Fast access via webdav

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1

Hi,
I’m trying to do the same but I have a few issue.

Here is my setup:

  • a private network, without proxy, with gigabyte switches.
  • a server which runs on OpenMediaVault (debian 8) and hosts the Nextcloud server.

I want to share the files managed by Nextcloud to a few users. Since the size of data is pretty large (a few TB), I cannot ask the users to sync the data on each of their computer. Browsing with the website app is fine, but when a user needs to upload directories which contains many files and sub-directories, it doesn’t work with the web app as we can only upload files, and not a full tree of files and directories.

So I tried the explained solution above using WebDav, but I have a few issues:

  • I wasn’t able to find the right setup to handle file permission and webdav accounts. Since it’s my nextcloud_admin users who is the owner of the nextcloud data folder, I didn’t find the proper way to share it through WebDav, using a generic users (team) or allowing each Nextcloud user to connect with their account. What would be the best way?
  • On a Mac OSX, using webdav through the Finder is very very slow. I’m dealing with many short audio files or big video files at the same time, and it’s not usuable as it is.
  • Using Cyberduck on Mac OSX with the WebDav connection is way faster, but I still have the problem of setting up users permissions in the right way. And because I need to make folder comparaison, Cyberduck is not the ultimate solution.

What would be your advice?

Also I have though about another solution, less elegant but which might maybe solve my problems:

  • setup a nextcloud client on the same machine
  • use another hard drive to hosts the files managed by the nextcloud client
  • share this hard drive to all users through samba folder access.
    => but in this case, it’s not very clear for me if I can install the Nextcloud client on my headless server, and the server at the same time.

Lastly let’s precise that I don’t have any performance problems when I’m using the Desktop client, uploads and downloads are up to 100MB/sec in this configuration.

Many thanks for your thoughts.

1 Like
2

I would use a generic user who is owner of the shared folders (either local storage or external storage). This user then shares all the folders to other users. This is a very well established method and has been used for quite some time. For this use case, there is also an app called groupfolders (GitHub - nextcloud/groupfolders: 📁👩‍👩‍👧‍👦 Admin-configured folders shared by everyone in a group. https://github.com/nextcloud-releases/groupfolders) but it is quite new and I don’t know how reliable it is yet.

Or you manage all users and do the sharing through OpenMediaVault. Each user on Nextcloud then just uses his share via the external storage feature.

Try a few test folders and users first in order to see if it works like you expect it.

Yes, Finder is not great for webdav but you have to ask Apple to improve that.

3

As for Folder Comparison use Mountainduck instead of Cyberduck. MD sets up on CD but can mount dav shares as a Drive. It costs al little, but its worth it. It also has an osX version. You can download a trial. https://mountainduck.io/

In my opinion its the best solution, as i have similar issues of not wanting to sync.

For your permission problem: The windows implementation of WebDav is just plain broken. Reside to 3rd Party software as mentioned above.

If MD has performance issues, disable caching in the settings.

4

Thank you all for your answers, it helps me a lot to find the right choice.

I believe the cheapest (time and money) and more efficient solution would be to have another hard drive hosting the data and accessible via samba for all users. This folder would be managed by a generic nextcloud user. This goes to my last question: can I install a Nextcloud client as well as the server on the same headless machine?

5

To my knowledge (i´m only 99% certain here) for the nextcloud client, there must be a gui installed. Then you could operate it from the cli via nextcloudcmd. On a linux maschine without gui, i guess you could try to mount itself via webdav.

6

Hum that’s another interesting solution I didn’t thought about. I’ll make a try and I will post the final solution (in one or two weeks).

7

Well… if you want a fileserver, than use a file server… this is not what NC is designed to do and you shouldn’t try to make it do that.

8

I true that @budy but NC can also been employed in very creative ways, as my partners and customers prove to me every day. A prequisite to ths should be of course that you know exactly what you are doing, and thats kind of hard if you are thrown into this extensive featureset, that NC boasts.

@Bruno.dualo If there are Terabyte levels of data involved the 40 Bucks or so for a software license should not be a concern. It is really preferable to a sceanrio where you bend NC to unsupported, half assed ideas.

9

I totally agree with you, but as I need around 10 people to access it from 15 different computer, at first I’d rather try to find a solution using just another hard drive, as it will cost almost the same. And also because people will only have to access to the folder to upload new files, and just once or twice a month. The solution to ask each of them to install and use another software is something I would like to avoid if possible.