Backing up files with rclone

Overview

Rclone is a tool I recently discovered that allows you to sync files to cloud-based storage. You are not limited to a single cloud destination, either. This guide is focused on installing and configuring rclone for a VPS, such as Linode or DigitalOcean.

Setup

This guide was written using a Debian 8 (jessie) install.

1. Download rclone for your distro from their website.

    $ wget http://downloads.rclone.org/rclone-current-linux-amd64.zip
    --2016-07-23 12:50:50--  http://downloads.rclone.org/rclone-current-linux-amd64.zip
    Resolving downloads.rclone.org (downloads.rclone.org)... 77.73.5.145
    Connecting to downloads.rclone.org (downloads.rclone.org)|77.73.5.145|:80... connected.
    HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
    Length: 3672060 (3.5M) [application/zip]
    Saving to: ‘rclone-current-linux-amd64.zip’
   
    rclone-current-linux-amd64.zip                    100%[============================================================================================================>]   3.50M  3.50MB/s   in 1.0s
   
    2016-07-23 12:50:52 (3.50 MB/s) - ‘rclone-current-linux-amd64.zip’ saved [3672060/3672060]
   

2. The creator recommends moving the binary into /usr/sbin

    unzip rclone-v1.17-linux-amd64.zip
    cd rclone-v1.17-linux-amd64
    #copy binary file
    sudo cp rclone /usr/sbin/
    sudo chown root:root /usr/sbin/rclone
    sudo chmod 755 /usr/sbin/rclone
    #install manpage
    sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/share/man/man1
    sudo cp rclone.1 /usr/local/share/man/man1/
    sudo mandb
   

3. Next, configure rclone with the storage system of your choice. Rclone supports quite a few cloud systems, visit the overview page to find the one that is best for you.

4. I chose Google Drive to start, as Sync was not on the list.

    $ ./rclone config
    2016/07/23 12:54:21 Failed to load config file "/home/kris/.rclone.conf" - using defaults: open /home/kris/.rclone.conf: no such file or directory
    No remotes found - make a new one
    n) New remote
    s) Set configuration password
    q) Quit config
    n/s/q> n
    name> gdrive
    Type of storage to configure.
    Choose a number from below, or type in your own value
     1 / Amazon Drive
       \ "amazon cloud drive"
     2 / Amazon S3 (also Dreamhost, Ceph, Minio)
       \ "s3"
     3 / Backblaze B2
       \ "b2"
     4 / Dropbox
       \ "dropbox"
     5 / Google Cloud Storage (this is not Google Drive)
       \ "google cloud storage"
     6 / Google Drive
       \ "drive"
     7 / Hubic
       \ "hubic"
     8 / Local Disk
       \ "local"
     9 / Microsoft OneDrive
       \ "onedrive"
    10 / Openstack Swift (Rackspace Cloud Files, Memset Memstore, OVH)
       \ "swift"
    11 / Yandex Disk
       \ "yandex"
    Storage> 6
    Google Application Client Id - leave blank normally.
    client_id>
    Google Application Client Secret - leave blank normally.
    client_secret>
    Remote config
    Use auto config?
     * Say Y if not sure
     * Say N if you are working on a remote or headless machine or Y didn't work
    y) Yes
    n) No
    y/n> y
    If your browser doesn't open automatically go to the following link: http://127.0.0.1:53682/auth
    Log in and authorize rclone for access
    Waiting for code...
    Got code
    --------------------
    [gdrive]
    client_id =
    client_secret =
    token = {"access_token":"some_text"}
    --------------------
    y) Yes this is OK
    e) Edit this remote
    d) Delete this remote
    y/e/d> y
    Current remotes:
   
    Name                 Type
    ====                 ====
    gdrive               drive
   
    e) Edit existing remote
    n) New remote
    d) Delete remote
    s) Set configuration password
    q) Quit config
    e/n/d/s/q> q
   

5. Note, I added an iptables NAT rule and edited a sysctl to authorize rclone to my Google Account from my local machine.

    $ sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.eth0.route_localnet=1
    net.ipv4.conf.eth0.route_localnet = 1
   
    $ iptables -t nat -I PREROUTING -p tcp -d <ip> --dport 53682 -j DNAT --to-destination 127.0.0.1:53682
   

6. Once setup is complete, it’s a good idea to revert the sysctl edited earlier.

    $ sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.eth0.route_localnet=0
    net.ipv4.conf.eth0.route_localnet = 0
   

7. Review the usage documentation to familiarize yourself with the rclone syntax. In my case, I want to sync a local directory that is populated by a script that makes database backups nightly. In the future, I plan to add this as a final step to a script so offsite backups are performed automatically.

Conclusion:

Rclone is an awesome and easy to setup tool to give you peace of mind that your files are backed up. Happy cloning!