FreeNAS and NextCloud help

[JamesWorts]

Hi All,

I am very new here, sorry for needing help so soon.

I have tried searching all over but cannot find the answer I am looking for.

I have FreeNAS (Latest Stable) and NextCloud installed from the Plugins list.
I have managed to get it running, inside the network and outside via static IP address on both iphone and pc.

My question is this, I have set up a share called "James" in the freenas settings that I can access from my computers explorer, I would like to make the "James" share contain all files that I transfer from my computer etc and also be able to access the files uploaded via nextcloud, all under one folder if possible, but ultimately ONLY available to me. I would then want to set up extra NAS accounts and NextCloud accounts to do the same as above.

Is this possible?

I am trying to justify scraping my very slow and badly behaved wdmycloud drive.

I have FreeNAS set up on an old dell, with freenas booting from 16gb usb stick and 1x 4gb Toshiba NAS drive.

Thanks so much in advance.

James

 

[FreeNASftw]

Hi James,

I would create a dataset called "NextCloudData" or something like that and make directories inside that one with your user names, then add it to the NextCloud Jail using the "add storage" settings, then from within the NextCloud UI, log in as admin and "add external storage".

 

[JamesWorts]

Hi,

Thanks for your advice,

I have tried to do that, or something similar; but when I log into the Nextcloud webgui and click on the external I get an error not having permission to write to the name folder, but I can read them.

Many Thanks
James

 

[FreeNASftw]

You'll have to look at the dataset permissions, you'll probably find that they are set to 755.
You can either go the lazy way and just go 777 or you can open a shell in the NextCloud jail, enter 'cat /etc/passwd | less' <-- no quotes, and look for the NextCloud username, check the UID being used by that user, go to the FreeNAS GUI, add a user called NextCloud (or whatever you want, the name doesn't matter) and assign them the same UID as the one in the NextCloud jail. Give that user write permission to the dataset.

 

[JamesWorts]

I am really struggling with this.
I cant figure if I am supposed to create a windows share, or a dataset or a new user with a home directory or anything, its blowing my mind a little bit now.

I have attached screenshots, I hope it is allowed and I hope someone can help me get this right.

Thanks so much in advance.

 

[FreeNASftw]

Ok. First thing - go to Jails tab. Select the NextCloud jail. Click the "shell" button down the bottom, the shell for the jail will appear on screen. Type 'cat /etc/passwd | less' with no quotes. It will fill the page with users, down the bottom of the list will be the users you are interested in - I ****THINK**** the UID/GID you want for this is the one called "media", for me it is UID 8675309. You can then create a new user in FreeNAS called "NextCloud" and they can either own or be in a group that owns the NextCLoud Dataset - This dataset is not the one you see under jails in your screen shot, it's a separate one you need to create.

I'm open to suggestions from others if there is a better way to do this by the way :)

Now you should have a user in FreeNAS with the same UID/GID as the "media" user in NextCloud
You should also have a dataset for which the FreeNAS user you just created has read/write access.

Have a crack at that and we'll go from there.

 

[JamesWorts]

Thanks, I've done that but still not getting anywhere.
I still dont have a share advertised to my windows computer.

Thanks for your efforts.
James

 

[JamesWorts]

If I could find a tutorial start to finish I would be happy to wipe it and start the whole thing again.

 

[FreeNASftw]

Thanks, I've done that but still not getting anywhere.
I still dont have a share advertised to my windows computer.

Thanks for your efforts.
James

So there are several steps to do what you are asking.
Maybe start simple.
Go to jails tab, then click 'storage' (under jails, not the main storage tab)
Click 'add storage'
Select the NextCloud jail, select your dataset as the source, set destination as /mnt/james

Go to NextCloud UI, log in as the administrator.
On the top right of screen, click the username, select 'admin' from the drop down
Click 'external storage' on the left hand side of screen
Give it a name, select 'local' from the 'external storage' drop down, authentication none, configuration/location = /mnt/james , make it available to you.

Log out of admin account, log in as yourself, click 'external storage' at the bottom of the menu on the left side of screen.

This is a basic way of getting external storage into NextCloud. You don't need to create users or anything like that at this stage but I'm fairly certain you'll run into limitations quickly.