A bunch of feature requests

[43qcc2cn]

Hi. Firstly I just wanted to say thank you to the developer for picking up this project. I really believe it has the potential to be a fantastically useful and popular tool.

I've just installed the latest version on a Samsung Galaxy 10 running the official LineageOS 19 (Android 12) custom ROM.

Below is an initial brain dump of features requests. I can see that a lot have already been raised so I've tried to remove those but, apologies if there are duplicates or they simply aren't viable.

1. PIN / Biometric app protection. Just paranoid about the amount of data this app could expose.
2. Password protect backup. Same reason as above.
3. Enable "allowBackup". So it can be included in SeedVault backups. This might already be enabled.
4. Remote (SFTP). Allow ability to validate SSH Host Key Fingerprint. To ensure the remote is the expected host.
5. Remote (SFTP). Allow ability to authenticate using an SSH Private Key. Alternative to user / pass authentication.
6. Tasks. Allow exclude pattern matching. Makes task more selective plus avoids permission failures on directories such as "Android/data/" and "Android/obb/".
7. Tasks. Allow "Wi-Fi Only" per task. Some tasks can only run over Wi-Fi, others over any network.
8. Tasks. Allow Wi-Fi SSID restrictions. Some tasks can only run when connected to a specific network.
9. Triggers. Add alternative triggers, eg. new / updated / deleted file(s) in a local directory.

Appreciate this is probably a lot of work so, feel free to cherry pick or dismiss altogether.

I do not have the skills to assist in any development, but I am happy to perform any testing required.

Thanks again.

[newhinton]

Thanks for your ticket!

I'll try to answer your suggestions

1. You can already load encrypted rclone files, though this is somewhat unuseful since it gets copied to internal storage. What exactly is your goal? Just to prevent your little niece from deleting your backups accidentially?
2. This is a good idea but i have no clue how to test this. I will check it though!
3. This is a good idea
4. This too. It is however quite a bit harder to implement, 4 aswell, because those values are not usually stored within the rclone.conf-file
5. This is a hard one. Not because it is particularly hard to implement, but the user interface is hard to write for something like this, i have to think wether or not i want to add it but i see the benefit
6. This should be straitforward to implement
7. This again is a hard one :D Not because it is hard to implement, but because it requires the location access permission and i would like to not ask for permissions trivially because that eventually has a privacy/dataprotection implications that i would like to not deal with. I will think about it though, because it would be useful!
8. I have to sadly deny this one. Android does not particularly like dealing with "low-level" stuff for files, so this is not really feasible to implement. But there was already a request for a repeating-pattern-style trigger, maybe that helps?

[43qcc2cn]

Thanks for the quick response.

1. I'm referring to adding protection to the app itself, or more specifically it's configuration. I was thinking the configuration could be optionally encrypted and need some sort of authentication to decrypt. I got the idea from the way the Aegis Authenticator app works:

"Encryption
All of your one-time passwords are stored in a vault. If you choose to set a password (highly recommended), the vault will be encrypted using strong cryptography. If someone with malicious intent gets a hold of the vault file, it’s impossible for them to retrieve the contents without knowing the password. Entering your password each time you need access to a one-time password can be cumbersome. Fortunately, you can also enable biometric unlock if your device has a biometrics sensor (i.e. fingerprint or face unlock)."

I was just wondering if it was possible to do the same thing with the extRact configuration file, that would force some sort of authentication.

I'm just wary that, if someone maliciously gets hold of the device and is able to easily access the app, they have immediate access to all the data on all the remotes.

4. Just in case I've made it sound more complicated than I was thinking. I'm just referring to an option against the remote, maybe under "Properties", that shows the SSH Host Key Fingerprint returned by the host so that it can be manually checked. I'm guessing it would work in a similar way to the "Storage usage" option. It's really just a "nice to have" fail safe, doesn't affect the usability of the app.

5. If it helps, I got this idea from the Syncopoli app. Again, just a "nice to have" option.

6. Yeah, I thought that might be the case. All I'm trying to avoid is tasks trying to run when it has no chance of connecting to the remote, because that remote is only available on a specific network.

7. No worries. If you are referring to Recurring triggers #15 then that was something I would have included if it hadn't already been raised :-) , the ability for the scheduled trigger to more regular, i.e. every n minutes / hours.

[newhinton]

1. I'm referring to adding protection to the app itself, or more specifically it's configuration. I was thinking the configuration could be optionally encrypted and need some sort of authentication to decrypt. I got the idea from the way the Aegis Authenticator app works:

"Encryption All of your one-time passwords are stored in a vault. If you choose to set a password (highly recommended), the vault will be encrypted using strong cryptography. If someone with malicious intent gets a hold of the vault file, it’s impossible for them to retrieve the contents without knowing the password. Entering your password each time you need access to a one-time password can be cumbersome. Fortunately, you can also enable biometric unlock if your device has a biometrics sensor (i.e. fingerprint or face unlock)."

I was just wondering if it was possible to do the same thing with the extRact configuration file, that would force some sort of authentication.

I'm just wary that, if someone maliciously gets hold of the device and is able to easily access the app, they have immediate access to all the data on all the remotes.

Technically it is possible to add something like that. However there are some problems with that:

1. It breaks task, and any other "background"-functionality like the SAF integration or intents. I judge this to be unsolvable because you either have to store the password on device, which circumvents said encryption, or you dont, and you have to provide it every time. It's probably mutually exclusive.

2. Just locking the app prevents the app beeing opened by a random person, but only if SAF is disabled.

3. If someone else gains access to your device, you have bigger issues at hand than your rclone config. It is very likely that an attacker that can gain physical access to your device can just grab the rclone config anyway, and brute-force the config.

I get that this may be unsatisfying, but i dont think the added benefit is worth the cost in complexity and maintenance. Also i see basically no way to implement this in a way that would not heavily reduce functionality (which then will create support-issues here). I dont oppose this feature, but on the other hand i dont see it implemented anytime soon.

[43qcc2cn]

I was wondering if my suggestion would break "background" tasks. Now I come to think of it, none of the apps I use that support "unlocking" do anything in the background (that I'm aware of). As you say, it does sound mutually exclusive. I agree that if someone has gained access to the device, I have bigger things to worry about, just thought that an encrypted config would deter most people. Yet again, this is more of a "nice to have" than something that significantly improves the usability of the app. Thanks for considering anyway.

[newhinton]

4. Just in case I've made it sound more complicated than I was thinking. I'm just referring to an option against the remote, maybe under "Properties", that shows the SSH Host Key Fingerprint returned by the host so that it can be manually checked. I'm guessing it would work in a similar way to the "Storage usage" option. It's really just a "nice to have" fail safe, doesn't affect the usability of the app.

Ah okay, my understanding was to add a field where the user can provide a hostkey. I think if we have validation, we should have both. I am not sure if we have an easy way to implement this, but both are a good idea.

[newhinton]

3. Enable "allowBackup". So it can be included in SeedVault backups. This might already be enabled.

Good news! I checked and it is enabled :)

[newhinton]

7. Tasks. Allow "Wi-Fi Only" per task. Some tasks can only run over Wi-Fi, others over any network.

This is also implemented now!

[Mannshoch]

I created a Feature Request on rcx. x0b#220
I don't run your beta. Maybe that request is needed her also.

[nvllz]

6. Tasks. Allow exclude pattern matching. Makes task more selective plus avoids permission failures on directories such as "Android/data/" and "Android/obb/".

Yeah, this one is important. I'm not sure if the idea covers the single file excluding/filtering thing, but basic filtering is actually implemented in rclone: https://rclone.org/filtering/. Personally, I just want to sync a single file, and since there are more of them in the folder and I can't exclude/sync only the selected ones, the whole folder gets copied.

[43qcc2cn]

I'm back with some more feature requests / suggestions.

10. Tasks. Add "move" as an option:
    https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_move/

11. Tasks. Add "advanced" custom field for generic and / or command specific options:
    https://rclone.org/commands/rclone/#options
    https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_sync/#options
    https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_copy/#options
    https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_move/#options

[newhinton]

@tibbsbrookside

regarding feature-request number 5, is this a solution for you?
https://rclone.org/sftp/#sftp-key-pem

Obviously this does not replace a file based approach, but that should work for now

[43qcc2cn]

Looks OK to me. Any way to use a SSH Private Key rather than user / pass authentication. Thanks.

[newhinton]

Any way to use a SSH Private Key rather than user / pass authentication. Thanks.

Yes, with the link i posted. You can use your private key with that flag