rclone
- sarawillis@arizona.edu
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Configuration
To start transferring data between HPC and a cloud service, you'll first need to establish a connection to the desired service using rclone's configuration process. The easiest way to do this is in an Open OnDemand Virtual Desktop. For the quickest access, use the ElGato cluster. In your desktop, open a terminal session under MATE Terminal in the toolbar.
In the terminal, type rclone config. Select n for "New remote". You will be prompted to enter a name which will be used to access your configured storage service for all future connections. For ease of use, we recommend not including spaces in the name.
[sarawillis@gpu67 ~]$ rclone config No remotes found, make a new one? n) New remote s) Set configuration password q) Quit config e/n/d/r/c/s/q> n name>
The rest of the configuration process is dependent on the service you wish to use. Two examples are shown below for connecting to Box and Google Drive. However, there are many more options available to choose from (for example: AWS S3, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.). The rclone prompts for the various setups below have been edited for brevity.
name> Box Option Storage. Type of storage to configure. Choose a number from below, or type in your own value. # Many storage options listed Storage> 8 client_id> client_secret> box_config_file> access_token> Option box_sub_type. Choose a number from below, or type in your own string value. Press Enter for the default (user). 1 / Rclone should act on behalf of a user. \ (user) 2 / Rclone should act on behalf of a service account. \ (enterprise) box_sub_type> 1 Edit advanced config? y) Yes n) No (default) y/n> n 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
The auto config process will open a Firefox browser in the desktop session prompting you to log into your Box account. For example, to log into a UArizona Box account, select Use Single Sign On (SSO)Â (or enter your email address/password for a private Box account): 
Next, enter your university email address. This will guide you through the standard University login procedure. Once you're logged in, click Grant access to Box
This will bring you back to your terminal which should display a summary of your connection information. Enter y to confirm.
# <Configuration information here> y) Yes this is OK (default) e) Edit this remote d) Delete this remote y/e/d> y Current remotes: Name Type ==== ==== Box 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 [sarawillis@gpu67 ~]$
To test your connection, try typing rclone lsf <Name>: replacing "<Name>" with the name you gave your remote. For example:
[sarawillis@gpu67 ~]$ rclone lsf Box:/ RcloneExample/ Research Technologies/
name> GoogleDrive Option Storage. Type of storage to configure. Choose a number from below, or type in your own value. # Many storage options listed Storage> 17 client_id> client_secret> Option scope. Scope that rclone should use when requesting access from drive. Choose a number from below, or type in your own value. Press Enter to leave empty. 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 # <- This option is up to you Option root_folder_id. 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 value. Press Enter to leave empty. root_folder_id> service_account_file> Edit advanced config? y) Yes n) No (default) y/n> n 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
The auto config process will open a Firefox browser in the desktop session prompting you to log into your Google Drive account. Once you're logged in, rclone will ask you for permission to access your storage
This will redirect you back to your terminal where you can finish the configuration process
Configure this as a Shared Drive (Team Drive)? y) Yes n) No (default) y/n> n # <a list of endpoint configuration information appears here> -------------------- y) Yes this is OK (default) e) Edit this remote d) Delete this remote y/e/d> y Current remotes: Name Type ==== ==== GoogleDrive 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 [sarawillis@gpu67 ~]$
To test your connection, try typing rclone lsf <Name>: replacing "<Name>" with the name you gave your remote. For example:
[sarawillis@gpu67 ~]$ rclone lsf GoogleDrive: Colab Notebooks/ Consulting and Support Services/ HPC/ rclone_example
Transferring Files
See rclone's official documentation for a detailed list of all options available: https://rclone.org/docs/
Once you have a connection configured, you can use rclone in batch jobs, interactive terminal sessions, or on a filexfer node. Rclone supports file transfers and syncs between your local filesystem and a remote endpoint, or between two remote endpoints. When getting started with rclone, we recommend running some tests using the additional flag --dry-run, especially when syncing directories. This will print out the commands rclone would use without executing them.
Listing Contents
To view the contents of a remote service, for the most human-readable format you can use rclone lsf <Name>:/path/to/directory
[sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ rclone lsf GoogleDrive: Colab Notebooks/ Consulting and Support Services/ HPC/ rclone_example [sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ rclone lsf GoogleDrive:/rclone_example hello.py
Transferring a Single File
To transfer a single file, use the rclone copyto <source> <destination> command. For example, transferring a file from Google Drive to HPC
[sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ ls [sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ rclone copyto GoogleDrive:/rclone_example/hello.py ./hello.py [sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ ls hello.py
And transferring a file from HPC to Google Drive:
[sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ echo "This is a test" > test.txt [sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ rclone copyto ./test.txt GoogleDrive:/rclone_example/test.txt [sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ rclone lsf GoogleDrive:/rclone_example hello.py test.txt
Transferring a Directory
To transfer a directory, use the rclone copy <source> <destination> command. For example, transferring a file from Google Drive to HPC:
[sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ rclone lsf GoogleDrive:/rclone_example hello.py rclone_subdirectory/ test.txt [sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ ls hello.py test.txt [sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ rclone copy GoogleDrive:/rclone_example/rclone_subdirectory ./rclone_subdirectory [sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ ls rclone_subdirectory hello.py test.txt [sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ ls rclone_subdirectory/ meep.png snarf.png hello_world.txt
And transferring a directory from HPC to Google Drive:
[sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ mkdir hpc_directory [sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ echo "foo" > hpc_directory/bar.txt [sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ rclone copy ./hpc_directory/ GoogleDrive:/rclone_example/hpc_directory [sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ rclone lsf GoogleDrive:/rclone_example hello.py hpc_directory/ rclone_subdirectory/ test.txt
Syncing a Directory
Using rclone sync <source> <destination> will make <source> and <destination> identical by modifying <destination> only. When starting out with rclone sync, try first using the --dry-run flag to avoid any unintentional data loss. As an example:
[sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ tree . ├── hello.py ├── hpc_directory │  └── bar.txt ├── rclone_subdirectory │  ├── hello_world.txt │  ├── meep.png │  └── snarf.png └── test.txt 2 directories, 6 files [sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ rclone tree GoogleDrive:/rclone_example / ├── hello.py ├── hpc_directory │ └── bar.txt ├── rclone_subdirectory │ ├── hello_world.txt │ ├── meep.png │ └── snarf.png └── test.txt 2 directories, 6 files [sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ echo "changing a file" > hpc_directory/bar.txt [sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ rm hello.py [sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ rclone sync ./ GoogleDrive:/rclone_example --dry-run 2023/10/06 14:26:51 NOTICE: hpc_directory/bar.txt: Skipped copy as --dry-run is set (size 16) 2023/10/06 14:26:51 NOTICE: hello.py: Skipped delete as --dry-run is set (size 52) 2023/10/06 14:26:51 NOTICE: Transferred: 16 B / 16 B, 100%, 0 B/s, ETA - Checks: 6 / 6, 100% Deleted: 1 (files), 0 (dirs) Transferred: 1 / 1, 100% Elapsed time: 1.0s [sarawillis@cpu7 rclone_hpc]$ rclone sync ./ GoogleDrive:/rclone_example --progress # Now to actually execute the sync Transferred: 16 B / 16 B, 100%, 7 B/s, ETA 0s Checks: 6 / 6, 100% Deleted: 1 (files), 0 (dirs) Transferred: 1 / 1, 100% Elapsed time: 3.6