rclone backup/archiving simpler, efficient, and graceful

mva is a CLI tool that makes file archiving and cloud backup as simple as moving files to a directory. It automatically compresses, timestamps, and uploads files to configured rclone destinations using a simple mv operation.

• Safety: Files are safely archived with compression and proper naming
• Bandwidth optimized: Uses rclone for efficient cloud transfers
• Cognitive load minimized: Just mv files to trigger archiving

# Clone and install
git clone <repository>
cd mv-archive-dev
npm install
npm run build

# Make globally available (optional)
npm link

1. Initialize configuration:

   mva init

2. Edit configuration at ~/.mva/config.yml:

   directories:
     - directory: "/srv/mva/gdrive"
       at: "0 2 * * *"  # Daily at 2 AM
       format: "{humanTime}-{filename}.{ext}"
       compress: "tar.gz"
       destination: "gdrive:archive"

3. Setup watch directories:

   mva setup-directories

4. Start the daemon:

   mva start

5. Archive files by moving them:

   mv document.pdf /srv/mva/gdrive/
   mv backup.tar.gz /srv/mva/azure/archive/

Initialize mva configuration file at ~/.mva/config.yml with default settings.

Start the mva daemon to watch configured directories. Files moved to these directories will be automatically archived.

Manually archive files to a specific destination:

mva archive file1.txt file2.pdf -d gdrive

Show current configuration and status.

Create all watch directories defined in the configuration.

The configuration file is located at ~/.mva/config.yml:

directories:
  - directory: "/srv/mva/gdrive"      # Watch directory
    at: "0 2 * * *"                  # Cron schedule
    format: "{humanTime}-{filename}.{ext}"  # Archive filename format
    compress: "tar.gz"               # Compression method
    destination: "gdrive:archive"    # rclone destination

  - directory: "/srv/mva/azure/archive"
    at: "0 3 * * *"
    format: "{humanTime}-{filename}.{ext}"
    compress: "tar.gz"
    destination: "azure:backup"

• directory: Local directory to watch for files
• at: Cron schedule for batch processing (also processes files immediately)
• format: Filename format for archived files with placeholders:
  • {humanTime}: ISO timestamp (e.g., 2025-08-02_14-30-00)
  • {filename}: Original filename without extension
  • {ext}: Original file extension
  • {timestamp}: Unix timestamp
  • {date}: Date in YYYY-MM-DD format
  • {time}: Time in HH-MM-SS format
• compress: Compression method (tar.gz or none)
• destination: rclone remote and path (e.g., myremote:path/to/backup)

• rclone: Must be installed and configured with your cloud providers
• Node.js: Version 16 or higher

# Install rclone
curl https://rclone.org/install.sh | sudo bash

# Configure your cloud providers
rclone config

# Test connection
rclone lsd myremote:

1. File Detection: mva watches configured directories for new files
2. Processing: When a file is detected:
   • File is copied to a temporary location
   • Compressed (if configured)
   • Renamed according to the format template
   • Uploaded to the rclone destination
   • Original file is removed
3. Scheduling: Cron jobs also run at scheduled times to process any remaining files

# Start daemon
mva start

# Archive a document (in another terminal)
mv ~/Documents/report.pdf /srv/mva/gdrive/
# → Uploads as "2025-08-02_14-30-00-report.tar.gz" to gdrive:archive

# Archive specific files immediately
mva archive *.log -d gdrive

directories:
  - directory: "/srv/mva/daily"
    at: "0 2 * * *"  # Daily
    destination: "gdrive:daily-backup"
    
  - directory: "/srv/mva/weekly"  
    at: "0 3 * * 0"  # Weekly (Sundays)
    destination: "s3:weekly-archive"

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Run in development mode
npm run dev

# Build for production
npm run build

# Run built version
npm start

# Test rclone connection
rclone lsd your-remote:

# Check rclone config
rclone config show

Ensure the user running mva has:

• Read/write access to watch directories
• Execute permissions for rclone
• Write access to /tmp for temporary files

• Check that files are completely written before moving
• Verify rclone destination is accessible
• Check mva daemon logs

ISC

We welcome contributions! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

• 🐛 Report bugs
• ✨ Request features
• 💬 Join discussions
• 📖 Improve documentation

• 📚 Documentation
• 💬 Discussions
• 🐛 Issues
• 🔧 rclone Documentation