External rclone?

General
1

On your website it says “Connect to external Rclone daemons across different environments and manage remote cloud storages effortlessly in separate RcloneView windows.” I just installed rclone on fast Ubuntu server, but cannot connect your app. Could you please provide some kind of information on how to safely connect to a server running a rclone daemon? ports, SSH handling, user, passwords, etc. On you connection input screen it only mentions the localhost.

2

By default, the rclone remote control daemon (rclone rcd) uses HTTP. To secure it, you can enable HTTPS with a TLS certificate and add authentication. For detailed instructions, refer to the official documentation:

On a production system, you might already have a configured certificate, in which case you can simply open the rclone port (default: 5572) using ufw. However, I’ll assume you’re running rclone on an Ubuntu machine that isn’t set up as a production server with certificates. Instead, we’ll use SSH tunneling for security.

Step 1: Run rclone on Ubuntu

Start the rclone remote control daemon with the following command:

rclone rcd --rc-addr=localhost:5572 --rc-user=admin --rc-pass=password
  • Replace admin with your desired username and password with your chosen password.

Step 2: Set Up an SSH Tunnel on Windows

From a Windows command prompt, create an SSH tunnel to forward traffic securely:

ssh -N -L 5572:localhost:5572 user_id@ubuntu_ip_address

  • Replace user_id with your Ubuntu username and ubuntu_ip_address with the IP address of your Ubuntu machine.

  • The -N flag prevents an interactive shell, running the tunnel in the background. You’ll be prompted to enter the password for user_id.

  • Note: If you want the tunnel to persist without keeping the terminal open, add the -f flag (e.g., ssh -f -N -L …).

Step 3: Configure a New Remote in RcloneView

On your Windows machine, use RcloneView to connect to the remote daemon:

  1. Open the Connection Manager and click New Connection.

  2. Configure the new rclone connection with:

  • Address: http://127.0.0.1:5572
  • User: admin (or your custom username from Step 1)
  • Password: password (or your custom password from Step 1)
  1. Click Test Connection to verify it works, then click Save.

Notes

  • Since we’re using SSH tunneling, TLS certificates aren’t required for rclone rcd in this setup—the tunnel encrypts the connection.

  • Ensure rclone rcd is running on Ubuntu before starting the SSH tunnel.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any further questions.