Cloud Backup with Data Encryption using Google Drive, rClone, and Docker

This video details how to use rClone to backup your data securely in the cloud, you can also find all of the config files on my GitHub. More specifically I cover how to:
- Set up a remote in rClone
- Create a project in Google Drive to grant access for rClone
- Create a config for rClone to mount to your container
- Deploy rClone in a Docker container (and Windows)
- Enable remote backups with a backup script
- Mount your cloud remote on your Docker host and in Windows (access your cloud storage as though it was a local drive!)
- Encrypt your backups using rClone to maintain your privacy
GitHub Files: github.com/JamesTurland/JimsG...
Discord: / discord
Twitter: / jimsgarage_
Reddit: / jims-garage
00:00 - Introduction and overview of topics covered
02:04 - rClone config with Dashboard
04:36 - rClone config with a mount in Docker
06:47 - Downloading rClone
08:00 - Using rClone to create a remote
09:14 - Create a Google Project to give rClone access to Google Drive
10:26 - Add Google Drive API
10:44 - OAuth Consent Screen
11:05 - Google Drive Scope for Application
11:50 - Create Google Drive Credentials
13:05 - Add Client Secret and Client ID to rClone
15:15 - Finishing remote setup in rClone
16:00 - Check rClone config file is correct
16:28 - Copy config to Docker container
17:05 - Deploy Docker container and access web GUI
18:28 - Overview of remote backup script
20:39 - Deploy rClone with a host mount to access files locally
22:40 - Viewing remote Cloud files as a local mount
22:58 - rClone mount in Windows
24:39 - Encrypted rClone backup
27:10 - Summary - Please Like, Comment, and Subscribe if you found this useful! :)

[@boyy2411]

Another amazing video from a super nice and helpful experienced IT Professional, definitely worth a watch and a subscription!

[@Jims-Garage]

You're too kind! (Thanks 👍)

[@garylovesbeer]

Thank you for your clear and concise explanation of this process.

[@Jims-Garage]

You're welcome 😁

[@SRG-Learn-Code]

THIS IS GOLD!!! What a great video, topic, explanation, everything!! This should be mainstream operations for any small business. I'm going to tinker with it right now. You have my respect and gratitude forever. Thanks a lot for sharing and for doing it with such taste and quality. You are the real MVP.

[@Jims-Garage]

Very kind words, thank you!

[@iamaduckquack]

Nice to see one of the Weasely twins doing well.

[@Jims-Garage]

It's been tough since deathly hallows part 2 wrapped up but managing to make ends meet.

[@JC-zl7sq]

Thanks I was already using rclone but didn't know about the encrypt feature

[@Jims-Garage]

Glad it helped, a really useful feature of rClone.

[@joeblissett3862]

Great guide, big fat thank you! 👏

[@Jims-Garage]

You're welcome, glad you found it useful ☺️

[@saxinat0r]

This worked great. Thank you so much!

[@Jims-Garage]

That's great, appreciate the feedback

[@conan1231]

I'm kinda stuck and don't get it how I can now create a shell script to automate the sync process and send me the logs to my gotify service.. I have my script: rclone sync "$source_path" "$destination_path" --log-file="$log_file" --log-level INFO but I can't get it automated as an cronjob in the docker-compose config, also there I can't get curl installed in the docker for the gotify notification part. A demonstration of a Backup Script with Logfile creation and automatic notification with gotify would be a nice tutorial.

[@MrQVeeBoo]

hi, i use only cli in windows and wanna checksum for google drive and one drive. however, both seem to have different checksum algorithms. do you have any suggestions on this? i just wanna use google drive as the source and sync everything to one drive. thx.

[@gmansi]

Thank you very much for the video. Question: can this technique be used with restic too? Because synchronizing is not the same as backing up.

[@Jims-Garage]

Yes, you could mount a cloud location to your host, and then save restic to that mounted location. rClone should then upload and sync it automatically.

[@gmansi]

@@Jims-Garage Thank you very much for the answer Jim, but I was referring to the technique of creating "snapshots" instead of synchronizing

[@user-nk2lz6ir5r]

I wanted to ask, if you want to get the data that was encrypted to GoogleDrive, how do you decrypt it?...Wonderful Video, well explained.

[@Jims-Garage]

You mount it with rClone. Then it's a simple case of copying like regular files.

[@diginomad6016]

Commenting to trick KZbin algorithm

[@leodsouza5272]

We can proceed without the client id and secret , or is it mandatory to have this client id for Rclone

[@Jims-Garage]

If you're connecting to Google Drive you'll need them. They're basically your login credentials. Other providers might have something different. Check the documentation on the rClone website for specific remotes.

[@nihoniumog5185]

Do you really need to do the google console credentials? Wouldn't rclone default config be enough?

[@Jims-Garage]

You need to specify an external cloud provider (or use local), and the cloud providers will be authenticated. The Google cloud one is perhaps the most complicated but it is popular. I suspect that the other, smaller providers might be more straightforward (e.g. just a token).

[@antonevseev2708]

Hey Jim! Can you please give a tip and link to docs of how to run the remote sync script from the Rclone dashboard, using the script files, which we mounted into the container? Im lost here, sorry.

[@Jims-Garage]

Sync_script is mounted into the container, remote-upload goes onto a user machine for manual execution.

[@antonevseev2708]

ah, i see now! It works, thanks a lot@@Jims-Garage

[@FilipeNeto616]

@@Jims-Garage Didn't quite understand how the sync-script can be triggered, shouldn't be automatically triggered whenever there is a new (changed) file on /home/ubuntu/truenas folder?

[@Jims-Garage]

@@FilipeNeto616 no, the script is not automatic but can be run as a cron job, a mount would automatic as it's essentially a network share.

[@dav1dw]

i finally got rclone to mount and jellyfin able to see the files. I last hurdle that finally did it was I had to restart the Jellyfin docker to reinitialize it after it was already mounted. I don't know, maybe it would have refreshed eventually but I'm not a patient man.

[@Jims-Garage]

Nice one, I used to have a similar setup.

[@dav1dw]

@@Jims-Garage I forgot to add, I used the encrypt and union to combine 5 remotes into one remote.

[@Jims-Garage]

@@dav1dw that's great. I haven't managed to use that yet!

[@conan1231]

Why did we do the extra hustle on creating the config on the Windows Host and copying the config to the Linux Host. It seems that you can create the config way more straight forward with the rClone GUI after the Docker Deployment. edit: okay I get it, the gui sucks xD

[@Jims-Garage]

Yeah... I hope it is improved over time.

[@racingtheweb]

What happens if my laptop, which I installed rclone from, is broken or stolen? How can I read my old encripted gdrive files from my new laptop? Thx

[@Jims-Garage]

Keep a copy of the encryption keys, that's all you need.

[@racingtheweb]

@@Jims-Garage So do I need to create a new remote, edit the previous one, or what? Where am I supposed to enter my old encryption key? Sorry to bother and thanks

[@Jims-Garage]

@@racingtheweb All of that is held in your config file. Simply copy the file and reuse it. Location varies depending on OS (but it's very quick to be up and running again).

[@racingtheweb]

@@Jims-Garage Ok I'll check this out, thank you

[@dav1dw]

you should always backup your rclone.conf file, but if your laptop is stolen, you probably want to rotate your keys or passwords just in case.