Installing with Docker

Introduction

ownCloud can be installed using the official ownCloud Docker image. This official image works standalone for a quick evaluation but is designed to be used in a docker compose setup.

Database Notes

With the image provided, ownCloud has added database connectors for the following databases:

  • MySQL / MariaDB

  • Postgres

  • SQLite

If you need a different connector or a different version of a connector, you have to manually create your own image based on the ownCloud image provided here. This could also be done directly in the docker compose file.

Getting Started

Grant docker command privileges to certain users by adding them to the group docker:

sudo usermod -aG docker <your-user>
The changes via usermod only take effect after the docker users log in. So you may have to log out and log in again or possibly reboot before you can run docker commands.

Users not added to the docker group can run docker commands with a preceding sudo. In this section sudo is generally omitted before docker commands since we assume you have created a docker user, which is also the only way to run ownCloud’s command-line interface occ in a docker container. For more information on occ, see section Using the occ Command.

An example occ command looks like this:

docker exec --user www-data <owncloud-container-name> occ <your-command>

Quick Evaluation

The commands and links provided in the following descriptions are intended to showcase basic docker usage, but we cannot take responsibility for their proper functioning.

For testing purposes or a quick hands-on to get familiar with the look and feel, ownCloud provides a container using the SQLite database. Note that SQLite is not supported by ownCloud for production purposes. To set up such a testing instance, run the following command:

docker run --rm --name oc-eval -d -p8080:8080 owncloud/server

This starts a docker container with the name "oc-eval" in the background (option -d). owncloud/server is the docker image downloaded from Docker Hub. If you don’t start the container with option -d, the logs will be displayed in the shell. If you are running it in the background as in the example above, you can display the logs with the command:

docker logs oc-eval

With the command docker ps you can list your running docker containers and should see the entry for oc-eval.

You can log in to your ownCloud instance via a browser at http://localhost:8080 with the preconfigured user admin and password admin.

Access only works locally with http, not https.

If the outcome meets the expectations but a supported installation with MariaDB is targeted, remove the eval version before proceeding with the next section.

docker kill oc-eval

This removes the container if you used the option --rm as suggested in the example above. If you omitted that option, you need to first run the command:

docker rm oc-eval

When running docker ps again, the entry for oc-eval should be gone.

Docker Compose

The configuration:

  • Exposes ports 8080, allowing for HTTP connections.

  • Uses separate MariaDB and Redis containers.

  • Mounts the data and MySQL data directories on the host for persistent storage.

The following instructions assume you install locally. For remote access, the value of OWNCLOUD_DOMAIN and OWNCLOUD_TRUSTED_DOMAINS must be updated to represent the hostname(s) and/or IP addresses that the server is reachable at.

  1. Create a new project directory.

    mkdir owncloud-docker-server
cd owncloud-docker-server

  2. Then copy and paste the sample docker-compose.yml as base to derive from:

    version: "3"

volumes:
  files:
    driver: local
  mysql:
    driver: local
  redis:
    driver: local

services:
  owncloud:
    image: owncloud/server:${OWNCLOUD_VERSION}
    container_name: owncloud_server
    restart: always
    ports:
      - ${HTTP_PORT}:8080
    depends_on:
      - mariadb
      - redis
    environment:
      - OWNCLOUD_DOMAIN=${OWNCLOUD_DOMAIN}
      - OWNCLOUD_TRUSTED_DOMAINS=${OWNCLOUD_TRUSTED_DOMAINS}
      - OWNCLOUD_DB_TYPE=mysql
      - OWNCLOUD_DB_NAME=owncloud
      - OWNCLOUD_DB_USERNAME=owncloud
      - OWNCLOUD_DB_PASSWORD=owncloud
      - OWNCLOUD_DB_HOST=mariadb
      - OWNCLOUD_ADMIN_USERNAME=${ADMIN_USERNAME}
      - OWNCLOUD_ADMIN_PASSWORD=${ADMIN_PASSWORD}
      - OWNCLOUD_MYSQL_UTF8MB4=true
      - OWNCLOUD_REDIS_ENABLED=true
      - OWNCLOUD_REDIS_HOST=redis
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "/usr/bin/healthcheck"]
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 10s
      retries: 5
    volumes:
      - files:/mnt/data

  mariadb:
    image: mariadb:10.11 # minimum required ownCloud version is 10.9
    container_name: owncloud_mariadb
    restart: always
    environment:
      - MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=owncloud
      - MYSQL_USER=owncloud
      - MYSQL_PASSWORD=owncloud
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=owncloud
      - MARIADB_AUTO_UPGRADE=1
    command: ["--max-allowed-packet=128M", "--innodb-log-file-size=64M"]
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "mysqladmin", "ping", "-u", "root", "--password=owncloud"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5
    volumes:
      - mysql:/var/lib/mysql

  redis:
    image: redis:6
    container_name: owncloud_redis
    restart: always
    command: ["--databases", "1"]
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "redis-cli", "ping"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5
    volumes:
      - redis:/data

  3. Create a .env configuration file, which contains the required configuration settings.

    cat << EOF > .env
OWNCLOUD_VERSION=10.15
OWNCLOUD_DOMAIN=localhost:8080
OWNCLOUD_TRUSTED_DOMAINS=localhost
ADMIN_USERNAME=admin
ADMIN_PASSWORD=admin
HTTP_PORT=8080
EOF

    Only a few settings are required, these are:

    Setting Name Description Example

    OWNCLOUD_VERSION

    The ownCloud version

    latest

    OWNCLOUD_DOMAIN

    The ownCloud domain

    localhost:8080

    OWNCLOUD_TRUSTED_DOMAINS

    The ownCloud trusted domains

    localhost

    ADMIN_USERNAME

    The admin username

    admin

    ADMIN_PASSWORD

    The admin user’s password

    admin

    HTTP_PORT

    The HTTP port to bind to

    8080
    ADMIN_USERNAME and ADMIN_PASSWORD will not change between deploys even if you change the values in the .env file. To change them, you’ll need to do docker volume prune, which will delete all your data.

  4. Then, you can build and start the container, using your preferred Docker command-line tool.

    The example below shows how to use Docker Compose.

    docker compose up -d

  5. When the process completes:

    Check that all the containers have successfully started, by running docker compose ps. If they are all working correctly, you should see output similar to the one below:

    Name Command State Ports

    owncloud_mariadb

    docker-entrypoint.sh --max …​

    Up (healthy)

    3306/tcp

    owncloud_redis

    docker-entrypoint.sh --dat …​

    Up (healthy)

    6379/tcp

    owncloud_server

    /usr/bin/entrypoint /usr/b …​

    Up (healthy)

    0.0.0.0:8080→8080/tcp

    In it, you can see that the database, ownCloud and Redis containers are running, and that ownCloud is accessible via port 8080 on the host machine.

    All files stored in this setup are contained in Docker volumes rather than a physical filesystem tree. It is the admin’s responsibility to make the files persistent.

    To inspect the volumes run:

    docker volume ls | grep files

    The volume name depends on the project name which builds the first part of the volume and the name of the volume in the docker file. The naming pattern of the volume is <COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME>_<VOLUME_NAME>. An environment variable for COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME can be set and also be defined in a .env file. If not specified, the directory in which docker compose is executed will be used as a name.

    To export the files of the project "owncloud-docker-server" as a tar archive run:

    docker run -v <YOUR_DOCKER_VOLUME>:/mnt \
       ubuntu tar cf - -C /mnt . > files.tar

    Although the containers are up and running, it may still take a few minutes until ownCloud is fully functional.
    To inspect the log output:

    docker compose logs --follow owncloud

    Wait until the output shows Starting apache daemon…​ before you access the web UI.

    Although all important data persists after:

    docker compose down; docker compose up -d

    there are certain details that get lost, e.g., default apps may re-appear after they were uninstalled.

Logging In

To log in to the ownCloud UI, open http://localhost:8080 in your browser of choice, where you see the standard ownCloud login screen as in the image below.

The ownCloud UI via Docker

The username and password are the credentials which you stored in .env earlier. Note that these will not change between deploys even if you change the values in .env.

Stopping the Containers

Again we assume you used docker compose like in the previous example.
To stop the containers use:

docker compose stop

To stop and remove containers along with the related networks, images and volumes:

docker compose down --rmi all --volumes

Running occ commands

If you want to run an occ command, first go to the directory where your .yaml or .env file is located. Here, you are able to run any command referring to Using the occ Command by entering:

docker compose exec owncloud occ <command>

Don’t use the php command prefix, this leads to several errors and is not intended to run in docker environments.

Upgrading ownCloud on Docker

When a new version of ownCloud gets released, you should update your instance. To do so, follow these simple steps:

  1. Go to your docker directory where your .yaml and .env files exist.

  2. Put ownCloud into maintenance mode with the following command:

    docker compose exec owncloud occ maintenance:mode --on

  3. Create a backup of the database in case something goes wrong during the upgrade process, using the following command:

    docker compose exec mariadb \
    /usr/bin/mysqldump \
    -u root \
    --password=owncloud \
    --single-transaction \
    owncloud > owncloud_$(date +%Y%m%d).sql
    You need to adjust the password and database name if you have changed it in your deployment.

  4. Shutdown the containers:

    docker compose down

  5. Update the version number of ownCloud in your .env file. You can use sed for it, as in the following example.

    Make sure that you adjust the example to match your installation.

    sed -i 's/^OWNCLOUD_VERSION=.*$/OWNCLOUD_VERSION=<newVersion>/' .env

  6. View the file to ensure the change has been implemented.

    cat .env

  7. Start your docker instance again.

    docker compose up -d

    Now you should have the current ownCloud running with docker compose. Note that the container will automatically run occ upgrade when starting up. If you notice the container starting over and over again, you can check the update log with the following command:

    docker compose logs --timestamp owncloud

  8. If all went well, end maintenance mode:

    docker compose exec owncloud occ maintenance:mode --off

Docker Compose YAML File

The file docker-compose.yml contains the configuration of your ownCloud container.

Since ownCloud Server 10.5, the dedicated enterprise docker image registry.owncloud.com/owncloud/enterprise is deprecated. All supported enterprise features and apps are now included in the public image owncloud/server available on Docker Hub. A login to our registry registry.owncloud.com is no longer required.

 
version: "3"

volumes:
  files:
    driver: local
  mysql:
    driver: local
  redis:
    driver: local

services:
  owncloud:
    image: owncloud/server:${OWNCLOUD_VERSION}
    container_name: owncloud_server
    restart: always
    ports:
      - ${HTTP_PORT}:8080
    depends_on:
      - mariadb
      - redis
    environment:
      - OWNCLOUD_DOMAIN=${OWNCLOUD_DOMAIN}
      - OWNCLOUD_TRUSTED_DOMAINS=${OWNCLOUD_TRUSTED_DOMAINS}
      - OWNCLOUD_DB_TYPE=mysql
      - OWNCLOUD_DB_NAME=owncloud
      - OWNCLOUD_DB_USERNAME=owncloud
      - OWNCLOUD_DB_PASSWORD=owncloud
      - OWNCLOUD_DB_HOST=mariadb
      - OWNCLOUD_ADMIN_USERNAME=${ADMIN_USERNAME}
      - OWNCLOUD_ADMIN_PASSWORD=${ADMIN_PASSWORD}
      - OWNCLOUD_MYSQL_UTF8MB4=true
      - OWNCLOUD_REDIS_ENABLED=true
      - OWNCLOUD_REDIS_HOST=redis
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "/usr/bin/healthcheck"]
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 10s
      retries: 5
    volumes:
      - files:/mnt/data

  mariadb:
    image: mariadb:10.11 # minimum required ownCloud version is 10.9
    container_name: owncloud_mariadb
    restart: always
    environment:
      - MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=owncloud
      - MYSQL_USER=owncloud
      - MYSQL_PASSWORD=owncloud
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=owncloud
      - MARIADB_AUTO_UPGRADE=1
    command: ["--max-allowed-packet=128M", "--innodb-log-file-size=64M"]
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "mysqladmin", "ping", "-u", "root", "--password=owncloud"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5
    volumes:
      - mysql:/var/lib/mysql

  redis:
    image: redis:6
    container_name: owncloud_redis
    restart: always
    command: ["--databases", "1"]
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "redis-cli", "ping"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5
    volumes:
      - redis:/data

Troubleshooting

Admin Settings

When running under docker, the admin user cannot control certain settings in the WebUI, instead they are now controlled by environment variables. Changing these variables requires stopping and restarting the container with extra docker -e …​ parameters or with new entries in the .env file for docker compose.

Logging

The loglevel is set to the fixed value 2: "Warnings, errors, and fatal issues".

To get the highest log level "Everything" (including debug output), use:
OWNCLOUD_LOGLEVEL=0

Raspberry Pi

If your container fails to start on Raspberry Pi or other ARM devices, you most likely have an old version of libseccomp2 on your host. This should only affect distros based on Rasbian Buster 32 bit. Install a newer version with the following command:

cd /tmp
wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libs/libseccomp/libseccomp2_2.5.1-1_armhf.deb
sudo dpkg -i libseccomp2_2.5.1-1_armhf.deb

Alternatively you can add the backports repo for Debian Buster:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com \
     --recv-keys 04EE7237B7D453EC 648ACFD622F3D138
echo "deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-backports main" | \
     sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/buster-backports.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -t buster-backports libseccomp2

In any case, you should restart the container after confirming you have libseccomp2.4.4 installed.

For more information see: Linux Server Docs

Terminating containers

If your container is terminating for whatever reason, you will not be able to run docker(-compose) exec to make investigations inside the container as there will be no running container. Instead you need to use docker(-compose) run. It’s important that you prefix any command to be run by /usr/bin/owncloud, otherwise the container will not be initialized correctly. See the example command below:

docker( compose) run <containername> /usr/bin/owncloud bash