Rclone tries to create tmp config when running copy and fails

Help and Support
1

What is the problem you are having with rclone?

I have a config file in a folder for which the user running rclone only as read access

What is your rclone version (output from rclone version)

rclone v1.53.3

  • os/arch: linux/arm
  • go version: go1.15.5

Which OS you are using and how many bits (eg Windows 7, 64 bit)

arch linux

Which cloud storage system are you using? (eg Google Drive)

irrelevant i think (onedrive)

The command you were trying to run (eg rclone copy /tmp remote:tmp)

/usr/bin/rclone copy /backup backuponedrive:/backup --immutable --min-age 30m --config=/confs/rclone.conf

The rclone config contents with secrets removed.

irrelevant i think

A log from the command with the -vv flag

2020/12/25 17:53:00 ERROR : error reading available plugins: Error creating : /home/rclonerun/.cache/rclone/webgui/plugins/config
2020/12/25 17:53:00 DEBUG : --min-age 30m0s to 2020-12-25 17:23:00.601393024 +0100 CET m=-1799.874637304
2020/12/25 17:53:00 DEBUG : rclone: Version "v1.53.3" starting with parameters ["rclone" "copy" "/storage/backup/msibackup" "backup onedrive:/mainbackup" "--immutable" "--min-age" "30m" "--config=/confs/rclone.conf" "-vv"]
2020/12/25 17:53:00 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "/storage/backup/msibackup"
2020/12/25 17:53:00 DEBUG : Using config file from "/confs/rclone.conf"
2020/12/25 17:53:00 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "backup onedrive:/mainbackup"
2020/12/25 17:53:00 DEBUG : One drive root 'mainbackup': Token expired but no uploads in progress - doing nothing
2020/12/25 17:53:00 DEBUG : backup onedrive: Loaded invalid token from config file - ignoring
2020/12/25 17:53:05 Failed to save config after 10 tries: Failed to create temp file for new config: open /confs/rclone.conf454082206: permission denied

when running exact same command with user that has write access in the config folder it works as expected

2

hello and welcome to the forum,

tokens expire, so when rclone is given a new token, it needs to save it to the config file.

3

That's not the problem when running the exact same command from a user with write acces in the config folder is works

4

This is the real problem

6

I don't understand, The problem is that rclone tries to create a temp config file in the same directory as the given config file but fails because it doesn't have write access. I don't understand how that is expected behavior and why id even needs to create a temp config file if the command is rsync copy

7

as to why rclone must save the token to the config file i do not know.
seems that if the config file is read-only, rclone should save the token to ram.

not sure if this helps:
i use service files, so in my config there are no tokens.

no worries, as we have many rclone experts, who should stop by soon.

https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/3655
Failed to save config file - #10 by jchwenger
Rclone config dir owned by root

8

Many programs write a temp file to replace the a file in use as it does this as it needs to make sure it doesn't mess up/corrupt the config file so it writes everything out to a temp file and replaces it.

You need to have write access to the location that the config is in if you want to use it.

1 Like
9

if rclone wants to change config file, don't be scared. it knows what it does :smiley:
copy your config file to a writable location and run rclone using the copy from now on:

cp /confs/rclone.conf /path/to/writable/

/usr/bin/rclone copy /backup backuponedrive:/backup --immutable --min-age 30m  --config /path/to/writable/rclone.conf
1 Like
10

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