daniele.michelin // errors

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~/errors / Nextcloud

Nextcloud: “your data directory is readable by other users”

On start Nextcloud checks whether other system users can read or list the data directory. If they can, Nextcloud refuses to run or shows the warning.

daniele@mikweb: ~/errors — less nextcloud-data-directory-readable-by-other-users.md

What the message looks like

Your data directory is readable by other users. Please change the permissions to 0770 so that the directory cannot be listed by other users.

Common causes

The data directory has 0755 or 0775 instead of 0770, e.g. after a restore or cp -r.
A new data directory was created as root and opened with chmod 755 only.
A CIFS/SMB or NFS mount presents fixed permissions that chmod cannot change.
Docker volume with wrong UID/GID or permissions from the host.

Check

Read the data directory path from the config
sudo -u www-data php /var/www/nextcloud/occ config:system:get datadirectory
Show permissions and owner
stat -c '%a %U:%G %n' /var/www/nextcloud/data
Check filesystem and mount options
findmnt -T /var/www/nextcloud/data -o TARGET,FSTYPE,OPTIONS

Fix

Set permissions: chmod 0770 /var/www/nextcloud/data and owner www-data:www-data.
For CIFS mounts set permissions via mount options: uid=www-data,gid=www-data,file_mode=0770,dir_mode=0770.
For NFS set permissions on the server, not the client.
Only if the filesystem cannot do Unix permissions: 'check_data_directory_permissions' => false in config.php – knowing the check is then gone.
Always check owner and permissions after restores.

FAQ

Is it enough to change only the top directory?

For the warning, yes – the check looks at the data directory itself. Files below should still belong to the web server user.

Why 0770 and not 0750?

Both work. Nextcloud only requires that “others” have no access. 0750 is stricter if the group does not need to write.

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