🌐 RClone Manager Headless

Run RClone Manager as a web server on any Linux machine
Perfect for servers, NAS devices, and remote systems

📖 What is RClone Manager Headless?

RClone Manager Headless is a web server version of RClone Manager that runs on Linux servers without a graphical desktop environment. Access the full RClone Manager interface through your web browser from any device on your network.

✨ Why Headless Mode?

• 🖥️ Run on servers – Perfect for headless Linux servers, NAS devices, or VPS
• 🌐 Access anywhere – Manage your rclone remotes from any device with a web browser
• 🔒 Secure by default – Built-in authentication and optional TLS/HTTPS support
• ⚡ Lightweight – Minimal resource usage compared to running a full desktop application
• 🚀 Same features – ~99% feature parity with the desktop version

⚠️ Important Technical Note

RClone Manager Headless is built using Tauri, a desktop application framework. To make it work on servers without a display, we use a virtual display (Xvfb) that runs in the background. This means:

Requirements

• GTK/WebKit libraries – The application requires some GUI libraries (automatically installed)
• Xvfb – Virtual display server (automatically installed and managed)
• Not "truly" headless – It's a desktop app running on a virtual display, not a pure web server

Why This Approach?

• ✅ 99% feature parity with desktop version
• ✅ Shared codebase – Same interface and functionality
• ✅ Faster development – Updates and features arrive simultaneously
• ✅ Proven stability – Uses the same tested code as desktop builds
• ⚠️ Extra dependencies – Requires a few more libraries than a pure web server would

The approach works reliably on servers, but be aware that it's a desktop application adapted for server use, not a native web server. In practice, this distinction rarely matters for day-to-day use.

Note: Do not run the rclone-manager-headless-bin. That is the raw desktop binary and will crash in environments without a real display. On server systems, always start: rclone-manager-headless

🚀 Quick Start

Basic Usage

# Start the server (default: http://0.0.0.0:8080)
rclone-manager-headless

# Access via browser
# Open http://your-server-ip:8080

Command Line Options

rclone-manager-headless [OPTIONS]

Options:
  -H, --host <HOST>          Host address to bind to [default: 0.0.0.0]
  -p, --port <PORT>          Port to listen on [default: 8080]
  -u, --user <USER>          Username for Basic Authentication
      --pass <PASS>          Password for Basic Authentication
      --tls-cert <PATH>      Path to TLS certificate file
      --tls-key <PATH>       Path to TLS key file
  -h, --help                 Print help information

Examples

Change Port

rclone-manager-headless --port 3000
# Access at http://your-server-ip:3000

Enable Authentication

rclone-manager-headless --user admin --pass secretpassword
# Browser will prompt for credentials

Enable HTTPS

rclone-manager-headless --tls-cert /path/to/cert.pem --tls-key /path/to/key.pem
# Access at https://your-server-ip:8080

Bind to Specific Interface

rclone-manager-headless --host 192.168.1.100 --port 8080
# Only accessible from 192.168.1.100:8080

🔧 Configuration

Environment Variables

You can configure the server using environment variables instead of command-line arguments:

# Set environment variables
export RCLONE_MANAGER_HOST="0.0.0.0"
export RCLONE_MANAGER_PORT="8080"
export RCLONE_MANAGER_USER="admin"
export RCLONE_MANAGER_PASS="secretpassword"
export RCLONE_MANAGER_TLS_CERT="/path/to/cert.pem"
export RCLONE_MANAGER_TLS_KEY="/path/to/key.pem"

# Start the server
rclone-manager-headless

🆚 Desktop vs Headless

Missing Dependencies (Manual Install)

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install xvfb dbus-x11 libgtk-3-0 libwebkit2gtk-4.1-0

# RHEL/Fedora
sudo dnf install xorg-x11-server-Xvfb dbus-x11 gtk3 webkit2gtk4.1

Happy cloud managing! ☁️