HELP!! NextCloud Stopped listening/talking unless I add users to wheel group.

[beroldb]

Hello and good day to you.

A new adventure for me, which sometimes feels like it's turning into a nightmare. Indulge me please, it seems like a long story, and it may be, but if you want, skip to the last line and, excuse the pun, that is the bottom line.

So, here's what's going on and I'm hoping someone will be able to shed some light on the issue for me.

Full disclosure - I have limited knowledge and am only just coming to terms with FreeBSD cli. As well, I have not yet developed decent 'muscle memory' which means I often have to revisit information I've already looked at to find the commands that are appropriate.

I have a functional installation of FreeNAS on a Certified FreeNAS Server. 32GB of RAM and 6 x 2TB drives. I'm running FN 11.2 Stable and NC 14.0.4 Stable. The installation is meant to support a LAN of Windows PCS which is a mix of desktops and laptops in a 25%/75% ratio.

Here's an idea of the structure
FN Storage/Data Set ->/mnt/tank/Directory/Users
FN Users - User1, User2 etc.
FN Groups - UserGroup

User set up - Primary group - UserGroup; No auxiliary groups defined. Directories & Permissions; Home directory is pointed, correctly, to Data Set (/mnt/tank/Directory/Users/User1 etc), Microsoft Account is checked.

Share - SMB/CIFS - Path is pointed correctly to Data Set - no items are checked, valid users are User, admin, @SysAdmin

So far, so good. Off I go to the NC.
Add the users so that they mirror the users in the FN (case/passwords/etc).
Moving on, off to the External storages - Folder name is unique (by choice), External storage is "SMB/CIFS", Authentication is Username and password, Configuration = Host is FN local IP, Share is "share name" from SMB on FN, Username and Password mirror the FN user.

And here's where it gets weird, really weird, and I'm hoping for some help to understand.

I was going merrily along, setting up one at a time, creating only a User1 folder initially. Additional folders were being added from a Windows machine. The folders added are Documents/Desktop/Music/Videos/Pictures and the permissions were set from the Windows machine. Primarily, the permissions are User (full permissions set recursively), and SysAdmin (full permissions set recursively).

Everything was fine until one user set up would not go through. I was getting an exception which resulted in a dreaded RED ! instead of a loving Green check. Turns out, and I'm not certain this was the problem, that this particular user had a corrupted entry in the SMB pw database which after 'fixing' I got a loving Green check.

And then it all went wrong - I added the next user/external storage and I could not get a connection. When I decided to step back and take another look, I discovered that ALL of the previously accepted/connected External storage were now all disconnected.

Solution? Only after I added all of the users (in the FN) to the Wheel group and added the Wheel group to the Auxiliary Groups of each User the External Storage connections in NC were a bright and lovely green, again.

Thoughts? I have an open mind, just don't want to have to do this all over again.

Please and thank you.

 

[garm]

What is the purpose of giving each user an external share in Nextcloud?

 

[beroldb]

There are 8 separate laptops and I want each to have it's own hierarchy.

The laptops are in remote locations and are at high risk of damage/theft which is why I wish to keep the data on NC.

 

[garm]

And why not use Nextclouds own object management? I still don’t understand the need of external storage

 

[beroldb]

Like I said opening the thread - I'm new, but I'm also open to new/all ideas that help me move through the problem (or find a way around it).

To best answer your question, and if you're talking about "Configuring Object Storage as Primary Storage", the owner of the data wishes to be able to connect to it using the LAN as opposed to having to use the NC UI.

Can you confirm that it is this you're speaking to?

 

[garm]

No, Nextcloud does handle file storage just fine on its own. There is no need for external storage unless there is a specific reason for it, like letting NC manage files for another application. In any case, the user running the web server (usually “www” in FreeBSD) serving Nextcloud need full access to the files for external storage and the Nextcloud user managing the files will not be the owner of external storage files. So unless you have a specific need for an external storage folder for each user (all the external storage having the same owner) then just set up users and let them store files directly in Nextcloud.

If the users want access through File Explorer or Finder then they can either connect to Nextcloud through WebDAV or use the Nextcloud app to sync some folders. But don’t mix SMB shares and Nextcloud, that is not a good solution.