Nextcloud 18.03
Hello Forum,
I have some general users in our office that are going to be users only (consumers of information). These general users may update files shared with them but will not be creating their own files. These shared files will be available to them only through Group Folders. There is no need for them to have the ability to create their own folders outside of the group folders we have assigned to them.
I know this goes against Nextcloud being a file creating and sharing tool…but I’d like to know if I can force upon these general users where they can only edit files and not be able to create new files? We can instruct these clients to not create files outside of folders through education but to ensure files are not created without our knowledge (how would I know unless I used impersonate to check) I would like to enforce what some general uses can do.
Is this possible to give me as an Admin this type of lock down function to Nextcloud?
Thank you.
I don’t know about a way to do this as a group, but have a look at the guest accounts app. It basically does what you’re describing.
Thanks very much for responding @KarlF12. I’ve heard of Guest accounts but I can’t see how to create them? In the Users section of Nextcloud I can create a new user but I don’t see an option to make this new user a Guest account? Reading the documentation it seems that Guest accounts could be created to share a particular file/folder but I’m not seeing an option in sharing of a folder?
This also brings up the option whereby could I have these Guest accounts login to Nextcloud without the need for a password? Let me provide more details and hopefully someone can point me in the right direction on how/if I can do this. Here is my user story/usecase:
I setup a Group Folder called “Standard Operating Procedures” where the owners and manager groups have read write access to files in this group folder. Our office has what I’ll call “general workstation” computers on our shop floor. These workstations are windows computers that are auto logged in so operators can move from workstation to workstation and use the apps they need. It would be useful to have these “general workstations” have the ability to have access to Nextcloud “Standard Operating Procedures” shared folders and not make each operator login to Nextcloud when they are on that general workstation. I would like to have each workstation login to Nextcloud as a Guest Account and have access to Talk to chat with a public circle group.
Yes I could have each operator login using an account ID…but I’m curious if I can assign a general workstation guest account instead where there is no login using that guest account.
Thank you in advance for any help you can provide me.
The mechanism for creating guest accounts is a little weird. What you do is share something, then type in an email address for an account that doesn’t exist and then click it in the drop-down. This creates the guest user and sends them a welcome email with a link to set their own password. Once that’s done, they do show up in the user list.
As for not logging in… I don’t know if such a thing. Obviously you could make a public share of your folder/document and they could access it without logging in, but to use Talk they would need to log in.
Nextcloud Talk wasn’t really designed with the idea of having anonymous chat users. I suppose one option would be to create a guest account for each station, but you would have to create an email account for each one as well.
If all they need to do is read docs and send group messages, I would probably just do a public share and then give them some other chat that allows anonymous users. Maybe stick them with old school IRC.
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