HTTP
The HTTP remote is a read only remote for reading files of a webserver. The webserver should provide file listings which rclone will read and turn into a remote. This has been tested with common webservers such as Apache/Nginx/Caddy and will likely work with file listings from most web servers. (If it doesn't then please file an issue, or send a pull request!)
Paths are specified as remote: or remote:path.
The remote: represents the configured url, and any path following
it will be resolved relative to this url, according to the URL standard. This
means with remote url https://beta.rclone.org/branch and path fix, the
resolved URL will be https://beta.rclone.org/branch/fix, while with path
/fix the resolved URL will be https://beta.rclone.org/fix as the absolute
path is resolved from the root of the domain.
If the path following the remote: ends with / it will be assumed to point
to a directory. If the path does not end with /, then a HEAD request is sent
and the response used to decide if it it is treated as a file or a directory
(run with -vv to see details). When --http-no-head is
specified, a path without ending / is always assumed to be a file. If rclone
incorrectly assumes the path is a file, the solution is to specify the path with
ending /. When you know the path is a directory, ending it with / is always
better as it avoids the initial HEAD request.
To just download a single file it is easier to use copyurl.
Configuration
Here is an example of how to make a remote called remote. First
run:
rclone config
This will guide you through an interactive setup process:
No remotes found, make a new one?
n) New remote
s) Set configuration password
q) Quit config
n/s/q> n
name> remote
Type of storage to configure.
Choose a number from below, or type in your own value
[snip]
XX / HTTP
\ "http"
[snip]
Storage> http
URL of http host to connect to
Choose a number from below, or type in your own value
1 / Connect to example.com
\ "https://example.com"
url> https://beta.rclone.org
Remote config
Configuration complete.
Options:
- type: http
- url: https://beta.rclone.org
Keep this "remote" remote?
y) Yes this is OK
e) Edit this remote
d) Delete this remote
y/e/d> y
Current remotes:
Name Type
==== ====
remote http
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> q
This remote is called remote and can now be used like this
See all the top level directories
rclone lsd remote:
List the contents of a directory
rclone ls remote:directory
Sync the remote directory to /home/local/directory, deleting any excess files.
rclone sync --interactive remote:directory /home/local/directory
Read only
This remote is read only - you can't upload files to an HTTP server.
Modification times
Most HTTP servers store time accurate to 1 second.
Checksum
No checksums are stored.
Usage without a config file
Since the http remote only has one config parameter it is easy to use without a config file:
rclone lsd --http-url https://beta.rclone.org :http:
or:
rclone lsd :http,url='https://beta.rclone.org':
Standard options
Here are the Standard options specific to http (HTTP).
--http-url
URL of HTTP host to connect to.
E.g. "https://example.com", or "https://user:pass@example.com" to use a username and password.
Properties:
- Config: url
- Env Var: RCLONE_HTTP_URL
- Type: string
- Required: true
--http-no-escape
Do not escape URL metacharacters in path names.
Properties:
- Config: no_escape
- Env Var: RCLONE_HTTP_NO_ESCAPE
- Type: bool
- Default: false
Advanced options
Here are the Advanced options specific to http (HTTP).
--http-headers
Set HTTP headers for all transactions.
Use this to set additional HTTP headers for all transactions.
The input format is comma separated list of key,value pairs. Standard CSV encoding may be used.
For example, to set a Cookie use 'Cookie,name=value', or '"Cookie","name=value"'.
You can set multiple headers, e.g. '"Cookie","name=value","Authorization","xxx"'.
Properties:
- Config: headers
- Env Var: RCLONE_HTTP_HEADERS
- Type: CommaSepList
- Default:
--http-no-slash
Set this if the site doesn't end directories with /.
Use this if your target website does not use / on the end of directories.
A / on the end of a path is how rclone normally tells the difference between files and directories. If this flag is set, then rclone will treat all files with Content-Type: text/html as directories and read URLs from them rather than downloading them.
Note that this may cause rclone to confuse genuine HTML files with directories.
Properties:
- Config: no_slash
- Env Var: RCLONE_HTTP_NO_SLASH
- Type: bool
- Default: false
--http-no-head
Don't use HEAD requests.
HEAD requests are mainly used to find file sizes in dir listing. If your site is being very slow to load then you can try this option. Normally rclone does a HEAD request for each potential file in a directory listing to:
- find its size
- check it really exists
- check to see if it is a directory
If you set this option, rclone will not do the HEAD request. This will mean that directory listings are much quicker, but rclone won't have the times or sizes of any files, and some files that don't exist may be in the listing.
Properties:
- Config: no_head
- Env Var: RCLONE_HTTP_NO_HEAD
- Type: bool
- Default: false
--http-description
Description of the remote.
Properties:
- Config: description
- Env Var: RCLONE_HTTP_DESCRIPTION
- Type: string
- Required: false
Backend commands
Here are the commands specific to the http backend.
Run them with
rclone backend COMMAND remote:
The help below will explain what arguments each command takes.
See the backend command for more info on how to pass options and arguments.
These can be run on a running backend using the rc command backend/command.
set
Set command for updating the config parameters.
rclone backend set remote: [options] [<arguments>+]
This set command can be used to update the config parameters for a running http backend.
Usage Examples:
rclone backend set remote: [-o opt_name=opt_value] [-o opt_name2=opt_value2]
rclone rc backend/command command=set fs=remote: [-o opt_name=opt_value] [-o opt_name2=opt_value2]
rclone rc backend/command command=set fs=remote: -o url=https://example.com
The option keys are named as they are in the config file.
This rebuilds the connection to the http backend when it is called with the new parameters. Only new parameters need be passed as the values will default to those currently in use.
It doesn't return anything.
Limitations
rclone about is not supported by the HTTP backend. Backends without
this capability cannot determine free space for an rclone mount or
use policy mfs (most free space) as a member of an rclone union
remote.
See List of backends that do not support rclone about and rclone about
