Using rclone to recover data from Backblaze buckets

I use Cloud Sync Tasks in TrueNAS to push data offsite into Backblaze, through TrueNAS you can push or pull data as needed but in a DR scenario you may not have your TrueNAS instance available. I wanted to know how to recover from just a laptop and these notes are what I put together to reference should that time ever come.

You need the rclone binary installed, I get mine from my "scoop.sh" package manager.

Configure your remote

Run rclone config to open our configuration menu.

1. Press "n" to add a new remote
2. Choose a name for your remote (this name is used later)
3. A large list pops up of known storage solutions, choose "3" for Backblaze B2
4. Enter your Account ID or Application Key ID (these are how you pushed data into B2)
5. Enter your Application Key
6. You are asked if you want to "hard delete" or "hide files" when they are deleted from this remote. We want to use "false" to prevent stupid accidents.
7. We do not want to edit the advanced config, hit "n"

8. You are presented with the completed config now, you can accept it with "y"
9. Press "q" to end or "n" to make another remote

Remote with encryption

Setting up an encrypted remote will build upon an existing remote from the step above. You cannot setup an encrypted remote from scratch. To setup our encrypted remote we need to know both the remote name as well as the specific bucket we want. Run rclone lsd {remote}: to get the list of available buckets and make not of it.

1. rclone config again to setup our encrypted remote.
2. Press "n" to add a new remote
3. Choose a name for this remote ("existingRemote-crypt" is what I use)
4. Press "12" to start the encrypted remote setup
5. Input the remote and bucket that is encrypted tin the format "remote:bucket"
6. Choose to encrypt names, obfuscate them or do nothing.
7. Choose to encrypt directory names or do nothing

8. Press "Y" then enter the password used for your remote.
9. Choose to enter the salt or not, in TrueNAS this seems to be required.
10. We do not want to edit the advanced config, hit "n"
11. You are presented with the completed config, you can accept it with "y"
12. Press "q" to end or "n" to add another remote.

Viewing an encrypted bucket in plaintext and cipher-text

> rclone ls b2:backuptest384595
       74 FooestOfRoos.txt.bin

> rclone ls b2-crypt:
       26 FooestOfRoos.txt

Rclone Usage Basics

List remotes

rclone listremotes

List buckets on remote (the colon is required)

rclone lsd {remote}:

List files in a bucket

rclone ls {remote}:{bucket}

Explore the remote

To list your buckets in the remote:

> rclone lsd b2:
       -1 2022-01-25 13:55:05 -1 backuptest384595

To list the contents of a bucket run

> rclone ls b2:backuptest384595
       64083579 WindowsTH-KB2693643-x64.msu

Pull from the remote

You should read over the page on how copy works to understand the basics such as --dry-run and how rclone appends a trailing / automatically. The basics are rclone copy --progress {remote}:{bucket}\file C:\Dest when copying data out of Backblaze.

Copying from a plain text remote

> rclone copy --progress  b2:backuptest384595\WindowsTH-KB2693643-x64.msu ./
Transferred:       61.115 MiB / 61.115 MiB, 100%, 4.145 MiB/s, ETA 0s
Transferred:            1 / 1, 100%
Elapsed time:        15.8s

Copying from an encrypted remote

> rclone copy --progress  b2-crypt:\FooestOfRoos.txt .\
Transferred:             26 B / 26 B, 100%, 0 B/s, ETA -
Transferred:            1 / 1, 100%
Elapsed time:         1.5s