Homeassistant Rclone Configuration and Setup Guide

To set up Home Assistant with Rclone, you'll need to have Rclone installed on your system. Rclone is a command-line program that synchronizes files and directories between two or more locations.

Rclone supports over 40 cloud storage services, including Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive, which makes it a great option for syncing your Home Assistant configuration files.

Home Assistant uses Rclone to sync its configuration files, which allows you to access your configuration from anywhere. This is especially useful if you have multiple Home Assistant instances or want to access your configuration remotely.

In the next section, we'll walk you through the step-by-step process of configuring Rclone with Home Assistant.

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To configure Rclone, you'll need to run the command `rclone config` after installation. This will guide you through a series of options to set up your remote storage.

You'll be asked to name your remote and select a cloud storage option, such as Google Drive, which is compatible with Rclone. To do so, locate "Google Drive" in the list and enter the associated number.

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For Google Drive, you'll need to supply the Client ID and Client Secret, which you can generate in an earlier step. You'll also have the option to restrict your rclone remote to a specific folder or Team Drive by setting "root_folder_id" to the folder ID found in the URL of your folder/Team Drive.

Rclone also allows you to configure a Service Account, but for our purposes, we'll skip this option. You'll then be prompted to give Rclone permission to your Google Drive, which will either open your browser or provide a link to paste in your browser to grant access and obtain a verification code.

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Configuring Rclone is a relatively straightforward process, and it starts with installing the application and running the command `rclone config`.

This will prompt you to name your remote and select the cloud storage option you want to use, such as Google Drive. You'll then be asked to supply the Client ID and Client Secret generated earlier.

To restrict your rclone remote to a specific folder or Team Drive, you can set `root_folder_id` to the folder ID found in the URL of your folder or Team Drive. For example, if the URL is `https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/jk23jkfsd3`, you would copy and paste the `jk23jkfsd3` part of the URL as your `root_folder_id`.

You can also configure a Service Account, but for our purposes, we'll skip over this option.

If you're on a desktop, you'll be prompted to give rclone permission to your Google Drive by entering `y`, while on a headless machine you'll enter `n`.

Once you've obtained the verification code, you'll be asked whether you want to set up your remote with a Team Drive or not. This is purely a matter of preference, but using a Team Drive can help keep things organized.

If you want to encrypt your configuration, you can use the `New-Object` command to generate a password and export it to a file. The `Export-Clixml` command can then be used to save the password to a secure file.

You can also set defaults for values in the config file on an individual remote basis by using environment variables. To find the name of the environment variable, you need to take the long option name, strip the leading `--`, change `-` to `_`, make it uppercase, and prepend `RCLONE_`.

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For example, to set the default for the `stats` option to `5s`, you would set the environment variable `RCLONE_STATS=5s`. The same parser is used for options and environment variables, so they take exactly the same form.

Here's a table showing how to set environment variables for some common options:

The options set by environment variables can be seen with the `-vv` flag, e.g. `rclone version -vv`.

The backend:path syntax is an advanced way to create remotes on the fly.

This syntax involves specifying the name or prefix of a backend, which is the type in the config file, and providing all the configuration for the backend on the command line or in environment variables.

The backend should be the name or prefix of a backend, and all the configuration for the backend should be provided on the command line or in environment variables.

Here are some examples of how this syntax can be used, such as copying files and directories from example.com in the relative directory path/to/dir to /tmp/dir using sftp.

The goal of this implementation is to allow for the creation of remotes on the fly without needing to modify the config file.

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The backup directory, specified by --backup-dir=DIR, is where files that would have been overwritten or deleted are moved to. This directory must not overlap the destination directory without being excluded by a filter rule.

If the remote in use supports server-side move or copy, and you're using the same remote as the destination of the sync, you can use the backup directory.

Files that would have been updated or deleted will be stored in the backup directory, which in the example given is remote:old. This is a great way to keep a record of changes made during a sync.

If you're running rclone from a script, you might want to use today's date as the directory name passed to --backup-dir to store the old files.

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To test the functionality of your rclone remote, create a directory in /mnt/ on the machine you'd like to use with rclone.

You'll need to run the command `rclone mount gdrive_mount_crypt: /mnt/` to mount rclone to your newly created /mnt/ point. This will encrypt data before it's stored in Google Drive.

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For a union remote to display the expected contents, you'll need to verify that it shows you the number and names of the files and folders in your config.

Give the union remote the proper ownership and permissions by running a command like `chown user:group /mnt/`, replacing user and group to match your own.

The syntax of remote paths passed to the rclone command is as follows: `remote:path/to/dir`. This refers to a directory path/to/dir on remote: as defined in the config file.

To mount a remote, you'll need to specify the remote name and path, such as `gdrive_mount_crypt:`.

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A subcommand is the main operation required in Rclone, such as sync, copy, or ls. Options can be single letter flags like -v, or groups of flags like -Pv, or long flags like --progress.

Options can be used after the subcommand, or in between parameters, but global options must come before the subcommand. If you need to add a parameter that starts with a -, put a -- on its own first.

Here are some common options: --delete-excluded--filter--filter-from These options are used for filtering and can be used to exclude or include specific files or directories.

A subcommand is the rclone operation required, such as sync, copy, or ls. You can think of it as the main task you want rclone to perform.

Options are single letter flags, like -v, or groups of flags, like -Pv, or long flags, like --progress. They can be used after the subcommand, between parameters, or at the end of the command.

No options are required, but if you need to add a parameter that starts with a -, put a -- on its own first, like -- --path/to/file. This will prevent rclone from interpreting the parameter as an option.

A parameter is usually a file path or rclone remote, such as /path/to/file or remote:path/to/file. You can check the subcommand help to see what specific parameters are required for each operation.

The Bwlimit option is used to specify the maximum bandwidth in bytes per second.

Rclone will limit its bandwidth to this value to avoid overwhelming the network.

You can set the bandwidth limit to a specific value, such as 1000000, to limit the transfer speed to 1 megabyte per second.

For example, rclone copy --bwlimit 1000000 source destination will copy the source to the destination with a maximum bandwidth of 1 megabyte per second.

Rclone also supports a unit suffix to specify the bandwidth limit in a more readable format, such as 1M for 1 megabyte per second.

For example, rclone copy --bwlimit 1M source destination will also copy the source to the destination with a maximum bandwidth of 1 megabyte per second.

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The cutoff mode is a crucial setting in Rclone that determines how it handles transfer limits. It can be set to hard, soft, or cautious.

Specifying --cutoff-mode=hard will stop transferring immediately when Rclone reaches the limit, which can be set with --max-transfer.

Rclone defaults to --cutoff-mode=hard if you don't specify anything else. This is a straightforward way to ensure transfers are stopped promptly.

Specifying --cutoff-mode=soft will stop starting new transfers when Rclone reaches the limit, but it won't interrupt any ongoing transfers. This can be useful if you want to prioritize existing transfers.

Only --cutoff-mode=cautious is applicable for --max-transfer, and it tries to prevent Rclone from reaching the limit by limiting the transfer size.

Filtering is a powerful feature in Rclone that allows you to fine-tune your file transfers. You can use various flags to specify what files to include or exclude from the transfer.

The --delete-excluded flag is a great way to automatically delete files that don't match your filtering criteria. This can save you a lot of time and effort in the long run.

You can also use the --filter flag to specify a filter pattern. This can be a simple string or a more complex expression.

Some backends have limits on the size of the metadata, and Rclone will give errors on upload if they are exceeded. This is something to keep in mind when using the --metadata-include and --metadata-exclude flags.

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Here are some of the filtering flags you can use:

Rclone also allows you to load filter patterns from a file using the --filter-from and --metadata-include-from flags. This can be a big time-saver if you have a lot of complex filter patterns to apply.

The -u or --update flag is a powerful tool in Rclone that can save you time and effort when transferring files to a remote. It forces Rclone to skip any files that exist on the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source file.

This flag is especially useful when transferring to a remote that doesn't support modification times directly, or when using the --use-server-modtime flag to avoid extra API calls. It's more accurate than a --size-only check and faster than using --checksum.

If an existing destination file has a modification time older than the source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different. If the sizes are the same, it will be updated if the checksum is different or not available.

The time checked will be the uploaded time, which can be a good thing if you're dealing with time skews between the source and the backend. However, if the backend doesn't support checksums, syncing or copying within the time skew window may still result in additional transfers for safety.

Consider using the --modify-window flag to compensate for time skews between the source and the backend. This can be especially helpful when working with backends that don't support modification times.