Fix folder permission issue - Your data directory is not writable

Issue Description

I have nextcloud install on an Ubuntu server via docker compose. It was working well for a few hours.

After configuring a few things, I’ve moved (mv) the nextcloud (or /var/www/html) folder from the Server to a separate Synology NAS which is mounted on the Server.

When I did this, I started getting folder permission issues. I have been trying a few chmod/chown options but I haven’t been able to solve it yet.

Error Message

Cannot write into "apps" directory.

This can usually be fixed by giving the web server write access to the apps directory or disabling the App Store in the config file.

Your data directory is not writable.

Permissions can usually be fixed by giving the web server write access to the root directory. See https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/25/go.php?to=admin-dir_permissions.

The error clearly looks like a permission issue of the apps and data folder, which I think it’s an overall issue of the nextcloud volume mounted, but I am unable to fix it.

What permissions do I need to add? Do I need to add them inside the docker container (i.e. volume), on the Ubuntu Server mount or on the NAS directory?

Note: the link at the end of the error seems broken.

Troubleshooting

I have tried the following commands on the Ubuntu server (each group represents a round of testing):

 $ sudo chown -R root:root /mnt/nas/Data/Nextcloud
 $ sudo chmod 0770 /mnt/nas/Data/Nextcloud
 $ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /mnt/nas/Data/Nextcloud
 $ sudo chmod 0770 /mnt/nas/Data/Nextcloud
$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /mnt/nas/Data/Nextcloud
$ sudo find /mnt/nas/Data/Nextcloud -type d -exec chmod 750 {} \;
$ sudo find nextcloud/ -type f -exec chmod 640 {} \;

None of them seemed to work. I would normally restar the container after running them (docker-compose down && docker-compose up -d).

Documentation

docker-compose.yaml

version: "2"

services:
  app:
    container_name: nextcloud
    image: nextcloud
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - ./data/config:/var/www/html/config
      - /mnt/nas/Data/Nextcloud/html:/var/www/html
    env_file:
      - ./secrets.env
  • config directory works fine.
  • /mnt/nas/Data/Nextcloud/html is a mounted directory on the Ubuntu Server from the Synology NAS. When this folder was on ./data/nextcloud things worked fine.

The directory is mounted via fstab (cifs):

//192.168.250.200/Data /mnt/nas/Data                  cifs credentials=/etc/samba/nas_passwd_file,rw,uid=1000 0 0

config.php

<?php
$CONFIG = [
  'htaccess.RewriteBase' => '/',
  'memcache.local' => '\\OC\\Memcache\\APCu',
  'apps_paths' => [
    0 => [
      'path' => '/var/www/html/apps',
      'url' => '/apps',
      'writable' => true,
    ],
    1 => [
      'path' => '/var/www/html/custom_apps',
      'url' => '/custom_apps',
      'writable' => true,
    ],
  ],
  'memcache.distributed' => '\\OC\\Memcache\\Redis',
  'memcache.locking' => '\\OC\\Memcache\\Redis',
  'redis' => [
    'host' => '<redacted>',
    'password' => '<redacted>',
    'port' => 6379,
  ],
  'instanceid' => '<redacted>',
  'passwordsalt' => '<redacted>',
  'secret' => '<redacted>',
  'trusted_domains' => [
    0 => '<redacted>',
  ],
  'datadirectory' => '/var/www/html/data',
  'dbtype' => 'pgsql',
  'version' => '25.0.2.3',
  'overwrite.cli.url' => '<redacted>',
  'overwriteprotocol' => 'https',
  'overwritehost' => '<redacted>',
  'dbname' => 'nextcloud',
  'dbhost' => '<redacted>',
  'dbport' => '',
  'dbtableprefix' => 'oc_',
  'dbuser' => '<redacted>',
  'dbpassword' => '<redacted>',
  'installed' => true,
];

$ docker exec nextcloud ls -l /var/www/html/

drwxr-xr-x 2     1000 root         0 Jan 18 19:02 3rdparty
-rwxr-xr-x 1     1000 root     19327 Jan 18 19:02 AUTHORS
-rwxr-xr-x 1     1000 root     34520 Jan 18 19:02 COPYING
drwxr-xr-x 2     1000 root         0 Jan 15 12:04 apps
drwxr-x--- 2 www-data www-data  4096 Feb  4 12:51 config
-rwxr-xr-x 1     1000 root      4095 Jan 18 19:02 console.php
drwxr-xr-x 2     1000 root         0 Jan 18 19:02 core
-rwxr-xr-x 1     1000 root      6317 Jan 18 19:02 cron.php
drwxr-xr-x 2     1000 root         0 Feb  4 13:17 custom_apps
drwxr-xr-x 2     1000 root         0 Feb  4 13:18 data
drwxr-xr-x 2     1000 root         0 Jan 18 19:02 dist
-rwxr-xr-x 1     1000 root       156 Jan 18 19:02 index.html
-rwxr-xr-x 1     1000 root      3456 Jan 18 19:02 index.php
drwxr-xr-x 2     1000 root         0 Jan 18 19:02 lib
-rwxr-xr-x 1     1000 root       283 Jan 18 19:02 occ
drwxr-xr-x 2     1000 root         0 Jan 18 19:02 ocm-provider
drwxr-xr-x 2     1000 root         0 Jan 18 19:02 ocs
drwxr-xr-x 2     1000 root         0 Jan 18 19:02 ocs-provider
-rwxr-xr-x 1     1000 root      3139 Jan 18 19:02 public.php
-rwxr-xr-x 1     1000 root      5549 Jan 18 19:02 remote.php
drwxr-xr-x 2     1000 root         0 Jan 18 19:02 resources
-rwxr-xr-x 1     1000 root        26 Jan 18 19:02 robots.txt
-rwxr-xr-x 1     1000 root      2452 Jan 18 19:02 status.php
drwxr-xr-x 2     1000 root         0 Feb  4 13:18 themes
-rwxr-xr-x 1     1000 root       383 Jan 18 19:02 version.php

ls -l /mnt/nas/Data/Nextcloud/html/

drwxr-xr-x 2 nito root     0 Jan 19 03:02 3rdparty
-rwxr-xr-x 1 nito root 19327 Jan 19 03:02 AUTHORS
-rwxr-xr-x 1 nito root 34520 Jan 19 03:02 COPYING
drwxr-xr-x 2 nito root     0 Jan 15 20:04 apps
drwxr-xr-x 2 nito root     0 Jan 15 20:04 config
-rwxr-xr-x 1 nito root  4095 Jan 19 03:02 console.php
drwxr-xr-x 2 nito root     0 Jan 19 03:02 core
-rwxr-xr-x 1 nito root  6317 Jan 19 03:02 cron.php
drwxr-xr-x 2 nito root     0 Feb  4 21:17 custom_apps
drwxr-xr-x 2 nito root     0 Feb  4 21:18 data
drwxr-xr-x 2 nito root     0 Jan 19 03:02 dist
-rwxr-xr-x 1 nito root   156 Jan 19 03:02 index.html
-rwxr-xr-x 1 nito root  3456 Jan 19 03:02 index.php
drwxr-xr-x 2 nito root     0 Jan 19 03:02 lib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 nito root   283 Jan 19 03:02 occ
drwxr-xr-x 2 nito root     0 Jan 19 03:02 ocm-provider
drwxr-xr-x 2 nito root     0 Jan 19 03:02 ocs
drwxr-xr-x 2 nito root     0 Jan 19 03:02 ocs-provider
-rwxr-xr-x 1 nito root  3139 Jan 19 03:02 public.php
-rwxr-xr-x 1 nito root  5549 Jan 19 03:02 remote.php
drwxr-xr-x 2 nito root     0 Jan 19 03:02 resources
-rwxr-xr-x 1 nito root    26 Jan 19 03:02 robots.txt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 nito root  2452 Jan 19 03:02 status.php
drwxr-xr-x 2 nito root     0 Feb  4 21:18 themes
-rwxr-xr-x 1 nito root   383 Jan 19 03:02 version.php

docker exec -ti nextcloud tail data/nextcloud.log

{"reqId":"lJ9OOmhf80hAVz4xHLf4","level":3,"time":"2023-02-04T08:50:16+00:00","remoteAddr":"10.0.32.1","user":"nitobuendia","app":"PHP","method":"GET","url":"/apps/notes/notes/dashboard","message":"Undefined variable $folder at /var/www/html/custom_apps/notes/lib/Service/NoteUtil.php#154","userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/109.0.0.0 Safari/537.36","version":"25.0.3.2","exception":{"Exception":"Error","Message":"Undefined variable $folder at /var/www/html/custom_apps/notes/lib/Service/NoteUtil.php#154","Code":0,"Trace":[{"file":"/var/www/html/custom_apps/notes/lib/Service/NoteUtil.php","line":154,"function":"onError","class":"OC\\Log\\ErrorHandler","type":"::","args":[2,"Undefined variable $folder","/var/www/html/custom_apps/notes/lib/Service/NoteUtil.php",154]},{"file":"/var/www/html/custom_apps/notes/lib/Service/NotesService.php","line":153,"function":"getOrCreateFolder","class":"OCA\\Notes\\Service\\NoteUtil","type":"->","args":["/nitobuendia/files/Notes",false]},{"file":"/var/www/html/custom_apps/notes/lib/Service/NotesService.php","line":30,"function":"getNotesFolder","class":"OCA\\Notes\\Service\\NotesService","type":"->","args":["nitobuendia",false]},{"file":"/var/www/html/custom_apps/notes/lib/Service/NotesService.php","line":46,"function":"getAll","class":"OCA\\Notes\\Service\\NotesService","type":"->","args":["nitobuendia"]},{"file":"/var/www/html/custom_apps/notes/lib/Controller/NotesController.php","line":101,"function":"getTopNotes","class":"OCA\\Notes\\Service\\NotesService","type":"->","args":["nitobuendia"]},{"file":"/var/www/html/custom_apps/notes/lib/Service/Util.php","line":26,"function":"OCA\\Notes\\Controller\\{closure}","class":"OCA\\Notes\\Controller\\NotesController","type":"->","args":["*** sensitive parameters replaced ***"]},{"file":"/var/www/html/custom_apps/notes/lib/Controller/Helper.php","line":140,"function":"retryIfLocked","class":"OCA\\Notes\\Service\\Util","type":"::","args":[{"__class__":"Closure"}]},{"file":"/var/www/html/custom_apps/notes/lib/Controller/NotesController.php","line":122,"function":"handleErrorResponse","class":"OCA\\Notes\\Controller\\Helper","type":"->","args":[{"__class__":"Closure"}]},{"file":"/var/www/html/lib/private/AppFramework/Http/Dispatcher.php","line":225,"function":"dashboard","class":"OCA\\Notes\\Controller\\NotesController","type":"->","args":[]},{"file":"/var/www/html/lib/private/AppFramework/Http/Dispatcher.php","line":133,"function":"executeController","class":"OC\\AppFramework\\Http\\Dispatcher","type":"->","args":[{"__class__":"OCA\\Notes\\Controller\\NotesController"},"dashboard"]},{"file":"/var/www/html/lib/private/AppFramework/App.php","line":172,"function":"dispatch","class":"OC\\AppFramework\\Http\\Dispatcher","type":"->","args":[{"__class__":"OCA\\Notes\\Controller\\NotesController"},"dashboard"]},{"file":"/var/www/html/lib/private/Route/Router.php","line":298,"function":"main","class":"OC\\AppFramework\\App","type":"::","args":["OCA\\Notes\\Controller\\NotesController","dashboard",{"__class__":"OC\\AppFramework\\DependencyInjection\\DIContainer"},["notes.notes.dashboard"]]},{"file":"/var/www/html/lib/base.php","line":1047,"function":"match","class":"OC\\Route\\Router","type":"->","args":["/apps/notes/notes/dashboard"]},{"file":"/var/www/html/index.php","line":36,"function":"handleRequest","class":"OC","type":"::","args":[]}],"File":"/var/www/html/lib/private/Log/ErrorHandler.php","Line":92,"CustomMessage":"--"}}

Version Information

Nextcloud version: 25.0. 3
Operating system and version (eg, Ubuntu 20.04): Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS

Is it mounted via SMB? If so, that’s most likely your issue. I have seen many people try to put Nextcloud on SMB shares and never heard of it actually working.

You can do an iSCSI mount instead and that will work fine as long as you maintain correct permissions. NFS may work as well.

The correct permissions are chown www-data:www-data (or equivalent for your OS), chmod 750 folders and 640 files.

Also a side note, make sure you maintain file timestamps when you move things, or it will trigger a resync on all your clients.

Yes, it’s mounted via cifs - which is basically smb. Thanks for the heads up, @KarlF12

I can confirm that moving the folder to a mounted ISCSI drive worked fine.

Hey, just a quick heads up here: I’m running Nextcloud docker with the data dir pointing to a smb share and it’s working fine without issues so far. @KarlF12

@nitobuendia if you’re still in need of a smb approach, my fstab entry is as follows:

//<ip>/<share>  /<destination>/nextcloud cifs credentials=/home/<user>/.smbcredentials,iocharset=utf8,file_mode=0770,dir_mode=0770,noperm 0 0

However: this is not optimal, since every user can in turn access said directory, which should generally be avoided.

You cannot run “chown” and “chmod” on CIFS mounted shares, since SMBs User- and Rights-Management is not compatible to the approach Linux uses. The CIFS Driver will overlay those permissions instead, which is why the permission needs to by set inside your fstab.

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