This application is used to automatically upload my private Minecraft server backups to pCloud.
I host private Minecraft servers using Crafty Controller on a remote Oracle VPS, and they are backed up daily on the machine. I created this application because I wanted to reduce the risk of losing my worlds by automatically uploading backups to a cloud.
Tip
My backup_sync.js script is designed to suit my needs, but you could rework it to suit yours. You could also simply reuse my pcloud_service.js script at your liking.
Open a terminal and run the following:
npm installRename .env.template to .env, fill in the fields with your pCloud credentials and the API URL you need:
- https://eapi.pcloud.com for the European API
- https://api.pcloud.com for the United States API
In the app directory, add a backup_paths.json file and specify all parent folders that contain a ZIP file that must be synced to pCloud, for example:
[
"/var/opt/minecraft/crafty/crafty-4/backups/world1",
"/var/opt/minecraft/crafty/crafty-4/backups/world2"
]Important
You must only specify directories that contain a unique .zip file.
If you want to allow zero or multiple files, feel free to adapt the code to your needs.
Now, to sync your backups once, you simply need to execute:
npm run startIf you run the script on your local computer, and have already logged in to https://my.pcloud.com/ once, you will not get the authentication error.
However, if you are using this script on a remote VPS, or if you are using a proxy or VPN that changes your IP address, you will get the error Error: Authentication failed: Please provide 'code'..
This is a security feature that requires you to provide a code sent by email to confirm your identity. In this case, you just need to log in to https://my.pcloud.com/ using your pCloud credentials, to specify the code received by email, and the script should work because your IP address is recognized when logging in through the script.
But if you are using a VPS without any GUI or browser installed, you may be wondering how to open the pCloud login page. The easiest way is to open an SSH tunnel to your local machine to create a SOCKS proxy as follow:
ssh -D 1080 USER@YOUR-VPS-IP-ADDRESS -i "path/to/your/ssh/private_key_rsa"You can then open your browser with the SOCKS proxy server to simulate the use of your VPS IP address:
"path/to/your/browser.exe" --proxy-server="socks5://127.0.0.1:1080"Warning
Make sure you have completely shutdown your browser before running this command, otherwise it will not work. Check your task manager, as your browser may be running in the background.
Now you can simply connect to https://my.pcloud.com/ in your browser, in order to authenticate with a code you'll receive by email. If you have any problems, you can check your IP address at https://whatismyipaddress.com/ to see whether the SOCKS proxy is working or not.
Tip
A non-expiring authentication token is created and stored to ./app/auth_token.txt after your first login using the script. This token will be used for all future executions of the script, and you won't have to go through the authentication process on the web page again. But make sure to keep this token private!
This script is not that useful if you're executing it manually ; you may want to use a cron job instead, or anything that can trigger this application to automatically upload your files.
For example, starting a cron job using PM2, to automatically run a backup everyday at 7am:
pm2 start app/backup_sync.js --cron "0 7 * * *" --name backup_sync --no-autorestart --timeNote
The --no-autorestart flag is required because I want to run the script only once everyday, otherwise PM2 will restart the script continuously.
Check if everything works:
pm2 log backup_sync --lines 200If you want to reuse this project, you'll probably need to take a look at the pCloud documentation here: https://docs.pcloud.com/.
If you want more information on what I'm using, feel free to take a look at these repositories: