@quixoticgeek Sounds like a job for #rclone

https://rclone.org/

TL;DR

Backuping Moodle1 server to external location requires some gymnastics and the setup is not straight forward. There are plugins that can backup using FTP2, but I didn’t explore them.

What I wanted to accomplish was 1. firstly, moving course backups out of Moodle’s strange file structure and 2. backuping them to external server (Koofr via rclone). Simply put:

Moodle filearea –> /var/backups –rclone–> Koofr

Courses backup is the second backup strategy I’m using. The first one is a daily backup of a virtual server from a proxmox host to NAS via NFS.

1. Set Moodle’s automated backup location (same server)

Firstly, I had to convince Moodle to store backups of courses in my folder.

Moodle -> Site Admin / Courses / Backup / Automated backup setup

Automated backup storage setting is set to Course backup filearea by default. Moodle’s filearea is accessible (in /moodledata/), but the naming of folders and files is … unfriendly to put it mildly and I can’t make any of it. Take a look:

I wanted to change it to ‘Course backup filearea and the specified directory‘. But I couldn’t, because my Moodle install does not allow manually setting paths from admin UI (it’s a security setting). I didn’t want to circumvent it ($CFG->preventexecpath = true; in config.php).

So I had to set the backup path in Moodle’s config.php. Firstly, I couldn’t find how to set it, then I found it in one forum post3.

But firstly, I created a directory where I want my backups and allowed that user www-data (apache server) can write to it:

mkdir /var/moodlebackups
chown www-data:www-data /var/moodlebackups
chmod 750 /var/moodlebackups

Then I modified Moodle’s config.php and added the location4:

$CFG->forced_plugin_settings['backup']['backup_auto_destination'] = '/var/moodlebackups';

Went back to Moodle’s admin UI, refreshed and I could see the backup location:

Finally I could set Automated backup storage to Course backup filearea and the specified directory.

2. Backup to remote location using rclone and Koofr5

Now that I convinced Moodle to spit out backups of courses to the location I wanted, I proceeded with:

1. Install and configure rclone (a program to copy/sync files to variety of cloud services)

apt install rclone
rclone config

To configure rclone, I just followed these instructions.

2. I made a new folder in my Koofr for Moodle backups and tested the connection:

List Koofr dirs:

rclone lsd koofr:Backups/Moodle

Test copying from local folder to Koofr:

rclone copy /var/moodlebackups/ koofr:Backups/Moodle --progress

I used ‘rclone copy’ instead of ‘sync’, because I want copies: if something happens to backups on Moodle server (e. g. get corrupted, compromised or deleted), I don’t wont this to propagate to backup on Koofr.

3. Lastly, I created a cron job that runs rclone every morning at 6AM6 and writes to a log about it:

crontab -e 

0 6 * * * /usr/bin/rclone copy /var/moodlebackups koofr:/Backups/Moodle --log-file=/var/log/rclone_backup.log --verbose

In the morning I checked the Koofr’s Backup folder and … voila, backups are there.

Now I have another piece of mind in case anything goes wrong.

1. v4.5 ↩︎
2. For example https://moodle.org/plugins/local_backupftp ↩︎
3. https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=453937 ↩︎
4. finding this setting gave me a lot of headache. As a last resort, I asked LLM, but it couldn’t help me. Of course it didn’t, what did I expect. It persistently tried to convince me that the right setting is $CFG->autobackuplocation = ‘/var/moodlebackups’, which is wrong. Another proof of LLM’s incapability and my naïveté. But then, I dug in Moodle’s forums (above) and found the right config keyword. Thank you, PEOPLE, especially Susana L.! ↩︎
5. Cloud storage from EU, https://koofr.eu/ ↩︎
6. Why at 6AM? Because Moodle automated backups run at 4AM and they are finished in a few minutes. ↩︎

OK #selfhosting and #linux and other friends here's one for you. My wife's work has Google Drive subscription. My wife wants her own historical archives of her drives so if people delete or damage files they can roll back to a week ago or whatever. we tried this with #rclone but shes got terabyte drives with hundreds of thousands of files in folder hierarchies (biology data from decades of students).

Für die, die sich für die Details interessieren: Das läuft auf einem Raspi zu Hause. Dieser ist über #Wireguard auch per VPN erreichbar. Seine Daten synchronisiert der Raspi täglich mittels #rclone per cronjob mit der #Nextcloud. Die Nextcloud Daten werden wöchentlich per #borgbackup gesichert. 2/2

How to Generate a Full #VPS #Backup Using #rclone (Simple 3-Minute Guide)

This article provides a detailed step-by-step description of how to generate a full VPS backup using rclone.
What is rclone?
Rclone is a powerful open-source command-line tool for managing files on cloud storage services and local storage. You can think of it as kind of like "rsync" (the popular file-copying tool), but ...
Continued 👉 https://blog.radwebhosting.com/generate-a-full-vps-backup-using-rclone/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon.social #disasterrecovery #googledrive #onedrive #opensource

Refredat #modeEncés desde divendres. Ahir ja vaig petar i avui tinc el cap com si estiguera en un embut 😵‍💫
Tot i així, he estat tot el fruito dia per a configurar #rclone amb #rclonebrowser, que no ha donat la talla, i després #rclonemanager per a que arranqui cada sessió lo 🤬 OneDrive al que m'ha tocat tornar.
#nitanmalamentescolte!

First chunk of music files of my #iTunesMatch library is now uploading to my #Hetzner StorageBox already 🎉

~170 GB to go still that I need to grab from #AppleMusic … 😮‍💨

#diday #digitalindependenceday #rclone #selfhosting #navidrome #homelab

What I love about #rclone is the archive options.

The command I run is:
/bin/rclone sync $SOURCE $DEST \
--backup-dir $ARCH --suffix "_$cdate" \
--suffix-keep-extension --fix-case \
--filter-from "$FILTER" \
--exclude-if-present .rclone_ignore -v

What it does, is sync the SOURCE to the DESTination.
The nice thing though is with changes: these aren't overwritten, but the old file is moved to a certain directory (ARCH) and adds a suffix to the filename, in my case with the date/time:
cdate=`date +\%Y\%m\%d_\%H\%M`
An example suffix: "_20260201_1746". After moving, the new filed is copied from SOURCE.

Further more, some files are filtered (for example *.FCBak files: #freecad backup files).
And I can exclude folders by adding a file. Useful for SW build folders.

On the software side, it needed to work with #rclone
Which isn't much of a limitation actually.

Initially, I installed #Nextcloud on it and was pretty impressed with all the options it has. But on a low power Zero 2 W... It wasn't a big success though. Not very responsive and making a backup over wifi with rclone was extremely slow. So slow that the ETA was counted in weeks. Too much overhead I guess and I wouldn't use more than 5% of the features anyway.

So, now it is just running an #ftp server, which works great. Making a full backup (~5GB/4000 files) cost about 20 minutes.

Rclone is rsync (and more) for cloud storage. With the 1.37 release, the documentation describes how well supported ia each of the dozens of back ends.

https://rclone.org/tiers/

More about #RClone here

https://rclone.org/

TIL you can remotely manage #rclone instances. Didn't know about this until I discovered Rclone UI app.

Nick Craig-Wood released #Rclone version 1.73.0. https://rclone.org/downloads/

@itsfoss
#keepassdx #rclone #libreoffice

Discovered #internxt today.

European based cloud storage, at quite okay prices. And they support #rclone (on their ultimate plan, which isn't that expensive)

https://internxt.com/

#cloudstorage #european

Petit truc pour trouver un fournisseur #Cloud compatible #Linux
Vous allez chez #rclone et vous verrez une liste de fournisseurs (les 2liens ici)

Attention

Il faudra vérif :
si c TOUJOURS compatible,
par ex, pour #ProtonDrive ca ne l'est plus a ce jour
Et si c'est encrypté, chiffré de bout en bout (indispensable)

https://rclone.org/#providers

☁️ Sincronizzazione File Perfetta con Rclone su KDE 🚀

Se cerchi un modo definitivo per gestire i tuoi file online senza rinunciare alla velocità e alla privacy, l'accoppiata Rclone + KDE è la soluzione che stavi aspettando. Dimentica i client ufficiali pesanti: qui parliamo di potenza pura integrata direttamente nel tuo desktop.

https://youtu.be/zkTPs3aWtiU

@linux

#opensourceitalia #unolinux #gnulinux #distro #ita #opensource #Linux #KDE #Plasma #Rclone #CloudSync #Dolphin #OpenSource #Privacy

Osiris: New Ransomware, Experienced Attackers?

A new ransomware called Osiris was used in an attack on a major food service franchisee operator in Southeast Asia in November 2025. The ransomware shares similarities with previous Inc ransomware attacks, including the use of Wasabi buckets for data exfiltration and a specific version of Mimikatz. Osiris has typical ransomware functions, uses a hybrid encryption scheme, and drops a ransom note. The attack chain involved data exfiltration using Rclone, deployment of dual-use tools, and the use of a malicious driver called Abyssworker or Poortry. The attackers employed bring-your-own-vulnerable-driver (BYOVD) techniques to disable security software. While the impact of Osiris on the ransomware landscape remains uncertain, it appears to be wielded by experienced attackers with potential links to Inc ransomware or its affiliates.

Pulse ID: 697348b0134b41c432693dc5
Pulse Link: https://otx.alienvault.com/pulse/697348b0134b41c432693dc5
Pulse Author: AlienVault
Created: 2026-01-23 10:08:47

Be advised, this data is unverified and should be considered preliminary. Always do further verification.

#Asia #CyberSecurity #Encryption #InfoSec #OTX #OpenThreatExchange #RAT #RansomWare #Rclone #bot #AlienVault

#rclone eignet sich ganz wunderbar um #S3 Buckets von #MinIO zu #Garage umzuziehen btw.

@mherrb I don’t recall having using it but #rclone seem to know how to do #Nextcloud sync.

https://rclone.org/webdav/