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 is to upload the images or videos captured by a security camera to cloud-based storage services.
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.
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.
MQTT4Rclone can be configured with the mqtt4rclone.yml yaml configuration file.
| 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>
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.
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).
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"}}
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.
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 run example:
$ docker run -d -v /home/legobas/mqtt4rclone:/config -v /home/legobas/rclone_data:/data legobas/mqtt4rcloneDocker 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-stoppedThe environment variables are not necessary, if omitted the default values will be used.
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