remarkable2-cloudsync

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Purpose

A small script, allowing you to sync your Remarkable 2 documents to the cloud or a local server automatically.

What the script does

• Preconditions to save battery life (as a sync, especially encrypted, is an expensive operation on a Remarkable 2 device)...
  • Check for internet connectivity (by sending a single ping to google.com)
  • Check if there were any changes to your Remarkable files since last sync
• If preconditions are satisfied, sync your files from the Remarkable 2 to the target location (one direction only)

Requirements

This script requires Rclone, a free command line program to manage files on cloud storage. It supports a wide variety of protocols and cloud providers. A full list is available here.

Setup

Copy files and folders to your Remarkable 2

The directory layout is expected to look as follows. If you change it, don't forget to modify the backup.sh and backup.service files accordingly.

• /home/root/backup
  • bin
    • backup.sh
    • rclone (binary)
  • conf
    • rclone.conf (rclone config file)
  • log
  • systemd
    • backup.service
    • backup.timer

Rclone

Download the rclone binary and place it in the /home/root/backup/bin directory. Make sure you download the ARM(v7)-32bit version.

Create a Rclone configuration for your desired cloud or target server. The expected default name of your config is cloud. If you use another name, change the backup.sh script accordingly.

To create your config interactively, simply run and follow the instructions:

rclone config

When finished a config file is created for you. To find its location run:

rclone config file

Move or copy this file to /home/root/backup/conf or change the backup.sh file, to point to the correct location.

Configuration

backup.sh

Files and directories can be changed in the backup.sh file. Change them as required.

# Remarkable data (notes, pdf documents etc)
RMDATA="/home/root/.local/share/remarkable/xochitl"
# Home directory of the backup tool
BACKUPPATH="/home/root/backup"
# Path to the rclone.conf
CONFPATH="$BACKUPPATH/conf"
# Path to rclone binary
BINPATH="$BACKUPPATH/bin/rclone"
# Path to log directory
LOGPATH="$BACKUPPATH/log"
# Name and path of sync file, indicating the date and time of last successful sync operation
SYNCFILE="$LOGPATH/lastSync.txt"

Configure backup.timer

To modify how often your backup is run, modify the backup.timer script. As the default, the backup script will be run one minute after the device has been started and every 5 minutes afterwards. No syncs will take place, when the device is in sleep mode.

OnBootSec=1min
OnUnitInactiveSec=5min

Install backup service

Execute the following commands on your Remarkable 2:

# copy service and timer configuration files to systemd directory
cp /home/root/backup/systemd/backup.service /etc/systemd/system/
cp /home/root/backup/systemd/backup.timer /etc/systemd/system/

# make files executable
chmod +x /home/root/backup/bin/backup.sh
chmod +x /home/root/backup/bin/rclone

# enable the service and timer
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable backup.service
systemctl enable backup.timer

# start the timer
systemctl start backup.timer

Rerun systemctl daemon-reload whenever you change the /etc/systemd/system/backup.timerfile!

Syncfile

The $SYNCFILE is created by rclone after copying the Remarkable content to the destination directory. It contains a short report of the files that where copied and any errors that might have occurred. It will also be synced.

Purpose of the $SYNCFILE:

• The timestamp of this file is used, to check if any files have been changed after last sync. If the file does not exist, it will be created with a timestamp in the past. This makes sure, the initial sync catches all existing files.
• It will be re-created by rclone on every sync.
• You can check this file on the destination to see when the last sync happened. Note, the Remarkable 2 uses UTC internally, no local timezone.

Remarkable 2 Official Updates

⚠️ User-defined services are getting removed by system updates. ⚠️ So the steps under Install backup services might need to be executed again after updating your Remarkable 2!

What's next?

Some ideas, what to do with the synced data:

• Restore your data to a new Remarkable.
• Create point-in-time backups and restore as needed.
• Use a tool like RCU, to convert the proprietary file format to PDF automatically. Making your notes accessible for other devices.
• ...