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Rclone Web GUI as a systemd Service

Rclone ships with a built-in web GUI. Instead of starting it by hand every time, run it as a systemd user service that starts automatically at login. Then you only need to open the page in the browser.

Part 1: Create the Service

  1. Check where rclone is installed (the service needs the full path):

    which rclone

  2. Create the service file:

    mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user
nano ~/.config/systemd/user/rclone-webgui.service

  3. Add Content:

    [Unit]
Description=Rclone Web GUI
After=network-online.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/rclone rcd --rc-web-gui --rc-web-gui-no-open-browser --rc-addr 127.0.0.1:5572 --rc-user admin --rc-pass YOUR_PASSWORD
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

    Remember: Replace YOUR_PASSWORD with your own password, and fix the path of rclone if which rclone shows a different one.

  4. Restrict access to the file, since it contains the password:

    chmod 600 ~/.config/systemd/user/rclone-webgui.service

Part 2: Enable and Start

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now rclone-webgui.service

Open http://localhost:5572 and log in with the username and password from the service file. The GUI reads the remotes from the usual ~/.config/rclone/rclone.conf.

Notes

  • --rc-addr 127.0.0.1:5572 makes the GUI reachable only from the local machine. Do not bind it to 0.0.0.0 unless you know what you are doing, since the GUI gives access to all your cloud remotes.
  • --rc-web-gui-no-open-browser stops rclone from opening a browser tab every time the service starts.
  • Authentication: it is possible to remove the login with --rc-no-auth, but then any local process (or a malicious website, in theory) can talk to the GUI. A password is kept as a second layer of defence, even on an encrypted single-user machine.

  • Change the password: edit the value after --rc-pass, then run:

    systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user restart rclone-webgui

  • Check the logs:

    journalctl --user -u rclone-webgui -e

  • Check the status or stop the service:

    systemctl --user status rclone-webgui
systemctl --user disable --now rclone-webgui