Share w/link: permissions for subfolders

Hello Nextcloud-community!

I am quite new to Nextcloud and currently try to set-up a small project. Unfortunately I was not able to figure out how to configure it properly - so perhaps you could help me here?

I want to share a parent-folder with one link. Within the parent there are two subfolders “sub1” and “sub2”.

Non registered users, having the link to the parent-folder shall now be able to upload content to “sub1” and only view/download (no upload-rights) from “sub2”.

So it looks like

  • PARENT (shared via link, no upload-permissions)
    – sub 1 (visitors shall be able to upload & view files here)
    – sub 2 (visitors shall be able to view & download files here)

Any ideas if and probably how this can be achieved?

thanks alot!!


Nextcloud version: 11.0.2

I’m not sure that you can do that through a single link, because if I’m not mistaken the permissions are tied to the link (not the folder). This might be an interesting feature request, but it would be helpful to know more about why you want to do it this way. Like why is it important that you only send out 1 link instead of 3?

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Wow - thanks for the quick reply!

Actually this is more a usability thing. Currently I am using two links for sub1 and sub2, but get always requests from the users that they confuse the two links I have sent - especially as they both are password-protected with the same PW. So they preferred to have only one link - kind of an “entry point” to their project space - where they can see both folders. Especially as this is within the same project and sub1 is filled by the community while sub2 is filled by the admin.

It looks like this issue is in the ownCloud repo, and they’re leaving it open for people to work on if they want to. I think it would be a lot of work, and I’m not convinced the benefit outweighs the work involved. This could make things very complicated for normal users who don’t think about this from a filesystem perspective.
One thought I have about simplifying the links is to use a URL shortener so you can have nicknames for each link that correspond to the type of share, making it easier to know which one you are using based on the link name.

Hi,

If you don’t need the parent folder to be a shared folder you could suggest or do the following to / for your users:
share folder 1 with read-write rights
share folder 2 with read-only rights

Afterwards the users see both folders in their home directory after logging in to Nextcloud. They create a folder with the desired name and “move” the shared folders into the newly created folder. Of course they could write into this parent folder, but nobody else would see these uploaded files, while the parent folder is not a shared one.
If it is necessary that users don’t accidentally upload files into this directory “File Access Control” could help.

Just an idea to accomplish the desired folder structure with the needed limitations regarding read-write permissions.

Speaking of “File Access Control,” have you considered a solution that involves the use of that app? I don’t have a concrete idea of how that might work for you, but maybe it’s worth exploring.
https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/12/admin_manual/configuration_files/files_access_control.html

I was thinking about following:

  • create a Tag (workflow) “view only”
  • add that tag to the parent folder
  • place the shared sub- folders into that parent folder (which is self- created by the users as mentioned in my last post)
  • create a new “File Access Control” rule set

“No Permissions”

file mime type == IS NOT == httpd/unix-directory
file system tag == IS == view only

I haven’t tested it, but would expect, that the users can access their own folders, where they placed both shared folders, can’t upload any files directly into that parent folder by mistake, but can still access the shared folders, which have different access rights.