Use launchctl to mount remote azure storage with rclone on macos

In a currently logged in user context

You will need rclone and macfuse. Whilst macfuse can be installed via Homebrew, rclone must be installed directly.

You can do so by issuing the command:

sudo -v ; curl https://rclone.org/install.sh | sudo bash

This solution depends on 3 files which will need to be modified by you to match your setup:

1. com.azure.blob.plist - please copy this file to your ~/Library/LaunchAgents folder. Feel free to rename file but if you do so please modify the Label tag inside to match the chosen filename(without the .plist at the end). The file must have a .plist extension. You will need to edit the Label and Program keys to match your filename and rclone.sh file location.
2. rclone.conf - please copy it to some folder in a user home directory. ~/.config is a good candidate. Please modfify this file to match your setup. Specificaly the text between [], account and key sections.
3. rclone.sh - please copy it to some folder in a user home directory. Please modify R_CONFIG, STORAGE and MOUNT_PATH variables to match your setup.

Once the files are in place you please run:

launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.azure.blob.plist

you can issue a command:

mount

It should confirm the mount status. If all is well you can start the service by issuing:

launchctl start -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.azure.blob.plist

If you need to troubleshoot the launchctl, you can use Console in Now Mode and search for com.azure.blob in launchd.log To unload an agent property list from launchctl issue:

launchctl stop -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.azure.blob.plist launchctl unload -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.azure.blob.plist

You can also use that command to unmount the directory if required.