Hello to all passionate selfhosting enthusiasts! Today, however, I have to ask you about a problem that can’t be fully solved by a selfhosted solution. But I believe it’s still closely related to selfhosting.

I’d like to automate mirroring some files/catalogues to different storage providers and then obtain public sharing links for each of them. So I’m looking at Rclone. It supports a variety of different storage providers, which is nice. But is there any structured information about which of them support sharing files via public links? There are just too many of them to quickly check them all.

So if there is no such data, I’ll probably also slowly try them out on my own to see which ones are suited for me, and post the results in the comments if you don’t mind! Maybe.

Well, ideally I’d certainly like to share these files with a selfhosted solution without relying on any 3rdparty «cloud» storage, but that’s not possible without either TLD and public IP or additional software besides web browser on the client side, right? So I’m looking for a somewhat pragmatic solution for now.

Also, maybe you have some useful tips on configuring Rclone for this task in general? I’m considering using union feature with create_policy = all to upload to several storages simultaneously, but is it possible to get public links in this setup?

  • HinoriOPEnglish
    1·
    3 hours ago

    So, let me summarize everything that I’ve figured out so far:

    • There is a detailed breakdown of the optional features of all supported storage providers in the Rclone documentation, including public sharing links feature. Exactly what I was thinking about. So my initial search has now narrowed down a bit. I like how no one even tried to dig in that direction :D I appreciate you pushing me towards the hard-selfhosting path, though! Community name checks out, as they say…
    • AFAIK all dynamic DNS services work like this: you install a daemon on your PC (or router), it connects to the DDNS provider’s server. That server looks at the source IP address of your request and then puts it into the A record of the domain name they provide you. So it won’t work with reverse-proxying daemons like Cloudflare Zero Trust or Netbird, at least not directly.
    • On the other hand, these reverse-proxying solutions (TIL it called ZTNA — Zero Trust Network Access) has an option to use it with external domains. Their documentation mentions that you should set a specific CNAME record for your domain. However, Cloudflare supports this setup only on the paid plans! So it turns out that Cloudflare Zero Trust isn’t suitable for this task at all.
    • And just out of curiosity: does Cloudflare shows the same obnoxious browser check page in front of a service behind its Zero Trust? And will it even work with a non-browser client in that case, like Nextcloud client? I know that you can set up a split-horizon DNS (such a cool name!) to open your service from within your network, I’m just curious.
    • Seems like Netbird allow you to use external domain for free with their gateway. Finally, good news! You still need a DDNS provider that allows you to set CNAME record for a free domain name, though. No-IP, however, provides this option only for their paid domains. So it also isn’t suitable for this task. Are there any DDNS providers that allows you to set CNAME record for free?

    Am I missing something? Also, hope you don’t mind me overexplaining like that! It’s pretty much notes for myself, but you never know if it might be useful for someone else.