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Using Rclone FTPS

Rclone is a software primarily used with cloud storage providers; however, it is also an easy-to-use Command-line download manager for many protocols, including FTP/FTPS/SFTP. We will show you today how to install rclone onto a Linux machine on your local network and how to set up automatic downloading from your Ultra.cc Slot.

Requirements:

Host machine on your home/local network running a Linux distribution (Mac OS can also be used but is not in the scope of this guide; however, it may still work as a general guide)

Ultra.cc FTP Slot details

Installing Rclone on the Host Machine

Installing rclone is made incredibly easy by the developer. First login to your Host via SSH; this can be under a sudo user, but it is recommended to install rclone as root user and later set up rclone under a sudo/sub-user, never set up under root.

Once logged in, run this curl command

curl https://rclone.org/install.sh | sudo bash

If you receive a message telling you that the “curl command cannot be found,” you will need to install it and run the command above again. To install curl, run apt-get install curl -y

Once rclone is installed, it is recommended you switch to a new user and configure under that user. If you have not created a new user, the steps are simple.

adduser ultra ultra is the username we will use in this guide.

Follow the on-screen prompts for user information and password. Once that is completed, it is an excellent idea to promote this user to sudo; this allows for the execution of higher privileged commands, which are not required for Rclone but are certainly worth setting up.

To add a user to sudo after creation, run this command.

adduser ultra sudo

If, for some odd reason, your distro did not have sudo installed, now might be a good time to run an install just in case:

apt-get install sudo -y

Now we can switch to our ultra user

su ultra

Type cd to jump to the user home folder. This isn’t strictly required but is best practice.

Configuring our Rclone FTP remote

The first step is to invoke the rclone config menu with the rclone config command

This will present a list of options


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\>

Press N then enter

Now enter a name: you will need this later when writing our automated script.

Now you will be presented with an extremely long list of options at the time of writing this 11 is FTP, but this may change as updates release

Field Value
Host Your Ultra Address (servername.usbx.me) or IP (185.123.123.123)
User Your Ultra Username
Port Port 21 is standard. You can press Enter
FTP password Press Y, then enter your FTP Password. You will be asked for this twice.
Use FTPS over TLS (Implicit) False
Use FTP over TLS (Explicit) True
Edit advanced config? (y/n) Press Y
Maximum number of FTP simultaneous connections, 0 for unlimited Press enter
no_check_certificate True
Disable using EPSV even if server advertises support Press Enter
Enter a encoder.MultiEncoder value. Press Enter for the default ("Slash,Del,Ctl,RightSpace,Dot"). Press Enter
y) Yes this is OK (default) Press Y to complete the rclone configuration

Testing Remote for access

Once the configuration of the remote is completed, it is a relatively simple job to check if all is configured correctly

One command should list all of the folders in your Ultra Slot Home folder.

rclone lsd ultra: Replace Ultra with your remote name

Automating download from Ultra.cc

Our first step is to write a simple script. We will set up a lock folder for a file lock system so the script will not run if it is already running

Create the lock folder with mkdir -p ~/lock

`if you ever get a flock failed command delete any files in ~/lock with the command rm -rdf ~/lock/*

And create the script file

nano FTP.sh

Paste the following lines into it :

#!/bin/bash

exec {lock_fd}>/home/ultra/lock/FTPLOCK || exit 1

flock -n "$lock_fd" || { echo "ERROR: flock() failed." >&2; exit 1; }

if [ -z "$STY" ]; then exec screen -dm -S FTP /bin/bash "$0"; fi

rclone copy -v remote:/ultraslotfoldertocopy /home/ultra/pathtosavefiles

flock -u "$lock_fd"

Save it by pressing Ctrl+X then Y Enter.

You will need to change the paths ultraslotfoldertocopy to match the folder you wish to download. You will also be required to alter remotename to match your rclone remote name, which can be found with the rclone config command or rclone listremotes. These need to be run via the SSH Command line.

Now we need to allow it to run with the command chmod +x FTP.sh

And finally, run it

./FTP.sh

If the script is running and you were to rerun it, you may see an error message “Flock Failed” this is a file lock to stop multiple downloads running and is normal. If you are sure it isn’t running you can delete the lock file from ~/lock. You can also check the progress of the backup script, which is running in a screen with the command screen -rd FTP

If all is well after the test, we can automate the check via crontab

Open crontab with

crontab -e

You may have a choice of editors. We recommend Nano

Inside the crontab add a single line under everything else in the file that looks like this

* * * * * /home/ultra/FTP.sh

Save it by pressing Ctrl+X then Y then Enter.

The script will now run every 1 minute, checking for files that have changed and syncing them to the destination folder

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