Rclone Link Dropbox Permissions

Help and Support
1

What is the problem you are having with rclone?

Hi, I've been using a script for a while now that uploads a file to a Dropbox folder (Business / Enterprise account) and emails out a link to the file.

I'm sure in the past the Dropbox link was public 'Anyone with link'. Just noticed today the link rclone is creating has private / 'Team members' permissions. Only very occasionally someone from outside out organisation (Dropbox Team) needs to view the files, looking at old links suggests this has been the case for a long time.

Does anyone know if this is due to a change in rclone, Dropbox or possibly our enterprise Dropbox administration? Or maybe Dropbox has always been private links and I had my wired cross all along!

rclone v1.54.1

Windows 7, 64 bit

Dropbox (Business / Enterprise account)

I'm using this simple command to test:

rclone link "dropbox:{path to file}"

This is the log from a simple command line test using 'rclone copy' then 'rclone link'

2021/03/31 15:48:49 DEBUG : rclone: Version "v1.54.1" starting with parameters ["rclone" "--log-file=C:\\log.txt" "-vv" "copy" "C:\\rclone_help.txt" "dropbox:Shared"]
2021/03/31 15:48:49 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "C:\\rclone_help.txt"
2021/03/31 15:48:49 DEBUG : Using config file from "C:\\Users\\...\\.config\\rclone\\rclone.conf"
2021/03/31 15:48:49 DEBUG : fs cache: adding new entry for parent of "C:\\rclone_help.txt", "//?/C:/"
2021/03/31 15:48:49 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "dropbox:Shared"
2021/03/31 15:48:50 DEBUG : rclone_help.txt: Need to transfer - File not found at Destination
2021/03/31 15:48:53 DEBUG : rclone_help.txt: DropboxHash = 569c13c6b38df2379e8a9be4282d6dd496f888ddd52332bd5d9fd2c5dbe1ea28 OK
2021/03/31 15:48:53 INFO  : rclone_help.txt: Copied (new)
2021/03/31 15:48:53 INFO  : 
Transferred:   	    3.439k / 3.439 kBytes, 100%, 1.354 kBytes/s, ETA 0s
Transferred:            1 / 1, 100%
Elapsed time:         3.7s

2021/03/31 15:51:04 DEBUG : rclone: Version "v1.54.1" starting with parameters ["rclone" "--log-file=C:\\log.txt" "-vv" "link" "dropbox:Shared\\rclone_help.txt"]
2021/03/31 15:51:04 DEBUG : Using config file from "C:\\Users\\...\\.config\\rclone\\rclone.conf"
2021/03/31 15:51:04 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "dropbox:Shared\\rclone_help.txt"
2021/03/31 15:51:05 DEBUG : fs cache: adding new entry for parent of "dropbox:Shared\\rclone_help.txt", "dropbox:Shared"
2021/03/31 15:51:05 DEBUG : Dropbox root 'Shared': attempting to share 'rclone_help.txt' (absolute path: /Shared/rclone_help.txt)
2021/03/31 15:51:07 DEBUG : 3 go routines active

Thanks in advance for you time,
Kenny.

p.s. Think there is an issue with the multiple '#' characters in the post template. 'Sorry, new users can only put 2 links in a post.'

2

I know that dropbox has change the authentication scopes recently which is related to this.

Rclone uses this API to make the links HTTP - Developers - Dropbox

It says

Create a shared link with custom settings. If no settings are given then the default visibility is RequestedVisibility.public (The resolved visibility, though, may depend on other aspects such as team and shared folder settings).

Rclone doesn't set visibility, so it is relying on the default which it says may depend on other stuff. Does that make sense?

No reason why rclone shouldn't set the visibility though - let me know if you think it is worth rclone setting that.

3

Thanks for the detail Nick, it does make sense.

An option for rclone to set visibility would be appreciated.

I've found modify_shared_link_settings in the Dropbox API
https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#sharing-modify_shared_link_settings

I'll see if I can figure out how to implement this as a workaround.

Thanks again, Kenny.

4

I had a go at setting visibility - can you try this?

v1.56.0-beta.5372.db1521f29.fix-dropbox-link on branch fix-dropbox-link (uploaded in 15-30 mins)

Note you'll need to set --expire in order to set visibility to work around a dropbox SDK bug.

You can set --expire 10y or something like that though.

If it doesn't work can you do the rclone link command with -vv --dump bodies and post the result?

5

That works!

Added '--expire 45d' to my 'rcone link' command and the link is now set as 'Anyone with link' on Dropbox.

Thank you so much for the change, that's amazing.

6

Thanks for testing!

I've merged this to master now which means it will be in the latest beta in 15-30 mins and released in v1.56

7

This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.