Rclone

rclone is a command line tool to sync files and directories to and from all major cloud storage sites. You can use rclone to sync files and directories between Yale clusters and Yale Box, google drive, etc. The following instructions cover basics to setup and use rclone on Yale clusters. For more information about Rclone, please visit its website at https://rclone.org.

Set up Rclone on YCRC clusters

Before accessing a remote cloud storage using rclone, you need to run rclone config to configure the storage for rclone. Since rclone config will try to bring up a browser for you to authorize the cloud storage, we recommend you to use Open OnDemand.

To run rclone config on OOD, first click Remote Desktop from the OOD dashboard. Once a session starts running, click Connect to Remote Desktop and you will see a terminal on the desktop in the browser. Run rclone config at the command line of the terminal.

ood_dashboard

ood_remote

During configuration, you will see a message similar to the following:

If your browser does not open automatically go to the following link: http://127.0.0.1:53682/auth
Log in and authorize rclone for access
Waiting for code...

If no browser started automatically, then start Firefox manually by clicking the Firefox icon on the top bar of the Remote Desktop. Copy the link from the message shown on your screen and paste it to the address bar of Firefox. Log in with your Yale email address, respond to the DUO request, and authorize the access.

Tip

If you received an error stating that your session has expired for DUO, simply paste the link and reload the page. If you still get the expired message, log out of CAS in your browser by going to https://secure.its.yale.edu/cas/logout. After logging out, paste the link and reload.

Examples

The following examples show you how to set up rclone for a viriety of different storage types. In the examples, we name our remote cloud storage as 'remote' in the configuration. You can provide any name you want.

Google Drive

The example below is a screen dump when setting up rclone for Google Drive.

[pl543@c03n06 ~]$ rclone config
No remotes found - make a new one
n) New remote
s) Set configuration password
q) Quit config
n/s/q> n
name> remote
Type of storage to configure.
Enter a string value. Press Enter for the default ("").
Choose a number from below, or type in your own value
 1 / 1Fichier
   \ "fichier"
 2 / Alias for an existing remote
   \ "alias"
[...]
15 / Google Drive
   \ "drive"
[...]
42 / seafile
   \ "seafile"
Storage> 15
** See help for drive backend at: https://rclone.org/drive/ **

Google Application Client Id
Setting your own is recommended.
See https://rclone.org/drive/#making-your-own-client-id for how to create your own.
If you leave this blank, it will use an internal key which is low performance.
Enter a string value. Press Enter for the default ("").
client_id> 
OAuth Client Secret
Leave blank normally.
Enter a string value. Press Enter for the default ("").
client_secret> 
Scope that rclone should use when requesting access from drive.
Enter a string value. Press Enter for the default ("").
Choose a number from below, or type in your own value
 1 / Full access all files, excluding Application Data Folder.
   \ "drive"
 2 / Read-only access to file metadata and file contents.
   \ "drive.readonly"
   / Access to files created by rclone only.
 3 | These are visible in the drive website.
   | File authorization is revoked when the user deauthorizes the app.
   \ "drive.file"
   / Allows read and write access to the Application Data folder.
 4 | This is not visible in the drive website.
   \ "drive.appfolder"
   / Allows read-only access to file metadata but
 5 | does not allow any access to read or download file content.
   \ "drive.metadata.readonly"
scope> 1
ID of the root folder
Leave blank normally.

Fill in to access "Computers" folders (see docs), or for rclone to use
a non root folder as its starting point.

Enter a string value. Press Enter for the default ("").
root_folder_id> 
Service Account Credentials JSON file path 
Leave blank normally.
Needed only if you want use SA instead of interactive login.

Leading `~` will be expanded in the file name as will environment variables such as `${RCLONE_CONFIG_DIR}`.

Enter a string value. Press Enter for the default ("").
service_account_file> 
Edit advanced config? (y/n)
y) Yes
n) No (default)
y/n> n
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
If your browser doesn't open automatically go to the following link: http://127.0.0.1:53682/auth?state=6glRr_mpEORxHevlOaaYyw
Log in and authorize rclone for access
Waiting for code...
Got code
Configure this as a Shared Drive (Team Drive)?
y) Yes
n) No (default)
y/n> n
--------------------
[remote]
type = drive
scope = drive
token = {"access_token":"ya29.A0ArdaM-mBYFKBE2gieODvdANCZRV6Y8QHhQF-lY74E9fr1HTLOwwLRuoQQbO9P-Jdip62YYhqXfcuWT0KLKGdhUb9M8g2Z4XEQqoNLwZyA-FA2AAYYBqB","token_type":"Bearer","refresh_token":"1//0dDu3r6KVakgYIARAAGA0NwF-L9IrWIuG7_f44x-uLR2vvBocf4q-KnQVhlkm18TO2Fn0GjJp-cArWfj5kY84","expiry":"2021-02-25T17:28:18.629507046-05
:00"}
--------------------
y) Yes this is OK (default)
e) Edit this remote
d) Delete this remote
y/e/d> y
Current remotes:

Name                 Type
====                 ====
remote               drive

e) Edit existing remote
n) New remote
d) Delete remote
r) Rename remote
c) Copy remote
s) Set configuration password
q) Quit config
e/n/d/r/c/s/q> q

Box

The example below is a screen dump when setting up rclone for Yale Box.

[pl543@c14n07 ~]$ rclone config
No remotes found - make a new one
n) New remote
s) Set configuration password
q) Quit config
n/s/q> n
name> remote
Type of storage to configure.
Enter a string value. Press Enter for the default ("").
Choose a number from below, or type in your own value
 1 / 1Fichier
   \ "fichier"
[...]
 6 / Box
   \ "box"
[...]
Storage> box
** See help for box backend at: https://rclone.org/box/ **

Box App Client Id.
Leave blank normally.
Enter a string value. Press Enter for the default ("").
client_id> 
Box App Client Secret
Leave blank normally.
Enter a string value. Press Enter for the default ("").
client_secret> 
Edit advanced config? (y/n)
y) Yes
n) No
y/n> n
Remote config
Use auto config?
 * Say Y if not sure
 * Say N if you are working on a remote or headless machine
y) Yes
n) No
y/n> y
If your browser does not 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
--------------------
[remote]
type = box
token = {"access_token":"PjIXHUZ34VQSmeUZ9r6bhc9ux44KMU0e","token_type":"bearer","refresh_token":"VumWPWP5Nd0M2C1GyfgfJL51zUeWPPVLc6VC6lBQduEPsQ9a6ibSor2dvHmyZ6B8","expiry":"2019-10-21T11:00:36.839586736-04:00"}
--------------------
y) Yes this is OK
e) Edit this remote
d) Delete this remote
y/e/d> y
Current remotes:

Name                 Type
====                 ====
remote               box

e) Edit existing remote
n) New remote
d) Delete remote
r) Rename remote
c) Copy remote
s) Set configuration password
q) Quit config
e/n/d/r/c/s/q> q

S3

The example below is a screen dump when setting up rclone for an S3 provider such as aws.

[rdb9@login1.mccleary ~]$ rclone config
Enter configuration password:
password:
Current remotes:

Name                 Type
====                 ====

[...]

e) Edit existing remote
n) New remote
d) Delete remote
r) Rename remote
c) Copy remote
s) Set configuration password
q) Quit config
e/n/d/r/c/s/q> n
    ```bash

Enter name for new remote.
name> remote

Option Storage.
Type of storage to configure.
Choose a number from below, or type in your own value.

[...]

 5 / Amazon S3 Compliant Storage Providers including AWS, Alibaba, Ceph, China Mobile, Cloudflare, ArvanCloud, DigitalOcean, Dreamhost, Huawei OBS, IBM COS, IDrive e2, IONOS Cloud, Liara, Lyve Cloud, Minio, Netease, RackCorp, Scaleway, SeaweedFS, StackPath, Storj, Tencent COS, Qiniu and Wasabi
   \ (s3)
[...]
Storage> 5

Option provider.
Choose your S3 provider.
Choose a number from below, or type in your own value.
Press Enter to leave empty.
 1 / Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3
   \ (AWS)
[...]
provider> 1

Option env_auth.
Get AWS credentials from runtime (environment variables or EC2/ECS meta data if no env vars).
Only applies if access_key_id and secret_access_key is blank.
Choose a number from below, or type in your own boolean value (true or false).
Press Enter for the default (false).
 1 / Enter AWS credentials in the next step.
   \ (false)
 2 / Get AWS credentials from the environment (env vars or IAM).
   \ (true)
env_auth> 

Option access_key_id.
AWS Access Key ID.
Leave blank for anonymous access or runtime credentials.
Enter a value. Press Enter to leave empty.
access_key_id> ***************

Option secret_access_key.
AWS Secret Access Key (password).
Leave blank for anonymous access or runtime credentials.
Enter a value. Press Enter to leave empty.
secret_access_key> *************

Option region.
Region to connect to.
Choose a number from below, or type in your own value.
Press Enter to leave empty.
   / The default endpoint - a good choice if you are unsure.
 1 | US Region, Northern Virginia, or Pacific Northwest.
   | Leave location constraint empty.
   \ (us-east-1)
   / US East (Ohio) Region.
[...]

[take defaults for all remaining questions

Edit advanced config?
y) Yes
n) No (default)
y/n> n

Configuration complete.
Options:
- type: s3
- provider: AWS
- access_key_id: ***************
- secret_access_key: ****************
- region: us-east-1

Tip

if you want to use rclone for a shared google drive, you should answer 'y' when it asks whether you want to configure it as a Shared Drive.

Configure this as a Shared Drive (Team Drive)?
y) Yes
n) No (default)
y/n> y

Tip

rclone config creates a file storing cloud storage configurations for rclone. You can check the file name with rclone config file. The config file can be copied to other clusters so that you can use rclone on the other clusters without running rclone config again.

Use Rclone on Yale clusters

As we have used remote as the name of the cloud storage in our examples above, we will continue using it in the following examples. You should replace it with the actual name you have picked up for the cloud storage in your configuration.

Tip

If you forgot the name of the cloud storage you have configured, run rclone config show and the name will be shown in [].

$ rclone config show
[remote]
type = drive
scope = drive
token = {"access_token":"mytoken","expiry":"2021-07-09T22:13:56.452750648-04:00"}
root_folder_id = myid

List files

rclone ls remote:/

Copy files

# to download a file to the cluster
rclone copy remote:/path/to/filename .

# to upload a file from the cluster to the cloud storage
rclone copy filename remote:/path/to/

Help

rclone help

Last update: June 7, 2023