Rclone: Failed to create file system for "laptop:": input too short

[dandv]

New to rclone, I've just tried to copy files from another laptop on the WLAN. The config looks like this:

[laptop]
type = sftp
host = 192.168.1.164
user = dandv
port = 22
pass = <my password in plain text>
key_file =

scp [email protected]:.bashrc ./ works fine.

What is your rclone version (eg output from rclone -V)

rclone v1.38

• os/arch: linux/amd64
• go version: go1.9

Which OS you are using and how many bits (eg Windows 7, 64 bit)

Ubuntu 16.04.3 64-bit

Which cloud storage system are you using? (eg Google Drive)

SFTP

The command you were trying to run (eg rclone copy /tmp remote:tmp)

rclone lsd laptop:

A log from the command with the -vv flag (eg output from rclone -vv copy /tmp remote:tmp)

DEBUG : Using config file from "/home/dandv/.config/rclone/rclone.conf"
DEBUG : rclone: Version "v1.38" starting with parameters ["rclone" "-vv" "lsd" "laptop:"]
Failed to create file system for "laptop:": input too short

The error should say what exactly what input is too short.

[ncw]

Yes that error message is a bit cryptic!

Did you figure out that you need to have an obscured password in the config file?

Which you can generate with rclone obscure mypassword

[ncw]

I've fixed that error message to say: "input too short when revealing password - is it obscured?" which hopefully is enough of a clue.

Find that in a beta here

https://beta.rclone.org/v1.38-032-g11505393/ (uploaded in 15-30 mins)

[tspicer]

Just wanted to point out this issue will still occur if you are passing the password in as an ENV VAR vs a local config (at least as far as I can tell). This requirement for obscuring the password actually makes automation more difficult. The requirement also does not apply to other sensitive info like AWS access and secret keys.