Server has no maintenance window start time configured

bb77 · February 3, 2024, 12:44pm

I wrote a small bash script that sets the parameter based on the local time of your server. Maybe it is of any help:

#!/bin/bash
#
# Set the local time when you want the maintenance window to start:
# (Only use full hours in 24hrs (HH:MM) formating) e.g. "00:00" "01:00" "02:00" etc...)
#
TIME="01:00"
#
# Set the path where your Nextcloud is installed:
#
NCPATH="/var/www/nextcloud"
#
# Set the web server user:
#
WWWUSER="www-data"
#
# DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE!
#
LOCALSTARTTIME=$(date -d "$TIME" +%s)
UTCSTARTTIME=$(date -u -d "@$LOCALSTARTTIME" "+%-H")
sudo -u $WWWUSER php $NCPATH/occ config:system:set maintenance_window_start --value="$UTCSTARTTIME" --type=integer
exit 0

ernolf · February 3, 2024, 2:17pm

This may be of interest to those of you who, like me, don’t want to set a time window at all. So all tasks should be able to be started at any time.
In order for the message to disappear anyway, you have to deactivate the time window with the value 100:

  'maintenance_window_start' => 100,

ernolf

bb77 · February 3, 2024, 2:28pm

Good to know, and thanks for sharing.

Is this documented somewhere, or how did you find out?

ernolf · February 3, 2024, 2:38pm

Documented here:

github.com

nextcloud/server/blob/63f327c7ba35e189d2f9e05a16a3fd6526afe678/config/config.sample.php#L1412


      
          /**
           * UTC Hour for maintenance windows
           *
           * Some background jobs only run once a day. When an hour is defined for this config,
           * the background jobs which advertise themselves as not time sensitive will be
           * delayed during the "working" hours and only run in the 4 hours after the given time.
           * This is e.g. used for activity expiration, suspicious login training and update checks.
           *
           * A value of 1 e.g. will only run these background jobs between 01:00am UTC and 05:00am UTC.
           *
           * Defaults to ``100`` which disables the feature
           */
          'maintenance_window_start' => 1,
          
          /**
           * Log all LDAP requests into a file
           *
           * Warning: This heavily decreases the performance of the server and is only
           * meant to debug/profile the LDAP interaction manually.
           * Also, it might log sensitive data into a plain text file.
           */

… and since it only checks IF it is set to any value at all to supress the warning:

github.com

nextcloud/server/blob/master/apps/settings/lib/SetupChecks/MaintenanceWindowStart.php#L52


      
          
          	public function getCategory(): string {
          		return 'system';
          	}
          
          	public function getName(): string {
          		return $this->l10n->t('Maintenance window start');
          	}
          
          	public function run(): SetupResult {
          		$configValue = $this->config->getSystemValue('maintenance_window_start', null);
          		if ($configValue === null) {
          			return SetupResult::warning(
          				$this->l10n->t('Server has no maintenance window start time configured. This means resource intensive daily background jobs will also be executed during your main usage time. We recommend to set it to a time of low usage, so users are less impacted by the load caused from these heavy tasks.'),
          				$this->urlGenerator->linkToDocs('admin-background-jobs')
          			);
          		}
          
          		$startValue = (int) $configValue;
          		$endValue = ($startValue + 6) % 24;
          		return SetupResult::success(

Find out here, that you can deactivate the time window with any value greater than 23:

github.com

nextcloud/server/blob/master/cron.php#L116


      
          		// set to run indefinitely if needed
          		if (strpos(@ini_get('disable_functions'), 'set_time_limit') === false) {
          			@set_time_limit(0);
          		}
          
          		// the cron job must be executed with the right user
          		if (!function_exists('posix_getuid')) {
          			echo "The posix extensions are required - see https://www.php.net/manual/en/book.posix.php" . PHP_EOL;
          			exit(1);
          		}
          
          		$user = posix_getuid();
          		$configUser = fileowner(OC::$configDir . 'config.php');
          		if ($user !== $configUser) {
          			echo "Console has to be executed with the user that owns the file config/config.php" . PHP_EOL;
          			echo "Current user id: " . $user . PHP_EOL;
          			echo "Owner id of config.php: " . $configUser . PHP_EOL;
          			exit(1);
          		}

ernolf

bb77 · February 3, 2024, 2:58pm

Ah yes, the config.sample.php file, I should have thought of that myself

Thanks

EDIT: In the meantime it’s also in the docs: Configuration Parameters — Nextcloud latest Administration Manual latest documentation

Or maybe it has been since the feature was introduced, and I didn’t find it? Never mind. It’s in there now.

h0lly · February 4, 2024, 12:28am

for me the documentation link for this new warning entry pointed to the entirely outdated /15/ with no mention at all of maintenance_window_start.

DarkSteve · February 4, 2024, 4:27am

I took the above and tweaked it so it works on FreeBSD:

cd /usr/local/www/nextcloud
su -m www -c "php ./occ config:system:set maintenance_window_start --value=1 --type=integer"

Running that, I got the following in green:
System config value maintenance_window_start set to integer 1

And the error message went away. I didn’t even have to restart Apache or reboot

EDIT: @ernolf Thanks for the additional info! I’ve now changed my choice to 100

NCmaintenanceWindow

DarkSteve · February 4, 2024, 5:04am

The documentation did actually address the Maintenance Window Start for me, but really poorly:

Wouldn’t it have been nice if it actually gave useful information instead of telling us to manually edit the config.php without an example or an explanation of the options!

I would have loved to have been given the occ command, or the explanation about using 100 to disable it and the warning.

jtr · February 4, 2024, 2:58pm

Do you have an old custom theme still active? That’s the only scenario I’m aware of that happening - because the theme overrides the default URL.

bb77 · February 4, 2024, 3:26pm

To be fair, the OCC command for setting configuration options is already documented here, and the configuration parameter itself is documnted here, the same way as any other configuration parameter.

But I agree, if there is an extra section on maintenance that the warning in the overview is pointing to, it would be useful to explain it in more detail there, or at least include links to the sections describing the “occ config” command and the “maintenance-window-start” option.

jtr · February 4, 2024, 3:26pm

Done (well, PR is pending[1]).

There’s an Edit button in the upper right if you ever feel like proposing adjustments. Alternatively can create an issue the Documentation repository[2].

[1] fix(background_jobs_configuration) Add example by joshtrichards · Pull Request #11497 · nextcloud/documentation · GitHub
[2] GitHub - nextcloud/documentation: 📘 Nextcloud documentation

h0lly · February 4, 2024, 3:56pm

yes, that’s what happened. interesting choice to have the theme overwrite that… anyway, thank you!

jtr · February 4, 2024, 4:10pm

I think the idea is for branded deployments with their own non-Nextcloud provided docs.

DarkSteve · February 5, 2024, 12:20am

To be fair, your first link doesn’t actually reference the maintenance window start at all, and the second is not discoverable unless you already know what to search for.

The link in the UI is useless. It’s terrible. I’d be lost without this forum and the input of people like you!

I’m on FreeBSD, we have some of the best documentation in the OSS world. You can tell the NC devs are primarily linux users

DarkSteve · February 5, 2024, 12:52am

Thanks, I might do that later

EDIT:

Sorry, you’re not able to edit this repository directly—you need to fork it and propose your changes from there instead.

Uh, meh. Maybe I won’t.

huhas12 · February 5, 2024, 5:30am

The truth is that there is a snap version that is installed in my server, but I dont use it at all. I’d like to believe that everything is configured to point my live installation.

romayojr · February 5, 2024, 6:13am

this fix worked for me as well i’m on 28.0.2

huhas12 · February 5, 2024, 6:14am

ernolf:

This may be of interest to those of you who, like me, don’t want to set a time window at all. So all tasks should be able to be started at any time.
In order for the message to disappear anyway, you have to deactivate the time window with the value 100:
  'maintenance_window_start' => 100,

Funny but this worked with value “100”. Seems for some reason that value “1” can’t be parsed.

Thank you

bb77 · February 5, 2024, 7:25am

It has been updated, an example and more detailed explanations have been added: Background jobs — Nextcloud latest Administration Manual latest documentation

bb77 · February 5, 2024, 7:29am

Not sure why it doesn’t work for for you. I did multiple test installations using a value of “1” and never saw the warning.