rclone

This guide connects rclone — the command-line tool for syncing files to and from cloud storage — to RustFS through its S3 backend. You will configure an S3 remote for RustFS, copy and sync files, read objects back, publish a bucket over HTTP with rclone serve, and mount the bucket as a local filesystem with rclone mount. The workflow was verified with rclone v1.75.1 against rustfs/rustfs-x86-musl:v2.3.1.

You need Docker, or a local rclone binary. This deployment is intended for local integration testing, not production.

Architecture

One remote definition drives every rclone command: data transfer, mounting, and serving all use the same S3 connection.

Configure the remote

Create an rclone config file with an S3 remote for RustFS, replacing all connection placeholders. The Other provider disables AWS-specific behavior, and path-style addressing is used automatically for custom endpoints:

rclone.conf

[rustfs]
type = s3
provider = Other
access_key_id = <your-access-key>
secret_access_key = <your-secret-key>
endpoint = http://<your-rustfs-endpoint>:9000
region = us-east-1

Copy and read objects

Create the bucket and upload a directory with rclone copy:

rc mb rustfs/rclone-demo
rclone copy /data rustfs:rclone-demo/seed

List and read back:

rclone ls rustfs:rclone-demo/seed
rclone cat rustfs:rclone-demo/seed/hello.txt

  3145728 blob.bin
       18 hello.txt
hello from rclone

rclone lsd rustfs: lists every bucket on the endpoint.

Sync a directory

rclone sync makes the destination identical to the source, including deletions. Remove a local file and sync:

rm /data/hello.txt
rclone sync /data rustfs:rclone-demo/seed
rclone lsf rustfs:rclone-demo/seed

blob.bin

hello.txt disappears from the bucket. Add --dry-run first to preview the changes without touching the bucket.

Serve a bucket over HTTP

Publish the bucket contents as an HTTP file server:

rclone serve http --addr 0.0.0.0:8080 rustfs:rclone-demo/seed

Any HTTP client can now download objects:

curl -s http://localhost:8080/blob.bin -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code} %{size_download} bytes\n"

200 3145728 bytes

rclone serve also supports WebDAV, SFTP, and S3 endpoints over the same remote.

Mount the bucket as a filesystem

With FUSE available, mount the bucket locally and use it like a directory:

rclone mount rustfs:rclone-demo /mnt/rclone --daemon
ls /mnt/rclone/seed
echo test > /mnt/rclone/write-test.txt
cat /mnt/rclone/write-test.txt

Files written through the mount appear in RustFS as regular objects:

rc ls rustfs/rclone-demo/ -r

[2026-09-29 11:12:41]        5 B write-test.txt

Unmount with fusermount -u /mnt/rclone when finished.

Stop or reset

rclone holds no server-side state. To delete the demo data:

rclone purge rustfs:rclone-demo

Troubleshooting

`Access Denied` or empty listings

Confirm endpoint includes the scheme and that the key pair matches a RustFS access key. The region value is required by the S3 signer even though RustFS ignores it; keep us-east-1.

Mount fails with `fusermount3: mount failed: Permission denied`

Mounting needs the FUSE device and elevated privileges. Inside a container, run with --device /dev/fuse --cap-add SYS_ADMIN — and use --privileged if the mount helper still fails. On a host, verify that fuse3 is installed and /dev/fuse exists.

Sync deleted nothing on the destination

rclone copy never deletes. Only rclone sync (or rclone delete) removes destination objects, and --dry-run is the safe way to preview either.

Next steps

Review S3 compatibility notes before adopting additional rclone backends.
Create dedicated production credentials with Access Key Management.
Follow the rclone S3 documentation for flags such as --transfers, bandwidth limits, and crypt overlays.

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