MQTT4Rclone

Control Rclone with MQTT messages

MQTT4Rclone is a service that enables Rclone to be controlled and monitored using MQTT commands. It makes it possible to use Rclone with MQTT-enabled devices or services to create automated workflows, such as triggering backups based on specific events or schedules. Because it is based on the MQTT protocol can it be easily be integrated with home automation systems, like Home Assistant, Domoticz or Node-RED. An use case example is to upload the images or videos captured by a security camera to cloud-based storage services.

How it workes

RClone is started in 'Remote Control' mode, so it can be controlled by its HTTP API. The mqtt4rclone service will send the MQTT JSON message it receives to the Rclone API, using the MQTT topic to create the Rclone url. Rclone will then perform the action like synchronizing with a cloud storage. Actions which take a long time like sync or copy are handled as a job and return a HTTP response immediately. After the HTTP call is completed the response message is sent back to an MQTT topic. This is safely done using only the local network environment of the container.

Installation

MQTT4Rclone is available as a Docker Docker container on DockerHub

The Docker image contains the Rclone excutable, so there is no need to run a seperate Rclone container.

Configuration

MQTT4Rclone can be configured with the mqtt4rclone.yml yaml configuration file.

MQTT4Rclone Configuration options

Config item	Description	Mandatory
mqtt
url	MQTT Server URL	Yes
username/password	MQTT Server Credentials	No
qos	MQTT Server Quality Of Service	No
rclone
response_topic	MQTT Topic for Rclone response message	No

Example mqtt4rclone.yml:

mqtt:
  url: "tcp://<MQTT SERVER>:1883"
  username: <MQTT USERNAME>
  password: <MQTT PASSWORD>
  qos: 0

rclone:
  response_topic: <MQTT Topic>

Rclone configuration

The Rclone configuration file must be present in de same config directory. Although Rclone can be configured by MQTT, the preferred option is to create the config file with Rclone on a work computer and then copy it to the config directory.

Commands

MQTT4Rclone send commands to Rclone based on the MQTT topic and message. The topic is the same as the Rclone rc url path and the message is the JSON as described by: Rclone Commands

All the sync/* commands will be started as jobs, MQTT4Rclone will add "_async":true to the json message.

The local path in the docker container is /data. This path has to be used in the commands sent to rclone (see examples).

Examples

Order:
MQTT topic
MQTT message

mqtt4rclone/core/stats
<empty message> or {}

mqtt4rclone/options/get
<empty message> or {}

mqtt4rclone/options/set
{"main":{"LogLevel":"DEBUG"}}

mqtt4rclone/config/listremotes
{}

mqtt4rclone/operations/fsinfo
{"fs":"dropbox:"}

mqtt4rclone/sync/sync
{"srcFs":"/data/mydropbox","dstFs":"dropbox:"}

mqtt4rclone/sync/copy
{"srcFs":"/data/mydropbox","dstFs":"dropbox:","_filter":{"MaxAge":"1d"}}

Rclone Response

The default MQTT topic where the Rclone response is sent to is: mqtt4rclone/response. This topic can be changed by the setting configuration option response_topic, so any MQTT client can receive the Rclone response and process it.

Autosync

To automatically sync every day/hour/minute you can use MQTT-Timer with a configuration like this:

    timers:
    - id: rclone_dropbox
      time: 01:00:00
      description: RClone Sync Local to Dropbox every day at 1.00
      topic: mqtt4rclone/sync/sync
      message: '{"srcFs":"/data/mydropbox","dstFs":"dropbox:"}'
    - id: rclone_mega
      cron: 00 * * * *
      description: RClone Mega to Local every hour
      topic: mqtt4rclone/sync/copy
      message: '{"srcFs":"mega:","dstFs":"/data/mymega"}'

Docker

Docker run example:

$ docker run -d -v /home/legobas/mqtt4rclone:/config -v /home/legobas/rclone_data:/data legobas/mqtt4rclone

Docker compose example:

services:
  MQTT4Rclone:
    image: legobas/mqtt4rclone:latest
    container_name: mqtt4rclone
    environment:
      - PUID=1000              # User id for access to config or data directories with user rights
      - PGID=1000              # User group id
      - LOGLEVEL=debug         # MQTT4Rclone log level: ERROR/INFO (default)/DEBUG/TRACE
      - RCLONE_LOGLEVEL=INFO   # Rclone log level: ERROR/NOTICE (default)/INFO/DEBUG
      - TZ=America/New_York    # Timezone
    volumes:
      - /home/legobas/mqtt4rclone:/config
      - /cloud_data:/data
    restart: unless-stopped

The environment variables are not necessary, if omitted the default values will be used.

Logging

Rclone log levels: DEBUG|INFO|NOTICE|ERROR (default NOTICE). To temporarily set the rclone logging to debug, send the command:

mqtt4rclone/options/set
{"main":{"LogLevel":"DEBUG"}}

after debugging set it back by restarting the service or by sending:

mqtt4rclone/options/set
{"main":{"LogLevel":"NOTICE"}}

The logs of mqtt4rclone and rclone are written to stdout, this is the standard docker log.

To view the logging: docker compose logs or docker logs mqtt4rclone

Credits

• Rclone
• Paho Mqtt Client
• ZeroLog
• MultiRun