpslimit
without changing the long term average number of transactions per second.
--track-renames
By default, rclone doesn't keep track of renamed files, so if you rename a file locally then sync it to a remote, rclone will delete the old file on the remote and upload a new copy.
An rclone sync with --track-renames
runs like a normal sync, but keeps track of objects which exist in the destination but not in the source (which would normally be deleted), and which objects exist in the source but not the destination (which would normally be transferred). These objects are then candidates for renaming.
After the sync, rclone matches up the source only and destination only objects using the --track-renames-strategy
specified and either renames the destination object or transfers the source and deletes the destination object. --track-renames
is stateless like all of rclone's syncs.
To use this flag the destination must support server-side copy or server-side move, and to use a hash based --track-renames-strategy
(the default) the source and the destination must have a compatible hash.
If the destination does not support server-side copy or move, rclone will fall back to the default behaviour and log an error level message to the console.
Encrypted destinations are not currently supported by --track-renames
if --track-renames-strategy
includes hash
.
Note that --track-renames
is incompatible with --no-traverse
and that it uses extra memory to keep track of all the rename candidates.
Note also that --track-renames
is incompatible with --delete-before
and will select --delete-after
instead of --delete-during
.
--track-renames-strategy (hash,modtime,leaf,size)
This option changes the file matching criteria for --track-renames
.
The matching is controlled by a comma separated selection of these tokens:
modtime
- the modification time of the file - not supported on all backendshash
- the hash of the file contents - not supported on all backendsleaf
- the name of the file not including its directory namesize
- the size of the file (this is always enabled)
The default option is hash
.
Using --track-renames-strategy modtime,leaf
would match files based on modification time, the leaf of the file name and the size only.
Using --track-renames-strategy modtime
or leaf
can enable --track-renames
support for encrypted destinations.
Note that the hash
strategy is not supported with encrypted destinations.
--delete-(before,during,after)
This option allows you to specify when files on your destination are deleted when you sync folders.
Specifying the value --delete-before
will delete all files present on the destination, but not on the source before starting the transfer of any new or updated files. This uses two passes through the file systems, one for the deletions and one for the copies.
Specifying --delete-during
will delete files while checking and uploading files. This is the fastest option and uses the least memory.
Specifying --delete-after
(the default value) will delay deletion of files until all new/updated files have been successfully transferred. The files to be deleted are collected in the copy pass then deleted after the copy pass has completed successfully. The files to be deleted are held in memory so this mode may use more memory. This is the safest mode as it will only delete files if there have been no errors subsequent to that. If there have been errors before the deletions start then you will get the message not deleting files as there were IO errors
.
--fast-list
When doing anything which involves a directory listing (e.g. sync
, copy
, ls
- in fact nearly every command), rclone normally lists a directory and processes it before using more directory lists to process any subdirectories. This can be parallelised and works very quickly using the least amount of memory.
However, some remotes have a way of listing all files beneath a directory in one (or a small number) of transactions. These tend to be the bucket-based remotes (e.g. S3, B2, GCS, Swift).
If you use the --fast-list
flag then rclone will use this method for listing directories. This will have the following consequences for the listing:
- It will use fewer transactions (important if you pay for them)
- It will use more memory. Rclone has to load the whole listing into memory.
- It may be faster because it uses fewer transactions
- It may be slower because it can't be parallelized
rclone should always give identical results with and without --fast-list
.
If you pay for transactions and can fit your entire sync listing into memory then --fast-list
is recommended. If you have a very big sync to do then don't use --fast-list
otherwise you will run out of memory.
If you use --fast-list
on a remote which doesn't support it, then rclone will just ignore it.
--timeout=TIME
This sets the IO idle timeout. If a transfer has started but then becomes idle for this long it is considered broken and disconnected.
The default is 5m
. Set to 0
to disable.
--transfers=N
The number of file transfers to run in parallel. It can sometimes be useful to set this to a smaller number if the remote is giving a lot of timeouts or bigger if you have lots of bandwidth and a fast remote.
The default is to run 4 file transfers in parallel.
Look at --multi-thread-streams if you would like to control single file transfers.
-u, --update
This forces rclone to skip any files which exist on the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source file.
This can be useful in avoiding needless transfers when transferring to a remote which doesn't support modification times directly (or when using --use-server-modtime
to avoid extra API calls) as it is more accurate than a --size-only
check and faster than using --checksum
. On such remotes (or when using --use-server-modtime
) the time checked will be the uploaded time.
If an existing destination file has a modification time older than the source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different. If the sizes are the same, it will be updated if the checksum is different or not available.
If an existing destination file has a modification time equal (within the computed modify window) to the source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different. The checksum will not be checked in this case unless the --checksum
flag is provided.
In all other cases the file will not be updated.
Consider using the --modify-window
flag to compensate for time skews between the source and the backend, for backends that do not support mod times, and instead use uploaded times. However, if the backend does not support checksums, note that syncing or copying within the time skew window may still result in additional transfers for safety.
--use-mmap
If this flag is set then rclone will use anonymous memory allocated by mmap on Unix based platforms and VirtualAlloc on Windows for its transfer buffers (size controlled by --buffer-size
). Memory allocated like this does not go on the Go heap and can be returned to the OS immediately when it is finished with.
If this flag is not set then rclone will allocate and free the buffers using the Go memory allocator which may use more memory as memory pages are returned less aggressively to the OS.
It is possible this does not work well on all platforms so it is disabled by default; in the future it may be enabled by default.
--use-server-modtime
Some object-store backends (e.g, Swift, S3) do not preserve file modification times (modtime). On these backends, rclone stores the original modtime as additional metadata on the object. By default it will make an API call to retrieve the metadata when the modtime is needed by an operation.
Use this flag to disable the extra API call and rely instead on the server's modified time. In cases such as a local to remote sync using --update
, knowing the local file is newer than the time it was last uploaded to the remote is sufficient. In those cases, this flag can speed up the process and reduce the number of API calls necessary.
Using this flag on a sync operation without also using --update
would cause all files modified at any time other than the last upload time to be uploaded again, which is probably not what you want.
-v, -vv, --verbose
With -v
rclone will tell you about each file that is transferred and a small number of significant events.
With -vv
rclone will become very verbose telling you about every file it considers and transfers. Please send bug reports with a log with this setting.
When setting verbosity as an environment variable, use RCLONE_VERBOSE=1
or RCLONE_VERBOSE=2
for -v
and -vv
respectively.
-V, --version
Prints the version number
SSL/TLS options
The outgoing SSL/TLS connections rclone makes can be controlled with these options. For example this can be very useful with the HTTP or WebDAV backends. Rclone HTTP servers have their own set of configuration for SSL/TLS which you can find in their documentation.
--ca-cert string
This loads the PEM encoded certificate authority certificate and uses it to verify the certificates of the servers rclone connects to.
If you have generated certificates signed with a local CA then you will need this flag to connect to servers using those certificates.
--client-cert string
This loads the PEM encoded client side certificate.
This is used for mutual TLS authentication (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_authentication).
The --client-key
flag is required too when using this.
--client-key string
This loads the PEM encoded client side private key used for mutual TLS authentication. Used in conjunction with --client-cert
.
--no-check-certificate=true/false
--no-check-certificate
controls whether a client verifies the server's certificate chain and host name. If --no-check-certificate
is true, TLS accepts any certificate presented by the server and any host name in that certificate. In this mode, TLS is susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks.
This option defaults to false
.
This should be used only for testing.
Configuration Encryption
Your configuration file contains information for logging in to your cloud services. This means that you should keep your rclone.conf
file in a secure location.
If you are in an environment where that isn't possible, you can add a password to your configuration. This means that you will have to supply the password every time you start rclone.
To add a password to your rclone configuration, execute rclone config
.
>rclone config Current remotes: e) Edit existing remote n) New remote d) Delete remote s) Set configuration password q) Quit config e/n/d/s/q>
Go into s
, Set configuration password:
e/n/d/s/q> s Your configuration is not encrypted. If you add a password, you will protect your login information to cloud services. a) Add Password q) Quit to main menu a/q> a Enter NEW configuration password: password: Confirm NEW password: password: Password set Your configuration is encrypted. c) Change Password u) Unencrypt configuration q) Quit to main menu c/u/q>
Your configuration is now encrypted, and every time you start rclone you will have to supply the password. See below for details. In the same menu, you can change the password or completely remove encryption from your configuration.
There is no way to recover the configuration if you lose your password.
rclone uses nacl secretbox (https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/crypto/nacl/secretbox) which in turn uses XSalsa20 and Poly1305 to encrypt and authenticate your configuration with secret-key cryptography. The password is SHA-256 hashed, which produces the key for secretbox. The hashed password is not stored.
While this provides very good security, we do not recommend storing your encrypted rclone configuration in public if it contains sensitive information, maybe except if you use a very strong password.
If it is safe in your environment, you can set the RCLONE_CONFIG_PASS
environment variable to contain your password, in which case it will be used for decrypting the configuration.
You can set this for a session from a script. For unix like systems save this to a file called set-rclone-password
:
#!/bin/echo Source this file don't run it read -s RCLONE_CONFIG_PASS export RCLONE_CONFIG_PASS
Then source the file when you want to use it. From the shell you would do source set-rclone-password
. It will then ask you for the password and set it in the environment variable.
An alternate means of supplying the password is to provide a script which will retrieve the password and print on standard output. This script should have a fully specified path name and not rely on any environment variables. The script is supplied either via --password-command="..."
command line argument or via the RCLONE_PASSWORD_COMMAND
environment variable.
One useful example of this is using the passwordstore
application to retrieve the password:
export RCLONE_PASSWORD_COMMAND="pass rclone/config"
If the passwordstore
password manager holds the password for the rclone configuration, using the script method means the password is primarily protected by the passwordstore
system, and is never embedded in the clear in scripts, nor available for examination using the standard commands available. It is quite possible with long running rclone sessions for copies of passwords to be innocently captured in log files or terminal scroll buffers, etc. Using the script method of supplying the password enhances the security of the config password considerably.
If you are running rclone inside a script, unless you are using the --password-command
method, you might want to disable password prompts. To do that, pass the parameter --ask-password=false
to rclone. This will make rclone fail instead of asking for a password if RCLONE_CONFIG_PASS
doesn't contain a valid password, and --password-command
has not been supplied.
Whenever running commands that may be affected by options in a configuration file, rclone will look for an existing file according to the rules described above, and load any it finds. If an encrypted file is found, this includes decrypting it, with the possible consequence of a password prompt. When executing a command line that you know are not actually using anything from such a configuration file, you can avoid it being loaded by overriding the location, e.g. with one of the documented special values for memory-only configuration. Since only backend options can be stored in configuration files, this is normally unnecessary for commands that do not operate on backends, e.g. genautocomplete
. However, it will be relevant for commands that do operate on backends in general, but are used without referencing a stored remote, e.g. listing local filesystem paths, or connection strings: rclone --config="" ls .
Developer options
These options are useful when developing or debugging rclone. There are also some more remote specific options which aren't documented here which are used for testing. These start with remote name e.g. --drive-test-option
- see the docs for the remote in question.
--cpuprofile=FILE
Write CPU profile to file. This can be analysed with go tool pprof
.
--dump flag,flag,flag
The --dump
flag takes a comma separated list of flags to dump info about.
Note that some headers including Accept-Encoding
as shown may not be correct in the request and the response may not show Content-Encoding
if the go standard libraries auto gzip encoding was in effect. In this case the body of the request will be gunzipped before showing it.
The available flags are:
--dump headers
Dump HTTP headers with Authorization:
lines removed. May still contain sensitive info. Can be very verbose. Useful for debugging only.
Use --dump auth
if you do want the Authorization:
headers.
--dump bodies
Dump HTTP headers and bodies - may contain sensitive info. Can be very verbose. Useful for debugging only.
Note that the bodies are buffered in memory so don't use this for enormous files.
--dump requests
Like --dump bodies
but dumps the request bodies and the response headers. Useful for debugging download problems.
--dump responses
Like --dump bodies
but dumps the response bodies and the request headers. Useful for debugging upload problems.
--dump auth
Dump HTTP headers - will contain sensitive info such as Authorization:
headers - use --dump headers
to dump without Authorization:
headers. Can be very verbose. Useful for debugging only.
--dump filters
Dump the filters to the output. Useful to see exactly what include and exclude options are filtering on.
--dump goroutines
This dumps a list of the running go-routines at the end of the command to standard output.
--dump openfiles
This dumps a list of the open files at the end of the command. It uses the lsof
command to do that so you'll need that installed to use it.
--memprofile=FILE
Write memory profile to file. This can be analysed with go tool pprof
.
Filtering
For the filtering options
--delete-excluded
--filter
--filter-from
--exclude
--exclude-from
--exclude-if-present
--include
--include-from
--files-from
--files-from-raw
--min-size
--max-size
--min-age
--max-age
--dump filters
See the filtering section (https://rclone.org/filtering/).
Remote control
For the remote control options and for instructions on how to remote control rclone
--rc
- and anything starting with
--rc-
See the remote control section (https://rclone.org/rc/).
Logging
rclone has 4 levels of logging, ERROR
, NOTICE
, INFO
and DEBUG
.
By default, rclone logs to standard error. This means you can redirect standard error and still see the normal output of rclone commands (e.g. rclone ls
).
By default, rclone will produce Error
and Notice
level messages.
If you use the -q
flag, rclone will only produce Error
messages.
If you use the -v
flag, rclone will produce Error
, Notice
and Info
messages.
If you use the -vv
flag, rclone will produce Error
, Notice
, Info
and Debug
messages.
You can also control the log levels with the --log-level
flag.
If you use the --log-file=FILE
option, rclone will redirect Error
, Info
and Debug
messages along with standard error to FILE.
If you use the --syslog
flag then rclone will log to syslog and the --syslog-facility
control which facility it uses.
Rclone prefixes all log messages with their level in capitals, e.g. INFO which makes it easy to grep the log file for different kinds of information.
Exit Code
If any errors occur during the command execution, rclone will exit with a non-zero exit code. This allows scripts to detect when rclone operations have failed.
During the startup phase, rclone will exit immediately if an error is detected in the configuration. There will always be a log message immediately before exiting.
When rclone is running it will accumulate errors as it goes along, and only exit with a non-zero exit code if (after retries) there were still failed transfers. For every error counted there will be a high priority log message (visible with -q
) showing the message and which file caused the problem. A high priority message is also shown when starting a retry so the user can see that any previous error messages may not be valid after the retry. If rclone has done a retry it will log a high priority message if the retry was successful.
List of exit codes
0
- success1
- Syntax or usage error2
- Error not otherwise categorised3
- Directory not found4
- File not found5
- Temporary error (one that more retries might fix) (Retry errors)6
- Less serious errors (like 461 errors from dropbox) (NoRetry errors)7
- Fatal error (one that more retries won't fix, like account suspended) (Fatal errors)8
- Transfer exceeded - limit set by --max-transfer reached9
- Operation successful, but no files transferred
Environment Variables
Rclone can be configured entirely using environment variables. These can be used to set defaults for options or config file entries.
Options
Every option in rclone can have its default set by environment variable.
To find the name of the environment variable, first, take the long option name, strip the leading --
, change -
to _
, make upper case and prepend RCLONE_
.
For example, to always set --stats 5s
, set the environment variable RCLONE_STATS=5s
. If you set stats on the command line this will override the environment variable setting.
Or to always use the trash in drive --drive-use-trash
, set RCLONE_DRIVE_USE_TRASH=true
.
Verbosity is slightly different, the environment variable equivalent of --verbose
or -v
is RCLONE_VERBOSE=1
, or for -vv
, RCLONE_VERBOSE=2
.
The same parser is used for the options and the environment variables so they take exactly the same form.
The options set by environment variables can be seen with the -vv
flag, e.g. rclone version -vv
.
Config file
You can set defaults for values in the config file on an individual remote basis. The names of the config items are documented in the page for each backend.
To find the name of the environment variable, you need to set, take RCLONE_CONFIG_
+ name of remote + _
+ name of config file option and make it all uppercase.
For example, to configure an S3 remote named mys3:
without a config file (using unix ways of setting environment variables):
$ export RCLONE_CONFIG_MYS3_TYPE=s3 $ export RCLONE_CONFIG_MYS3_ACCESS_KEY_ID=XXX $ export RCLONE_CONFIG_MYS3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=XXX $ rclone lsd mys3: -1 2016-09-21 12:54:21 -1 my-bucket $ rclone listremotes | grep mys3 mys3:
Note that if you want to create a remote using environment variables you must create the ..._TYPE
variable as above.
Note that the name of a remote created using environment variable is case insensitive, in contrast to regular remotes stored in config file as documented above. You must write the name in uppercase in the environment variable, but as seen from example above it will be listed and can be accessed in lowercase, while you can also refer to the same remote in uppercase:
$ rclone lsd mys3: -1 2016-09-21 12:54:21 -1 my-bucket $ rclone lsd MYS3: -1 2016-09-21 12:54:21 -1 my-bucket
Note that you can only set the options of the immediate backend, so RCLONE_CONFIG_MYS3CRYPT_ACCESS_KEY_ID has no effect, if myS3Crypt is a crypt remote based on an S3 remote. However RCLONE_S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID will set the access key of all remotes using S3, including myS3Crypt.
Note also that now rclone has connection strings, it is probably easier to use those instead which makes the above example
rclone lsd :s3,access_key_id=XXX,secret_access_key=XXX:
Precedence
The various different methods of backend configuration are read in this order and the first one with a value is used.
- Parameters in connection strings, e.g.
myRemote,skip_links:
- Flag values as supplied on the command line, e.g.
--skip-links
- Remote specific environment vars, e.g.
RCLONE_CONFIG_MYREMOTE_SKIP_LINKS
(see above). - Backend-specific environment vars, e.g.
RCLONE_LOCAL_SKIP_LINKS
. - Backend generic environment vars, e.g.
RCLONE_SKIP_LINKS
. - Config file, e.g.
skip_links = true
. - Default values, e.g.
false
- these can't be changed.
So if both --skip-links
is supplied on the command line and an environment variable RCLONE_LOCAL_SKIP_LINKS
is set, the command line flag will take preference.
The backend configurations set by environment variables can be seen with the -vv
flag, e.g. rclone about myRemote: -vv
.
For non backend configuration the order is as follows:
- Flag values as supplied on the command line, e.g.
--stats 5s
. - Environment vars, e.g.
RCLONE_STATS=5s
. - Default values, e.g.
1m
- these can't be changed.
Other environment variables
RCLONE_CONFIG_PASS
set to contain your config file password (see Configuration Encryption section)HTTP_PROXY
,HTTPS_PROXY
andNO_PROXY
(or the lowercase versions thereof).HTTPS_PROXY
takes precedence overHTTP_PROXY
for https requests.- The environment values may be either a complete URL or a "host[:port]" for, in which case the "http" scheme is assumed.
USER
andLOGNAME
values are used as fallbacks for current username. The primary method for looking up username is OS-specific: Windows API on Windows, real user ID in /etc/passwd on Unix systems. In the documentation the current username is simply referred to as$USER
.RCLONE_CONFIG_DIR
- rclone sets this variable for use in config files and sub processes to point to the directory holding the config file.
The options set by environment variables can be seen with the -vv
and --log-level=DEBUG
flags, e.g. rclone version -vv
.
Configuring rclone on a remote / headless machine
Some of the configurations (those involving oauth2) require an Internet connected web browser.
If you are trying to set rclone up on a remote or headless box with no browser available on it (e.g. a NAS or a server in a datacenter) then you will need to use an alternative means of configuration. There are two ways of doing it, described below.
Configuring by copying the config file
Rclone stores all of its config in a single configuration file. This can easily be copied to configure a remote rclone.
So first configure rclone on your desktop machine with
rclone config
to set up the config file.
Find the config file by running rclone config file
, for example
$ rclone config file Configuration file is stored at: /home/user/.rclone.conf
Now transfer it to the remote box (scp, cut paste, ftp, sftp, etc.) and place it in the correct place (use rclone config file
on the remote box to find out where).
Configuring using SSH Tunnel
Linux and MacOS users can utilize SSH Tunnel to redirect the headless box port 53682 to local machine by using the following command:
ssh -L localhost:53682:localhost:53682 username@remote_server
Then on the headless box run rclone
config and answer Y
to the Use auto config?
question.
... Remote config Use auto config? * Say Y if not sure * Say N if you are working on a remote or headless machine y) Yes (default) n) No y/n> y
Then copy and paste the auth url http://127.0.0.1:53682/auth?state=xxxxxxxxxxxx
to the browser on your local machine, complete the auth and it is done.
Filtering, includes and excludes
Filter flags determine which files rclone sync
, move
, ls
, lsl
, md5sum
, sha1sum
, size
, delete
, check
and similar commands apply to.
They are specified in terms of path/file name patterns; path/file lists; file age and size, or presence of a file in a directory. Bucket based remotes without the concept of directory apply filters to object key, age and size in an analogous way.
Rclone purge
does not obey filters.
To test filters without risk of damage to data, apply them to rclone ls
, or with the --dry-run
and -vv
flags.
Rclone filter patterns can only be used in filter command line options, not in the specification of a remote.
E.g. rclone copy "remote:dir*.jpg" /path/to/dir
does not have a filter effect. rclone copy remote:dir /path/to/dir --include "*.jpg"
does.
Important Avoid mixing any two of --include...
, --exclude...
or --filter...
flags in an rclone command. The results may not be what you expect. Instead use a --filter...
flag.
Patterns for matching path/file names
Pattern syntax
Here is a formal definition of the pattern syntax, examples are below.
Rclone matching rules follow a glob style:
* matches any sequence of non-separator (/) characters ** matches any sequence of characters including / separators ? matches any single non-separator (/) character [ [ ! ] { character-range } ] character class (must be non-empty) { pattern-list } pattern alternatives {{ regexp }} regular expression to match c matches character c (c != *, **, ?, \, [, {, }) \c matches reserved character c (c = *, **, ?, \, [, {, }) or character class
character-range:
c matches character c (c != \, -, ]) \c matches reserved character c (c = \, -, ]) lo - hi matches character c for lo <= c <= hi
pattern-list:
pattern { , pattern } comma-separated (without spaces) patterns
character classes (see Go regular expression reference (https://golang.org/pkg/regexp/syntax/)) include:
Named character classes (e.g. [\d], [^\d], [\D], [^\D]) Perl character classes (e.g. \s, \S, \w, \W) ASCII character classes (e.g. [[:alnum:]], [[:alpha:]], [[:punct:]], [[:xdigit:]])
regexp for advanced users to insert a regular expression - see below for more info:
Any re2 regular expression not containing `}}`
If the filter pattern starts with a /
then it only matches at the top level of the directory tree, relative to the root of the remote (not necessarily the root of the drive). If it does not start with /
then it is matched starting at the end of the path/file name but it only matches a complete path element - it must match from a /
separator or the beginning of the path/file.
file.jpg - matches "file.jpg" - matches "directory/file.jpg" - doesn't match "afile.jpg" - doesn't match "directory/afile.jpg" /file.jpg - matches "file.jpg" in the root directory of the remote - doesn't match "afile.jpg" - doesn't match "directory/file.jpg"
The top level of the remote may not be the top level of the drive.
E.g. for a Microsoft Windows local directory structure
F: ├── bkp ├── data │ ├── excl │ │ ├── 123.jpg │ │ └── 456.jpg │ ├── incl │ │ └── document.pdf
To copy the contents of folder data
into folder bkp
excluding the contents of subfolder excl
the following command treats F:\data
and F:\bkp
as top level for filtering.
rclone copy F:\data\ F:\bkp\ --exclude=/excl/**
Important Use /
in path/file name patterns and not \
even if running on Microsoft Windows.
Simple patterns are case sensitive unless the --ignore-case
flag is used.
Without --ignore-case
(default)
potato - matches "potato" - doesn't match "POTATO"
With --ignore-case
potato - matches "potato" - matches "POTATO"
Using regular expressions in filter patterns
The syntax of filter patterns is glob style matching (like bash
uses) to make things easy for users. However this does not provide absolute control over the matching, so for advanced users rclone also provides a regular expression syntax.
The regular expressions used are as defined in the Go regular expression reference (https://golang.org/pkg/regexp/syntax/). Regular expressions should be enclosed in {{ }}
. They will match only the last path segment if the glob doesn't start with /
or the whole path name if it does. Note that rclone does not attempt to parse the supplied regular expression, meaning that using any regular expression filter will prevent rclone from using directory filter rules, as it will instead check every path against the supplied regular expression(s).
Here is how the {{regexp}}
is transformed into an full regular expression to match the entire path:
{{regexp}} becomes (^|/)(regexp)$ /{{regexp}} becomes ^(regexp)$
Regexp syntax can be mixed with glob syntax, for example
*.{{jpe?g}} to match file.jpg, file.jpeg but not file.png
You can also use regexp flags - to set case insensitive, for example
*.{{(?i)jpg}} to match file.jpg, file.JPG but not file.png
Be careful with wildcards in regular expressions - you don't want them to match path separators normally. To match any file name starting with start
and ending with end
write
{{start[^/]*end\.jpg}}
Not
{{start.*end\.jpg}}
Which will match a directory called start
with a file called end.jpg
in it as the .*
will match /
characters.
Note that you can use -vv --dump filters
to show the filter patterns in regexp format - rclone implements the glob patters by transforming them into regular expressions.
Filter pattern examples
Description | Pattern | Matches | Does not match |
Wildcard | *.jpg | /file.jpg | /file.png |
/dir/file.jpg | /dir/file.png | ||
Rooted | /*.jpg | /file.jpg | /file.png |
/file2.jpg | /dir/file.jpg | ||
Alternates | *.{jpg,png} | /file.jpg | /file.gif |
/dir/file.png | /dir/file.gif | ||
Path Wildcard | dir/** | /dir/anyfile | file.png |
/subdir/dir/subsubdir/anyfile | /subdir/file.png | ||
Any Char | *.t?t | /file.txt | /file.qxt |
/dir/file.tzt | /dir/file.png | ||
Range | *.[a-z] | /file.a | /file.0 |
/dir/file.b | /dir/file.1 | ||
Escape | *.\?\?\? | /file.??? | /file.abc |
/dir/file.??? | /dir/file.def | ||
Class | *.\d\d\d | /file.012 | /file.abc |
/dir/file.345 | /dir/file.def | ||
Regexp | *.{{jpe?g}} | /file.jpeg | /file.png |
/dir/file.jpg | /dir/file.jpeeg | ||
Rooted Regexp | /{{.*\.jpe?g}} | /file.jpeg | /file.png |
/file.jpg | /dir/file.jpg |
How filter rules are applied to files
Rclone path/file name filters are made up of one or more of the following flags:
--include
--include-from
--exclude
--exclude-from
--filter
--filter-from
There can be more than one instance of individual flags.
Rclone internally uses a combined list of all the include and exclude rules. The order in which rules are processed can influence the result of the filter.
All flags of the same type are processed together in the order above, regardless of what order the different types of flags are included on the command line.
Multiple instances of the same flag are processed from left to right according to their position in the command line.
To mix up the order of processing includes and excludes use --filter...
flags.
Within --include-from
, --exclude-from
and --filter-from
flags rules are processed from top to bottom of the referenced file.
If there is an --include
or --include-from
flag specified, rclone implies a - **
rule which it adds to the bottom of the internal rule list. Specifying a +
rule with a --filter...
flag does not imply that rule.
Each path/file name passed through rclone is matched against the combined filter list. At first match to a rule the path/file name is included or excluded and no further filter rules are processed for that path/file.
If rclone does not find a match, after testing against all rules (including the implied rule if appropriate), the path/file name is included.
Any path/file included at that stage is processed by the rclone command.
--files-from
and --files-from-raw
flags over-ride and cannot be combined with other filter options.
To see the internal combined rule list, in regular expression form, for a command add the --dump filters
flag. Running an rclone command with --dump filters
and -vv
flags lists the internal filter elements and shows how they are applied to each source path/file. There is not currently a means provided to pass regular expression filter options into rclone directly though character class filter rules contain character classes. Go regular expression reference (https://golang.org/pkg/regexp/syntax/)
How filter rules are applied to directories
Rclone commands are applied to path/file names not directories. The entire contents of a directory can be matched to a filter by the pattern directory/*
or recursively by directory/**
.
Directory filter rules are defined with a closing /
separator.
E.g. /directory/subdirectory/
is an rclone directory filter rule.
Rclone commands can use directory filter rules to determine whether they recurse into subdirectories. This potentially optimises access to a remote by avoiding listing unnecessary directories. Whether optimisation is desirable depends on the specific filter rules and source remote content.
If any regular expression filters are in use, then no directory recursion optimisation is possible, as rclone must check every path against the supplied regular expression(s).
Directory recursion optimisation occurs if either:
- A source remote does not support the rclone
ListR
primitive. local, sftp, Microsoft OneDrive and WebDAV do not supportListR
. Google Drive and most bucket type storage do. Full list (https://rclone.org/overview/#optional-features) - On other remotes (those that support
ListR
), if the rclone command is not naturally recursive, and provided it is not run with the--fast-list
flag.ls
,lsf -R
andsize
are naturally recursive butsync
,copy
andmove
are not. - Whenever the
--disable ListR
flag is applied to an rclone command.
Rclone commands imply directory filter rules from path/file filter rules. To view the directory filter rules rclone has implied for a command specify the --dump filters
flag.
E.g. for an include rule
/a/*.jpg
Rclone implies the directory include rule
/a/
Directory filter rules specified in an rclone command can limit the scope of an rclone command but path/file filters still have to be specified.
E.g. rclone ls remote: --include /directory/
will not match any files. Because it is an --include
option the --exclude **
rule is implied, and the /directory/
pattern serves only to optimise access to the remote by ignoring everything outside of that directory.
E.g. rclone ls remote: --filter-from filter-list.txt
with a file filter-list.txt
:
- /dir1/ - /dir2/ + *.pdf - **
All files in directories dir1
or dir2
or their subdirectories are completely excluded from the listing. Only files of suffix pdf
in the root of remote:
or its subdirectories are listed. The - **
rule prevents listing of any path/files not previously matched by the rules above.
Option exclude-if-present
creates a directory exclude rule based on the presence of a file in a directory and takes precedence over other rclone directory filter rules.
When using pattern list syntax, if a pattern item contains either /
or **
, then rclone will not able to imply a directory filter rule from this pattern list.
E.g. for an include rule
{dir1/**,dir2/**}
Rclone will match files below directories dir1
or dir2
only, but will not be able to use this filter to exclude a directory dir3
from being traversed.
Directory recursion optimisation may affect performance, but normally not the result. One exception to this is sync operations with option --create-empty-src-dirs
, where any traversed empty directories will be created. With the pattern list example {dir1/**,dir2/**}
above, this would create an empty directory dir3
on destination (when it exists on source). Changing the filter to {dir1,dir2}/**
, or splitting it into two include rules --include dir1/** --include dir2/**
, will match the same files while also filtering directories, with the result that an empty directory dir3
will no longer be created.
--exclude - Exclude files matching pattern
Excludes path/file names from an rclone command based on a single exclude rule.
This flag can be repeated. See above for the order filter flags are processed in.
--exclude
should not be used with --include
, --include-from
, --filter
or --filter-from
flags.
--exclude
has no effect when combined with --files-from
or --files-from-raw
flags.
E.g. rclone ls remote: --exclude *.bak
excludes all .bak files from listing.
E.g. rclone size remote: "--exclude /dir/**"
returns the total size of all files on remote:
excluding those in root directory dir
and sub directories.
E.g. on Microsoft Windows rclone ls remote: --exclude "*\[{JP,KR,HK}\]*"
lists the files in remote:
with [JP]
or [KR]
or [HK]
in their name. Quotes prevent the shell from interpreting the \
characters.\
characters escape the [
and ]
so an rclone filter treats them literally rather than as a character-range. The {
and }
define an rclone pattern list. For other operating systems single quotes are required ie rclone ls remote: --exclude '*\[{JP,KR,HK}\]*'
--exclude-from - Read exclude patterns from file
Excludes path/file names from an rclone command based on rules in a named file. The file contains a list of remarks and pattern rules.
For an example exclude-file.txt
:
# a sample exclude rule file *.bak file2.jpg
rclone ls remote: --exclude-from exclude-file.txt
lists the files on remote:
except those named file2.jpg
or with a suffix .bak
. That is equivalent to rclone ls remote: --exclude file2.jpg --exclude "*.bak"
.
This flag can be repeated. See above for the order filter flags are processed in.
The --exclude-from
flag is useful where multiple exclude filter rules are applied to an rclone command.
--exclude-from
should not be used with --include
, --include-from
, --filter
or --filter-from
flags.
--exclude-from
has no effect when combined with --files-from
or --files-from-raw
flags.
--exclude-from
followed by -
reads filter rules from standard input.
--include - Include files matching pattern
Adds a single include rule based on path/file names to an rclone command.
This flag can be repeated. See above for the order filter flags are processed in.
--include
has no effect when combined with --files-from
or --files-from-raw
flags.
--include
implies --exclude **
at the end of an rclone internal filter list. Therefore if you mix --include
and --include-from
flags with --exclude
, --exclude-from
, --filter
or --filter-from
, you must use include rules for all the files you want in the include statement. For more flexibility use the --filter-from
flag.
E.g. rclone ls remote: --include "*.{png,jpg}"
lists the files on remote:
with suffix .png
and .jpg
. All other files are excluded.
E.g. multiple rclone copy commands can be combined with --include
and a pattern-list.
rclone copy /vol1/A remote:A rclone copy /vol1/B remote:B
is equivalent to:
rclone copy /vol1 remote: --include "{A,B}/**"
E.g. rclone ls remote:/wheat --include "??[^[:punct:]]*"
lists the files remote:
directory wheat
(and subdirectories) whose third character is not punctuation. This example uses an ASCII character class (https://golang.org/pkg/regexp/syntax/).
--include-from - Read include patterns from file
Adds path/file names to an rclone command based on rules in a named file. The file contains a list of remarks and pattern rules.
For an example include-file.txt
:
# a sample include rule file *.jpg file2.avi
rclone ls remote: --include-from include-file.txt
lists the files on remote:
with name file2.avi
or suffix .jpg
. That is equivalent to rclone ls remote: --include file2.avi --include "*.jpg"
.
This flag can be repeated. See above for the order filter flags are processed in.
The --include-from
flag is useful where multiple include filter rules are applied to an rclone command.
--include-from
implies --exclude **
at the end of an rclone internal filter list. Therefore if you mix --include
and --include-from
flags with --exclude
, --exclude-from
, --filter
or --filter-from
, you must use include rules for all the files you want in the include statement. For more flexibility use the --filter-from
flag.
--exclude-from
has no effect when combined with --files-from
or --files-from-raw
flags.
--exclude-from
followed by -
reads filter rules from standard input.
--filter - Add a file-filtering rule
Specifies path/file names to an rclone command, based on a single include or exclude rule, in +
or -
format.
This flag can be repeated. See above for the order filter flags are processed in.
--filter +
differs from --include
. In the case of --include
rclone implies an --exclude *
rule which it adds to the bottom of the internal rule list. --filter...+
does not imply that rule.
--filter
has no effect when combined with --files-from
or --files-from-raw
flags.
--filter
should not be used with --include
, --include-from
, --exclude
or --exclude-from
flags.
E.g. rclone ls remote: --filter "- *.bak"
excludes all .bak
files from a list of remote:
.
--filter-from - Read filtering patterns from a file
Adds path/file names to an rclone command based on rules in a named file. The file contains a list of remarks and pattern rules. Include rules start with +
and exclude rules with -
. !
clears existing rules. Rules are processed in the order they are defined.
This flag can be repeated. See above for the order filter flags are processed in.
Arrange the order of filter rules with the most restrictive first and work down.
E.g. for filter-file.txt
:
# a sample filter rule file - secret*.jpg + *.jpg + *.png + file2.avi - /dir/Trash/** + /dir/** # exclude everything else - *
rclone ls remote: --filter-from filter-file.txt
lists the path/files on remote:
including all jpg
and png
files, excluding any matching secret*.jpg
and including file2.avi
. It also includes everything in the directory dir
at the root of remote
, except remote:dir/Trash
which it excludes. Everything else is excluded.
E.g. for an alternative filter-file.txt
:
- secret*.jpg + *.jpg + *.png + file2.avi - *
Files file1.jpg
, file3.png
and file2.avi
are listed whilst secret17.jpg
and files without the suffix .jpgor
.png` are excluded.
E.g. for an alternative filter-file.txt
:
+ *.jpg + *.gif ! + 42.doc - *
Only file 42.doc is listed. Prior rules are cleared by the !
.
--files-from - Read list of source-file names
Adds path/files to an rclone command from a list in a named file. Rclone processes the path/file names in the order of the list, and no others.
Other filter flags (--include
, --include-from
, --exclude
, --exclude-from
, --filter
and --filter-from
) are ignored when --files-from
is used.
--files-from
expects a list of files as its input. Leading or trailing whitespace is stripped from the input lines. Lines starting with #
or ;
are ignored.
Rclone commands with a --files-from
flag traverse the remote, treating the names in --files-from
as a set of filters.
If the --no-traverse
and --files-from
flags are used together an rclone command does not traverse the remote. Instead it addresses each path/file named in the file individually. For each path/file name, that requires typically 1 API call. This can be efficient for a short --files-from
list and a remote containing many files.
Rclone commands do not error if any names in the --files-from
file are missing from the source remote.
The --files-from
flag can be repeated in a single rclone command to read path/file names from more than one file. The files are read from left to right along the command line.
Paths within the --files-from
file are interpreted as starting with the root specified in the rclone command. Leading /
separators are ignored. See --files-from-raw if you need the input to be processed in a raw manner.
E.g. for a file files-from.txt
:
# comment file1.jpg subdir/file2.jpg
rclone copy --files-from files-from.txt /home/me/pics remote:pics
copies the following, if they exist, and only those files.
/home/me/pics/file1.jpg → remote:pics/file1.jpg /home/me/pics/subdir/file2.jpg → remote:pics/subdir/file2.jpg
E.g. to copy the following files referenced by their absolute paths:
/home/user1/42 /home/user1/dir/ford /home/user2/prefect
First find a common subdirectory - in this case /home
and put the remaining files in files-from.txt
with or without leading /
, e.g.
user1/42 user1/dir/ford user2/prefect
Then copy these to a remote:
rclone copy --files-from files-from.txt /home remote:backup
The three files are transferred as follows:
/home/user1/42 → remote:backup/user1/important /home/user1/dir/ford → remote:backup/user1/dir/file /home/user2/prefect → remote:backup/user2/stuff
Alternatively if /
is chosen as root files-from.txt
will be:
/home/user1/42 /home/user1/dir/ford /home/user2/prefect
The copy command will be:
rclone copy --files-from files-from.txt / remote:backup
Then there will be an extra home
directory on the remote:
/home/user1/42 → remote:backup/home/user1/42 /home/user1/dir/ford → remote:backup/home/user1/dir/ford /home/user2/prefect → remote:backup/home/user2/prefect
--files-from-raw - Read list of source-file names without any processing
This flag is the same as --files-from
except that input is read in a raw manner. Lines with leading / trailing whitespace, and lines starting with ;
or #
are read without any processing. rclone lsf (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_lsf/) has a compatible format that can be used to export file lists from remotes for input to --files-from-raw
.
--ignore-case - make searches case insensitive
By default, rclone filter patterns are case sensitive. The --ignore-case
flag makes all of the filters patterns on the command line case insensitive.
E.g. --include "zaphod.txt"
does not match a file Zaphod.txt
. With --ignore-case
a match is made.
Quoting shell metacharacters
Rclone commands with filter patterns containing shell metacharacters may not as work as expected in your shell and may require quoting.
E.g. linux, OSX (*
metacharacter)
--include \*.jpg
--include '*.jpg'
--include='*.jpg'
Microsoft Windows expansion is done by the command, not shell, so --include *.jpg
does not require quoting.
If the rclone error Command .... needs .... arguments maximum: you provided .... non flag arguments:
is encountered, the cause is commonly spaces within the name of a remote or flag value. The fix then is to quote values containing spaces.
Other filters
--min-size - Don't transfer any file smaller than this
Controls the minimum size file within the scope of an rclone command. Default units are KiB
but abbreviations K
, M
, G
, T
or P
are valid.
E.g. rclone ls remote: --min-size 50k
lists files on remote:
of 50 KiB size or larger.
See the size option docs (https://rclone.org/docs/#size-option) for more info.
--max-size - Don't transfer any file larger than this
Controls the maximum size file within the scope of an rclone command. Default units are KiB
but abbreviations K
, M
, G
, T
or P
are valid.
E.g. rclone ls remote: --max-size 1G
lists files on remote:
of 1 GiB size or smaller.
See the size option docs (https://rclone.org/docs/#size-option) for more info.
--max-age - Don't transfer any file older than this
Controls the maximum age of files within the scope of an rclone command.
--max-age
applies only to files and not to directories.
E.g. rclone ls remote: --max-age 2d
lists files on remote:
of 2 days old or less.
See the time option docs (https://rclone.org/docs/#time-option) for valid formats.
--min-age - Don't transfer any file younger than this
Controls the minimum age of files within the scope of an rclone command. (see --max-age
for valid formats)
--min-age
applies only to files and not to directories.
E.g. rclone ls remote: --min-age 2d
lists files on remote:
of 2 days old or more.
See the time option docs (https://rclone.org/docs/#time-option) for valid formats.
Other flags
--delete-excluded - Delete files on dest excluded from sync
Important this flag is dangerous to your data - use with --dry-run
and -v
first.
In conjunction with rclone sync
, --delete-excluded
deletes any files on the destination which are excluded from the command.
E.g. the scope of rclone sync -i A: B:
can be restricted:
rclone --min-size 50k --delete-excluded sync A: B:
All files on B:
which are less than 50 KiB are deleted because they are excluded from the rclone sync command.
--dump filters - dump the filters to the output
Dumps the defined filters to standard output in regular expression format.
Useful for debugging.
Exclude directory based on a file
The --exclude-if-present
flag controls whether a directory is within the scope of an rclone command based on the presence of a named file within it. The flag can be repeated to check for multiple file names, presence of any of them will exclude the directory.
This flag has a priority over other filter flags.
E.g. for the following directory structure:
dir1/file1 dir1/dir2/file2 dir1/dir2/dir3/file3 dir1/dir2/dir3/.ignore
The command rclone ls --exclude-if-present .ignore dir1
does not list dir3
, file3
or .ignore
.
Common pitfalls
The most frequent filter support issues on the rclone forum (https://forum.rclone.org/) are:
- Not using paths relative to the root of the remote
- Not using
/
to match from the root of a remote - Not using
**
to match the contents of a directory
GUI (Experimental)
Rclone can serve a web based GUI (graphical user interface). This is somewhat experimental at the moment so things may be subject to change.
Run this command in a terminal and rclone will download and then display the GUI in a web browser.
rclone rcd --rc-web-gui
This will produce logs like this and rclone needs to continue to run to serve the GUI:
2019/08/25 11:40:14 NOTICE: A new release for gui is present at https://github.com/rclone/rclone-webui-react/releases/download/v0.0.6/currentbuild.zip 2019/08/25 11:40:14 NOTICE: Downloading webgui binary. Please wait. [Size: 3813937, Path : /home/USER/.cache/rclone/webgui/v0.0.6.zip] 2019/08/25 11:40:16 NOTICE: Unzipping 2019/08/25 11:40:16 NOTICE: Serving remote control on http://127.0.0.1:5572/
This assumes you are running rclone locally on your machine. It is possible to separate the rclone and the GUI - see below for details.
If you wish to check for updates then you can add --rc-web-gui-update
to the command line.
If you find your GUI broken, you may force it to update by add --rc-web-gui-force-update
.
By default, rclone will open your browser. Add --rc-web-gui-no-open-browser
to disable this feature.
Using the GUI
Once the GUI opens, you will be looking at the dashboard which has an overall overview.
On the left hand side you will see a series of view buttons you can click on:
- Dashboard - main overview
- Configs - examine and create new configurations
- Explorer - view, download and upload files to the cloud storage systems
- Backend - view or alter the backend config
- Log out
(More docs and walkthrough video to come!)
How it works
When you run the rclone rcd --rc-web-gui
this is what happens
- Rclone starts but only runs the remote control API ("rc").
- The API is bound to localhost with an auto-generated username and password.
- If the API bundle is missing then rclone will download it.
- rclone will start serving the files from the API bundle over the same port as the API
- rclone will open the browser with a
login_token
so it can log straight in.
Advanced use
The rclone rcd
may use any of the flags documented on the rc page (https://rclone.org/rc/#supported-parameters).
The flag --rc-web-gui
is shorthand for
- Download the web GUI if necessary
- Check we are using some authentication
--rc-user gui
--rc-pass <random password>
--rc-serve
These flags can be overridden as desired.
See also the rclone rcd documentation (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_rcd/).
Example: Running a public GUI
For example the GUI could be served on a public port over SSL using an htpasswd file using the following flags:
--rc-web-gui
--rc-addr :443
--rc-htpasswd /path/to/htpasswd
--rc-cert /path/to/ssl.crt
--rc-key /path/to/ssl.key
Example: Running a GUI behind a proxy
If you want to run the GUI behind a proxy at /rclone
you could use these flags:
--rc-web-gui
--rc-baseurl rclone
--rc-htpasswd /path/to/htpasswd
Or instead of htpasswd if you just want a single user and password:
--rc-user me
--rc-pass mypassword
Project
The GUI is being developed in the: rclone/rclone-webui-react repository (https://github.com/rclone/rclone-webui-react).
Bug reports and contributions are very welcome :-)
If you have questions then please ask them on the rclone forum (https://forum.rclone.org/).
Remote controlling rclone with its API
If rclone is run with the --rc
flag then it starts an HTTP server which can be used to remote control rclone using its API.
You can either use the rc command to access the API or use HTTP directly.
If you just want to run a remote control then see the rcd (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_rcd/) command.
Supported parameters
--rc
Flag to start the http server listen on remote requests
--rc-addr=IP
IPaddress:Port or :Port to bind server to. (default "localhost:5572")
--rc-cert=KEY
SSL PEM key (concatenation of certificate and CA certificate)
--rc-client-ca=PATH
Client certificate authority to verify clients with
--rc-htpasswd=PATH
htpasswd file - if not provided no authentication is done
--rc-key=PATH
SSL PEM Private key
--rc-max-header-bytes=VALUE
Maximum size of request header (default 4096)
--rc-min-tls-version=VALUE
The minimum TLS version that is acceptable. Valid values are "tls1.0", "tls1.1", "tls1.2" and "tls1.3" (default "tls1.0").
--rc-user=VALUE
User name for authentication.
--rc-pass=VALUE
Password for authentication.
--rc-realm=VALUE
Realm for authentication (default "rclone")
--rc-server-read-timeout=DURATION
Timeout for server reading data (default 1h0m0s)
--rc-server-write-timeout=DURATION
Timeout for server writing data (default 1h0m0s)
--rc-serve
Enable the serving of remote objects via the HTTP interface. This means objects will be accessible at http://127.0.0.1:5572/ by default, so you can browse to http://127.0.0.1:5572/ or http://127.0.0.1:5572/* to see a listing of the remotes. Objects may be requested from remotes using this syntax http://127.0.0.1:5572/[remote:path]/path/to/object
Default Off.
--rc-files /path/to/directory
Path to local files to serve on the HTTP server.
If this is set then rclone will serve the files in that directory. It will also open the root in the web browser if specified. This is for implementing browser based GUIs for rclone functions.
If --rc-user
or --rc-pass
is set then the URL that is opened will have the authorization in the URL in the http://user:pass@localhost/
style.
Default Off.
--rc-enable-metrics
Enable OpenMetrics/Prometheus compatible endpoint at /metrics
.
Default Off.
--rc-web-gui
Set this flag to serve the default web gui on the same port as rclone.
Default Off.
--rc-allow-origin
Set the allowed Access-Control-Allow-Origin for rc requests.
Can be used with --rc-web-gui if the rclone is running on different IP than the web-gui.
Default is IP address on which rc is running.
--rc-web-fetch-url
Set the URL to fetch the rclone-web-gui files from.
Default https://api.github.com/repos/rclone/rclone-webui-react/releases/latest.
--rc-web-gui-update
Set this flag to check and update rclone-webui-react from the rc-web-fetch-url.
Default Off.
--rc-web-gui-force-update
Set this flag to force update rclone-webui-react from the rc-web-fetch-url.
Default Off.
--rc-web-gui-no-open-browser
Set this flag to disable opening browser automatically when using web-gui.
Default Off.
--rc-job-expire-duration=DURATION
Expire finished async jobs older than DURATION (default 60s).
--rc-job-expire-interval=DURATION
Interval duration to check for expired async jobs (default 10s).
--rc-no-auth
By default rclone will require authorisation to have been set up on the rc interface in order to use any methods which access any rclone remotes. Eg operations/list
is denied as it involved creating a remote as is sync/copy
.
If this is set then no authorisation will be required on the server to use these methods. The alternative is to use --rc-user
and --rc-pass
and use these credentials in the request.
Default Off.
--rc-baseurl
Prefix for URLs.
Default is root
--rc-template
User-specified template.
Accessing the remote control via the rclone rc command
Rclone itself implements the remote control protocol in its rclone rc
command.
You can use it like this
$ rclone rc rc/noop param1=one param2=two { "param1": "one", "param2": "two" }
Run rclone rc
on its own to see the help for the installed remote control commands.
JSON input
rclone rc
also supports a --json
flag which can be used to send more complicated input parameters.
$ rclone rc --json '{ "p1": [1,"2",null,4], "p2": { "a":1, "b":2 } }' rc/noop { "p1": [ 1, "2", null, 4 ], "p2": { "a": 1, "b": 2 } }
If the parameter being passed is an object then it can be passed as a JSON string rather than using the --json
flag which simplifies the command line.
rclone rc operations/list fs=/tmp remote=test opt='{"showHash": true}'
Rather than
rclone rc operations/list --json '{"fs": "/tmp", "remote": "test", "opt": {"showHash": true}}'
Special parameters
The rc interface supports some special parameters which apply to all commands. These start with _
to show they are different.
Running asynchronous jobs with _async = true
Each rc call is classified as a job and it is assigned its own id. By default jobs are executed immediately as they are created or synchronously.
If _async
has a true value when supplied to an rc call then it will return immediately with a job id and the task will be run in the background. The job/status
call can be used to get information of the background job. The job can be queried for up to 1 minute after it has finished.
It is recommended that potentially long running jobs, e.g. sync/sync
, sync/copy
, sync/move
, operations/purge
are run with the _async
flag to avoid any potential problems with the HTTP request and response timing out.
Starting a job with the _async
flag:
$ rclone rc --json '{ "p1": [1,"2",null,4], "p2": { "a":1, "b":2 }, "_async": true }' rc/noop { "jobid": 2 }
Query the status to see if the job has finished. For more information on the meaning of these return parameters see the job/status
call.
$ rclone rc --json '{ "jobid":2 }' job/status { "duration": 0.000124163, "endTime": "2018-10-27T11:38:07.911245881+01:00", "error": "", "finished": true, "id": 2, "output": { "_async": true, "p1": [ 1, "2", null, 4 ], "p2": { "a": 1, "b": 2 } }, "startTime": "2018-10-27T11:38:07.911121728+01:00", "success": true }
job/list
can be used to show the running or recently completed jobs
$ rclone rc job/list { "jobids": [ 2 ] }
Setting config flags with _config
If you wish to set config (the equivalent of the global flags) for the duration of an rc call only then pass in the _config
parameter.
This should be in the same format as the config
key returned by options/get.
For example, if you wished to run a sync with the --checksum
parameter, you would pass this parameter in your JSON blob.
"_config":{"CheckSum": true}
If using rclone rc
this could be passed as
rclone rc operations/sync ... _config='{"CheckSum": true}'
Any config parameters you don't set will inherit the global defaults which were set with command line flags or environment variables.
Note that it is possible to set some values as strings or integers - see data types for more info. Here is an example setting the equivalent of --buffer-size
in string or integer format.
"_config":{"BufferSize": "42M"} "_config":{"BufferSize": 44040192}
If you wish to check the _config
assignment has worked properly then calling options/local
will show what the value got set to.
Setting filter flags with _filter
If you wish to set filters for the duration of an rc call only then pass in the _filter
parameter.
This should be in the same format as the filter
key returned by options/get.
For example, if you wished to run a sync with these flags
--max-size 1M --max-age 42s --include "a" --include "b"
you would pass this parameter in your JSON blob.
"_filter":{"MaxSize":"1M", "IncludeRule":["a","b"], "MaxAge":"42s"}
If using rclone rc
this could be passed as
rclone rc ... _filter='{"MaxSize":"1M", "IncludeRule":["a","b"], "MaxAge":"42s"}'
Any filter parameters you don't set will inherit the global defaults which were set with command line flags or environment variables.
Note that it is possible to set some values as strings or integers - see data types for more info. Here is an example setting the equivalent of --buffer-size
in string or integer format.
"_filter":{"MinSize": "42M"} "_filter":{"MinSize": 44040192}
If you wish to check the _filter
assignment has worked properly then calling options/local
will show what the value got set to.
Assigning operations to groups with _group = value
Each rc call has its own stats group for tracking its metrics. By default grouping is done by the composite group name from prefix job/
and id of the job like so job/1
.
If _group
has a value then stats for that request will be grouped under that value. This allows caller to group stats under their own name.
Stats for specific group can be accessed by passing group
to core/stats
:
$ rclone rc --json '{ "group": "job/1" }' core/stats { "speed": 12345 ... }
Data types
When the API returns types, these will mostly be straight forward integer, string or boolean types.
However some of the types returned by the options/get call and taken by the options/set calls as well as the vfsOpt
, mountOpt
and the _config
parameters.
Duration
- these are returned as an integer duration in nanoseconds. They may be set as an integer, or they may be set with time string, eg "5s". See the options section (https://rclone.org/docs/#options) for more info.Size
- these are returned as an integer number of bytes. They may be set as an integer or they may be set with a size suffix string, eg "10M". See the options section (https://rclone.org/docs/#options) for more info.- Enumerated type (such as
CutoffMode
,DumpFlags
,LogLevel
,VfsCacheMode
- these will be returned as an integer and may be set as an integer but more conveniently they can be set as a string, eg "HARD" forCutoffMode
orDEBUG
forLogLevel
. BandwidthSpec
- this will be set and returned as a string, eg "1M".
Specifying remotes to work on
Remotes are specified with the fs=
, srcFs=
, dstFs=
parameters depending on the command being used.
The parameters can be a string as per the rest of rclone, eg s3:bucket/path
or :sftp:/my/dir
. They can also be specified as JSON blobs.
If specifying a JSON blob it should be a object mapping strings to strings. These values will be used to configure the remote. There are 3 special values which may be set:
type
- set totype
to specify a remote called:type:
_name
- set toname
to specify a remote calledname:
_root
- sets the root of the remote - may be empty
One of _name
or type
should normally be set. If the local
backend is desired then type
should be set to local
. If _root
isn't specified then it defaults to the root of the remote.
For example this JSON is equivalent to remote:/tmp
{ "_name": "remote", "_path": "/tmp" }
And this is equivalent to :sftp,host='example.com':/tmp
{ "type": "sftp", "host": "example.com", "_path": "/tmp" }
And this is equivalent to /tmp/dir
{ type = "local", _ path = "/tmp/dir" }
Supported commands
backend/command: Runs a backend command.
This takes the following parameters:
- command - a string with the command name
- fs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:"
- arg - a list of arguments for the backend command
- opt - a map of string to string of options
Returns:
- result - result from the backend command
Example:
rclone rc backend/command command=noop fs=. -o echo=yes -o blue -a path1 -a path2
Returns
{ "result": { "arg": [ "path1", "path2" ], "name": "noop", "opt": { "blue": "", "echo": "yes" } } }
Note that this is the direct equivalent of using this "backend" command:
rclone backend noop . -o echo=yes -o blue path1 path2
Note that arguments must be preceded by the "-a" flag
See the backend (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_backend/) command for more information.
Authentication is required for this call.
cache/expire: Purge a remote from cache
Purge a remote from the cache backend. Supports either a directory or a file. Params: - remote = path to remote (required) - withData = true/false to delete cached data (chunks) as well (optional)
Eg
rclone rc cache/expire remote=path/to/sub/folder/ rclone rc cache/expire remote=/ withData=true
cache/fetch: Fetch file chunks
Ensure the specified file chunks are cached on disk.
The chunks= parameter specifies the file chunks to check. It takes a comma separated list of array slice indices. The slice indices are similar to Python slices: start[:end]
start is the 0 based chunk number from the beginning of the file to fetch inclusive. end is 0 based chunk number from the beginning of the file to fetch exclusive. Both values can be negative, in which case they count from the back of the file. The value "-5:" represents the last 5 chunks of a file.
Some valid examples are: ":5,-5:" -> the first and last five chunks "0,-2" -> the first and the second last chunk "0:10" -> the first ten chunks
Any parameter with a key that starts with "file" can be used to specify files to fetch, e.g.
rclone rc cache/fetch chunks=0 file=hello file2=home/goodbye
File names will automatically be encrypted when the a crypt remote is used on top of the cache.
cache/stats: Get cache stats
Show statistics for the cache remote.
config/create: create the config for a remote.
This takes the following parameters:
- name - name of remote
- parameters - a map of { "key": "value" } pairs
- type - type of the new remote
opt - a dictionary of options to control the configuration
- obscure - declare passwords are plain and need obscuring
- noObscure - declare passwords are already obscured and don't need obscuring
- nonInteractive - don't interact with a user, return questions
- continue - continue the config process with an answer
- all - ask all the config questions not just the post config ones
- state - state to restart with - used with continue
- result - result to restart with - used with continue
See the config create (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_create/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
config/delete: Delete a remote in the config file.
Parameters:
- name - name of remote to delete
See the config delete (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_delete/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
config/dump: Dumps the config file.
Returns a JSON object: - key: value
Where keys are remote names and values are the config parameters.
See the config dump (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_dump/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
config/get: Get a remote in the config file.
Parameters:
- name - name of remote to get
See the config dump (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_dump/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
config/listremotes: Lists the remotes in the config file.
Returns - remotes - array of remote names
See the listremotes (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_listremotes/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
config/password: password the config for a remote.
This takes the following parameters:
- name - name of remote
- parameters - a map of { "key": "value" } pairs
See the config password (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_password/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
config/providers: Shows how providers are configured in the config file.
Returns a JSON object: - providers - array of objects
See the config providers (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_providers/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
config/update: update the config for a remote.
This takes the following parameters:
- name - name of remote
- parameters - a map of { "key": "value" } pairs
opt - a dictionary of options to control the configuration
- obscure - declare passwords are plain and need obscuring
- noObscure - declare passwords are already obscured and don't need obscuring
- nonInteractive - don't interact with a user, return questions
- continue - continue the config process with an answer
- all - ask all the config questions not just the post config ones
- state - state to restart with - used with continue
- result - result to restart with - used with continue
See the config update (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_update/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
core/bwlimit: Set the bandwidth limit.
This sets the bandwidth limit to the string passed in. This should be a single bandwidth limit entry or a pair of upload:download bandwidth.
Eg
rclone rc core/bwlimit rate=off { "bytesPerSecond": -1, "bytesPerSecondTx": -1, "bytesPerSecondRx": -1, "rate": "off" } rclone rc core/bwlimit rate=1M { "bytesPerSecond": 1048576, "bytesPerSecondTx": 1048576, "bytesPerSecondRx": 1048576, "rate": "1M" } rclone rc core/bwlimit rate=1M:100k { "bytesPerSecond": 1048576, "bytesPerSecondTx": 1048576, "bytesPerSecondRx": 131072, "rate": "1M" }
If the rate parameter is not supplied then the bandwidth is queried
rclone rc core/bwlimit { "bytesPerSecond": 1048576, "bytesPerSecondTx": 1048576, "bytesPerSecondRx": 1048576, "rate": "1M" }
The format of the parameter is exactly the same as passed to --bwlimit except only one bandwidth may be specified.
In either case "rate" is returned as a human-readable string, and "bytesPerSecond" is returned as a number.
core/command: Run a rclone terminal command over rc.
This takes the following parameters:
- command - a string with the command name.
- arg - a list of arguments for the backend command.
- opt - a map of string to string of options.
returnType - one of ("COMBINED_OUTPUT", "STREAM", "STREAM_ONLY_STDOUT", "STREAM_ONLY_STDERR").
- Defaults to "COMBINED_OUTPUT" if not set.
- The STREAM returnTypes will write the output to the body of the HTTP message.
- The COMBINED_OUTPUT will write the output to the "result" parameter.
Returns:
result - result from the backend command.
- Only set when using returnType "COMBINED_OUTPUT".
- error - set if rclone exits with an error code.
- returnType - one of ("COMBINED_OUTPUT", "STREAM", "STREAM_ONLY_STDOUT", "STREAM_ONLY_STDERR").
Example:
rclone rc core/command command=ls -a mydrive:/ -o max-depth=1 rclone rc core/command -a ls -a mydrive:/ -o max-depth=1
Returns:
{ "error": false, "result": "<Raw command line output>" } OR { "error": true, "result": "<Raw command line output>" }
Authentication is required for this call.
core/gc: Runs a garbage collection.
This tells the go runtime to do a garbage collection run. It isn't necessary to call this normally, but it can be useful for debugging memory problems.
core/group-list: Returns list of stats.
This returns list of stats groups currently in memory.
Returns the following values:
{ "groups": an array of group names: [ "group1", "group2", ... ] }
core/memstats: Returns the memory statistics
This returns the memory statistics of the running program. What the values mean are explained in the go docs: https://golang.org/pkg/runtime/#MemStats
The most interesting values for most people are:
- HeapAlloc - this is the amount of memory rclone is actually using
- HeapSys - this is the amount of memory rclone has obtained from the OS
Sys - this is the total amount of memory requested from the OS
- It is virtual memory so may include unused memory
core/obscure: Obscures a string passed in.
Pass a clear string and rclone will obscure it for the config file: - clear - string
Returns: - obscured - string
core/pid: Return PID of current process
This returns PID of current process. Useful for stopping rclone process.
core/quit: Terminates the app.
(Optional) Pass an exit code to be used for terminating the app: - exitCode - int
core/stats: Returns stats about current transfers.
This returns all available stats:
rclone rc core/stats
If group is not provided then summed up stats for all groups will be returned.
Parameters
- group - name of the stats group (string)
Returns the following values:
{ "bytes": total transferred bytes since the start of the group, "checks": number of files checked, "deletes" : number of files deleted, "elapsedTime": time in floating point seconds since rclone was started, "errors": number of errors, "eta": estimated time in seconds until the group completes, "fatalError": boolean whether there has been at least one fatal error, "lastError": last error string, "renames" : number of files renamed, "retryError": boolean showing whether there has been at least one non-NoRetryError, "speed": average speed in bytes per second since start of the group, "totalBytes": total number of bytes in the group, "totalChecks": total number of checks in the group, "totalTransfers": total number of transfers in the group, "transferTime" : total time spent on running jobs, "transfers": number of transferred files, "transferring": an array of currently active file transfers: [ { "bytes": total transferred bytes for this file, "eta": estimated time in seconds until file transfer completion "name": name of the file, "percentage": progress of the file transfer in percent, "speed": average speed over the whole transfer in bytes per second, "speedAvg": current speed in bytes per second as an exponentially weighted moving average, "size": size of the file in bytes } ], "checking": an array of names of currently active file checks [] }
Values for "transferring", "checking" and "lastError" are only assigned if data is available. The value for "eta" is null if an eta cannot be determined.
core/stats-delete: Delete stats group.
This deletes entire stats group.
Parameters
- group - name of the stats group (string)
core/stats-reset: Reset stats.
This clears counters, errors and finished transfers for all stats or specific stats group if group is provided.
Parameters
- group - name of the stats group (string)
core/transferred: Returns stats about completed transfers.
This returns stats about completed transfers:
rclone rc core/transferred
If group is not provided then completed transfers for all groups will be returned.
Note only the last 100 completed transfers are returned.
Parameters
- group - name of the stats group (string)
Returns the following values:
{ "transferred": an array of completed transfers (including failed ones): [ { "name": name of the file, "size": size of the file in bytes, "bytes": total transferred bytes for this file, "checked": if the transfer is only checked (skipped, deleted), "timestamp": integer representing millisecond unix epoch, "error": string description of the error (empty if successful), "jobid": id of the job that this transfer belongs to } ] }
core/version: Shows the current version of rclone and the go runtime.
This shows the current version of go and the go runtime:
- version - rclone version, e.g. "v1.53.0"
- decomposed - version number as [major, minor, patch]
- isGit - boolean - true if this was compiled from the git version
- isBeta - boolean - true if this is a beta version
- os - OS in use as according to Go
- arch - cpu architecture in use according to Go
- goVersion - version of Go runtime in use
- linking - type of rclone executable (static or dynamic)
- goTags - space separated build tags or "none"
debug/set-block-profile-rate: Set runtime.SetBlockProfileRate for blocking profiling.
SetBlockProfileRate controls the fraction of goroutine blocking events that are reported in the blocking profile. The profiler aims to sample an average of one blocking event per rate nanoseconds spent blocked.
To include every blocking event in the profile, pass rate = 1. To turn off profiling entirely, pass rate <= 0.
After calling this you can use this to see the blocking profile:
go tool pprof http://localhost:5572/debug/pprof/block
Parameters:
- rate - int
debug/set-mutex-profile-fraction: Set runtime.SetMutexProfileFraction for mutex profiling.
SetMutexProfileFraction controls the fraction of mutex contention events that are reported in the mutex profile. On average 1/rate events are reported. The previous rate is returned.
To turn off profiling entirely, pass rate 0. To just read the current rate, pass rate < 0. (For n>1 the details of sampling may change.)
Once this is set you can look use this to profile the mutex contention:
go tool pprof http://localhost:5572/debug/pprof/mutex
Parameters:
- rate - int
Results:
- previousRate - int
fscache/clear: Clear the Fs cache.
This clears the fs cache. This is where remotes created from backends are cached for a short while to make repeated rc calls more efficient.
If you change the parameters of a backend then you may want to call this to clear an existing remote out of the cache before re-creating it.
Authentication is required for this call.
fscache/entries: Returns the number of entries in the fs cache.
This returns the number of entries in the fs cache.
Returns - entries - number of items in the cache
Authentication is required for this call.
job/list: Lists the IDs of the running jobs
Parameters: None.
Results:
- jobids - array of integer job ids.
job/status: Reads the status of the job ID
Parameters:
- jobid - id of the job (integer).
Results:
- finished - boolean
- duration - time in seconds that the job ran for
- endTime - time the job finished (e.g. "2018-10-26T18:50:20.528746884+01:00")
- error - error from the job or empty string for no error
- finished - boolean whether the job has finished or not
- id - as passed in above
- startTime - time the job started (e.g. "2018-10-26T18:50:20.528336039+01:00")
- success - boolean - true for success false otherwise
- output - output of the job as would have been returned if called synchronously
- progress - output of the progress related to the underlying job
job/stop: Stop the running job
Parameters:
- jobid - id of the job (integer).
job/stopgroup: Stop all running jobs in a group
Parameters:
- group - name of the group (string).
mount/listmounts: Show current mount points
This shows currently mounted points, which can be used for performing an unmount.
This takes no parameters and returns
- mountPoints: list of current mount points
Eg
rclone rc mount/listmounts
Authentication is required for this call.
mount/mount: Create a new mount point
rclone allows Linux, FreeBSD, macOS and Windows to mount any of Rclone's cloud storage systems as a file system with FUSE.
If no mountType is provided, the priority is given as follows: 1. mount 2.cmount 3.mount2
This takes the following parameters:
- fs - a remote path to be mounted (required)
- mountPoint: valid path on the local machine (required)
- mountType: one of the values (mount, cmount, mount2) specifies the mount implementation to use
- mountOpt: a JSON object with Mount options in.
- vfsOpt: a JSON object with VFS options in.
Example:
rclone rc mount/mount fs=mydrive: mountPoint=/home/<user>/mountPoint rclone rc mount/mount fs=mydrive: mountPoint=/home/<user>/mountPoint mountType=mount rclone rc mount/mount fs=TestDrive: mountPoint=/mnt/tmp vfsOpt='{"CacheMode": 2}' mountOpt='{"AllowOther": true}'
The vfsOpt are as described in options/get and can be seen in the the "vfs" section when running and the mountOpt can be seen in the "mount" section:
rclone rc options/get
Authentication is required for this call.
mount/types: Show all possible mount types
This shows all possible mount types and returns them as a list.
This takes no parameters and returns
- mountTypes: list of mount types
The mount types are strings like "mount", "mount2", "cmount" and can be passed to mount/mount as the mountType parameter.
Eg
rclone rc mount/types
Authentication is required for this call.
mount/unmount: Unmount selected active mount
rclone allows Linux, FreeBSD, macOS and Windows to mount any of Rclone's cloud storage systems as a file system with FUSE.
This takes the following parameters:
- mountPoint: valid path on the local machine where the mount was created (required)
Example:
rclone rc mount/unmount mountPoint=/home/<user>/mountPoint
Authentication is required for this call.
mount/unmountall: Unmount all active mounts
rclone allows Linux, FreeBSD, macOS and Windows to mount any of Rclone's cloud storage systems as a file system with FUSE.
This takes no parameters and returns error if unmount does not succeed.
Eg
rclone rc mount/unmountall
Authentication is required for this call.
operations/about: Return the space used on the remote
This takes the following parameters:
- fs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:"
The result is as returned from rclone about --json
See the about (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_about/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
operations/cleanup: Remove trashed files in the remote or path
This takes the following parameters:
- fs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:"
See the cleanup (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_cleanup/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
operations/copyfile: Copy a file from source remote to destination remote
This takes the following parameters:
- srcFs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:" for the source
- srcRemote - a path within that remote e.g. "file.txt" for the source
- dstFs - a remote name string e.g. "drive2:" for the destination
- dstRemote - a path within that remote e.g. "file2.txt" for the destination
Authentication is required for this call.
operations/copyurl: Copy the URL to the object
This takes the following parameters:
- fs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:"
- remote - a path within that remote e.g. "dir"
- url - string, URL to read from
- autoFilename - boolean, set to true to retrieve destination file name from url
See the copyurl (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_copyurl/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
operations/delete: Remove files in the path
This takes the following parameters:
- fs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:"
See the delete (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_delete/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
operations/deletefile: Remove the single file pointed to
This takes the following parameters:
- fs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:"
- remote - a path within that remote e.g. "dir"
See the deletefile (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_deletefile/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
operations/fsinfo: Return information about the remote
This takes the following parameters:
- fs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:"
This returns info about the remote passed in;
{ // optional features and whether they are available or not "Features": { "About": true, "BucketBased": false, "BucketBasedRootOK": false, "CanHaveEmptyDirectories": true, "CaseInsensitive": false, "ChangeNotify": false, "CleanUp": false, "Command": true, "Copy": false, "DirCacheFlush": false, "DirMove": true, "Disconnect": false, "DuplicateFiles": false, "GetTier": false, "IsLocal": true, "ListR": false, "MergeDirs": false, "MetadataInfo": true, "Move": true, "OpenWriterAt": true, "PublicLink": false, "Purge": true, "PutStream": true, "PutUnchecked": false, "ReadMetadata": true, "ReadMimeType": false, "ServerSideAcrossConfigs": false, "SetTier": false, "SetWrapper": false, "Shutdown": false, "SlowHash": true, "SlowModTime": false, "UnWrap": false, "UserInfo": false, "UserMetadata": true, "WrapFs": false, "WriteMetadata": true, "WriteMimeType": false }, // Names of hashes available "Hashes": [ "md5", "sha1", "whirlpool", "crc32", "sha256", "dropbox", "mailru", "quickxor" ], "Name": "local", // Name as created "Precision": 1, // Precision of timestamps in ns "Root": "/", // Path as created "String": "Local file system at /", // how the remote will appear in logs // Information about the system metadata for this backend "MetadataInfo": { "System": { "atime": { "Help": "Time of last access", "Type": "RFC 3339", "Example": "2006-01-02T15:04:05.999999999Z07:00" }, "btime": { "Help": "Time of file birth (creation)", "Type": "RFC 3339", "Example": "2006-01-02T15:04:05.999999999Z07:00" }, "gid": { "Help": "Group ID of owner", "Type": "decimal number", "Example": "500" }, "mode": { "Help": "File type and mode", "Type": "octal, unix style", "Example": "0100664" }, "mtime": { "Help": "Time of last modification", "Type": "RFC 3339", "Example": "2006-01-02T15:04:05.999999999Z07:00" }, "rdev": { "Help": "Device ID (if special file)", "Type": "hexadecimal", "Example": "1abc" }, "uid": { "Help": "User ID of owner", "Type": "decimal number", "Example": "500" } }, "Help": "Textual help string\n" } }
This command does not have a command line equivalent so use this instead:
rclone rc --loopback operations/fsinfo fs=remote:
operations/list: List the given remote and path in JSON format
This takes the following parameters:
- fs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:"
- remote - a path within that remote e.g. "dir"
opt - a dictionary of options to control the listing (optional)
- recurse - If set recurse directories
- noModTime - If set return modification time
- showEncrypted - If set show decrypted names
- showOrigIDs - If set show the IDs for each item if known
- showHash - If set return a dictionary of hashes
- noMimeType - If set don't show mime types
- dirsOnly - If set only show directories
- filesOnly - If set only show files
- metadata - If set return metadata of objects also
- hashTypes - array of strings of hash types to show if showHash set
Returns:
list
- This is an array of objects as described in the lsjson command
See the lsjson (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_lsjson/) command for more information on the above and examples.
Authentication is required for this call.
operations/mkdir: Make a destination directory or container
This takes the following parameters:
- fs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:"
- remote - a path within that remote e.g. "dir"
See the mkdir (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_mkdir/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
operations/movefile: Move a file from source remote to destination remote
This takes the following parameters:
- srcFs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:" for the source
- srcRemote - a path within that remote e.g. "file.txt" for the source
- dstFs - a remote name string e.g. "drive2:" for the destination
- dstRemote - a path within that remote e.g. "file2.txt" for the destination
Authentication is required for this call.
operations/publiclink: Create or retrieve a public link to the given file or folder.
This takes the following parameters:
- fs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:"
- remote - a path within that remote e.g. "dir"
- unlink - boolean - if set removes the link rather than adding it (optional)
- expire - string - the expiry time of the link e.g. "1d" (optional)
Returns:
- url - URL of the resource
See the link (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_link/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
operations/purge: Remove a directory or container and all of its contents
This takes the following parameters:
- fs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:"
- remote - a path within that remote e.g. "dir"
See the purge (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_purge/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
operations/rmdir: Remove an empty directory or container
This takes the following parameters:
- fs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:"
- remote - a path within that remote e.g. "dir"
See the rmdir (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_rmdir/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
operations/rmdirs: Remove all the empty directories in the path
This takes the following parameters:
- fs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:"
- remote - a path within that remote e.g. "dir"
- leaveRoot - boolean, set to true not to delete the root
See the rmdirs (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_rmdirs/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
operations/size: Count the number of bytes and files in remote
This takes the following parameters:
- fs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:path/to/dir"
Returns:
- count - number of files
- bytes - number of bytes in those files
See the size (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_size/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
operations/stat: Give information about the supplied file or directory
This takes the following parameters
- fs - a remote name string eg "drive:"
- remote - a path within that remote eg "dir"
opt - a dictionary of options to control the listing (optional)
- see operations/list for the options
The result is
- item - an object as described in the lsjson command. Will be null if not found.
Note that if you are only interested in files then it is much more efficient to set the filesOnly flag in the options.
See the lsjson (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_lsjson/) command for more information on the above and examples.
Authentication is required for this call.
operations/uploadfile: Upload file using multiform/form-data
This takes the following parameters:
- fs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:"
- remote - a path within that remote e.g. "dir"
- each part in body represents a file to be uploaded
See the uploadfile (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_uploadfile/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
options/blocks: List all the option blocks
Returns: - options - a list of the options block names
options/get: Get all the global options
Returns an object where keys are option block names and values are an object with the current option values in.
Note that these are the global options which are unaffected by use of the _config and _filter parameters. If you wish to read the parameters set in _config then use options/config and for _filter use options/filter.
This shows the internal names of the option within rclone which should map to the external options very easily with a few exceptions.
options/local: Get the currently active config for this call
Returns an object with the keys "config" and "filter". The "config" key contains the local config and the "filter" key contains the local filters.
Note that these are the local options specific to this rc call. If _config was not supplied then they will be the global options. Likewise with "_filter".
This call is mostly useful for seeing if _config and _filter passing is working.
This shows the internal names of the option within rclone which should map to the external options very easily with a few exceptions.
options/set: Set an option
Parameters:
option block name containing an object with
- key: value
Repeated as often as required.
Only supply the options you wish to change. If an option is unknown it will be silently ignored. Not all options will have an effect when changed like this.
For example:
This sets DEBUG level logs (-vv) (these can be set by number or string)
rclone rc options/set --json '{"main": {"LogLevel": "DEBUG"}}' rclone rc options/set --json '{"main": {"LogLevel": 8}}'
And this sets INFO level logs (-v)
rclone rc options/set --json '{"main": {"LogLevel": "INFO"}}'
And this sets NOTICE level logs (normal without -v)
rclone rc options/set --json '{"main": {"LogLevel": "NOTICE"}}'
pluginsctl/addPlugin: Add a plugin using url
Used for adding a plugin to the webgui.
This takes the following parameters:
- url - http url of the github repo where the plugin is hosted (http://github.com/rclone/rclone-webui-react).
Example:
rclone rc pluginsctl/addPlugin
Authentication is required for this call.
pluginsctl/getPluginsForType: Get plugins with type criteria
This shows all possible plugins by a mime type.
This takes the following parameters:
- type - supported mime type by a loaded plugin e.g. (video/mp4, audio/mp3).
- pluginType - filter plugins based on their type e.g. (DASHBOARD, FILE_HANDLER, TERMINAL).
Returns:
- loadedPlugins - list of current production plugins.
- testPlugins - list of temporarily loaded development plugins, usually running on a different server.
Example:
rclone rc pluginsctl/getPluginsForType type=video/mp4
Authentication is required for this call.
pluginsctl/listPlugins: Get the list of currently loaded plugins
This allows you to get the currently enabled plugins and their details.
This takes no parameters and returns:
- loadedPlugins - list of current production plugins.
- testPlugins - list of temporarily loaded development plugins, usually running on a different server.
E.g.
rclone rc pluginsctl/listPlugins
Authentication is required for this call.
pluginsctl/listTestPlugins: Show currently loaded test plugins
Allows listing of test plugins with the rclone.test set to true in package.json of the plugin.
This takes no parameters and returns:
- loadedTestPlugins - list of currently available test plugins.
E.g.
rclone rc pluginsctl/listTestPlugins
Authentication is required for this call.
pluginsctl/removePlugin: Remove a loaded plugin
This allows you to remove a plugin using it's name.
This takes parameters:
- name - name of the plugin in the format
author
/plugin_name
.
E.g.
rclone rc pluginsctl/removePlugin name=rclone/video-plugin
Authentication is required for this call.
pluginsctl/removeTestPlugin: Remove a test plugin
This allows you to remove a plugin using it's name.
This takes the following parameters:
- name - name of the plugin in the format
author
/plugin_name
.
Example:
rclone rc pluginsctl/removeTestPlugin name=rclone/rclone-webui-react
Authentication is required for this call.
rc/error: This returns an error
This returns an error with the input as part of its error string. Useful for testing error handling.
rc/list: List all the registered remote control commands
This lists all the registered remote control commands as a JSON map in the commands response.
rc/noop: Echo the input to the output parameters
This echoes the input parameters to the output parameters for testing purposes. It can be used to check that rclone is still alive and to check that parameter passing is working properly.
rc/noopauth: Echo the input to the output parameters requiring auth
This echoes the input parameters to the output parameters for testing purposes. It can be used to check that rclone is still alive and to check that parameter passing is working properly.
Authentication is required for this call.
sync/bisync: Perform bidirectional synchronization between two paths.
This takes the following parameters
- path1 - a remote directory string e.g.
drive:path1
- path2 - a remote directory string e.g.
drive:path2
- dryRun - dry-run mode
- resync - performs the resync run
- checkAccess - abort if RCLONE_TEST files are not found on both filesystems
- checkFilename - file name for checkAccess (default: RCLONE_TEST)
- maxDelete - abort sync if percentage of deleted files is above this threshold (default: 50)
- force - maxDelete safety check and run the sync
- checkSync -
true
by default,false
disables comparison of final listings,only
will skip sync, only compare listings from the last run - removeEmptyDirs - remove empty directories at the final cleanup step
- filtersFile - read filtering patterns from a file
- workdir - server directory for history files (default: /home/ncw/.cache/rclone/bisync)
- noCleanup - retain working files
See bisync command help (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_bisync/) and full bisync description (https://rclone.org/bisync/) for more information.
Authentication is required for this call.
sync/copy: copy a directory from source remote to destination remote
This takes the following parameters:
- srcFs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:src" for the source
- dstFs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:dst" for the destination
- createEmptySrcDirs - create empty src directories on destination if set
See the copy (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_copy/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
sync/move: move a directory from source remote to destination remote
This takes the following parameters:
- srcFs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:src" for the source
- dstFs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:dst" for the destination
- createEmptySrcDirs - create empty src directories on destination if set
- deleteEmptySrcDirs - delete empty src directories if set
See the move (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_move/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
sync/sync: sync a directory from source remote to destination remote
This takes the following parameters:
- srcFs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:src" for the source
- dstFs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:dst" for the destination
- createEmptySrcDirs - create empty src directories on destination if set
See the sync (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_sync/) command for more information on the above.
Authentication is required for this call.
vfs/forget: Forget files or directories in the directory cache.
This forgets the paths in the directory cache causing them to be re-read from the remote when needed.
If no paths are passed in then it will forget all the paths in the directory cache.
rclone rc vfs/forget
Otherwise pass files or dirs in as file=path or dir=path. Any parameter key starting with file will forget that file and any starting with dir will forget that dir, e.g.
rclone rc vfs/forget file=hello file2=goodbye dir=home/junk
This command takes an "fs" parameter. If this parameter is not supplied and if there is only one VFS in use then that VFS will be used. If there is more than one VFS in use then the "fs" parameter must be supplied.
vfs/list: List active VFSes.
This lists the active VFSes.
It returns a list under the key "vfses" where the values are the VFS names that could be passed to the other VFS commands in the "fs" parameter.
vfs/poll-interval: Get the status or update the value of the poll-interval option.
Without any parameter given this returns the current status of the poll-interval setting.
When the interval=duration parameter is set, the poll-interval value is updated and the polling function is notified. Setting interval=0 disables poll-interval.
rclone rc vfs/poll-interval interval=5m
The timeout=duration parameter can be used to specify a time to wait for the current poll function to apply the new value. If timeout is less or equal 0, which is the default, wait indefinitely.
The new poll-interval value will only be active when the timeout is not reached.
If poll-interval is updated or disabled temporarily, some changes might not get picked up by the polling function, depending on the used remote.
This command takes an "fs" parameter. If this parameter is not supplied and if there is only one VFS in use then that VFS will be used. If there is more than one VFS in use then the "fs" parameter must be supplied.
vfs/refresh: Refresh the directory cache.
This reads the directories for the specified paths and freshens the directory cache.
If no paths are passed in then it will refresh the root directory.
rclone rc vfs/refresh
Otherwise pass directories in as dir=path. Any parameter key starting with dir will refresh that directory, e.g.
rclone rc vfs/refresh dir=home/junk dir2=data/misc
If the parameter recursive=true is given the whole directory tree will get refreshed. This refresh will use --fast-list if enabled.
This command takes an "fs" parameter. If this parameter is not supplied and if there is only one VFS in use then that VFS will be used. If there is more than one VFS in use then the "fs" parameter must be supplied.
vfs/stats: Stats for a VFS.
This returns stats for the selected VFS.
{ // Status of the disk cache - only present if --vfs-cache-mode > off "diskCache": { "bytesUsed": 0, "erroredFiles": 0, "files": 0, "hashType": 1, "outOfSpace": false, "path": "/home/user/.cache/rclone/vfs/local/mnt/a", "pathMeta": "/home/user/.cache/rclone/vfsMeta/local/mnt/a", "uploadsInProgress": 0, "uploadsQueued": 0 }, "fs": "/mnt/a", "inUse": 1, // Status of the in memory metadata cache "metadataCache": { "dirs": 1, "files": 0 }, // Options as returned by options/get "opt": { "CacheMaxAge": 3600000000000, // ... "WriteWait": 1000000000 } }
This command takes an "fs" parameter. If this parameter is not supplied and if there is only one VFS in use then that VFS will be used. If there is more than one VFS in use then the "fs" parameter must be supplied.
Accessing the remote control via HTTP
Rclone implements a simple HTTP based protocol.
Each endpoint takes an JSON object and returns a JSON object or an error. The JSON objects are essentially a map of string names to values.
All calls must made using POST.
The input objects can be supplied using URL parameters, POST parameters or by supplying "Content-Type: application/json" and a JSON blob in the body. There are examples of these below using curl
.
The response will be a JSON blob in the body of the response. This is formatted to be reasonably human-readable.
Error returns
If an error occurs then there will be an HTTP error status (e.g. 500) and the body of the response will contain a JSON encoded error object, e.g.
{ "error": "Expecting string value for key \"remote\" (was float64)", "input": { "fs": "/tmp", "remote": 3 }, "status": 400 "path": "operations/rmdir", }
The keys in the error response are - error - error string - input - the input parameters to the call - status - the HTTP status code - path - the path of the call
Cors
The sever implements basic CORS support and allows all origins for that. The response to a preflight OPTIONS request will echo the requested "Access-Control-Request-Headers" back.
Using POST with URL parameters only
curl -X POST 'http://localhost:5572/rc/noop?potato=1&sausage=2'
Response
{ "potato": "1", "sausage": "2" }
Here is what an error response looks like:
curl -X POST 'http://localhost:5572/rc/error?potato=1&sausage=2'
{ "error": "arbitrary error on input map[potato:1 sausage:2]", "input": { "potato": "1", "sausage": "2" } }
Note that curl doesn't return errors to the shell unless you use the -f
option
$ curl -f -X POST 'http://localhost:5572/rc/error?potato=1&sausage=2' curl: (22) The requested URL returned error: 400 Bad Request $ echo $? 22
Using POST with a form
curl --data "potato=1" --data "sausage=2" http://localhost:5572/rc/noop
Response
{ "potato": "1", "sausage": "2" }
Note that you can combine these with URL parameters too with the POST parameters taking precedence.
curl --data "potato=1" --data "sausage=2" "http://localhost:5572/rc/noop?rutabaga=3&sausage=4"
Response
{ "potato": "1", "rutabaga": "3", "sausage": "4" }
Using POST with a JSON blob
curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST -d '{"potato":2,"sausage":1}' http://localhost:5572/rc/noop
response
{ "password": "xyz", "username": "xyz" }
This can be combined with URL parameters too if required. The JSON blob takes precedence.
curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST -d '{"potato":2,"sausage":1}' 'http://localhost:5572/rc/noop?rutabaga=3&potato=4'
{ "potato": 2, "rutabaga": "3", "sausage": 1 }
Debugging rclone with pprof
If you use the --rc
flag this will also enable the use of the go profiling tools on the same port.
To use these, first install go (https://golang.org/doc/install).
Debugging memory use
To profile rclone's memory use you can run:
go tool pprof -web http://localhost:5572/debug/pprof/heap
This should open a page in your browser showing what is using what memory.
You can also use the -text
flag to produce a textual summary
$ go tool pprof -text http://localhost:5572/debug/pprof/heap Showing nodes accounting for 1537.03kB, 100% of 1537.03kB total flat flat% sum% cum cum% 1024.03kB 66.62% 66.62% 1024.03kB 66.62% github.com/rclone/rclone/vendor/golang.org/x/net/http2/hpack.addDecoderNode 513kB 33.38% 100% 513kB 33.38% net/http.newBufioWriterSize 0 0% 100% 1024.03kB 66.62% github.com/rclone/rclone/cmd/all.init 0 0% 100% 1024.03kB 66.62% github.com/rclone/rclone/cmd/serve.init 0 0% 100% 1024.03kB 66.62% github.com/rclone/rclone/cmd/serve/restic.init 0 0% 100% 1024.03kB 66.62% github.com/rclone/rclone/vendor/golang.org/x/net/http2.init 0 0% 100% 1024.03kB 66.62% github.com/rclone/rclone/vendor/golang.org/x/net/http2/hpack.init 0 0% 100% 1024.03kB 66.62% github.com/rclone/rclone/vendor/golang.org/x/net/http2/hpack.init.0 0 0% 100% 1024.03kB 66.62% main.init 0 0% 100% 513kB 33.38% net/http.(*conn).readRequest 0 0% 100% 513kB 33.38% net/http.(*conn).serve 0 0% 100% 1024.03kB 66.62% runtime.main
Debugging go routine leaks
Memory leaks are most often caused by go routine leaks keeping memory alive which should have been garbage collected.
See all active go routines using
curl http://localhost:5572/debug/pprof/goroutine?debug=1
Or go to http://localhost:5572/debug/pprof/goroutine?debug=1 in your browser.
Other profiles to look at
You can see a summary of profiles available at http://localhost:5572/debug/pprof/
Here is how to use some of them:
- Memory:
go tool pprof http://localhost:5572/debug/pprof/heap
- Go routines:
curl http://localhost:5572/debug/pprof/goroutine?debug=1
- 30-second CPU profile:
go tool pprof http://localhost:5572/debug/pprof/profile
- 5-second execution trace:
wget http://localhost:5572/debug/pprof/trace?seconds=5
Goroutine blocking profile
- Enable first with:
rclone rc debug/set-block-profile-rate rate=1
(docs) go tool pprof http://localhost:5572/debug/pprof/block
- Enable first with:
Contended mutexes:
- Enable first with:
rclone rc debug/set-mutex-profile-fraction rate=1
(docs) go tool pprof http://localhost:5572/debug/pprof/mutex
- Enable first with:
See the net/http/pprof docs (https://golang.org/pkg/net/http/pprof/) for more info on how to use the profiling and for a general overview see the Go team's blog post on profiling go programs (https://blog.golang.org/profiling-go-programs).
The profiling hook is zero overhead unless it is used (https://stackoverflow.com/q/26545159/164234).
Overview of cloud storage systems
Each cloud storage system is slightly different. Rclone attempts to provide a unified interface to them, but some underlying differences show through.
Features
Here is an overview of the major features of each cloud storage system.
Name | Hash | ModTime | Case Insensitive | Duplicate Files | MIME Type | Metadata |
1Fichier | Whirlpool | - | No | Yes | R | - |
Akamai Netstorage | MD5, SHA256 | R/W | No | No | R | - |
Amazon Drive | MD5 | - | Yes | No | R | - |
Amazon S3 (or S3 compatible) | MD5 | R/W | No | No | R/W | RWU |
Backblaze B2 | SHA1 | R/W | No | No | R/W | - |
Box | SHA1 | R/W | Yes | No | - | - |
Citrix ShareFile | MD5 | R/W | Yes | No | - | - |
Dropbox | DBHASH ¹ | R | Yes | No | - | - |
Enterprise File Fabric | - | R/W | Yes | No | R/W | - |
FTP | - | R/W ¹⁰ | No | No | - | - |
Google Cloud Storage | MD5 | R/W | No | No | R/W | - |
Google Drive | MD5 | R/W | No | Yes | R/W | - |
Google Photos | - | - | No | Yes | R | - |
HDFS | - | R/W | No | No | - | - |
HiDrive | HiDrive ¹² | R/W | No | No | - | - |
HTTP | - | R | No | No | R | - |
Internet Archive | MD5, SHA1, CRC32 | R/W ¹¹ | No | No | - | RWU |
Jottacloud | MD5 | R/W | Yes | No | R | - |
Koofr | MD5 | - | Yes | No | - | - |
Mail.ru Cloud | Mailru ⁶ | R/W | Yes | No | - | - |
Mega | - | - | No | Yes | - | - |
Memory | MD5 | R/W | No | No | - | - |
Microsoft Azure Blob Storage | MD5 | R/W | No | No | R/W | - |
Microsoft OneDrive | SHA1 ⁵ | R/W | Yes | No | R | - |
OpenDrive | MD5 | R/W | Yes | Partial ⁸ | - | - |
OpenStack Swift | MD5 | R/W | No | No | R/W | - |
Oracle Object Storage | MD5 | R/W | No | No | R/W | - |
pCloud | MD5, SHA1 ⁷ | R | No | No | W | - |
premiumize.me | - | - | Yes | No | R | - |
put.io | CRC-32 | R/W | No | Yes | R | - |
QingStor | MD5 | - ⁹ | No | No | R/W | - |
Seafile | - | - | No | No | - | - |
SFTP | MD5, SHA1 ² | R/W | Depends | No | - | - |
Sia | - | - | No | No | - | - |
SMB | - | - | Yes | No | - | - |
SugarSync | - | - | No | No | - | - |
Storj | - | R | No | No | - | - |
Uptobox | - | - | No | Yes | - | - |
WebDAV | MD5, SHA1 ³ | R ⁴ | Depends | No | - | - |
Yandex Disk | MD5 | R/W | No | No | R | - |
Zoho WorkDrive | - | - | No | No | - | - |
The local filesystem | All | R/W | Depends | No | - | RWU |
Notes
¹ Dropbox supports its own custom hash (https://www.dropbox.com/developers/reference/content-hash). This is an SHA256 sum of all the 4 MiB block SHA256s.
² SFTP supports checksums if the same login has shell access and md5sum
or sha1sum
as well as echo
are in the remote's PATH.
³ WebDAV supports hashes when used with Owncloud and Nextcloud only.
⁴ WebDAV supports modtimes when used with Owncloud and Nextcloud only.
⁵ Microsoft OneDrive Personal supports SHA1 hashes, whereas OneDrive for business and SharePoint server support Microsoft's own QuickXorHash (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/onedrive/developer/code-snippets/quickxorhash).
⁶ Mail.ru uses its own modified SHA1 hash
⁷ pCloud only supports SHA1 (not MD5) in its EU region
⁸ Opendrive does not support creation of duplicate files using their web client interface or other stock clients, but the underlying storage platform has been determined to allow duplicate files, and it is possible to create them with rclone
. It may be that this is a mistake or an unsupported feature.
⁹ QingStor does not support SetModTime for objects bigger than 5 GiB.
¹⁰ FTP supports modtimes for the major FTP servers, and also others if they advertised required protocol extensions. See this (https://rclone.org/ftp/#modified-time) for more details.
¹¹ Internet Archive requires option wait_archive
to be set to a non-zero value for full modtime support.
¹² HiDrive supports its own custom hash (https://static.hidrive.com/dev/0001). It combines SHA1 sums for each 4 KiB block hierarchically to a single top-level sum.
Hash
The cloud storage system supports various hash types of the objects. The hashes are used when transferring data as an integrity check and can be specifically used with the --checksum
flag in syncs and in the check
command.
To use the verify checksums when transferring between cloud storage systems they must support a common hash type.
ModTime
Almost all cloud storage systems store some sort of timestamp on objects, but several of them not something that is appropriate to use for syncing. E.g. some backends will only write a timestamp that represent the time of the upload. To be relevant for syncing it should be able to store the modification time of the source object. If this is not the case, rclone will only check the file size by default, though can be configured to check the file hash (with the --checksum
flag). Ideally it should also be possible to change the timestamp of an existing file without having to re-upload it.
Storage systems with a -
in the ModTime column, means the modification read on objects is not the modification time of the file when uploaded. It is most likely the time the file was uploaded, or possibly something else (like the time the picture was taken in Google Photos).
Storage systems with a R
(for read-only) in the ModTime column, means the it keeps modification times on objects, and updates them when uploading objects, but it does not support changing only the modification time (SetModTime
operation) without re-uploading, possibly not even without deleting existing first. Some operations in rclone, such as copy
and sync
commands, will automatically check for SetModTime
support and re-upload if necessary to keep the modification times in sync. Other commands will not work without SetModTime
support, e.g. touch
command on an existing file will fail, and changes to modification time only on a files in a mount
will be silently ignored.
Storage systems with R/W
(for read/write) in the ModTime column, means they do also support modtime-only operations.
Case Insensitive
If a cloud storage systems is case sensitive then it is possible to have two files which differ only in case, e.g. file.txt
and FILE.txt
. If a cloud storage system is case insensitive then that isn't possible.
This can cause problems when syncing between a case insensitive system and a case sensitive system. The symptom of this is that no matter how many times you run the sync it never completes fully.
The local filesystem and SFTP may or may not be case sensitive depending on OS.
- Windows - usually case insensitive, though case is preserved
- OSX - usually case insensitive, though it is possible to format case sensitive
- Linux - usually case sensitive, but there are case insensitive file systems (e.g. FAT formatted USB keys)
Most of the time this doesn't cause any problems as people tend to avoid files whose name differs only by case even on case sensitive systems.
Duplicate files
If a cloud storage system allows duplicate files then it can have two objects with the same name.
This confuses rclone greatly when syncing - use the rclone dedupe
command to rename or remove duplicates.
Restricted filenames
Some cloud storage systems might have restrictions on the characters that are usable in file or directory names. When rclone
detects such a name during a file upload, it will transparently replace the restricted characters with similar looking Unicode characters. To handle the different sets of restricted characters for different backends, rclone uses something it calls encoding.
This process is designed to avoid ambiguous file names as much as possible and allow to move files between many cloud storage systems transparently.
The name shown by rclone
to the user or during log output will only contain a minimal set of replaced characters to ensure correct formatting and not necessarily the actual name used on the cloud storage.
This transformation is reversed when downloading a file or parsing rclone
arguments. For example, when uploading a file named my file?.txt
to Onedrive, it will be displayed as my file?.txt
on the console, but stored as my file?.txt
to Onedrive (the ?
gets replaced by the similar looking ?
character, the so-called "fullwidth question mark"). The reverse transformation allows to read a file unusual/name.txt
from Google Drive, by passing the name unusual/name.txt
on the command line (the /
needs to be replaced by the similar looking /
character).
Caveats
The filename encoding system works well in most cases, at least where file names are written in English or similar languages. You might not even notice it: It just works. In some cases it may lead to issues, though. E.g. when file names are written in Chinese, or Japanese, where it is always the Unicode fullwidth variants of the punctuation marks that are used.
On Windows, the characters :
, *
and ?
are examples of restricted characters. If these are used in filenames on a remote that supports it, Rclone will transparently convert them to their fullwidth Unicode variants *
, ?
and :
when downloading to Windows, and back again when uploading. This way files with names that are not allowed on Windows can still be stored.
However, if you have files on your Windows system originally with these same Unicode characters in their names, they will be included in the same conversion process. E.g. if you create a file in your Windows filesystem with name Test:1.jpg
, where :
is the Unicode fullwidth colon symbol, and use rclone to upload it to Google Drive, which supports regular :
(halfwidth question mark), rclone will replace the fullwidth :
with the halfwidth :
and store the file as Test:1.jpg
in Google Drive. Since both Windows and Google Drive allows the name Test:1.jpg
, it would probably be better if rclone just kept the name as is in this case.
With the opposite situation; if you have a file named Test:1.jpg
, in your Google Drive, e.g. uploaded from a Linux system where :
is valid in file names. Then later use rclone to copy this file to your Windows computer you will notice that on your local disk it gets renamed to Test:1.jpg
. The original filename is not legal on Windows, due to the :
, and rclone therefore renames it to make the copy possible. That is all good. However, this can also lead to an issue: If you already had a different file named Test:1.jpg
on Windows, and then use rclone to copy either way. Rclone will then treat the file originally named Test:1.jpg
on Google Drive and the file originally named Test:1.jpg
on Windows as the same file, and replace the contents from one with the other.
Its virtually impossible to handle all cases like these correctly in all situations, but by customizing the encoding option, changing the set of characters that rclone should convert, you should be able to create a configuration that works well for your specific situation. See also the example (https://rclone.org/overview/#encoding-example-windows) below.
(Windows was used as an example of a file system with many restricted characters, and Google drive a storage system with few.)
Default restricted characters
The table below shows the characters that are replaced by default.
When a replacement character is found in a filename, this character will be escaped with the ‛
character to avoid ambiguous file names. (e.g. a file named ␀.txt
would shown as ‛␀.txt
)
Each cloud storage backend can use a different set of characters, which will be specified in the documentation for each backend.
Character | Value | Replacement |
NUL | 0x00 | ␀ |
SOH | 0x01 | ␁ |
STX | 0x02 | ␂ |
ETX | 0x03 | ␃ |
EOT | 0x04 | ␄ |
ENQ | 0x05 | ␅ |
ACK | 0x06 | ␆ |
BEL | 0x07 | ␇ |
BS | 0x08 | ␈ |
HT | 0x09 | ␉ |
LF | 0x0A | ␊ |
VT | 0x0B | ␋ |
FF | 0x0C | ␌ |
CR | 0x0D | ␍ |
SO | 0x0E | ␎ |
SI | 0x0F | ␏ |
DLE | 0x10 | ␐ |
DC1 | 0x11 | ␑ |
DC2 | 0x12 | ␒ |
DC3 | 0x13 | ␓ |
DC4 | 0x14 | ␔ |
NAK | 0x15 | ␕ |
SYN | 0x16 | ␖ |
ETB | 0x17 | ␗ |
CAN | 0x18 | ␘ |
EM | 0x19 | ␙ |
SUB | 0x1A | ␚ |
ESC | 0x1B | ␛ |
FS | 0x1C | ␜ |
GS | 0x1D | ␝ |
RS | 0x1E | ␞ |
US | 0x1F | ␟ |
/ | 0x2F | / |
DEL | 0x7F | ␡ |
The default encoding will also encode these file names as they are problematic with many cloud storage systems.
File name | Replacement |
. | . |
.. | .. |
Invalid UTF-8 bytes
Some backends only support a sequence of well formed UTF-8 bytes as file or directory names.
In this case all invalid UTF-8 bytes will be replaced with a quoted representation of the byte value to allow uploading a file to such a backend. For example, the invalid byte 0xFE
will be encoded as ‛FE
.
A common source of invalid UTF-8 bytes are local filesystems, that store names in a different encoding than UTF-8 or UTF-16, like latin1. See the local filenames (https://rclone.org/local/#filenames) section for details.
Encoding option
Most backends have an encoding option, specified as a flag --backend-encoding
where backend
is the name of the backend, or as a config parameter encoding
(you'll need to select the Advanced config in rclone config
to see it).
This will have default value which encodes and decodes characters in such a way as to preserve the maximum number of characters (see above).
However this can be incorrect in some scenarios, for example if you have a Windows file system with Unicode fullwidth characters *
, ?
or :
, that you want to remain as those characters on the remote rather than being translated to regular (halfwidth) *
, ?
and :
.
The --backend-encoding
flags allow you to change that. You can disable the encoding completely with --backend-encoding None
or set encoding = None
in the config file.
Encoding takes a comma separated list of encodings. You can see the list of all possible values by passing an invalid value to this flag, e.g. --local-encoding "help"
. The command rclone help flags encoding
will show you the defaults for the backends.
Encoding | Characters | Encoded as |
Asterisk | * | * |
BackQuote | ` | ` |
BackSlash | \ | \ |
Colon | : | : |
CrLf | CR 0x0D, LF 0x0A | ␍ , ␊ |
Ctl | All control characters 0x00-0x1F | ␀␁␂␃␄␅␆␇␈␉␊␋␌␍␎␏␐␑␒␓␔␕␖␗␘␙␚␛␜␝␞␟ |
Del | DEL 0x7F | ␡ |
Dollar | $ | $ |
Dot | . or .. as entire string | . , .. |
DoubleQuote | " | " |
Hash | # | # |
InvalidUtf8 | An invalid UTF-8 character (e.g. latin1) | � |
LeftCrLfHtVt | CR 0x0D, LF 0x0A, HT 0x09, VT 0x0B on the left of a string | ␍ , ␊ , ␉ , ␋ |
LeftPeriod | . on the left of a string | . |
LeftSpace | SPACE on the left of a string | ␠ |
LeftTilde | ~ on the left of a string | ~ |
LtGt | < , > | < , > |
None | No characters are encoded | |
Percent | % | % |
Pipe | | | | |
Question | ? | ? |
RightCrLfHtVt | CR 0x0D, LF 0x0A, HT 0x09, VT 0x0B on the right of a string | ␍ , ␊ , ␉ , ␋ |
RightPeriod | . on the right of a string | . |
RightSpace | SPACE on the right of a string | ␠ |
Semicolon | ; | ; |
SingleQuote | ' | ' |
Slash | / | / |
SquareBracket | [ , ] | [ , ] |
Encoding example: FTP
To take a specific example, the FTP backend's default encoding is
--ftp-encoding "Slash,Del,Ctl,RightSpace,Dot"
However, let's say the FTP server is running on Windows and can't have any of the invalid Windows characters in file names. You are backing up Linux servers to this FTP server which do have those characters in file names. So you would add the Windows set which are
Slash,LtGt,DoubleQuote,Colon,Question,Asterisk,Pipe,BackSlash,Ctl,RightSpace,RightPeriod,InvalidUtf8,Dot
to the existing ones, giving:
Slash,LtGt,DoubleQuote,Colon,Question,Asterisk,Pipe,BackSlash,Ctl,RightSpace,RightPeriod,InvalidUtf8,Dot,Del,RightSpace
This can be specified using the --ftp-encoding
flag or using an encoding
parameter in the config file.
Encoding example: Windows
As a nother example, take a Windows system where there is a file with name Test:1.jpg
, where :
is the Unicode fullwidth colon symbol. When using rclone to copy this to a remote which supports :
, the regular (halfwidth) colon (such as Google Drive), you will notice that the file gets renamed to Test:1.jpg
.
To avoid this you can change the set of characters rclone should convert for the local filesystem, using command-line argument --local-encoding
. Rclone's default behavior on Windows corresponds to
--local-encoding "Slash,LtGt,DoubleQuote,Colon,Question,Asterisk,Pipe,BackSlash,Ctl,RightSpace,RightPeriod,InvalidUtf8,Dot"
If you want to use fullwidth characters :
, *
and ?
in your filenames without rclone changing them when uploading to a remote, then set the same as the default value but without Colon,Question,Asterisk
:
--local-encoding "Slash,LtGt,DoubleQuote,Pipe,BackSlash,Ctl,RightSpace,RightPeriod,InvalidUtf8,Dot"
Alternatively, you can disable the conversion of any characters with --local-encoding None
.
Instead of using command-line argument --local-encoding
, you may also set it as environment variable (https://rclone.org/docs/#environment-variables) RCLONE_LOCAL_ENCODING
, or configure (https://rclone.org/docs/#configure) a remote of type local
in your config, and set the encoding
option there.
The risk by doing this is that if you have a filename with the regular (halfwidth) :
, *
and ?
in your cloud storage, and you try to download it to your Windows filesystem, this will fail. These characters are not valid in filenames on Windows, and you have told rclone not to work around this by converting them to valid fullwidth variants.
MIME Type
MIME types (also known as media types) classify types of documents using a simple text classification, e.g. text/html
or application/pdf
.
Some cloud storage systems support reading (R
) the MIME type of objects and some support writing (W
) the MIME type of objects.
The MIME type can be important if you are serving files directly to HTTP from the storage system.
If you are copying from a remote which supports reading (R
) to a remote which supports writing (W
) then rclone will preserve the MIME types. Otherwise they will be guessed from the extension, or the remote itself may assign the MIME type.
Metadata
Backends may or may support reading or writing metadata. They may support reading and writing system metadata (metadata intrinsic to that backend) and/or user metadata (general purpose metadata).
The levels of metadata support are
Key | Explanation |
R | Read only System Metadata |
RW | Read and write System Metadata |
RWU | Read and write System Metadata and read and write User Metadata |
See the metadata docs (https://rclone.org/docs/#metadata) for more info.
Optional Features
All rclone remotes support a base command set. Other features depend upon backend-specific capabilities.
Name | Purge | Copy | Move | DirMove | CleanUp | ListR | StreamUpload | LinkSharing | About | EmptyDir |
1Fichier | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes |
Akamai Netstorage | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
Amazon Drive | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
Amazon S3 (or S3 compatible) | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Backblaze B2 | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Box | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes ‡‡ | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Citrix ShareFile | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
Dropbox | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Enterprise File Fabric | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes |
FTP | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
Google Cloud Storage | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
Google Drive | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Google Photos | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
HDFS | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
HiDrive | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
HTTP | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
Internet Archive | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No |
Jottacloud | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Koofr | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Mail.ru Cloud | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Mega | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Memory | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
Microsoft Azure Blob Storage | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
Microsoft OneDrive | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
OpenDrive | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
OpenStack Swift | Yes † | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No |
Oracle Object Storage | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
pCloud | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
premiumize.me | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
put.io | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
QingStor | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Seafile | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
SFTP | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Sia | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
SMB | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
SugarSync | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
Storj | Yes † | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
Uptobox | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
WebDAV | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes ‡ | No | Yes | Yes |
Yandex Disk | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Zoho WorkDrive | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
The local filesystem | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Purge
This deletes a directory quicker than just deleting all the files in the directory.
† Note Swift and Storj implement this in order to delete directory markers but they don't actually have a quicker way of deleting files other than deleting them individually.
‡ StreamUpload is not supported with Nextcloud
Copy
Used when copying an object to and from the same remote. This known as a server-side copy so you can copy a file without downloading it and uploading it again. It is used if you use rclone copy
or rclone move
if the remote doesn't support Move
directly.
If the server doesn't support Copy
directly then for copy operations the file is downloaded then re-uploaded.
Move
Used when moving/renaming an object on the same remote. This is known as a server-side move of a file. This is used in rclone move
if the server doesn't support DirMove
.
If the server isn't capable of Move
then rclone simulates it with Copy
then delete. If the server doesn't support Copy
then rclone will download the file and re-upload it.
DirMove
This is used to implement rclone move
to move a directory if possible. If it isn't then it will use Move
on each file (which falls back to Copy
then download and upload - see Move
section).
CleanUp
This is used for emptying the trash for a remote by rclone cleanup
.
If the server can't do CleanUp
then rclone cleanup
will return an error.
‡‡ Note that while Box implements this it has to delete every file individually so it will be slower than emptying the trash via the WebUI
ListR
The remote supports a recursive list to list all the contents beneath a directory quickly. This enables the --fast-list
flag to work. See the rclone docs (https://rclone.org/docs/#fast-list) for more details.
StreamUpload
Some remotes allow files to be uploaded without knowing the file size in advance. This allows certain operations to work without spooling the file to local disk first, e.g. rclone rcat
.
LinkSharing
Sets the necessary permissions on a file or folder and prints a link that allows others to access them, even if they don't have an account on the particular cloud provider.
About
Rclone about
prints quota information for a remote. Typical output includes bytes used, free, quota and in trash.
If a remote lacks about capability rclone about remote:
returns an error.
Backends without about capability cannot determine free space for an rclone mount, or use policy mfs
(most free space) as a member of an rclone union remote.
See rclone about command (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_about/)
EmptyDir
The remote supports empty directories. See Limitations (https://rclone.org/bugs/#limitations) for details. Most Object/Bucket-based remotes do not support this.
Global Flags
This describes the global flags available to every rclone command split into two groups, non backend and backend flags.
Non Backend Flags
These flags are available for every command.
--ask-password Allow prompt for password for encrypted configuration (default true) --auto-confirm If enabled, do not request console confirmation --backup-dir string Make backups into hierarchy based in DIR --bind string Local address to bind to for outgoing connections, IPv4, IPv6 or name --buffer-size SizeSuffix In memory buffer size when reading files for each --transfer (default 16Mi) --bwlimit BwTimetable Bandwidth limit in KiB/s, or use suffix B|K|M|G|T|P or a full timetable --bwlimit-file BwTimetable Bandwidth limit per file in KiB/s, or use suffix B|K|M|G|T|P or a full timetable --ca-cert string CA certificate used to verify servers --cache-dir string Directory rclone will use for caching (default "$HOME/.cache/rclone") --check-first Do all the checks before starting transfers --checkers int Number of checkers to run in parallel (default 8) -c, --checksum Skip based on checksum (if available) & size, not mod-time & size --client-cert string Client SSL certificate (PEM) for mutual TLS auth --client-key string Client SSL private key (PEM) for mutual TLS auth --compare-dest stringArray Include additional comma separated server-side paths during comparison --config string Config file (default "$HOME/.config/rclone/rclone.conf") --contimeout duration Connect timeout (default 1m0s) --copy-dest stringArray Implies --compare-dest but also copies files from paths into destination --cpuprofile string Write cpu profile to file --cutoff-mode string Mode to stop transfers when reaching the max transfer limit HARD|SOFT|CAUTIOUS (default "HARD") --delete-after When synchronizing, delete files on destination after transferring (default) --delete-before When synchronizing, delete files on destination before transferring --delete-during When synchronizing, delete files during transfer --delete-excluded Delete files on dest excluded from sync --disable string Disable a comma separated list of features (use --disable help to see a list) --disable-http-keep-alives Disable HTTP keep-alives and use each connection once. --disable-http2 Disable HTTP/2 in the global transport -n, --dry-run Do a trial run with no permanent changes --dscp string Set DSCP value to connections, value or name, e.g. CS1, LE, DF, AF21 --dump DumpFlags List of items to dump from: headers,bodies,requests,responses,auth,filters,goroutines,openfiles --dump-bodies Dump HTTP headers and bodies - may contain sensitive info --dump-headers Dump HTTP headers - may contain sensitive info --error-on-no-transfer Sets exit code 9 if no files are transferred, useful in scripts --exclude stringArray Exclude files matching pattern --exclude-from stringArray Read exclude patterns from file (use - to read from stdin) --exclude-if-present stringArray Exclude directories if filename is present --expect-continue-timeout duration Timeout when using expect / 100-continue in HTTP (default 1s) --fast-list Use recursive list if available; uses more memory but fewer transactions --files-from stringArray Read list of source-file names from file (use - to read from stdin) --files-from-raw stringArray Read list of source-file names from file without any processing of lines (use - to read from stdin) -f, --filter stringArray Add a file-filtering rule --filter-from stringArray Read filtering patterns from a file (use - to read from stdin) --fs-cache-expire-duration duration Cache remotes for this long (0 to disable caching) (default 5m0s) --fs-cache-expire-interval duration Interval to check for expired remotes (default 1m0s) --header stringArray Set HTTP header for all transactions --header-download stringArray Set HTTP header for download transactions --header-upload stringArray Set HTTP header for upload transactions --human-readable Print numbers in a human-readable format, sizes with suffix Ki|Mi|Gi|Ti|Pi --ignore-case Ignore case in filters (case insensitive) --ignore-case-sync Ignore case when synchronizing --ignore-checksum Skip post copy check of checksums --ignore-errors Delete even if there are I/O errors --ignore-existing Skip all files that exist on destination --ignore-size Ignore size when skipping use mod-time or checksum -I, --ignore-times Don't skip files that match size and time - transfer all files --immutable Do not modify files, fail if existing files have been modified --include stringArray Include files matching pattern --include-from stringArray Read include patterns from file (use - to read from stdin) -i, --interactive Enable interactive mode --kv-lock-time duration Maximum time to keep key-value database locked by process (default 1s) --log-file string Log everything to this file --log-format string Comma separated list of log format options (default "date,time") --log-level string Log level DEBUG|INFO|NOTICE|ERROR (default "NOTICE") --log-systemd Activate systemd integration for the logger --low-level-retries int Number of low level retries to do (default 10) --max-age Duration Only transfer files younger than this in s or suffix ms|s|m|h|d|w|M|y (default off) --max-backlog int Maximum number of objects in sync or check backlog (default 10000) --max-delete int When synchronizing, limit the number of deletes (default -1) --max-depth int If set limits the recursion depth to this (default -1) --max-duration duration Maximum duration rclone will transfer data for --max-size SizeSuffix Only transfer files smaller than this in KiB or suffix B|K|M|G|T|P (default off) --max-stats-groups int Maximum number of stats groups to keep in memory, on max oldest is discarded (default 1000) --max-transfer SizeSuffix Maximum size of data to transfer (default off) --memprofile string Write memory profile to file -M, --metadata If set, preserve metadata when copying objects --metadata-set stringArray Add metadata key=value when uploading --min-age Duration Only transfer files older than this in s or suffix ms|s|m|h|d|w|M|y (default off) --min-size SizeSuffix Only transfer files bigger than this in KiB or suffix B|K|M|G|T|P (default off) --modify-window duration Max time diff to be considered the same (default 1ns) --multi-thread-cutoff SizeSuffix Use multi-thread downloads for files above this size (default 250Mi) --multi-thread-streams int Max number of streams to use for multi-thread downloads (default 4) --no-check-certificate Do not verify the server SSL certificate (insecure) --no-check-dest Don't check the destination, copy regardless --no-console Hide console window (supported on Windows only) --no-gzip-encoding Don't set Accept-Encoding: gzip --no-traverse Don't traverse destination file system on copy --no-unicode-normalization Don't normalize unicode characters in filenames --no-update-modtime Don't update destination mod-time if files identical --order-by string Instructions on how to order the transfers, e.g. 'size,descending' --password-command SpaceSepList Command for supplying password for encrypted configuration -P, --progress Show progress during transfer --progress-terminal-title Show progress on the terminal title (requires -P/--progress) -q, --quiet Print as little stuff as possible --rc Enable the remote control server --rc-addr string IPaddress:Port or :Port to bind server to (default "localhost:5572") --rc-allow-origin string Set the allowed origin for CORS --rc-baseurl string Prefix for URLs - leave blank for root --rc-cert string SSL PEM key (concatenation of certificate and CA certificate) --rc-client-ca string Client certificate authority to verify clients with --rc-enable-metrics Enable prometheus metrics on /metrics --rc-files string Path to local files to serve on the HTTP server --rc-htpasswd string htpasswd file - if not provided no authentication is done --rc-job-expire-duration duration Expire finished async jobs older than this value (default 1m0s) --rc-job-expire-interval duration Interval to check for expired async jobs (default 10s) --rc-key string SSL PEM Private key --rc-max-header-bytes int Maximum size of request header (default 4096) --rc-min-tls-version string Minimum TLS version that is acceptable (default "tls1.0") --rc-no-auth Don't require auth for certain methods --rc-pass string Password for authentication --rc-realm string Realm for authentication (default "rclone") --rc-serve Enable the serving of remote objects --rc-server-read-timeout duration Timeout for server reading data (default 1h0m0s) --rc-server-write-timeout duration Timeout for server writing data (default 1h0m0s) --rc-template string User-specified template --rc-user string User name for authentication --rc-web-fetch-url string URL to fetch the releases for webgui (default "https://api.github.com/repos/rclone/rclone-webui-react/releases/latest") --rc-web-gui Launch WebGUI on localhost --rc-web-gui-force-update Force update to latest version of web gui --rc-web-gui-no-open-browser Don't open the browser automatically --rc-web-gui-update Check and update to latest version of web gui --refresh-times Refresh the modtime of remote files --retries int Retry operations this many times if they fail (default 3) --retries-sleep duration Interval between retrying operations if they fail, e.g. 500ms, 60s, 5m (0 to disable) --server-side-across-configs Allow server-side operations (e.g. copy) to work across different configs --size-only Skip based on size only, not mod-time or checksum --stats duration Interval between printing stats, e.g. 500ms, 60s, 5m (0 to disable) (default 1m0s) --stats-file-name-length int Max file name length in stats (0 for no limit) (default 45) --stats-log-level string Log level to show --stats output DEBUG|INFO|NOTICE|ERROR (default "INFO") --stats-one-line Make the stats fit on one line --stats-one-line-date Enable --stats-one-line and add current date/time prefix --stats-one-line-date-format string Enable --stats-one-line-date and use custom formatted date: Enclose date string in double quotes ("), see https://golang.org/pkg/time/#Time.Format --stats-unit string Show data rate in stats as either 'bits' or 'bytes' per second (default "bytes") --streaming-upload-cutoff SizeSuffix Cutoff for switching to chunked upload if file size is unknown, upload starts after reaching cutoff or when file ends (default 100Ki) --suffix string Suffix to add to changed files --suffix-keep-extension Preserve the extension when using --suffix --syslog Use Syslog for logging --syslog-facility string Facility for syslog, e.g. KERN,USER,... (default "DAEMON") --temp-dir string Directory rclone will use for temporary files (default "/tmp") --timeout duration IO idle timeout (default 5m0s) --tpslimit float Limit HTTP transactions per second to this --tpslimit-burst int Max burst of transactions for --tpslimit (default 1) --track-renames When synchronizing, track file renames and do a server-side move if possible --track-renames-strategy string Strategies to use when synchronizing using track-renames hash|modtime|leaf (default "hash") --transfers int Number of file transfers to run in parallel (default 4) -u, --update Skip files that are newer on the destination --use-cookies Enable session cookiejar --use-json-log Use json log format --use-mmap Use mmap allocator (see docs) --use-server-modtime Use server modified time instead of object metadata --user-agent string Set the user-agent to a specified string (default "rclone/v1.60.1") -v, --verbose count Print lots more stuff (repeat for more)
Backend Flags
These flags are available for every command. They control the backends and may be set in the config file.
--acd-auth-url string Auth server URL --acd-client-id string OAuth Client Id --acd-client-secret string OAuth Client Secret --acd-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --acd-templink-threshold SizeSuffix Files >= this size will be downloaded via their tempLink (default 9Gi) --acd-token string OAuth Access Token as a JSON blob --acd-token-url string Token server url --acd-upload-wait-per-gb Duration Additional time per GiB to wait after a failed complete upload to see if it appears (default 3m0s) --alias-remote string Remote or path to alias --azureblob-access-tier string Access tier of blob: hot, cool or archive --azureblob-account string Storage Account Name --azureblob-archive-tier-delete Delete archive tier blobs before overwriting --azureblob-chunk-size SizeSuffix Upload chunk size (default 4Mi) --azureblob-disable-checksum Don't store MD5 checksum with object metadata --azureblob-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,BackSlash,Del,Ctl,RightPeriod,InvalidUtf8) --azureblob-endpoint string Endpoint for the service --azureblob-key string Storage Account Key --azureblob-list-chunk int Size of blob list (default 5000) --azureblob-memory-pool-flush-time Duration How often internal memory buffer pools will be flushed (default 1m0s) --azureblob-memory-pool-use-mmap Whether to use mmap buffers in internal memory pool --azureblob-msi-client-id string Object ID of the user-assigned MSI to use, if any --azureblob-msi-mi-res-id string Azure resource ID of the user-assigned MSI to use, if any --azureblob-msi-object-id string Object ID of the user-assigned MSI to use, if any --azureblob-no-head-object If set, do not do HEAD before GET when getting objects --azureblob-public-access string Public access level of a container: blob or container --azureblob-sas-url string SAS URL for container level access only --azureblob-service-principal-file string Path to file containing credentials for use with a service principal --azureblob-upload-concurrency int Concurrency for multipart uploads (default 16) --azureblob-upload-cutoff string Cutoff for switching to chunked upload (<= 256 MiB) (deprecated) --azureblob-use-emulator Uses local storage emulator if provided as 'true' --azureblob-use-msi Use a managed service identity to authenticate (only works in Azure) --b2-account string Account ID or Application Key ID --b2-chunk-size SizeSuffix Upload chunk size (default 96Mi) --b2-copy-cutoff SizeSuffix Cutoff for switching to multipart copy (default 4Gi) --b2-disable-checksum Disable checksums for large (> upload cutoff) files --b2-download-auth-duration Duration Time before the authorization token will expire in s or suffix ms|s|m|h|d (default 1w) --b2-download-url string Custom endpoint for downloads --b2-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,BackSlash,Del,Ctl,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --b2-endpoint string Endpoint for the service --b2-hard-delete Permanently delete files on remote removal, otherwise hide files --b2-key string Application Key --b2-memory-pool-flush-time Duration How often internal memory buffer pools will be flushed (default 1m0s) --b2-memory-pool-use-mmap Whether to use mmap buffers in internal memory pool --b2-test-mode string A flag string for X-Bz-Test-Mode header for debugging --b2-upload-cutoff SizeSuffix Cutoff for switching to chunked upload (default 200Mi) --b2-version-at Time Show file versions as they were at the specified time (default off) --b2-versions Include old versions in directory listings --box-access-token string Box App Primary Access Token --box-auth-url string Auth server URL --box-box-config-file string Box App config.json location --box-box-sub-type string (default "user") --box-client-id string OAuth Client Id --box-client-secret string OAuth Client Secret --box-commit-retries int Max number of times to try committing a multipart file (default 100) --box-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,BackSlash,Del,Ctl,RightSpace,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --box-list-chunk int Size of listing chunk 1-1000 (default 1000) --box-owned-by string Only show items owned by the login (email address) passed in --box-root-folder-id string Fill in for rclone to use a non root folder as its starting point --box-token string OAuth Access Token as a JSON blob --box-token-url string Token server url --box-upload-cutoff SizeSuffix Cutoff for switching to multipart upload (>= 50 MiB) (default 50Mi) --cache-chunk-clean-interval Duration How often should the cache perform cleanups of the chunk storage (default 1m0s) --cache-chunk-no-memory Disable the in-memory cache for storing chunks during streaming --cache-chunk-path string Directory to cache chunk files (default "$HOME/.cache/rclone/cache-backend") --cache-chunk-size SizeSuffix The size of a chunk (partial file data) (default 5Mi) --cache-chunk-total-size SizeSuffix The total size that the chunks can take up on the local disk (default 10Gi) --cache-db-path string Directory to store file structure metadata DB (default "$HOME/.cache/rclone/cache-backend") --cache-db-purge Clear all the cached data for this remote on start --cache-db-wait-time Duration How long to wait for the DB to be available - 0 is unlimited (default 1s) --cache-info-age Duration How long to cache file structure information (directory listings, file size, times, etc.) (default 6h0m0s) --cache-plex-insecure string Skip all certificate verification when connecting to the Plex server --cache-plex-password string The password of the Plex user (obscured) --cache-plex-url string The URL of the Plex server --cache-plex-username string The username of the Plex user --cache-read-retries int How many times to retry a read from a cache storage (default 10) --cache-remote string Remote to cache --cache-rps int Limits the number of requests per second to the source FS (-1 to disable) (default -1) --cache-tmp-upload-path string Directory to keep temporary files until they are uploaded --cache-tmp-wait-time Duration How long should files be stored in local cache before being uploaded (default 15s) --cache-workers int How many workers should run in parallel to download chunks (default 4) --cache-writes Cache file data on writes through the FS --chunker-chunk-size SizeSuffix Files larger than chunk size will be split in chunks (default 2Gi) --chunker-fail-hard Choose how chunker should handle files with missing or invalid chunks --chunker-hash-type string Choose how chunker handles hash sums (default "md5") --chunker-remote string Remote to chunk/unchunk --combine-upstreams SpaceSepList Upstreams for combining --compress-level int GZIP compression level (-2 to 9) (default -1) --compress-mode string Compression mode (default "gzip") --compress-ram-cache-limit SizeSuffix Some remotes don't allow the upload of files with unknown size (default 20Mi) --compress-remote string Remote to compress -L, --copy-links Follow symlinks and copy the pointed to item --crypt-directory-name-encryption Option to either encrypt directory names or leave them intact (default true) --crypt-filename-encoding string How to encode the encrypted filename to text string (default "base32") --crypt-filename-encryption string How to encrypt the filenames (default "standard") --crypt-no-data-encryption Option to either encrypt file data or leave it unencrypted --crypt-password string Password or pass phrase for encryption (obscured) --crypt-password2 string Password or pass phrase for salt (obscured) --crypt-remote string Remote to encrypt/decrypt --crypt-server-side-across-configs Allow server-side operations (e.g. copy) to work across different crypt configs --crypt-show-mapping For all files listed show how the names encrypt --drive-acknowledge-abuse Set to allow files which return cannotDownloadAbusiveFile to be downloaded --drive-allow-import-name-change Allow the filetype to change when uploading Google docs --drive-auth-owner-only Only consider files owned by the authenticated user --drive-auth-url string Auth server URL --drive-chunk-size SizeSuffix Upload chunk size (default 8Mi) --drive-client-id string Google Application Client Id --drive-client-secret string OAuth Client Secret --drive-copy-shortcut-content Server side copy contents of shortcuts instead of the shortcut --drive-disable-http2 Disable drive using http2 (default true) --drive-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default InvalidUtf8) --drive-export-formats string Comma separated list of preferred formats for downloading Google docs (default "docx,xlsx,pptx,svg") --drive-formats string Deprecated: See export_formats --drive-impersonate string Impersonate this user when using a service account --drive-import-formats string Comma separated list of preferred formats for uploading Google docs --drive-keep-revision-forever Keep new head revision of each file forever --drive-list-chunk int Size of listing chunk 100-1000, 0 to disable (default 1000) --drive-pacer-burst int Number of API calls to allow without sleeping (default 100) --drive-pacer-min-sleep Duration Minimum time to sleep between API calls (default 100ms) --drive-resource-key string Resource key for accessing a link-shared file --drive-root-folder-id string ID of the root folder --drive-scope string Scope that rclone should use when requesting access from drive --drive-server-side-across-configs Allow server-side operations (e.g. copy) to work across different drive configs --drive-service-account-credentials string Service Account Credentials JSON blob --drive-service-account-file string Service Account Credentials JSON file path --drive-shared-with-me Only show files that are shared with me --drive-size-as-quota Show sizes as storage quota usage, not actual size --drive-skip-checksum-gphotos Skip MD5 checksum on Google photos and videos only --drive-skip-dangling-shortcuts If set skip dangling shortcut files --drive-skip-gdocs Skip google documents in all listings --drive-skip-shortcuts If set skip shortcut files --drive-starred-only Only show files that are starred --drive-stop-on-download-limit Make download limit errors be fatal --drive-stop-on-upload-limit Make upload limit errors be fatal --drive-team-drive string ID of the Shared Drive (Team Drive) --drive-token string OAuth Access Token as a JSON blob --drive-token-url string Token server url --drive-trashed-only Only show files that are in the trash --drive-upload-cutoff SizeSuffix Cutoff for switching to chunked upload (default 8Mi) --drive-use-created-date Use file created date instead of modified date --drive-use-shared-date Use date file was shared instead of modified date --drive-use-trash Send files to the trash instead of deleting permanently (default true) --drive-v2-download-min-size SizeSuffix If Object's are greater, use drive v2 API to download (default off) --dropbox-auth-url string Auth server URL --dropbox-batch-commit-timeout Duration Max time to wait for a batch to finish committing (default 10m0s) --dropbox-batch-mode string Upload file batching sync|async|off (default "sync") --dropbox-batch-size int Max number of files in upload batch --dropbox-batch-timeout Duration Max time to allow an idle upload batch before uploading (default 0s) --dropbox-chunk-size SizeSuffix Upload chunk size (< 150Mi) (default 48Mi) --dropbox-client-id string OAuth Client Id --dropbox-client-secret string OAuth Client Secret --dropbox-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,BackSlash,Del,RightSpace,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --dropbox-impersonate string Impersonate this user when using a business account --dropbox-shared-files Instructs rclone to work on individual shared files --dropbox-shared-folders Instructs rclone to work on shared folders --dropbox-token string OAuth Access Token as a JSON blob --dropbox-token-url string Token server url --fichier-api-key string Your API Key, get it from https://1fichier.com/console/params.pl --fichier-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,LtGt,DoubleQuote,SingleQuote,BackQuote,Dollar,BackSlash,Del,Ctl,LeftSpace,RightSpace,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --fichier-file-password string If you want to download a shared file that is password protected, add this parameter (obscured) --fichier-folder-password string If you want to list the files in a shared folder that is password protected, add this parameter (obscured) --fichier-shared-folder string If you want to download a shared folder, add this parameter --filefabric-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,Del,Ctl,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --filefabric-permanent-token string Permanent Authentication Token --filefabric-root-folder-id string ID of the root folder --filefabric-token string Session Token --filefabric-token-expiry string Token expiry time --filefabric-url string URL of the Enterprise File Fabric to connect to --filefabric-version string Version read from the file fabric --ftp-ask-password Allow asking for FTP password when needed --ftp-close-timeout Duration Maximum time to wait for a response to close (default 1m0s) --ftp-concurrency int Maximum number of FTP simultaneous connections, 0 for unlimited --ftp-disable-epsv Disable using EPSV even if server advertises support --ftp-disable-mlsd Disable using MLSD even if server advertises support --ftp-disable-tls13 Disable TLS 1.3 (workaround for FTP servers with buggy TLS) --ftp-disable-utf8 Disable using UTF-8 even if server advertises support --ftp-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,Del,Ctl,RightSpace,Dot) --ftp-explicit-tls Use Explicit FTPS (FTP over TLS) --ftp-force-list-hidden Use LIST -a to force listing of hidden files and folders. This will disable the use of MLSD --ftp-host string FTP host to connect to --ftp-idle-timeout Duration Max time before closing idle connections (default 1m0s) --ftp-no-check-certificate Do not verify the TLS certificate of the server --ftp-pass string FTP password (obscured) --ftp-port int FTP port number (default 21) --ftp-shut-timeout Duration Maximum time to wait for data connection closing status (default 1m0s) --ftp-tls Use Implicit FTPS (FTP over TLS) --ftp-tls-cache-size int Size of TLS session cache for all control and data connections (default 32) --ftp-user string FTP username (default "$USER") --ftp-writing-mdtm Use MDTM to set modification time (VsFtpd quirk) --gcs-anonymous Access public buckets and objects without credentials --gcs-auth-url string Auth server URL --gcs-bucket-acl string Access Control List for new buckets --gcs-bucket-policy-only Access checks should use bucket-level IAM policies --gcs-client-id string OAuth Client Id --gcs-client-secret string OAuth Client Secret --gcs-decompress If set this will decompress gzip encoded objects --gcs-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,CrLf,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --gcs-endpoint string Endpoint for the service --gcs-location string Location for the newly created buckets --gcs-no-check-bucket If set, don't attempt to check the bucket exists or create it --gcs-object-acl string Access Control List for new objects --gcs-project-number string Project number --gcs-service-account-file string Service Account Credentials JSON file path --gcs-storage-class string The storage class to use when storing objects in Google Cloud Storage --gcs-token string OAuth Access Token as a JSON blob --gcs-token-url string Token server url --gphotos-auth-url string Auth server URL --gphotos-client-id string OAuth Client Id --gphotos-client-secret string OAuth Client Secret --gphotos-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,CrLf,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --gphotos-include-archived Also view and download archived media --gphotos-read-only Set to make the Google Photos backend read only --gphotos-read-size Set to read the size of media items --gphotos-start-year int Year limits the photos to be downloaded to those which are uploaded after the given year (default 2000) --gphotos-token string OAuth Access Token as a JSON blob --gphotos-token-url string Token server url --hasher-auto-size SizeSuffix Auto-update checksum for files smaller than this size (disabled by default) --hasher-hashes CommaSepList Comma separated list of supported checksum types (default md5,sha1) --hasher-max-age Duration Maximum time to keep checksums in cache (0 = no cache, off = cache forever) (default off) --hasher-remote string Remote to cache checksums for (e.g. myRemote:path) --hdfs-data-transfer-protection string Kerberos data transfer protection: authentication|integrity|privacy --hdfs-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,Colon,Del,Ctl,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --hdfs-namenode string Hadoop name node and port --hdfs-service-principal-name string Kerberos service principal name for the namenode --hdfs-username string Hadoop user name --hidrive-auth-url string Auth server URL --hidrive-chunk-size SizeSuffix Chunksize for chunked uploads (default 48Mi) --hidrive-client-id string OAuth Client Id --hidrive-client-secret string OAuth Client Secret --hidrive-disable-fetching-member-count Do not fetch number of objects in directories unless it is absolutely necessary --hidrive-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,Dot) --hidrive-endpoint string Endpoint for the service (default "https://api.hidrive.strato.com/2.1") --hidrive-root-prefix string The root/parent folder for all paths (default "/") --hidrive-scope-access string Access permissions that rclone should use when requesting access from HiDrive (default "rw") --hidrive-scope-role string User-level that rclone should use when requesting access from HiDrive (default "user") --hidrive-token string OAuth Access Token as a JSON blob --hidrive-token-url string Token server url --hidrive-upload-concurrency int Concurrency for chunked uploads (default 4) --hidrive-upload-cutoff SizeSuffix Cutoff/Threshold for chunked uploads (default 96Mi) --http-headers CommaSepList Set HTTP headers for all transactions --http-no-head Don't use HEAD requests --http-no-slash Set this if the site doesn't end directories with / --http-url string URL of HTTP host to connect to --internetarchive-access-key-id string IAS3 Access Key --internetarchive-disable-checksum Don't ask the server to test against MD5 checksum calculated by rclone (default true) --internetarchive-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,LtGt,CrLf,Del,Ctl,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --internetarchive-endpoint string IAS3 Endpoint (default "https://s3.us.archive.org") --internetarchive-front-endpoint string Host of InternetArchive Frontend (default "https://archive.org") --internetarchive-secret-access-key string IAS3 Secret Key (password) --internetarchive-wait-archive Duration Timeout for waiting the server's processing tasks (specifically archive and book_op) to finish (default 0s) --jottacloud-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,LtGt,DoubleQuote,Colon,Question,Asterisk,Pipe,Del,Ctl,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --jottacloud-hard-delete Delete files permanently rather than putting them into the trash --jottacloud-md5-memory-limit SizeSuffix Files bigger than this will be cached on disk to calculate the MD5 if required (default 10Mi) --jottacloud-no-versions Avoid server side versioning by deleting files and recreating files instead of overwriting them --jottacloud-trashed-only Only show files that are in the trash --jottacloud-upload-resume-limit SizeSuffix Files bigger than this can be resumed if the upload fail's (default 10Mi) --koofr-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,BackSlash,Del,Ctl,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --koofr-endpoint string The Koofr API endpoint to use --koofr-mountid string Mount ID of the mount to use --koofr-password string Your password for rclone (generate one at https://app.koofr.net/app/admin/preferences/password) (obscured) --koofr-provider string Choose your storage provider --koofr-setmtime Does the backend support setting modification time (default true) --koofr-user string Your user name -l, --links Translate symlinks to/from regular files with a '.rclonelink' extension --local-case-insensitive Force the filesystem to report itself as case insensitive --local-case-sensitive Force the filesystem to report itself as case sensitive --local-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,Dot) --local-no-check-updated Don't check to see if the files change during upload --local-no-preallocate Disable preallocation of disk space for transferred files --local-no-set-modtime Disable setting modtime --local-no-sparse Disable sparse files for multi-thread downloads --local-nounc Disable UNC (long path names) conversion on Windows --local-unicode-normalization Apply unicode NFC normalization to paths and filenames --local-zero-size-links Assume the Stat size of links is zero (and read them instead) (deprecated) --mailru-check-hash What should copy do if file checksum is mismatched or invalid (default true) --mailru-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,LtGt,DoubleQuote,Colon,Question,Asterisk,Pipe,BackSlash,Del,Ctl,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --mailru-pass string Password (obscured) --mailru-speedup-enable Skip full upload if there is another file with same data hash (default true) --mailru-speedup-file-patterns string Comma separated list of file name patterns eligible for speedup (put by hash) (default "*.mkv,*.avi,*.mp4,*.mp3,*.zip,*.gz,*.rar,*.pdf") --mailru-speedup-max-disk SizeSuffix This option allows you to disable speedup (put by hash) for large files (default 3Gi) --mailru-speedup-max-memory SizeSuffix Files larger than the size given below will always be hashed on disk (default 32Mi) --mailru-user string User name (usually email) --mega-debug Output more debug from Mega --mega-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --mega-hard-delete Delete files permanently rather than putting them into the trash --mega-pass string Password (obscured) --mega-user string User name --netstorage-account string Set the NetStorage account name --netstorage-host string Domain+path of NetStorage host to connect to --netstorage-protocol string Select between HTTP or HTTPS protocol (default "https") --netstorage-secret string Set the NetStorage account secret/G2O key for authentication (obscured) -x, --one-file-system Don't cross filesystem boundaries (unix/macOS only) --onedrive-access-scopes SpaceSepList Set scopes to be requested by rclone (default Files.Read Files.ReadWrite Files.Read.All Files.ReadWrite.All Sites.Read.All offline_access) --onedrive-auth-url string Auth server URL --onedrive-chunk-size SizeSuffix Chunk size to upload files with - must be multiple of 320k (327,680 bytes) (default 10Mi) --onedrive-client-id string OAuth Client Id --onedrive-client-secret string OAuth Client Secret --onedrive-drive-id string The ID of the drive to use --onedrive-drive-type string The type of the drive (personal | business | documentLibrary) --onedrive-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,LtGt,DoubleQuote,Colon,Question,Asterisk,Pipe,BackSlash,Del,Ctl,LeftSpace,LeftTilde,RightSpace,RightPeriod,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --onedrive-expose-onenote-files Set to make OneNote files show up in directory listings --onedrive-link-password string Set the password for links created by the link command --onedrive-link-scope string Set the scope of the links created by the link command (default "anonymous") --onedrive-link-type string Set the type of the links created by the link command (default "view") --onedrive-list-chunk int Size of listing chunk (default 1000) --onedrive-no-versions Remove all versions on modifying operations --onedrive-region string Choose national cloud region for OneDrive (default "global") --onedrive-root-folder-id string ID of the root folder --onedrive-server-side-across-configs Allow server-side operations (e.g. copy) to work across different onedrive configs --onedrive-token string OAuth Access Token as a JSON blob --onedrive-token-url string Token server url --oos-chunk-size SizeSuffix Chunk size to use for uploading (default 5Mi) --oos-compartment string Object storage compartment OCID --oos-config-file string Path to OCI config file (default "~/.oci/config") --oos-config-profile string Profile name inside the oci config file (default "Default") --oos-copy-cutoff SizeSuffix Cutoff for switching to multipart copy (default 4.656Gi) --oos-copy-timeout Duration Timeout for copy (default 1m0s) --oos-disable-checksum Don't store MD5 checksum with object metadata --oos-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --oos-endpoint string Endpoint for Object storage API --oos-leave-parts-on-error If true avoid calling abort upload on a failure, leaving all successfully uploaded parts on S3 for manual recovery --oos-namespace string Object storage namespace --oos-no-check-bucket If set, don't attempt to check the bucket exists or create it --oos-provider string Choose your Auth Provider (default "env_auth") --oos-region string Object storage Region --oos-upload-concurrency int Concurrency for multipart uploads (default 10) --oos-upload-cutoff SizeSuffix Cutoff for switching to chunked upload (default 200Mi) --opendrive-chunk-size SizeSuffix Files will be uploaded in chunks this size (default 10Mi) --opendrive-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,LtGt,DoubleQuote,Colon,Question,Asterisk,Pipe,BackSlash,LeftSpace,LeftCrLfHtVt,RightSpace,RightCrLfHtVt,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --opendrive-password string Password (obscured) --opendrive-username string Username --pcloud-auth-url string Auth server URL --pcloud-client-id string OAuth Client Id --pcloud-client-secret string OAuth Client Secret --pcloud-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,BackSlash,Del,Ctl,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --pcloud-hostname string Hostname to connect to (default "api.pcloud.com") --pcloud-password string Your pcloud password (obscured) --pcloud-root-folder-id string Fill in for rclone to use a non root folder as its starting point (default "d0") --pcloud-token string OAuth Access Token as a JSON blob --pcloud-token-url string Token server url --pcloud-username string Your pcloud username --premiumizeme-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,DoubleQuote,BackSlash,Del,Ctl,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --putio-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,BackSlash,Del,Ctl,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --qingstor-access-key-id string QingStor Access Key ID --qingstor-chunk-size SizeSuffix Chunk size to use for uploading (default 4Mi) --qingstor-connection-retries int Number of connection retries (default 3) --qingstor-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,Ctl,InvalidUtf8) --qingstor-endpoint string Enter an endpoint URL to connection QingStor API --qingstor-env-auth Get QingStor credentials from runtime --qingstor-secret-access-key string QingStor Secret Access Key (password) --qingstor-upload-concurrency int Concurrency for multipart uploads (default 1) --qingstor-upload-cutoff SizeSuffix Cutoff for switching to chunked upload (default 200Mi) --qingstor-zone string Zone to connect to --s3-access-key-id string AWS Access Key ID --s3-acl string Canned ACL used when creating buckets and storing or copying objects --s3-bucket-acl string Canned ACL used when creating buckets --s3-chunk-size SizeSuffix Chunk size to use for uploading (default 5Mi) --s3-copy-cutoff SizeSuffix Cutoff for switching to multipart copy (default 4.656Gi) --s3-decompress If set this will decompress gzip encoded objects --s3-disable-checksum Don't store MD5 checksum with object metadata --s3-disable-http2 Disable usage of http2 for S3 backends --s3-download-url string Custom endpoint for downloads --s3-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --s3-endpoint string Endpoint for S3 API --s3-env-auth Get AWS credentials from runtime (environment variables or EC2/ECS meta data if no env vars) --s3-force-path-style If true use path style access if false use virtual hosted style (default true) --s3-leave-parts-on-error If true avoid calling abort upload on a failure, leaving all successfully uploaded parts on S3 for manual recovery --s3-list-chunk int Size of listing chunk (response list for each ListObject S3 request) (default 1000) --s3-list-url-encode Tristate Whether to url encode listings: true/false/unset (default unset) --s3-list-version int Version of ListObjects to use: 1,2 or 0 for auto --s3-location-constraint string Location constraint - must be set to match the Region --s3-max-upload-parts int Maximum number of parts in a multipart upload (default 10000) --s3-memory-pool-flush-time Duration How often internal memory buffer pools will be flushed (default 1m0s) --s3-memory-pool-use-mmap Whether to use mmap buffers in internal memory pool --s3-might-gzip Tristate Set this if the backend might gzip objects (default unset) --s3-no-check-bucket If set, don't attempt to check the bucket exists or create it --s3-no-head If set, don't HEAD uploaded objects to check integrity --s3-no-head-object If set, do not do HEAD before GET when getting objects --s3-no-system-metadata Suppress setting and reading of system metadata --s3-profile string Profile to use in the shared credentials file --s3-provider string Choose your S3 provider --s3-region string Region to connect to --s3-requester-pays Enables requester pays option when interacting with S3 bucket --s3-secret-access-key string AWS Secret Access Key (password) --s3-server-side-encryption string The server-side encryption algorithm used when storing this object in S3 --s3-session-token string An AWS session token --s3-shared-credentials-file string Path to the shared credentials file --s3-sse-customer-algorithm string If using SSE-C, the server-side encryption algorithm used when storing this object in S3 --s3-sse-customer-key string To use SSE-C you may provide the secret encryption key used to encrypt/decrypt your data --s3-sse-customer-key-base64 string If using SSE-C you must provide the secret encryption key encoded in base64 format to encrypt/decrypt your data --s3-sse-customer-key-md5 string If using SSE-C you may provide the secret encryption key MD5 checksum (optional) --s3-sse-kms-key-id string If using KMS ID you must provide the ARN of Key --s3-storage-class string The storage class to use when storing new objects in S3 --s3-upload-concurrency int Concurrency for multipart uploads (default 4) --s3-upload-cutoff SizeSuffix Cutoff for switching to chunked upload (default 200Mi) --s3-use-accelerate-endpoint If true use the AWS S3 accelerated endpoint --s3-use-multipart-etag Tristate Whether to use ETag in multipart uploads for verification (default unset) --s3-use-presigned-request Whether to use a presigned request or PutObject for single part uploads --s3-v2-auth If true use v2 authentication --s3-version-at Time Show file versions as they were at the specified time (default off) --s3-versions Include old versions in directory listings --seafile-2fa Two-factor authentication ('true' if the account has 2FA enabled) --seafile-create-library Should rclone create a library if it doesn't exist --seafile-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,DoubleQuote,BackSlash,Ctl,InvalidUtf8) --seafile-library string Name of the library --seafile-library-key string Library password (for encrypted libraries only) (obscured) --seafile-pass string Password (obscured) --seafile-url string URL of seafile host to connect to --seafile-user string User name (usually email address) --sftp-ask-password Allow asking for SFTP password when needed --sftp-chunk-size SizeSuffix Upload and download chunk size (default 32Ki) --sftp-concurrency int The maximum number of outstanding requests for one file (default 64) --sftp-disable-concurrent-reads If set don't use concurrent reads --sftp-disable-concurrent-writes If set don't use concurrent writes --sftp-disable-hashcheck Disable the execution of SSH commands to determine if remote file hashing is available --sftp-host string SSH host to connect to --sftp-idle-timeout Duration Max time before closing idle connections (default 1m0s) --sftp-key-file string Path to PEM-encoded private key file --sftp-key-file-pass string The passphrase to decrypt the PEM-encoded private key file (obscured) --sftp-key-pem string Raw PEM-encoded private key --sftp-key-use-agent When set forces the usage of the ssh-agent --sftp-known-hosts-file string Optional path to known_hosts file --sftp-md5sum-command string The command used to read md5 hashes --sftp-pass string SSH password, leave blank to use ssh-agent (obscured) --sftp-path-override string Override path used by SSH shell commands --sftp-port int SSH port number (default 22) --sftp-pubkey-file string Optional path to public key file --sftp-server-command string Specifies the path or command to run a sftp server on the remote host --sftp-set-env SpaceSepList Environment variables to pass to sftp and commands --sftp-set-modtime Set the modified time on the remote if set (default true) --sftp-sha1sum-command string The command used to read sha1 hashes --sftp-shell-type string The type of SSH shell on remote server, if any --sftp-skip-links Set to skip any symlinks and any other non regular files --sftp-subsystem string Specifies the SSH2 subsystem on the remote host (default "sftp") --sftp-use-fstat If set use fstat instead of stat --sftp-use-insecure-cipher Enable the use of insecure ciphers and key exchange methods --sftp-user string SSH username (default "$USER") --sharefile-chunk-size SizeSuffix Upload chunk size (default 64Mi) --sharefile-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,LtGt,DoubleQuote,Colon,Question,Asterisk,Pipe,BackSlash,Ctl,LeftSpace,LeftPeriod,RightSpace,RightPeriod,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --sharefile-endpoint string Endpoint for API calls --sharefile-root-folder-id string ID of the root folder --sharefile-upload-cutoff SizeSuffix Cutoff for switching to multipart upload (default 128Mi) --sia-api-password string Sia Daemon API Password (obscured) --sia-api-url string Sia daemon API URL, like http://sia.daemon.host:9980 (default "http://127.0.0.1:9980") --sia-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,Question,Hash,Percent,Del,Ctl,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --sia-user-agent string Siad User Agent (default "Sia-Agent") --skip-links Don't warn about skipped symlinks --smb-case-insensitive Whether the server is configured to be case-insensitive (default true) --smb-domain string Domain name for NTLM authentication (default "WORKGROUP") --smb-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,LtGt,DoubleQuote,Colon,Question,Asterisk,Pipe,BackSlash,Ctl,RightSpace,RightPeriod,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --smb-hide-special-share Hide special shares (e.g. print$) which users aren't supposed to access (default true) --smb-host string SMB server hostname to connect to --smb-idle-timeout Duration Max time before closing idle connections (default 1m0s) --smb-pass string SMB password (obscured) --smb-port int SMB port number (default 445) --smb-user string SMB username (default "$USER") --storj-access-grant string Access grant --storj-api-key string API key --storj-passphrase string Encryption passphrase --storj-provider string Choose an authentication method (default "existing") --storj-satellite-address string Satellite address (default "us-central-1.storj.io") --sugarsync-access-key-id string Sugarsync Access Key ID --sugarsync-app-id string Sugarsync App ID --sugarsync-authorization string Sugarsync authorization --sugarsync-authorization-expiry string Sugarsync authorization expiry --sugarsync-deleted-id string Sugarsync deleted folder id --sugarsync-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,Ctl,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --sugarsync-hard-delete Permanently delete files if true --sugarsync-private-access-key string Sugarsync Private Access Key --sugarsync-refresh-token string Sugarsync refresh token --sugarsync-root-id string Sugarsync root id --sugarsync-user string Sugarsync user --swift-application-credential-id string Application Credential ID (OS_APPLICATION_CREDENTIAL_ID) --swift-application-credential-name string Application Credential Name (OS_APPLICATION_CREDENTIAL_NAME) --swift-application-credential-secret string Application Credential Secret (OS_APPLICATION_CREDENTIAL_SECRET) --swift-auth string Authentication URL for server (OS_AUTH_URL) --swift-auth-token string Auth Token from alternate authentication - optional (OS_AUTH_TOKEN) --swift-auth-version int AuthVersion - optional - set to (1,2,3) if your auth URL has no version (ST_AUTH_VERSION) --swift-chunk-size SizeSuffix Above this size files will be chunked into a _segments container (default 5Gi) --swift-domain string User domain - optional (v3 auth) (OS_USER_DOMAIN_NAME) --swift-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,InvalidUtf8) --swift-endpoint-type string Endpoint type to choose from the service catalogue (OS_ENDPOINT_TYPE) (default "public") --swift-env-auth Get swift credentials from environment variables in standard OpenStack form --swift-key string API key or password (OS_PASSWORD) --swift-leave-parts-on-error If true avoid calling abort upload on a failure --swift-no-chunk Don't chunk files during streaming upload --swift-no-large-objects Disable support for static and dynamic large objects --swift-region string Region name - optional (OS_REGION_NAME) --swift-storage-policy string The storage policy to use when creating a new container --swift-storage-url string Storage URL - optional (OS_STORAGE_URL) --swift-tenant string Tenant name - optional for v1 auth, this or tenant_id required otherwise (OS_TENANT_NAME or OS_PROJECT_NAME) --swift-tenant-domain string Tenant domain - optional (v3 auth) (OS_PROJECT_DOMAIN_NAME) --swift-tenant-id string Tenant ID - optional for v1 auth, this or tenant required otherwise (OS_TENANT_ID) --swift-user string User name to log in (OS_USERNAME) --swift-user-id string User ID to log in - optional - most swift systems use user and leave this blank (v3 auth) (OS_USER_ID) --union-action-policy string Policy to choose upstream on ACTION category (default "epall") --union-cache-time int Cache time of usage and free space (in seconds) (default 120) --union-create-policy string Policy to choose upstream on CREATE category (default "epmfs") --union-min-free-space SizeSuffix Minimum viable free space for lfs/eplfs policies (default 1Gi) --union-search-policy string Policy to choose upstream on SEARCH category (default "ff") --union-upstreams string List of space separated upstreams --uptobox-access-token string Your access token --uptobox-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,LtGt,DoubleQuote,BackQuote,Del,Ctl,LeftSpace,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --webdav-bearer-token string Bearer token instead of user/pass (e.g. a Macaroon) --webdav-bearer-token-command string Command to run to get a bearer token --webdav-encoding string The encoding for the backend --webdav-headers CommaSepList Set HTTP headers for all transactions --webdav-pass string Password (obscured) --webdav-url string URL of http host to connect to --webdav-user string User name --webdav-vendor string Name of the WebDAV site/service/software you are using --yandex-auth-url string Auth server URL --yandex-client-id string OAuth Client Id --yandex-client-secret string OAuth Client Secret --yandex-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Slash,Del,Ctl,InvalidUtf8,Dot) --yandex-hard-delete Delete files permanently rather than putting them into the trash --yandex-token string OAuth Access Token as a JSON blob --yandex-token-url string Token server url --zoho-auth-url string Auth server URL --zoho-client-id string OAuth Client Id --zoho-client-secret string OAuth Client Secret --zoho-encoding MultiEncoder The encoding for the backend (default Del,Ctl,InvalidUtf8) --zoho-region string Zoho region to connect to --zoho-token string OAuth Access Token as a JSON blob --zoho-token-url string Token server url
Docker Volume Plugin
Introduction
Docker 1.9 has added support for creating named volumes (https://docs.docker.com/storage/volumes/) via command-line interface (https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/volume_create/) and mounting them in containers as a way to share data between them. Since Docker 1.10 you can create named volumes with Docker Compose (https://docs.docker.com/compose/) by descriptions in docker-compose.yml (https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/compose-file-v2/#volume-configuration-reference) files for use by container groups on a single host. As of Docker 1.12 volumes are supported by Docker Swarm (https://docs.docker.com/engine/swarm/key-concepts/) included with Docker Engine and created from descriptions in swarm compose v3 (https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/compose-file-v3/#volume-configuration-reference) files for use with swarm stacks across multiple cluster nodes.
Docker Volume Plugins (https://docs.docker.com/engine/extend/plugins_volume/) augment the default local
volume driver included in Docker with stateful volumes shared across containers and hosts. Unlike local volumes, your data will not be deleted when such volume is removed. Plugins can run managed by the docker daemon, as a native system service (under systemd, sysv or upstart) or as a standalone executable. Rclone can run as docker volume plugin in all these modes. It interacts with the local docker daemon via plugin API (https://docs.docker.com/engine/extend/plugin_api/) and handles mounting of remote file systems into docker containers so it must run on the same host as the docker daemon or on every Swarm node.
Getting started
In the first example we will use the SFTP (https://rclone.org/sftp/) rclone volume with Docker engine on a standalone Ubuntu machine.
Start from installing Docker (https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/) on the host.
The FUSE driver is a prerequisite for rclone mounting and should be installed on host:
sudo apt-get -y install fuse
Create two directories required by rclone docker plugin:
sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/docker-plugins/rclone/config sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/docker-plugins/rclone/cache
Install the managed rclone docker plugin for your architecture (here amd64
):
docker plugin install rclone/docker-volume-rclone:amd64 args="-v" --alias rclone --grant-all-permissions docker plugin list
Create your SFTP volume (https://rclone.org/sftp/#standard-options):
docker volume create firstvolume -d rclone -o type=sftp -o sftp-host=_hostname_ -o sftp-user=_username_ -o sftp-pass=_password_ -o allow-other=true
Note that since all options are static, you don't even have to run rclone config
or create the rclone.conf
file (but the config
directory should still be present). In the simplest case you can use localhost
as hostname and your SSH credentials as username and password. You can also change the remote path to your home directory on the host, for example -o path=/home/username
.
Time to create a test container and mount the volume into it:
docker run --rm -it -v firstvolume:/mnt --workdir /mnt ubuntu:latest bash
If all goes well, you will enter the new container and change right to the mounted SFTP remote. You can type ls
to list the mounted directory or otherwise play with it. Type exit
when you are done. The container will stop but the volume will stay, ready to be reused. When it's not needed anymore, remove it:
docker volume list docker volume remove firstvolume
Now let us try something more elaborate: Google Drive (https://rclone.org/drive/) volume on multi-node Docker Swarm.
You should start from installing Docker and FUSE, creating plugin directories and installing rclone plugin on every swarm node. Then setup the Swarm (https://docs.docker.com/engine/swarm/swarm-mode/).
Google Drive volumes need an access token which can be setup via web browser and will be periodically renewed by rclone. The managed plugin cannot run a browser so we will use a technique similar to the rclone setup on a headless box (https://rclone.org/remote_setup/).
Run rclone config (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_create/) on another machine equipped with web browser and graphical user interface. Create the Google Drive remote (https://rclone.org/drive/#standard-options). When done, transfer the resulting rclone.conf
to the Swarm cluster and save as /var/lib/docker-plugins/rclone/config/rclone.conf
on every node. By default this location is accessible only to the root user so you will need appropriate privileges. The resulting config will look like this:
[gdrive] type = drive scope = drive drive_id = 1234567... root_folder_id = 0Abcd... token = {"access_token":...}
Now create the file named example.yml
with a swarm stack description like this:
version: '3' services: heimdall: image: linuxserver/heimdall:latest ports: [8080:80] volumes: [configdata:/config] volumes: configdata: driver: rclone driver_opts: remote: 'gdrive:heimdall' allow_other: 'true' vfs_cache_mode: full poll_interval: 0
and run the stack:
docker stack deploy example -c ./example.yml
After a few seconds docker will spread the parsed stack description over cluster, create the example_heimdall
service on port 8080, run service containers on one or more cluster nodes and request the example_configdata
volume from rclone plugins on the node hosts. You can use the following commands to confirm results:
docker service ls docker service ps example_heimdall docker volume ls
Point your browser to http://cluster.host.address:8080
and play with the service. Stop it with docker stack remove example
when you are done. Note that the example_configdata
volume(s) created on demand at the cluster nodes will not be automatically removed together with the stack but stay for future reuse. You can remove them manually by invoking the docker volume remove example_configdata
command on every node.
Creating Volumes via CLI
Volumes can be created with docker volume create (https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/volume_create/). Here are a few examples:
docker volume create vol1 -d rclone -o remote=storj: -o vfs-cache-mode=full docker volume create vol2 -d rclone -o remote=:storj,access_grant=xxx:heimdall docker volume create vol3 -d rclone -o type=storj -o path=heimdall -o storj-access-grant=xxx -o poll-interval=0
Note the -d rclone
flag that tells docker to request volume from the rclone driver. This works even if you installed managed driver by its full name rclone/docker-volume-rclone
because you provided the --alias rclone
option.
Volumes can be inspected as follows:
docker volume list docker volume inspect vol1
Volume Configuration
Rclone flags and volume options are set via the -o
flag to the docker volume create
command. They include backend-specific parameters as well as mount and VFS options. Also there are a few special -o
options: remote
, fs
, type
, path
, mount-type
and persist
.
remote
determines an existing remote name from the config file, with trailing colon and optionally with a remote path. See the full syntax in the rclone documentation (https://rclone.org/docs/#syntax-of-remote-paths). This option can be aliased as fs
to prevent confusion with the remote parameter of such backends as crypt or alias.
The remote=:backend:dir/subdir
syntax can be used to create on-the-fly (config-less) remotes (https://rclone.org/docs/#backend-path-to-dir), while the type
and path
options provide a simpler alternative for this. Using two split options
-o type=backend -o path=dir/subdir
is equivalent to the combined syntax
-o remote=:backend:dir/subdir
but is arguably easier to parameterize in scripts. The path
part is optional.
Mount and VFS options (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_docker/#options) as well as backend parameters (https://rclone.org/flags/#backend-flags) are named like their twin command-line flags without the --
CLI prefix. Optionally you can use underscores instead of dashes in option names. For example, --vfs-cache-mode full
becomes -o vfs-cache-mode=full
or -o vfs_cache_mode=full
. Boolean CLI flags without value will gain the true
value, e.g. --allow-other
becomes -o allow-other=true
or -o allow_other=true
.
Please note that you can provide parameters only for the backend immediately referenced by the backend type of mounted remote
. If this is a wrapping backend like alias, chunker or crypt, you cannot provide options for the referred to remote or backend. This limitation is imposed by the rclone connection string parser. The only workaround is to feed plugin with rclone.conf
or configure plugin arguments (see below).
Special Volume Options
mount-type
determines the mount method and in general can be one of: mount
, cmount
, or mount2
. This can be aliased as mount_type
. It should be noted that the managed rclone docker plugin currently does not support the cmount
method and mount2
is rarely needed. This option defaults to the first found method, which is usually mount
so you generally won't need it.
persist
is a reserved boolean (true/false) option. In future it will allow to persist on-the-fly remotes in the plugin rclone.conf
file.
Connection Strings
The remote
value can be extended with connection strings (https://rclone.org/docs/#connection-strings) as an alternative way to supply backend parameters. This is equivalent to the -o
backend options with one syntactic difference. Inside connection string the backend prefix must be dropped from parameter names but in the -o param=value
array it must be present. For instance, compare the following option array
-o remote=:sftp:/home -o sftp-host=localhost
with equivalent connection string:
-o remote=:sftp,host=localhost:/home
This difference exists because flag options -o key=val
include not only backend parameters but also mount/VFS flags and possibly other settings. Also it allows to discriminate the remote
option from the crypt-remote
(or similarly named backend parameters) and arguably simplifies scripting due to clearer value substitution.
Using with Swarm or Compose
Both Docker Swarm and Docker Compose use YAML (http://yaml.org/spec/1.2/spec.html)-formatted text files to describe groups (stacks) of containers, their properties, networks and volumes. Compose uses the compose v2 (https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/compose-file-v2/#volume-configuration-reference) format, Swarm uses the compose v3 (https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/compose-file-v3/#volume-configuration-reference) format. They are mostly similar, differences are explained in the docker documentation (https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/compose-versioning/#upgrading).
Volumes are described by the children of the top-level volumes:
node. Each of them should be named after its volume and have at least two elements, the self-explanatory driver: rclone
value and the driver_opts:
structure playing the same role as -o key=val
CLI flags:
volumes: volume_name_1: driver: rclone driver_opts: remote: 'gdrive:' allow_other: 'true' vfs_cache_mode: full token: '{"type": "borrower", "expires": "2021-12-31"}' poll_interval: 0
Notice a few important details: - YAML prefers _
in option names instead of -
. - YAML treats single and double quotes interchangeably. Simple strings and integers can be left unquoted. - Boolean values must be quoted like 'true'
or "false"
because these two words are reserved by YAML. - The filesystem string is keyed with remote
(or with fs
). Normally you can omit quotes here, but if the string ends with colon, you must quote it like remote: "storage_box:"
. - YAML is picky about surrounding braces in values as this is in fact another syntax for key/value mappings (http://yaml.org/spec/1.2/spec.html#id2790832). For example, JSON access tokens usually contain double quotes and surrounding braces, so you must put them in single quotes.
Installing as Managed Plugin
Docker daemon can install plugins from an image registry and run them managed. We maintain the docker-volume-rclone (https://hub.docker.com/p/rclone/docker-volume-rclone/) plugin image on Docker Hub (https://hub.docker.com).
Rclone volume plugin requires Docker Engine >= 19.03.15
The plugin requires presence of two directories on the host before it can be installed. Note that plugin will not create them automatically. By default they must exist on host at the following locations (though you can tweak the paths): - /var/lib/docker-plugins/rclone/config
is reserved for the rclone.conf
config file and must exist even if it's empty and the config file is not present. - /var/lib/docker-plugins/rclone/cache
holds the plugin state file as well as optional VFS caches.
You can install managed plugin (https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/plugin_install/) with default settings as follows:
docker plugin install rclone/docker-volume-rclone:amd64 --grant-all-permissions --alias rclone
The :amd64
part of the image specification after colon is called a tag. Usually you will want to install the latest plugin for your architecture. In this case the tag will just name it, like amd64
above. The following plugin architectures are currently available: - amd64
- arm64
- arm-v7
Sometimes you might want a concrete plugin version, not the latest one. Then you should use image tag in the form :ARCHITECTURE-VERSION
. For example, to install plugin version v1.56.2
on architecture arm64
you will use tag arm64-1.56.2
(note the removed v
) so the full image specification becomes rclone/docker-volume-rclone:arm64-1.56.2
.
We also provide the latest
plugin tag, but since docker does not support multi-architecture plugins as of the time of this writing, this tag is currently an alias for amd64
. By convention the latest
tag is the default one and can be omitted, thus both rclone/docker-volume-rclone:latest
and just rclone/docker-volume-rclone
will refer to the latest plugin release for the amd64
platform.
Also the amd64
part can be omitted from the versioned rclone plugin tags. For example, rclone image reference rclone/docker-volume-rclone:amd64-1.56.2
can be abbreviated as rclone/docker-volume-rclone:1.56.2
for convenience. However, for non-intel architectures you still have to use the full tag as amd64
or latest
will fail to start.
Managed plugin is in fact a special container running in a namespace separate from normal docker containers. Inside it runs the rclone serve docker
command. The config and cache directories are bind-mounted into the container at start. The docker daemon connects to a unix socket created by the command inside the container. The command creates on-demand remote mounts right inside, then docker machinery propagates them through kernel mount namespaces and bind-mounts into requesting user containers.
You can tweak a few plugin settings after installation when it's disabled (not in use), for instance:
docker plugin disable rclone docker plugin set rclone RCLONE_VERBOSE=2 config=/etc/rclone args="--vfs-cache-mode=writes --allow-other" docker plugin enable rclone docker plugin inspect rclone
Note that if docker refuses to disable the plugin, you should find and remove all active volumes connected with it as well as containers and swarm services that use them. This is rather tedious so please carefully plan in advance.
You can tweak the following settings: args
, config
, cache
, HTTP_PROXY
, HTTPS_PROXY
, NO_PROXY
and RCLONE_VERBOSE
. It's your task to keep plugin settings in sync across swarm cluster nodes.
args
sets command-line arguments for the rclone serve docker
command (none by default). Arguments should be separated by space so you will normally want to put them in quotes on the docker plugin set (https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/plugin_set/) command line. Both serve docker flags (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_docker/#options) and generic rclone flags (https://rclone.org/flags/) are supported, including backend parameters that will be used as defaults for volume creation. Note that plugin will fail (due to this docker bug (https://github.com/moby/moby/blob/v20.10.7/plugin/v2/plugin.go#L195)) if the args
value is empty. Use e.g. args="-v"
as a workaround.
config=/host/dir
sets alternative host location for the config directory. Plugin will look for rclone.conf
here. It's not an error if the config file is not present but the directory must exist. Please note that plugin can periodically rewrite the config file, for example when it renews storage access tokens. Keep this in mind and try to avoid races between the plugin and other instances of rclone on the host that might try to change the config simultaneously resulting in corrupted rclone.conf
. You can also put stuff like private key files for SFTP remotes in this directory. Just note that it's bind-mounted inside the plugin container at the predefined path /data/config
. For example, if your key file is named sftp-box1.key
on the host, the corresponding volume config option should read -o sftp-key-file=/data/config/sftp-box1.key
.
cache=/host/dir
sets alternative host location for the cache directory. The plugin will keep VFS caches here. Also it will create and maintain the docker-plugin.state
file in this directory. When the plugin is restarted or reinstalled, it will look in this file to recreate any volumes that existed previously. However, they will not be re-mounted into consuming containers after restart. Usually this is not a problem as the docker daemon normally will restart affected user containers after failures, daemon restarts or host reboots.
RCLONE_VERBOSE
sets plugin verbosity from 0
(errors only, by default) to 2
(debugging). Verbosity can be also tweaked via args="-v [-v] ..."
. Since arguments are more generic, you will rarely need this setting. The plugin output by default feeds the docker daemon log on local host. Log entries are reflected as errors in the docker log but retain their actual level assigned by rclone in the encapsulated message string.
HTTP_PROXY
, HTTPS_PROXY
, NO_PROXY
customize the plugin proxy settings.
You can set custom plugin options right when you install it, in one go:
docker plugin remove rclone docker plugin install rclone/docker-volume-rclone:amd64 \ --alias rclone --grant-all-permissions \ args="-v --allow-other" config=/etc/rclone docker plugin inspect rclone
Healthchecks
The docker plugin volume protocol doesn't provide a way for plugins to inform the docker daemon that a volume is (un-)available. As a workaround you can setup a healthcheck to verify that the mount is responding, for example:
services: my_service: image: my_image healthcheck: test: ls /path/to/rclone/mount || exit 1 interval: 1m timeout: 15s retries: 3 start_period: 15s
Running Plugin under Systemd
In most cases you should prefer managed mode. Moreover, MacOS and Windows do not support native Docker plugins. Please use managed mode on these systems. Proceed further only if you are on Linux.
First, install rclone (https://rclone.org/install/). You can just run it (type rclone serve docker
and hit enter) for the test.
Install FUSE:
sudo apt-get -y install fuse
Download two systemd configuration files: docker-volume-rclone.service (https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rclone/rclone/master/contrib/docker-plugin/systemd/docker-volume-rclone.service) and docker-volume-rclone.socket (https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rclone/rclone/master/contrib/docker-plugin/systemd/docker-volume-rclone.socket).
Put them to the /etc/systemd/system/
directory:
cp docker-volume-plugin.service /etc/systemd/system/ cp docker-volume-plugin.socket /etc/systemd/system/
Please note that all commands in this section must be run as root but we omit sudo
prefix for brevity. Now create directories required by the service:
mkdir -p /var/lib/docker-volumes/rclone mkdir -p /var/lib/docker-plugins/rclone/config mkdir -p /var/lib/docker-plugins/rclone/cache
Run the docker plugin service in the socket activated mode:
systemctl daemon-reload systemctl start docker-volume-rclone.service systemctl enable docker-volume-rclone.socket systemctl start docker-volume-rclone.socket systemctl restart docker
Or run the service directly: - run systemctl daemon-reload
to let systemd pick up new config - run systemctl enable docker-volume-rclone.service
to make the new service start automatically when you power on your machine. - run systemctl start docker-volume-rclone.service
to start the service now. - run systemctl restart docker
to restart docker daemon and let it detect the new plugin socket. Note that this step is not needed in managed mode where docker knows about plugin state changes.
The two methods are equivalent from the user perspective, but I personally prefer socket activation.
Troubleshooting
You can see managed plugin settings (https://docs.docker.com/engine/extend/#debugging-plugins) with
docker plugin list docker plugin inspect rclone
Note that docker (including latest 20.10.7) will not show actual values of args
, just the defaults.
Use journalctl --unit docker
to see managed plugin output as part of the docker daemon log. Note that docker reflects plugin lines as errors but their actual level can be seen from encapsulated message string.
You will usually install the latest version of managed plugin for your platform. Use the following commands to print the actual installed version:
PLUGID=$(docker plugin list --no-trunc | awk '/rclone/{print$1}') sudo runc --root /run/docker/runtime-runc/plugins.moby exec $PLUGID rclone version
You can even use runc
to run shell inside the plugin container:
sudo runc --root /run/docker/runtime-runc/plugins.moby exec --tty $PLUGID bash
Also you can use curl to check the plugin socket connectivity:
docker plugin list --no-trunc PLUGID=123abc... sudo curl -H Content-Type:application/json -XPOST -d {} --unix-socket /run/docker/plugins/$PLUGID/rclone.sock http://localhost/Plugin.Activate
though this is rarely needed.
Caveats
Finally I'd like to mention a caveat with updating volume settings. Docker CLI does not have a dedicated command like docker volume update
. It may be tempting to invoke docker volume create
with updated options on existing volume, but there is a gotcha. The command will do nothing, it won't even return an error. I hope that docker maintainers will fix this some day. In the meantime be aware that you must remove your volume before recreating it with new settings:
docker volume remove my_vol docker volume create my_vol -d rclone -o opt1=new_val1 ...
and verify that settings did update:
docker volume list docker volume inspect my_vol
If docker refuses to remove the volume, you should find containers or swarm services that use it and stop them first.
Getting started
- Install rclone (https://rclone.org/install/) and setup your remotes.
- Bisync will create its working directory at
~/.cache/rclone/bisync
on Linux orC:\Users\MyLogin\AppData\Local\rclone\bisync
on Windows. Make sure that this location is writable. - Run bisync with the
--resync
flag, specifying the paths to the local and remote sync directory roots. - For successive sync runs, leave off the
--resync
flag. - Consider using a filters file for excluding unnecessary files and directories from the sync.
- Consider setting up the --check-access feature for safety.
- On Linux, consider setting up a crontab entry. bisync can safely run in concurrent cron jobs thanks to lock files it maintains.
Here is a typical run log (with timestamps removed for clarity):
rclone bisync /testdir/path1/ /testdir/path2/ --verbose INFO : Synching Path1 "/testdir/path1/" with Path2 "/testdir/path2/" INFO : Path1 checking for diffs INFO : - Path1 File is new - file11.txt INFO : - Path1 File is newer - file2.txt INFO : - Path1 File is newer - file5.txt INFO : - Path1 File is newer - file7.txt INFO : - Path1 File was deleted - file4.txt INFO : - Path1 File was deleted - file6.txt INFO : - Path1 File was deleted - file8.txt INFO : Path1: 7 changes: 1 new, 3 newer, 0 older, 3 deleted INFO : Path2 checking for diffs INFO : - Path2 File is new - file10.txt INFO : - Path2 File is newer - file1.txt INFO : - Path2 File is newer - file5.txt INFO : - Path2 File is newer - file6.txt INFO : - Path2 File was deleted - file3.txt INFO : - Path2 File was deleted - file7.txt INFO : - Path2 File was deleted - file8.txt INFO : Path2: 7 changes: 1 new, 3 newer, 0 older, 3 deleted INFO : Applying changes INFO : - Path1 Queue copy to Path2 - /testdir/path2/file11.txt INFO : - Path1 Queue copy to Path2 - /testdir/path2/file2.txt INFO : - Path2 Queue delete - /testdir/path2/file4.txt NOTICE: - WARNING New or changed in both paths - file5.txt NOTICE: - Path1 Renaming Path1 copy - /testdir/path1/file5.txt..path1 NOTICE: - Path1 Queue copy to Path2 - /testdir/path2/file5.txt..path1 NOTICE: - Path2 Renaming Path2 copy - /testdir/path2/file5.txt..path2 NOTICE: - Path2 Queue copy to Path1 - /testdir/path1/file5.txt..path2 INFO : - Path2 Queue copy to Path1 - /testdir/path1/file6.txt INFO : - Path1 Queue copy to Path2 - /testdir/path2/file7.txt INFO : - Path2 Queue copy to Path1 - /testdir/path1/file1.txt INFO : - Path2 Queue copy to Path1 - /testdir/path1/file10.txt INFO : - Path1 Queue delete - /testdir/path1/file3.txt INFO : - Path2 Do queued copies to - Path1 INFO : - Path1 Do queued copies to - Path2 INFO : - Do queued deletes on - Path1 INFO : - Do queued deletes on - Path2 INFO : Updating listings INFO : Validating listings for Path1 "/testdir/path1/" vs Path2 "/testdir/path2/" INFO : Bisync successful
Command line syntax
$ rclone bisync --help Usage: rclone bisync remote1:path1 remote2:path2 [flags] Positional arguments: Path1, Path2 Local path, or remote storage with ':' plus optional path. Type 'rclone listremotes' for list of configured remotes. Optional Flags: --check-access Ensure expected `RCLONE_TEST` files are found on both Path1 and Path2 filesystems, else abort. --check-filename FILENAME Filename for `--check-access` (default: `RCLONE_TEST`) --check-sync CHOICE Controls comparison of final listings: `true | false | only` (default: true) If set to `only`, bisync will only compare listings from the last run but skip actual sync. --filters-file PATH Read filtering patterns from a file --max-delete PERCENT Safety check on maximum percentage of deleted files allowed. If exceeded, the bisync run will abort. (default: 50%) --force Bypass `--max-delete` safety check and run the sync. Consider using with `--verbose` --remove-empty-dirs Remove empty directories at the final cleanup step. -1, --resync Performs the resync run. Warning: Path1 files may overwrite Path2 versions. Consider using `--verbose` or `--dry-run` first. --localtime Use local time in listings (default: UTC) --no-cleanup Retain working files (useful for troubleshooting and testing). --workdir PATH Use custom working directory (useful for testing). (default: `~/.cache/rclone/bisync`) -n, --dry-run Go through the motions - No files are copied/deleted. -v, --verbose Increases logging verbosity. May be specified more than once for more details. -h, --help help for bisync
Arbitrary rclone flags may be specified on the bisync command line (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_bisync/), for example rclone bisync ./testdir/path1/ gdrive:testdir/path2/ --drive-skip-gdocs -v -v --timeout 10s
Note that interactions of various rclone flags with bisync process flow has not been fully tested yet.
Paths
Path1 and Path2 arguments may be references to any mix of local directory paths (absolute or relative), UNC paths (//server/share/path
), Windows drive paths (with a drive letter and :
) or configured remotes (https://rclone.org/docs/#syntax-of-remote-paths) with optional subdirectory paths. Cloud references are distinguished by having a :
in the argument (see Windows support below).
Path1 and Path2 are treated equally, in that neither has priority for file changes, and access efficiency does not change whether a remote is on Path1 or Path2.
The listings in bisync working directory (default: ~/.cache/rclone/bisync
) are named based on the Path1 and Path2 arguments so that separate syncs to individual directories within the tree may be set up, e.g.: path_to_local_tree..dropbox_subdir.lst
.
Any empty directories after the sync on both the Path1 and Path2 filesystems are not deleted by default. If the --remove-empty-dirs
flag is specified, then both paths will have any empty directories purged as the last step in the process.
Command-line flags
--resync
This will effectively make both Path1 and Path2 filesystems contain a matching superset of all files. Path2 files that do not exist in Path1 will be copied to Path1, and the process will then sync the Path1 tree to Path2.
The base directories on the both Path1 and Path2 filesystems must exist or bisync will fail. This is required for safety - that bisync can verify that both paths are valid.
When using --resync
a newer version of a file on the Path2 filesystem will be overwritten by the Path1 filesystem version. Carefully evaluate deltas using --dry-run (https://rclone.org/flags/#non-backend-flags).
For a resync run, one of the paths may be empty (no files in the path tree). The resync run should result in files on both paths, else a normal non-resync run will fail.
For a non-resync run, either path being empty (no files in the tree) fails with Empty current PathN listing. Cannot sync to an empty directory: X.pathN.lst
This is a safety check that an unexpected empty path does not result in deleting everything in the other path.
--check-access
Access check files are an additional safety measure against data loss. bisync will ensure it can find matching RCLONE_TEST
files in the same places in the Path1 and Path2 filesystems. Time stamps and file contents are not important, just the names and locations. Place one or more RCLONE_TEST
files in the Path1 or Path2 filesystem and then do either a run without --check-access
or a --resync
to set matching files on both filesystems. If you have symbolic links in your sync tree it is recommended to place RCLONE_TEST
files in the linked-to directory tree to protect against bisync assuming a bunch of deleted files if the linked-to tree should not be accessible. Also see the --check-filename
flag.
--max-delete
As a safety check, if greater than the --max-delete
percent of files were deleted on either the Path1 or Path2 filesystem, then bisync will abort with a warning message, without making any changes. The default --max-delete
is 50%
. One way to trigger this limit is to rename a directory that contains more than half of your files. This will appear to bisync as a bunch of deleted files and a bunch of new files. This safety check is intended to block bisync from deleting all of the files on both filesystems due to a temporary network access issue, or if the user had inadvertently deleted the files on one side or the other. To force the sync either set a different delete percentage limit, e.g. --max-delete 75
(allows up to 75% deletion), or use --force
to bypass the check.
Also see the all files changed check.
--filters-file
By using rclone filter features you can exclude file types or directory sub-trees from the sync. See the bisync filters section and generic --filter-from (https://rclone.org/filtering/#filter-from-read-filtering-patterns-from-a-file) documentation. An example filters file contains filters for non-allowed files for synching with Dropbox.
If you make changes to your filters file then bisync requires a run with --resync
. This is a safety feature, which avoids existing files on the Path1 and/or Path2 side from seeming to disappear from view (since they are excluded in the new listings), which would fool bisync into seeing them as deleted (as compared to the prior run listings), and then bisync would proceed to delete them for real.
To block this from happening bisync calculates an MD5 hash of the filters file and stores the hash in a .md5
file in the same place as your filters file. On the next runs with --filters-file
set, bisync re-calculates the MD5 hash of the current filters file and compares it to the hash stored in .md5
file. If they don't match the run aborts with a critical error and thus forces you to do a --resync
, likely avoiding a disaster.
--check-sync
Enabled by default, the check-sync function checks that all of the same files exist in both the Path1 and Path2 history listings. This check-sync integrity check is performed at the end of the sync run by default. Any untrapped failing copy/deletes between the two paths might result in differences between the two listings and in the untracked file content differences between the two paths. A resync run would correct the error.
Note that the default-enabled integrity check locally executes a load of both the final Path1 and Path2 listings, and thus adds to the run time of a sync. Using --check-sync=false
will disable it and may significantly reduce the sync run times for very large numbers of files.
The check may be run manually with --check-sync=only
. It runs only the integrity check and terminates without actually synching.
Operation
Runtime flow details
bisync retains the listings of the Path1
and Path2
filesystems from the prior run. On each successive run it will:
- list files on
path1
andpath2
, and check for changes on each side. Changes includeNew
,Newer
,Older
, andDeleted
files. - Propagate changes on
path1
topath2
, and vice-versa.
Safety measures
- Lock file prevents multiple simultaneous runs when taking a while. This can be particularly useful if bisync is run by cron scheduler.
- Handle change conflicts non-destructively by creating
..path1
and..path2
file versions. - File system access health check using
RCLONE_TEST
files (see the--check-access
flag). - Abort on excessive deletes - protects against a failed listing being interpreted as all the files were deleted. See the
--max-delete
and--force
flags. - If something evil happens, bisync goes into a safe state to block damage by later runs. (See Error Handling)
Normal sync checks
Type | Description | Result | Implementation |
Path2 new | File is new on Path2, does not exist on Path1 | Path2 version survives | rclone copy Path2 to Path1 |
Path2 newer | File is newer on Path2, unchanged on Path1 | Path2 version survives | rclone copy Path2 to Path1 |
Path2 deleted | File is deleted on Path2, unchanged on Path1 | File is deleted | rclone delete Path1 |
Path1 new | File is new on Path1, does not exist on Path2 | Path1 version survives | rclone copy Path1 to Path2 |
Path1 newer | File is newer on Path1, unchanged on Path2 | Path1 version survives | rclone copy Path1 to Path2 |
Path1 older | File is older on Path1, unchanged on Path2 | Path1 version survives | rclone copy Path1 to Path2 |
Path2 older | File is older on Path2, unchanged on Path1 | Path2 version survives | rclone copy Path2 to Path1 |
Path1 deleted | File no longer exists on Path1 | File is deleted | rclone delete Path2 |
Unusual sync checks
Type | Description | Result | Implementation |
Path1 new AND Path2 new | File is new on Path1 AND new on Path2 | Files renamed to _Path1 and _Path2 | rclone copy _Path2 file to Path1, rclone copy _Path1 file to Path2 |
Path2 newer AND Path1 changed | File is newer on Path2 AND also changed (newer/older/size) on Path1 | Files renamed to _Path1 and _Path2 | rclone copy _Path2 file to Path1, rclone copy _Path1 file to Path2 |
Path2 newer AND Path1 deleted | File is newer on Path2 AND also deleted on Path1 | Path2 version survives | rclone copy Path2 to Path1 |
Path2 deleted AND Path1 changed | File is deleted on Path2 AND changed (newer/older/size) on Path1 | Path1 version survives | rclone copy Path1 to Path2 |
Path1 deleted AND Path2 changed | File is deleted on Path1 AND changed (newer/older/size) on Path2 | Path2 version survives | rclone copy Path2 to Path1 |
All files changed check
if all prior existing files on either of the filesystems have changed (e.g. timestamps have changed due to changing the system's timezone) then bisync will abort without making any changes. Any new files are not considered for this check. You could use --force
to force the sync (whichever side has the changed timestamp files wins). Alternately, a --resync
may be used (Path1 versions will be pushed to Path2). Consider the situation carefully and perhaps use --dry-run
before you commit to the changes.
Modification time
Bisync relies on file timestamps to identify changed files and will refuse to operate if backend lacks the modification time support.
If you or your application should change the content of a file without changing the modification time then bisync will not notice the change, and thus will not copy it to the other side.
Note that on some cloud storage systems it is not possible to have file timestamps that match precisely between the local and other filesystems.
Bisync's approach to this problem is by tracking the changes on each side separately over time with a local database of files in that side then applying the resulting changes on the other side.
Error handling
Certain bisync critical errors, such as file copy/move failing, will result in a bisync lockout of following runs. The lockout is asserted because the sync status and history of the Path1 and Path2 filesystems cannot be trusted, so it is safer to block any further changes until someone checks things out. The recovery is to do a --resync
again.
It is recommended to use --resync --dry-run --verbose
initially and carefully review what changes will be made before running the --resync
without --dry-run
.
Most of these events come up due to a error status from an internal call. On such a critical error the {...}.path1.lst
and {...}.path2.lst
listing files are renamed to extension .lst-err
, which blocks any future bisync runs (since the normal .lst
files are not found). Bisync keeps them under bisync
subdirectory of the rclone cache directory, typically at ${HOME}/.cache/rclone/bisync/
on Linux.
Some errors are considered temporary and re-running the bisync is not blocked. The critical return blocks further bisync runs.
Lock file
When bisync is running, a lock file is created in the bisync working directory, typically at ~/.cache/rclone/bisync/PATH1..PATH2.lck
on Linux. If bisync should crash or hang, the lock file will remain in place and block any further runs of bisync for the same paths. Delete the lock file as part of debugging the situation. The lock file effectively blocks follow-on (e.g., scheduled by cron) runs when the prior invocation is taking a long time. The lock file contains PID of the blocking process, which may help in debug.
Note that while concurrent bisync runs are allowed, be very cautious that there is no overlap in the trees being synched between concurrent runs, lest there be replicated files, deleted files and general mayhem.
Return codes
rclone bisync
returns the following codes to calling program: - 0
on a successful run, - 1
for a non-critical failing run (a rerun may be successful), - 2
for a critically aborted run (requires a --resync
to recover).
Limitations
Supported backends
Bisync is considered BETA and has been tested with the following backends: - Local filesystem - Google Drive - Dropbox - OneDrive - S3 - SFTP - Yandex Disk
It has not been fully tested with other services yet. If it works, or sorta works, please let us know and we'll update the list. Run the test suite to check for proper operation as described below.
First release of rclone bisync
requires that underlying backend supported the modification time feature and will refuse to run otherwise. This limitation will be lifted in a future rclone bisync
release.
Concurrent modifications
When using Local, FTP or SFTP remotes rclone does not create temporary files at the destination when copying, and thus if the connection is lost the created file may be corrupt, which will likely propagate back to the original path on the next sync, resulting in data loss. This will be solved in a future release, there is no workaround at the moment.
Files that change during a bisync run may result in data loss. This has been seen in a highly dynamic environment, where the filesystem is getting hammered by running processes during the sync. The solution is to sync at quiet times or filter out unnecessary directories and files.
Empty directories
New empty directories on one path are not propagated to the other side. This is because bisync (and rclone) natively works on files not directories. The following sequence is a workaround but will not propagate the delete of an empty directory to the other side:
rclone bisync PATH1 PATH2 rclone copy PATH1 PATH2 --filter "+ */" --filter "- **" --create-empty-src-dirs rclone copy PATH2 PATH2 --filter "+ */" --filter "- **" --create-empty-src-dirs
Renamed directories
Renaming a folder on the Path1 side results is deleting all files on the Path2 side and then copying all files again from Path1 to Path2. Bisync sees this as all files in the old directory name as deleted and all files in the new directory name as new. Similarly, renaming a directory on both sides to the same name will result in creating ..path1
and ..path2
files on both sides. Currently the most effective and efficient method of renaming a directory is to rename it on both sides, then do a --resync
.
Case sensitivity
Synching with case-insensitive filesystems, such as Windows or Box
, can result in file name conflicts. This will be fixed in a future release. The near term workaround is to make sure that files on both sides don't have spelling case differences (Smile.jpg
vs. smile.jpg
).
Windows support
Bisync has been tested on Windows 8.1, Windows 10 Pro 64-bit and on Windows GitHub runners.
Drive letters are allowed, including drive letters mapped to network drives (rclone bisync J:\localsync GDrive:
). If a drive letter is omitted, the shell current drive is the default. Drive letters are a single character follows by :
, so cloud names must be more than one character long.
Absolute paths (with or without a drive letter), and relative paths (with or without a drive letter) are supported.
Working directory is created at C:\Users\MyLogin\AppData\Local\rclone\bisync
.
Note that bisync output may show a mix of forward /
and back \
slashes.
Be careful of case independent directory and file naming on Windows vs. case dependent Linux
Filtering
See filtering documentation (https://rclone.org/filtering/) for how filter rules are written and interpreted.
Bisync's --filters-file
flag slightly extends the rclone's --filter-from (https://rclone.org/filtering/#filter-from-read-filtering-patterns-from-a-file) filtering mechanism. For a given bisync run you may provide only one --filters-file
. The --include*
, --exclude*
, and --filter
flags are also supported.
How to filter directories
Filtering portions of the directory tree is a critical feature for synching.
Examples of directory trees (always beneath the Path1/Path2 root level) you may want to exclude from your sync: - Directory trees containing only software build intermediate files. - Directory trees containing application temporary files and data such as the Windows C:\Users\MyLogin\AppData\
tree. - Directory trees containing files that are large, less important, or are getting thrashed continuously by ongoing processes.
On the other hand, there may be only select directories that you actually want to sync, and exclude all others. See the Example include-style filters for Windows user directories below.
Filters file writing guidelines
Begin with excluding directory trees:
- e.g. `- /AppData/`
**
on the end is not necessary. Once a given directory level is excluded then everything beneath it won't be looked at by rclone.- Exclude such directories that are unneeded, are big, dynamically thrashed, or where there may be access permission issues.
- Excluding such dirs first will make rclone operations (much) faster.
- Specific files may also be excluded, as with the Dropbox exclusions example below.
Decide if its easier (or cleaner) to:
- Include select directories and therefore exclude everything else -- or --
- Exclude select directories and therefore include everything else
Include select directories:
- Add lines like: `+ /Documents/PersonalFiles/**` to select which directories to include in the sync.
**
on the end specifies to include the full depth of the specified tree.- With Include-style filters, files at the Path1/Path2 root are not included. They may be included with `+ /*`.
- Place RCLONE_TEST files within these included directory trees. They will only be looked for in these directory trees.
- Finish by excluding everything else by adding `- **` at the end of the filters file.
- Disregard step 4.
Exclude select directories:
- Add more lines like in step 1. For example:
-/Desktop/tempfiles/
, or `- /testdir/. Again, a
**` on the end is not necessary. - Do not add a `- **` in the file. Without this line, everything will be included that has not be explicitly excluded.
- Disregard step 3.
- Add more lines like in step 1. For example:
A few rules for the syntax of a filter file expanding on filtering documentation (https://rclone.org/filtering/):
- Lines may start with spaces and tabs - rclone strips leading whitespace.
- If the first non-whitespace character is a
#
then the line is a comment and will be ignored. - Blank lines are ignored.
- The first non-whitespace character on a filter line must be a
+
or-
. - Exactly 1 space is allowed between the
+/-
and the path term. - Only forward slashes (
/
) are used in path terms, even on Windows. - The rest of the line is taken as the path term. Trailing whitespace is taken literally, and probably is an error.