# Ubuntu publishes ros2-exporter-agent snap for automatic robot data recording

> **Key takeaway:** Canonical's new snap packages continuous ROS 2 bag recording, automatic rclone-based upload, and fleet-wide configuration management into installable robot infrastructure.

**Published:** 2026-11-03T16:02:04+00:00 
**Source:** Planet Ubuntu 
**Category:** distro-planet 
**Canonical URL:** https://fosswire.org/news/ubuntu-publishes-ros2-exporter-agent-snap-for-automatic-robo.html 

## Summary
Canonical has published ros2-exporter-agent, a snap package that automates the collection and offloading of ROS 2 robot telemetry data. The package addresses a persistent operational problem in robotics: field runs that go unrecorded or whose recordings remain stranded on remote hardware. The snap runs four cooperating services on the robot itself: a recorder that writes ROS 2 topics to MCAP format with time- or size-based splitting; a synchronization service that uploads bags every two minutes via rclone; a daily-rotation service that restarts recording at midnight for clean timestamp grouping; and an auto-clean service that removes local files older than ten minutes to prevent disk exhaustion.

The upload target is configurable through rclone, which supports more than 40 storage backends including SFTP servers and S3-compatible object stores. The snap uses a fixed bagstore alias so that switching between local file servers and cloud storage requires only rclone.conf changes. For fleet deployments, a separate configuration snap can distribute identical settings across multiple robots through a content interface, with reference implementations available for both SFTP and S3 workflows.

## Architecture and deployment model
- **MCAP format with automatic splitting:** The recorder outputs ROS 2 topics to MCAP bags, splitting by configurable time or size thresholds rather than monolithic files.
- **Four-service safety design:** Recording only begins after auto-clean is confirmed running, and the sync service retries failed uploads automatically to handle transient network outages.
- **rclone abstraction layer:** All uploads route through a bagstore alias pointing to any rclone-supported backend; the snap itself remains agnostic to whether storage is local SFTP or cloud S3.
- **Snap content interface for fleets:** A companion configuration snap can inject rclone.conf and rosbag2-recorder.yaml across robot fleets, eliminating per-device file editing.
- **Minimal local retention:** Auto-clean purges bags older than ten minutes, treating robot storage as a staging buffer rather than archive.

## Why it matters
For the Ubuntu robotics community and ROS 2 deployments on edge devices, this snap reduces operational toil in a domain where data loss is common and manual retrieval does not scale. The rclone abstraction and content-interface fleet management align with how industrial and research robot deployments are actually structured, making the package applicable beyond single-device hobbyist use.