/rclone_rcd

title: "rclone rcd"
description: "Run rclone listening to remote control commands only."
versionIntroduced: v1.45
# autogenerated - DO NOT EDIT, instead edit the source code in cmd/rcd/ and as part of making a release run "make commanddocs"

> **Official documentation:** [https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_rcd/](https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_rcd/)

rclone rcd

Run rclone listening to remote control commands only.

Synopsis

This runs rclone so that it only listens to remote control commands.

This is useful if you are controlling rclone via the rc API.

If you pass in a path to a directory, rclone will serve that directory for GET requests on the URL passed in. It will also open the URL in the browser when rclone is run.

See the [rc documentation](/rc/) for more info on the rc flags.

Server options

Use `--rc-addr` to specify which IP address and port the server should listen on, eg `--rc-addr 1.2.3.4:8000` or `--rc-addr :8080` to listen to all IPs. By default it only listens on localhost. You can use port :0 to let the OS choose an available port.

If you set `--rc-addr` to listen on a public or LAN accessible IP address then using Authentication is advised - see the next section for info.

You can use a unix socket by setting the url to `unix:///path/to/socket` or just by using an absolute path name.

`--rc-addr` may be repeated to listen on multiple IPs/ports/sockets. Socket activation, described further below, can also be used to accomplish the same.

`--rc-server-read-timeout` and `--rc-server-write-timeout` can be used to control the timeouts on the server. Note that this is the total time for a transfer.

`--rc-max-header-bytes` controls the maximum number of bytes the server will accept in the HTTP header.

`--rc-baseurl` controls the URL prefix that rclone serves from. By default rclone will serve from the root. If you used `--rc-baseurl "/rclone"` then rclone would serve from a URL starting with "/rclone/". This is useful if you wish to proxy rclone serve. Rclone automatically inserts leading and trailing "/" on `--rc-baseurl`, so `--rc-baseurl "rclone"`, `--rc-baseurl "/rclone"` and `--rc-baseurl "/rclone/"` are all treated identically.

`--rc-disable-zip` may be set to disable the zipping download option.

TLS (SSL)

By default this will serve over http. If you want you can serve over https. You will need to supply the `--rc-cert` and `--rc-key` flags. If you wish to do client side certificate validation then you will need to supply `--rc-client-ca` also.

`--rc-cert` must be set to the path of a file containing either a PEM encoded certificate, or a concatenation of that with the CA certificate. `--rc-key` must be set to the path of a file with the PEM encoded private key. If setting `--rc-client-ca`, it should be set to the path of a file with PEM encoded client certificate authority certificates.

`--rc-min-tls-version` is minimum TLS version that is acceptable. Valid values are "tls1.0", "tls1.1", "tls1.2" and "tls1.3" (default "tls1.0").

Socket activation

Instead of the listening addresses specified above, rclone will listen to all FDs passed by the service manager, if any (and ignore any arguments passed by `--rc-addr`).

This allows rclone to be a socket-activated service. It can be configured with .socket and .service unit files as described in <https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd.socket.html>.

Socket activation can be tested ad-hoc with the `systemd-socket-activate`command

systemd-socket-activate -l 8000 -- rclone serve

This will socket-activate rclone on the first connection to port 8000 over TCP.

Template

`--rc-template` allows a user to specify a custom markup template for HTTP and WebDAV serve functions. The server exports the following markup to be used within the template to server pages:

| Parameter | Subparameter | Description | | :---------- | :----------- | :---------- | | .Name | | The full path of a file/directory. | | .Title | | Directory listing of '.Name'. | | .Sort | | The current sort used. This is changeable via '?sort=' parameter. Possible values: namedirfirst, name, size, time (default namedirfirst). | | .Order | | The current ordering used. This is changeable via '?order=' parameter. Possible values: asc, desc (default asc). | | .Query | | Currently unused. | | .Breadcrumb | | Allows for creating a relative navigation. | | | .Link | The link of the Text relative to the root. | | | .Text | The Name of the directory. | | .Entries | | Information about a specific file/directory. | | | .URL | The url of an entry. | | | .Leaf | Currently same as '.URL' but intended to be just the name. | | | .IsDir | Boolean for if an entry is a directory or not. | | | .Size | Size in bytes of the entry. | | | .ModTime | The UTC timestamp of an entry. |

The server also makes the following functions available so that they can be used within the template. These functions help extend the options for dynamic rendering of HTML. They can be used to render HTML based on specific conditions.

| Function | Description | | :---------- | :---------- | | afterEpoch | Returns the time since the epoch for the given time. | | contains | Checks whether a given substring is present or not in a given string. | | hasPrefix | Checks whether the given string begins with the specified prefix. | | hasSuffix | Checks whether the given string end with the specified suffix. |

Authentication

By default this will serve files without needing a login.

You can either use an htpasswd file which can take lots of users, or set a single username and password with the `--rc-user` and `--rc-pass` flags.

Alternatively, you can have the reverse p