My installation seems to be working well, now I want to do a little bit to secure it. I have Nextcloud 10 on Ubuntu 16.04. It seems like the first thing I should do is move my data directory out of web root.
I SO don’t want to break my installation. Is there a good tutorial on how to accomplish this and verify once complete that Nextcloud is still functioning properly?
Thanks, and I have to say, I’ve been playing around with it and it’s fantastic, doing exactly what I was hoping.
Once you move the data folder, you need to update the config.php file with the new datadirectory. For example,
‘datadirectory’ => ‘/private_html/datastorage’,
As far as I know this works fine with Nextcloud 10. I’m not sure about older versions.
Could it really be that simple? Thanks, I’ll try that this evening
Hmm, apparently not. I created the directory /etc/nextclouddata/ and copied my data directory into it. Then I changed config.php to:
‘datadirectory’ => ‘/etc/nextclouddata/data/’,
But I get an HTTP 500 error when I try to load the page.
I also tried to put it into /var/nextclouddata/ and changed config.php accordingly in case that made a difference but I get the same error.
Do you see any obvious error? Thanks
Be aware, moving the data dir after installation is not supported and may cause issues.
Edit 2017 (as this is a popular topic):
If you have a fresh install, consider reinstalling with your preferred directory location.
Unofficially moving the data directory can be done as follows:
/data to the new locationconfig.php entryoc_storages change the path on the local::/old-data-dir/ entryHowever this is not supported and you risk breaking your database. It’d be better if instead you:
/data to the new location(Note, you may need to configure your webserver to support symlinks)
Which is supported by Nextcloud.
If I encrypt the data directory, is this something I should even be concerned about? There will be personal data stored here that needs to be protected such as tax returns and insurance policies.
The config is not the only place where you need to change the path.
Also in the storages database table.
So if you want to try it, I’d advice to make a backup before, so you can revert to the old status in case it doesn’t work.
I’m not sure about encryption. I’ve only tested it with the encryption module turned off. Does the new location of the data directory still have the same permissions/ownership that your old directory had? I apologize if I lead you incorrectly. I was not aware there were database changes required.
I am a little confused here. I’ve changed the data directory multiple times without editing the database, and everything continues to work. For testing, the data directory location changes went like this,
1: /private_html/data
2: /private_html/datastorage
3: /private_html/iamgroot
4: /private_html/racoonsarecool
Here are my exact steps.
1: Log out of Nextcloud’s web interface.
2: Move the folder to the new location.
3: Edit config/config.php and adjust the data directory path
4: Run ./occ files:scan --all
5: Log back into the web interface.
My oc_storage table looks like this,
For reference, this is Nextcloud 10. The config.php version says, ‘version’ => ‘9.1.0.16’. Would you mind clarifying the oc_storage changes? I don’t want to be giving people bad advice.
Well basically the ./occ files:scan --all fixes the storage problem. But it also breaks shares, tags, comments, … etc.
Adjusting the local::/.... id entry in storages should allow you to change the path, without breaking all the other info.
Thank you. That does clarify things. So, if you wanted to do this, the steps would be,
0: Back everything up first.
1: Disable access to Nextcloud. (maintenance mode)
2: Move the data folder.
3: Edit the database table oc_storage. Change the local::/path/to/data to local::/new/path/to/data.
4: Edit the config.php datadirectory line to reflect the new path.
5: Turn off maintenance mode.
I get the impression this is not supported, but it should work?
Thanks to both of you. I will try your suggested steps this evening and hopefully report success.
exactly
(Post must be at least 20 characters)
I’m at a total loss. I should have a database named nextcloud, but I opened up phpmyadmin and see:
-information_schema
-MySQL
-performance_schema
-phpmyadmin
I’m checking the right server, am I missing something? Sorry for my lack of experience, I may just end up having to reinstall Nextcloud. Hope not, though, it’s working.
Hi,
That’s odd. If Nextcloud is working, there has to be a database. Check your config/config.php file for the database type, location, and credentials. It looks something like this,
‘dbtype’ => ‘mysql’,
‘version’ => ‘9.1.0.16’,
‘dbname’ => ‘your database name’,
‘dbhost’ => ‘your database server’,
‘dbport’ => ‘’,
‘dbtableprefix’ => ‘oc_’,
‘dbuser’ => ‘login name’,
‘dbpassword’ => ‘password’,
That should help you locate it.
EDIT* I see the database type is sqlite3 instead of MySQL, I’m guessing this probably has something to do with it?
It’s REALLY odd. I followed these installation instructions:
https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/10/admin_manual/installation/index.html
=> Manual Installation in Linux
/var/www/nextcloud/config/config.php doesn’t even specify a database name. I know it’s working though because I added maintenance mode, switched it to “true”, and the site properly locked me out.
<?php $CONFIG = array ( 'instanceid' => 'zzzzzzz', 'passwordsalt' => 'zzzzzzzzzz', 'secret' => 'zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz', 'trusted_domains' => array ( 0 => 'xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx', 1 => 'share.mydomain.com', ), 'datadirectory' => '/var/www/nextcloud/data/', 'overwrite.cli.url' => 'http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/nextcloud', 'dbtype' => 'sqlite3', 'version' => '9.1.0.16', 'logtimezone' => 'UTC', 'installed' => true, 'mail_smtpmode' => 'smtp', 'mail_from_address' => 'user', 'mail_domain' => 'mydomain.com', 'mail_smtpauthtype' => 'LOGIN', 'mail_smtpauth' => 1, 'mail_smtphost' => 'mail.mydomain.com', 'mail_smtpsecure' => 'tls', 'mail_smtpname' => 'user@mydomain.com', 'mail_smtppassword' => 'mypassword', 'mail_smtpport' => '25', "maintenance" => false, ); I also did a SHOW DATABASES and received exactly the same as what phpmyadmin was showing: MariaDB [(none)]> show databases; +--------------------+ | Database | +--------------------+ | information_schema | | mysql | | performance_schema | | phpmyadmin | +--------------------+ 4 rows in set (0.00 sec) But Nextcloud is honestly working just fine. This seems crazy. ANY ideas on what might be happening?It’s using sqlite instead of Mysql/MariaDB. I think the database will be located in your $data directory and will be a file ending with .db. I’m not entirely sure, as I’ve never configured sqlite before.
I just realized that. Sigh… I think I’ll just try to reinstall
Success!
So with a little digging, I learned that I could convert my database from sqlite3 to MySQL using the following:
https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/10/admin_manual/configuration_database/db_conversion.html
At that point my Nextcloud database was accessible through phpmyadmin. Then I followed grouchysysadmin’s steps above:
0: Back everything up first.
1: Disable access to Nextcloud. (maintenance mode)
2: Move the data folder.
3: Edit the database table oc_storage. Change the local::/path/to/data to local::/new/path/to/data.
4: Edit the config.php datadirectory line to reflect the new path.
5: Turn off maintenance mode.
In my case, I move the data directory to /etc/nextclouddata/nextcoud/data. When trying to load my login page for the first time, I got the following error:
Data directory (/etc/nextclouddata/nextcloud/data/) is invalid. Please check that the data directory contains a file “.ocdata” in its root.
Running…
chown -R www-data:www-data /etc/nextclouddata/nextcoud/data
…fixed that error and everything looks to be running perfectly again.
Many thanks to @grouchysysadmin and @nickvergessen for helping me through this.
will there be an procedure to do that nativly?
running nextcloud 11.0.1 stable PHP7.0 and MySQL 5.5.53 on webmin/virtualmin raspberry pi3 with debian 8.0
today I moved my data folder to an USB disk ext4
mounted the disk and changed the path accordingly in config.php
‘datadirectory’ => ‘/home/domain/public_html/data’, into ‘datadirectory’ => ‘/mnt/disk/data’,
then using PHPMyAdmin changed the path in OC_STORAGES
(local::/home/domain/public_html/data/ into local::/mnt/disk/data/) just samples
It works like a charm and gave my NextCloud a big boost… not only in space but also in speed.
Please note, in the database the path has a trailing / (forward slash)
please guide me how to modify oc_storages as i am unable to find anything as’local’
i am trying t add it by webmin.
Please guide