Migration to NextCloud Docker

ℹ️ Support
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1

Good morning,
in our small office we are using NextCloud deployment to share file with our customer.
NextCloud is running on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Virtual Machine with “Apache2 + PHP 7.4 + MySQL”

I know PHP 7.4 is no longer supported so I would upgrade my deployment.
I would like to use this opportunity to migrate the installation to docker platform.

I tried to deploy NextCloud docker (NextCloud + MySQL docker) on a new VM using docker-compose
Here you can see my file configuration

version: '3'

services:
  db:
    image: mariadb:10.5
    restart: always
    command: --transaction-isolation=READ-COMMITTED --binlog-format=ROW
    volumes:
      - /home/localuser/nextcloud/db:/var/lib/mysql
    environment:
      - MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=XXXX
      - MYSQL_PASSWORD=XXXX
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=nextcloud_db
      - MYSQL_USER=nextcloud_user

  app:
    image: nextcloud
    restart: always
    ports:
      - 8080:80
    links:
      - db
    volumes:
      - /home/localuser/nextcloud/app:/var/www/html
    environment:
      - MYSQL_PASSWORD=XXXX
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=nextcloud_db
      - MYSQL_USER=nextcloud_user
      - MYSQL_HOST=db

In this moment I tried to move data using a third host using NextCloud Windows Client.
It seems to work properly.

In this moment we have two kind of users:

  1. Local users → we imported AD Security Group using LDAP plugin Then we applied permission to specific NC folders
  2. External user → we created local nextcloud users. Then we applied permission to specific NC folders

Finally I am using a local NC administrator to manage all settings, for example I used this account to create folder, create local NC users, manage LDAP integration and so on.
I created the same local NC administrator on this new Docker deployment.

Is there a way to export and import users from old NextCloud server?
Is there a way to export and import folder permission from old NC to new NC server?
Is it possible?

Thanks a lot :grinning:

2

hello @coppolino97 welcome to the forum :handshake:

for server migration please follow the official

https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/admin_manual/maintenance/migrating.html

docker is little different than native server but nothing every admin should know. The key is to migrate the database - this holds all users, shares, access rights etc… I would recommend you to setup another docker installation in parallel and try the migration before you touch your production instance…

3

Hello @wwe

for server migration please follow the official
Thanks for this detailed guide.

I would recommend you to setup another docker installation in parallel and try…
Yes, I cloned my original NextCloud VM and i am working with that.
I setup another docker installation in parallel. In this parallel deployment I installed docker-ce using rootless mode.

The key is to migrate the database - this holds all users, shares, access rights etc…
Exactly this is the point, to migrate the most important information i.e. users, permissions etc.
I tried to backup (MySQL dump) and restore (MySQL restore).
In my case MySQL migration failed. I did some checks and I found some information about my original NC deployment for example:
oc_storages tables store NC data location. This path will not be the same using docker.
Are there other information that I am going to update in MySQL after that I restored it?

Do you suggest me to export only necessary NC tables in my case?
For example I noticed these tables:
oc_users
oc_share
oc_share_external
oc_storages (I have to update record concering data location)

Thanks for your help!

4

no the database must remain untouched (until you really know what you do). Docker containers are very flexible regarding mount points - you can point the mount point of your container to every destination in your new system…

this is the right way to go. you should resolve database backup/restore the problem first… moving files is the easy part.

5

Hello,

no the database must remain untouched (until you really know what you do). Docker containers are very flexible regarding mount points - you can point the mount point of your container to every destination in your new system…

I am going to replicate this data path if necessary.
However I saw NextCloud docker deployment suggest “volume” and not “mount point” (At the moment I tried mount point in docker-compose.yaml file).

Regards

6

using “mount points” or “bind mounts” as in your example is perfectly valid - I’m using the same construct for long time already and moved at least twice to another platform (but always using docker-compose)