You can for sure make this work, but it will take a little to make it happen. There was one issue where / wasn't owned by root:root but by some random PID. Most likely something in the build process of the image was dorked up. ls -ld / will confirm. Anyway that will stop ssh key auth from working.
Then you need to stick ssh key on the system. I think its /.ssh that they need to go in. Can't remember for sure.
2nd you need to create your cronjobs by hand.
3rd some of this junk will need to be coded to start at boot up.
I did a write up a while back on how to enable cron and stuff from userScript. You maybe not need to enable cron anymore. Just check the steps before.
BTW all the automatic backups still create the files local.
Enable cron