---

title: "Remote Control / API" description: "Remote controlling rclone with its API"

Remote controlling rclone with its API

If rclone is run with the --rc flag then it starts an HTTP server which can be used to remote control rclone using its API.

You can either use the rclone rc command to access the API or use HTTP directly.

If you just want to run a remote control then see the rcd command.

Supported parameters

--rc

Flag to start the http server listen on remote requests

--rc-addr=IP

IPaddress:Port or :Port to bind server to. (default "localhost:5572")

--rc-cert=KEY

SSL PEM key (concatenation of certificate and CA certificate)

--rc-client-ca=PATH

Client certificate authority to verify clients with

--rc-htpasswd=PATH

htpasswd file - if not provided no authentication is done

--rc-key=PATH

SSL PEM Private key

--rc-max-header-bytes=VALUE

Maximum size of request header (default 4096)

--rc-user=VALUE

User name for authentication.

--rc-pass=VALUE

Password for authentication.

--rc-realm=VALUE

Realm for authentication (default "rclone")

--rc-server-read-timeout=DURATION

Timeout for server reading data (default 1h0m0s)

--rc-server-write-timeout=DURATION

Timeout for server writing data (default 1h0m0s)

--rc-serve

Enable the serving of remote objects via the HTTP interface. This means objects will be accessible at http://127.0.0.1:5572/ by default, so you can browse to http://127.0.0.1:5572/ or http://127.0.0.1:5572/* to see a listing of the remotes. Objects may be requested from remotes using this syntax http://127.0.0.1:5572/[remote:path]/path/to/object

Default Off.

--rc-files /path/to/directory

Path to local files to serve on the HTTP server.

If this is set then rclone will serve the files in that directory. It will also open the root in the web browser if specified. This is for implementing browser based GUIs for rclone functions.

If --rc-user or --rc-pass is set then the URL that is opened will have the authorization in the URL in the http://user:pass@localhost/ style.

Default Off.

--rc-enable-metrics

Enable OpenMetrics/Prometheus compatible endpoint at /metrics.

Default Off.

--rc-web-gui

Set this flag to serve the default web gui on the same port as rclone.

Default Off.

--rc-allow-origin

Set the allowed Access-Control-Allow-Origin for rc requests.

Can be used with --rc-web-gui if the rclone is running on different IP than the web-gui.

Default is IP address on which rc is running.

--rc-web-fetch-url

Set the URL to fetch the rclone-web-gui files from.

Default https://api.github.com/repos/rclone/rclone-webui-react/releases/latest.

--rc-web-gui-update

Set this flag to check and update rclone-webui-react from the rc-web-fetch-url.

Default Off.

--rc-web-gui-force-update

Set this flag to force update rclone-webui-react from the rc-web-fetch-url.

Default Off.

--rc-web-gui-no-open-browser

Set this flag to disable opening browser automatically when using web-gui.

Default Off.

--rc-job-expire-duration=DURATION

Expire finished async jobs older than DURATION (default 60s).

--rc-job-expire-interval=DURATION

Interval duration to check for expired async jobs (default 10s).

--rc-no-auth

By default rclone will require authorisation to have been set up on the rc interface in order to use any methods which access any rclone remotes. Eg operations/list is denied as it involved creating a remote as is sync/copy.

If this is set then no authorisation will be required on the server to use these methods. The alternative is to use --rc-user and --rc-pass and use these credentials in the request.

Default Off.

Accessing the remote control via the rclone rc command {#api-rc}

Rclone itself implements the remote control protocol in its rclone rc command.

You can use it like this

$ rclone rc rc/noop param1=one param2=two
{
	"param1": "one",
	"param2": "two"
}

Run rclone rc on its own to see the help for the installed remote control commands.

JSON input

rclone rc also supports a --json flag which can be used to send more complicated input parameters.

$ rclone rc --json '{ "p1": [1,"2",null,4], "p2": { "a":1, "b":2 } }' rc/noop
{
	"p1": [
		1,
		"2",
		null,
		4
	],
	"p2": {
		"a": 1,
		"b": 2
	}
}

If the parameter being passed is an object then it can be passed as a JSON string rather than using the --json flag which simplifies the command line.

rclone rc operations/list fs=/tmp remote=test opt='{"showHash": true}'

Rather than

rclone rc operations/list --json '{"fs": "/tmp", "remote": "test", "opt": {"showHash": true}}'

Special parameters

The rc interface supports some special parameters which apply to all commands. These start with _ to show they are different.

Running asynchronous jobs with _async = true

Each rc call is classified as a job and it is assigned its own id. By default jobs are executed immediately as they are created or synchronously.

If _async has a true value when supplied to an rc call then it will return immediately with a job id and the task will be run in the background. The job/status call can be used to get information of the background job. The job can be queried for up to 1 minute after it has finished.

It is recommended that potentially long running jobs, e.g. sync/sync, sync/copy, sync/move, operations/purge are run with the _async flag to avoid any potential problems with the HTTP request and response timing out.

Starting a job with the _async flag:

$ rclone rc --json '{ "p1": [1,"2",null,4], "p2": { "a":1, "b":2 }, "_async": true }' rc/noop
{
	"jobid": 2
}

Query the status to see if the job has finished. For more information on the meaning of these return parameters see the job/status call.

$ rclone rc --json '{ "jobid":2 }' job/status
{
	"duration": 0.000124163,
	"endTime": "2018-10-27T11:38:07.911245881+01:00",
	"error": "",
	"finished": true,
	"id": 2,
	"output": {
		"_async": true,
		"p1": [
			1,
			"2",
			null,
			4
		],
		"p2": {
			"a": 1,
			"b": 2
		}
	},
	"startTime": "2018-10-27T11:38:07.911121728+01:00",
	"success": true
}

job/list can be used to show the running or recently completed jobs

$ rclone rc job/list
{
	"jobids": [
		2
	]
}

Setting config flags with _config

If you wish to set config (the equivalent of the global flags) for the duration of an rc call only then pass in the _config parameter.

This should be in the same format as the config key returned by options/get.

For example, if you wished to run a sync with the --checksum parameter, you would pass this parameter in your JSON blob.

"_config":{"CheckSum": true}

If using rclone rc this could be passed as

rclone rc operations/sync ... _config='{"CheckSum": true}'

Any config parameters you don't set will inherit the global defaults which were set with command line flags or environment variables.

Note that it is possible to set some values as strings or integers - see data types for more info. Here is an example setting the equivalent of --buffer-size in string or integer format.

"_config":{"BufferSize": "42M"}
"_config":{"BufferSize": 44040192}

If you wish to check the _config assignment has worked properly then calling options/local will show what the value got set to.

Setting filter flags with _filter

If you wish to set filters for the duration of an rc call only then pass in the _filter parameter.

This should be in the same format as the filter key returned by options/get.

For example, if you wished to run a sync with these flags

--max-size 1M --max-age 42s --include "a" --include "b"

you would pass this parameter in your JSON blob.

"_filter":{"MaxSize":"1M", "IncludeRule":["a","b"], "MaxAge":"42s"}

If using rclone rc this could be passed as

rclone rc ... _filter='{"MaxSize":"1M", "IncludeRule":["a","b"], "MaxAge":"42s"}'

Any filter parameters you don't set will inherit the global defaults which were set with command line flags or environment variables.

Note that it is possible to set some values as strings or integers - see data types for more info. Here is an example setting the equivalent of --buffer-size in string or integer format.

"_filter":{"MinSize": "42M"}
"_filter":{"MinSize": 44040192}

If you wish to check the _filter assignment has worked properly then calling options/local will show what the value got set to.

Assigning operations to groups with _group = value

Each rc call has its own stats group for tracking its metrics. By default grouping is done by the composite group name from prefix job/ and id of the job like so job/1.

If _group has a value then stats for that request will be grouped under that value. This allows caller to group stats under their own name.

Stats for specific group can be accessed by passing group to core/stats:

$ rclone rc --json '{ "group": "job/1" }' core/stats
{
	"speed": 12345
	...
}

Data types {#data-types}

When the API returns types, these will mostly be straight forward integer, string or boolean types.

However some of the types returned by the options/get call and taken by the options/set calls as well as the vfsOpt, mountOpt and the _config parameters.

• Duration - these are returned as an integer duration in nanoseconds. They may be set as an integer, or they may be set with time string, eg "5s". See the options section for more info.
• Size - these are returned as an integer number of bytes. They may be set as an integer or they may be set with a size suffix string, eg "10M". See the options section for more info.
• Enumerated type (such as CutoffMode, DumpFlags, LogLevel, VfsCacheMode - these will be returned as an integer and may be set as an integer but more conveniently they can be set as a string, eg "HARD" for CutoffMode or DEBUG for LogLevel.
• BandwidthSpec - this will be set and returned as a string, eg "1M".

Specifying remotes to work on

Remotes are specified with the fs=, srcFs=, dstFs= parameters depending on the command being used.

The parameters can be a string as per the rest of rclone, eg s3:bucket/path or :sftp:/my/dir. They can also be specified as JSON blobs.

If specifyng a JSON blob it should be a object mapping strings to strings. These values will be used to configure the remote. There are 3 special values which may be set:

• type - set to type to specify a remote called :type:
• _name - set to name to specify a remote called name:
• _root - sets the root of the remote - may be empty

One of _name or type should normally be set. If the local backend is desired then type should be set to local. If _root isn't specified then it defaults to the root of the remote.

For example this JSON is equivalent to remote:/tmp

{
    "_name": "remote",
    "_path": "/tmp"
}

And this is equivalent to :sftp,host='example.com':/tmp

{
    "type": "sftp",
    "host": "example.com",
    "_path": "/tmp"
}

And this is equivalent to /tmp/dir

{
    type = "local",
    _ path = "/tmp/dir"
}

Supported commands

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backend/command: Runs a backend command. {#backend-command}

This takes the following parameters

• command - a string with the command name
• fs - a remote name string e.g. "drive:"
• arg - a list of arguments for the backend command
• opt - a map of string to string of options

Returns

• result - result from the backend command

For example

rclone rc backend/command command=noop fs=. -o echo=yes -o blue -a path1 -a path2

Returns

{
	"result": {
		"arg": [
			"path1",
			"path2"
		],
		"name": "noop",
		"opt": {
			"blue": "",
			"echo": "yes"
		}
	}
}

Note that this is the direct equivalent of using this "backend" command:

rclone backend noop . -o echo=yes -o blue path1 path2

Note that arguments must be preceded by the "-a" flag

See the backend command for more information.

Authentication is required for this call.

cache/expire: Purge a remote from cache {#cache-expire}

Purge a remote from the cache backend. Supports either a directory or a file. Params:

• remote = path to remote (required)
• withData = true/false to delete cached data (chunks) as well (optional)

Eg

rclone rc cache/expire remote=path/to/sub/folder/
rclone rc cache/expire remote=/ withData=true

cache/fetch: Fetch file chunks {#cache-fetch}

Ensure the specified file chunks are cached on disk.

The chunks= parameter specifies the file chunks to check. It takes a comma separated list of array slice indices. The slice indices are similar to Python slices: start[:end]

start is the 0 based chunk number from the beginning of the file to fetch inclusive. end is 0 based chunk number from the beginning of the file to fetch exclusive.