Nextcloud saying it`s cannot create or write into the directory, but www-data actually can

🚧 Installation
1

Nextcloud saying
" Error

Cannot create or write into the data directory
/media/yaku/PrimaryHDD/NextcloudDATA "
But ls -l tells

yaku@server:/media/yaku/PrimaryHDD$ ls -l
total 32
drwxrwxrwx  5 www-data www-data  4096 Apr 11 16:05 angel
drwxrwxrwx 11 www-data www-data  4096 Feb 28 21:04 FoE
drwxrwxrwx 11 www-data www-data  4096 Feb 28 21:04 FoE1
drwx------  2 www-data www-data 16384 Apr 11 17:24 lost+found
drwxrwx---  3 www-data www-data  4096 Apr 11 19:55 NextcloudDATA
2

Are all the files and folders inside NextcloudDATA also owned by www-data? They will need to be unless there is nothing in it.

Does nextcloud happen to be running in a docker container? If so you will need to use the container www-data user’s id. (often the same)

What are the owners and permissions on the parent directories (media, yaku, PrimaryHDD)? www-data might need execute permission on them to access.

Others might be able to help more if you include things like, operating system, nextcloud version, config file, etc.

3

The web root and data folder and all contents should be owned by www-data:www-data and permissions 640 for files and 750 for folders. Is that what you have?

Also can you confirm the filesystem and how it’s mounted?

4

Sure, here’s permissions for web root

root@server:/var/www/html# ls -l
total 196
-rw-r--r--  1 root     root      10671 Apr 10 17:29 index.html
drwxr-x--- 15 www-data www-data   4096 Apr 11 21:04 nextcloud

root@server:/var/www/html/nextcloud# ls -l
total 168
drwxr-x--- 45 www-data www-data  4096 Mar 21 09:23 3rdparty
drwxr-x--- 75 www-data www-data  4096 Apr 11 21:43 apps
-rw-r-----  1 www-data www-data 19327 Mar 21 09:20 AUTHORS
drwxr-x---  2 www-data www-data  4096 Apr 11 23:20 config
-rw-r-----  1 www-data www-data  4095 Mar 21 09:20 console.php
-rw-r-----  1 www-data www-data 34520 Mar 21 09:20 COPYING
drwxr-x--- 24 www-data www-data  4096 Mar 21 09:23 core
-rw-r-----  1 www-data www-data  6317 Mar 21 09:20 cron.php
drwxr-x---  6 www-data www-data  4096 Apr 11 23:40 data
drwxr-x---  2 www-data www-data 16384 Mar 21 09:20 dist
-rw-r-----  1 www-data www-data   156 Mar 21 09:20 index.html
-rw-r-----  1 www-data www-data  3456 Mar 21 09:20 index.php
drwxr-x---  6 www-data www-data  4096 Mar 21 09:20 lib
-rw-r-----  1 www-data www-data   283 Mar 21 09:20 occ
drwxr-x---  2 www-data www-data  4096 Mar 21 09:20 ocm-provider
drwxr-x---  2 www-data www-data  4096 Mar 21 09:20 ocs
drwxr-x---  2 www-data www-data  4096 Mar 21 09:20 ocs-provider
-rw-r-----  1 www-data www-data  3139 Mar 21 09:20 public.php
-rw-r-----  1 www-data www-data  5549 Mar 21 09:20 remote.php
drwxr-x---  4 www-data www-data  4096 Mar 21 09:20 resources
-rw-r-----  1 www-data www-data    26 Mar 21 09:20 robots.txt
-rw-r-----  1 www-data www-data  2452 Mar 21 09:20 status.php
drwxr-x---  3 www-data www-data  4096 Mar 21 09:20 themes
drwxr-x---  2 www-data www-data  4096 Mar 21 09:21 updater
-rw-r-----  1 www-data www-data   384 Mar 21 09:23 version.php

And here’s for data

root@server:/media/yaku/PrimaryHDD# ls -l
total 178984
drwxrwxrwx  5 www-data www-data      4096 Apr 11 16:05 angel
drwxrwxrwx 11 www-data www-data      4096 Feb 28 21:04 FoE
drwxrwxrwx 11 www-data www-data      4096 Feb 28 21:04 FoE1
-rw-r--r--  1 root     root     183245146 Mar 21 09:25 latest.zip
drwx------  2 www-data www-data     16384 Apr 11 17:24 lost+found
drwxr-x---  2 www-data www-data      4096 Apr 11 20:53 NextcloudDATA

I have nothing in NextcloudDATA btw.

Filesystem is ext4 and i mounting it with

sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/yaku/PrimaryHDD
5

Welp my bad, the issue was in NextcloudDATA drwxrwx— permissions but not the drwxr-x— needed

6

that makes no sense nor differance.