Duplicacy CLI cannot send login credentials properly

Support
#1

I want to try/use Duplicacy CLI for cloud storage backup via FTP.
According to the Duplicacy quick tutorial, the proper login command formatting should look like this: ftp://user@192.168.0.1/path/to/storage

But this causes a problem for me, because the login name to my cloud storage account is the e-mail address I used when I registered the account long ago. This login name is the same regardless of what protocol I use, SFTP, Webdav etc. There is no way to change this circumstance.

This means that my login command ends up looking like this, with two ā€˜@ā€™ in the parameters:
ftp://email_address@mailserver.com@ftp.cloudstorage.com/path/to/storage

Needless to say, this doesnā€™t work.

Iā€™m looking for suggestions to alternatives to this login method, workarounds or ā€¦ perhaps Iā€™m missing something that doesnā€™t appear to me at this time.

Thx in advance for any input

#2

Welcome to the forum Franz!

It is strange that the provider use this, because this username format does not match the RFC1738 standard:

<user> : <password> @ <host> : <port> / <url-path>

Try with the @ character in your username encoded (%40):

ftp://email_address%40mailserver.com@ftp.cloudstorage.com/path/to/storage

#3

Hi, Towerbr. Thank you for the welcome.

Yes, I must agree. I havenā€™t seen many login names like this - other than through web forms. But the cloudstorage provider is a big and wellknown one, so this is not because Iā€™m using some small obscure and strangely set service.

I will try your suggestion once I get home, and report back.

#4

Duplicacy doesnā€™t supports FTP. For SFTP I think you can have 2 @'s in the storage url. Anything before the second @ will be taken as the user name.

#5

Good pointā€¦ SFTPā€¦ I didnā€™t notice this ā€œdetailā€ā€¦ :roll_eyes:

#6

Youā€™re right!. Me writing FTP is wrong. I shouldā€™ve written Webdav, thatā€™s what I used.
I use the same client for both FTP, SFTP and Webdav so it seems I caught on to the wrong word there. Sorry 'bout that.

#7

Ok, this was interesting. I tried using %40 instead of @, like this:

duplicacy init mytest1 webdav://user.name%40mailserver.com@dav.fileserver.com/dav/backuptest

ā€¦ and in return I got ā€œruntime error: slice bounds out of rangeā€. Followed by the these descriptions in the prompt:

goroutine 1 [running]:
runtime/debug.Stack(0x29, 0x0, 0x0)
        /usr/local/go/src/runtime/debug/stack.go:24 +0xae
runtime/debug.PrintStack()
        /usr/local/go/src/runtime/debug/stack.go:16 +0x29
github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/src.CatchLogException()
        /Users/chgang/zincbox/go/src/github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/src/duplicacy_log.go:183 +0x190
panic(0xc72560, 0x12d0970)
        /usr/local/go/src/runtime/panic.go:502 +0x237
github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/src.CreateStorage(0xd8d091, 0x7, 0xc04208a080, 0x6, 0x0, 0x0, 0xc0420b0080, 0x35, 0x0, 0x0, ...)
        /Users/chgang/zincbox/go/src/github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/src/duplicacy_storage.go:630 +0x47ae
main.configRepository(0xc0421c6ea0, 0xc0421c6e01)
        /Users/chgang/zincbox/go/src/github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/duplicacy/duplicacy_main.go:317 +0x5e6
main.initRepository(0xc0421c6ea0)
        /Users/chgang/zincbox/go/src/github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/duplicacy/duplicacy_main.go:212 +0x37
github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/vendor/github.com/gilbertchen/cli.Command.Run(0xd8a583, 0x4, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0xdbee5b, 0x4f, 0x0, ...)
        /Users/chgang/zincbox/go/src/github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/vendor/github.com/gilbertchen/cli/command.go:160 +0x7f1
github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/vendor/github.com/gilbertchen/cli.(*App).Run(0xc0421c6c60, 0xc042086080, 0x4, 0x4, 0x0, 0x0)
        /Users/chgang/zincbox/go/src/github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/vendor/github.com/gilbertchen/cli/app.go:179 +0x86b
main.main()
        /Users/chgang/zincbox/go/src/github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/duplicacy/duplicacy_main.go:1996 +0x5853

ā€¦ not sure what to make of this. Seems like the program wasnā€™t expecting the %40 and donā€™t know what to do with it?

#8

The webdav backend will gladly take a username with a @. No need to replace it with %40. But of course %40 should not cause it to crash. Iā€™ll fix this bug.

1 Like
#9

Oh, seems I contributed to something annoyingly healthy (?) :slight_smile:

Right, Webdav seems to work anyway, as long as one includes the password after a colon between username and password.

Iā€™ll take the opportunity to continue asking one thing about the coding. I know things about scripting, batches and simple programming, but the help of starting with Duplicacy CLI still feels like going over the deep end to me.

Since itā€™s an EXE for Windows, Iā€™m assuming I should interact with this program via the common Win10 command prompt, yet most youtube videos about it demonstrates using telnet (?).

The first help about Duplicacy that I read, says ā€œOnce you have duplicacy in your pathā€ ā€¦ I donā€™t know what this means (?). Using the command prompt, how do I ā€˜get duplicacy in my pathā€™? It doesnā€™t feel like it means moving into the directory where the executable is located, because the example code in the help is: $ cd path/to/your/repository, and the next line of code utilizes the duplicacy.exe in the current folder: $ duplicacy init mywork sftp://user@192.168.1.100/path/to/storage.

First, the $ doesnā€™t work with the code in the command prompt, and this code seems to suggest I should relocate to the disk which I wish to backup? But that is not where the duplicacy.exe is located. Or, does it imply that duplicacy.exe ā€˜shouldā€™ be located there? If I want to backup 4 different disks, then perhaps duplicacy.exe needs to be found in the root dir of each partition? Oh, I just remembered, this refers to SFTP/SSH via Telnet, not the command prompt? Oh, well ā€¦

Well, what if I first try and interpret the code example as literary as I can. Initially I am positioned in the folder c:\duplicacy, so what if I use the DOS command ā€œCD path/to/your/repositoryā€, in my case ā€œCD d:ā€ ā€¦ Well, then Iā€™m still in the same folder. I need to manually go over to the D disc, to be in that directory. And once I am, I need to use a rework to access the duplicacy.exe.

So the first initial commands, like ā€œduplicacy init d: mytest1ā€ gives me this return:
ā€œFailed to create the directory c:\duplicacy/ .duplicacy: mkdir c:\duplicacy.duplicacy: The system cannot find the file specifiedā€

This is confusing to me. I guess Iā€™m asking for a more accessible introduction on how to implement the commands and principles of the CLI version, because I have big problems figuring out how to do what. Once Iā€™m off and running on the right software client, I can probably manage pretty quickly.

#10

Since you want to use :d: cli, why not add duplicacy to any folder you like (eg. C:/all/PortableApplications/duplicacy.exe), and just run all commands with that path:

cd c:/the/path/to/the/repository

"C:/all/PortableApplications/duplicacy.exe" init
"C:/all/PortableApplications/duplicacy.exe" -d backup
"C:/all/PortableApplications/duplicacy.exe" -log -d list
etc.

Also, if you have very few repositories, you could just copy the exe file directly into the repo, and use it like duplicacy.exe backup etc.

Also, for scripting i like better powershell, as the commands make more sense and you also have autocomplete and global history.

Lastly, if you want to have a no headache cli usage, you could try my own scripts: Scripts and utilities index (open this link in a new tab)

#11

Ooh, it turns out the storage service Iā€™m using, and trying to get to work with Duplicacy, only offers Webdav as secure connection (https type). There was no ā€˜Sā€™ in the adress (only in the https), so I didnā€™t catch it at first. I suspect Duplicacy CLI isnā€™t prepared for secure protocol handshakes - yet(?)

That must be why my Webdav attempts keeps failing. Have to see what other protocols I can use then ā€¦