Introduction

nf-core/datasync is a Nextflow pipeline for copying files and directories between storage locations and documenting their integrity. For every row in an input samplesheet, the pipeline:

1. validates the source against a supplied MD5 and/or SHA-256 checksum manifest using rclone checksum;
2. copies the source to the requested destination with rclone copy;
3. compares the copied data with the source using rclone check; and
4. produces detailed rclone status files and a consolidated MultiQC report.

Sources and destinations may be local paths or object-storage URIs such as Amazon S3, S3-compatible storage, or Azure Blob Storage. HTTP(S) URLs are not currently supported for samplesheet input or output_path values.

The current tested use case for this pipeline is transfer between S3 buckets.

Pass an rclone configuration with --rclone_config whenever a source or destination URI needs credentials or provider settings. Samplesheet paths use local paths or standard URIs such as s3://bucket/path, not rclone's remote:path syntax. For non-S3 layouts, design and validate the provider-specific configuration using the upstream rclone documentation.

Quick start

To explore the pipeline outputs before preparing your own data, run the bundled test profile with a container profile:

nextflow run nf-core/datasync \
    -profile test,docker \
    --outdir results

The test profile supplies a small samplesheet and rclone configuration automatically. It also enables --rclone_dry_run, so no files are actually transferred. This makes it useful for exploring the rclone/ output folders and multiqc/multiqc_report.html; remember that post-copy comparison reports describe whatever is already present at the destination because the dry run does not write transfer data.

To run the pipeline on your own data, create a samplesheet containing one transfer per row:

sample,input,output_path,checksum_md5,checksum_sha
run_001,/data/run_001,s3://archive/runs,/data/manifests/run_001_md5.tsv
reference,/data/reference.fa,/data/references,,/data/manifests/reference_sha256.tsv

Then launch the pipeline using:

nextflow run nf-core/datasync \
    -r <VERSION> \
    -profile docker \
    --input samplesheet.csv \
    --outdir results \
    --rclone_config /path/to/rclone.conf

--rclone_config is optional only when every source and destination is accessible without a configured rclone remote. See the rclone configuration section for the tested S3-to-S3 use case and guidance on adapting rclone configuration files for other providers. To preview copy operations without transferring data, add --rclone_dry_run; note that subsequent comparison reports will then describe the unchanged destination.

See the usage documentation for samplesheet rules, destination semantics, remote configuration, and reproducible execution. The complete generated parameter reference is available on the nf-core pipeline page.

Pipeline output

Results are written below --outdir. See the output documentation for file names and status-code interpretation.

Credits

nf-core/datasync was originally written by Alexander Peltzer.

We thank the following people for their extensive assistance in the development of this pipeline:

• Julian Schwab
• Gregor Sturm
• Antonia Saracco
• Delfina Terradas
• Anabella Trigila

Contributions and Support

If you would like to contribute to this pipeline, please see the contributing guidelines.

For further information or help, don't hesitate to get in touch on the Slack #datasync channel (you can join with this invite).

Citations

If you use nf-core/datasync for your analysis, please cite it using the following doi: 10.5281/zenodo.23104575

An extensive list of references for the tools used by the pipeline can be found in the CITATIONS.md file.

You can cite the nf-core publication as follows:

The nf-core framework for community-curated bioinformatics pipelines.

Philip Ewels, Alexander Peltzer, Sven Fillinger, Harshil Patel, Johannes Alneberg, Andreas Wilm, Maxime Ulysse Garcia, Paolo Di Tommaso & Sven Nahnsen.

Nat Biotechnol. 2020 Feb 13. doi: 10.1038/s41587-020-0439-x.