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Storage Overview

Use what you need. For example, Google Drive for files instead of TrueNAS and Nextcloud.

What's Important​

  • NFS — Container persistence
  • Nextcloud — Desktop and mobile app file sync (image/video upload, etc.), and the file events automations react to

Components​

ServicePurposeAlternatives
NextcloudFile sharing & syncDropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive
CollaboraNextcloud document editorOnlyOffice
TrueNASFile redundancy & NFS—

A NAS for the bulk files​

Data lives under <repo>/volumes/<name>. With a NAS, the volumes marked nfs: true (bulk files: Nextcloud, photos, media) can live on it instead. Databases never do: NFS breaks their locking. Any NFS NAS works, and Docker Compose mounts the export itself, so there is nothing to set up on this host.

  1. On the NAS, export a share over NFS to this host, and make a folder on it for each volume, owned by EXIST_PUID:EXIST_PGID (your user's uid:gid; id -u, id -g). Nothing in the stack creates or changes anything on the NAS.
  2. Run ./existential.sh. The first run with a NAS volume enabled asks for the NAS address (EXIST_NFS_ADDRESS; Enter is none, which keeps everything local and is not asked again), then for each volume's folder on the NAS, each with a line saying what it holds: EXIST_NFS_PATH_<VOLUME> for a container's data (EXIST_NFS_PATH_NEXTCLOUD_DATA), and EXIST_NFS_SHARE_<NAME> for your own files (EXIST_NFS_SHARE_NEXTCLOUD). Enter answers none, which keeps that one volume on this host, under <repo>/volumes/. Each answer is written to .env.shared and never asked again; turning on another service asks for its volumes, and setting the address later asks for every enabled one.
  3. ./existential.sh mounts each folder the way Compose will, as EXIST_PUID:EXIST_PGID, and checks it can write there (and, for a container's data, change the folder's mode, which NFS allows only the owner). A folder every service mounts read-only only has to be readable. A folder that fails stops the run before docker-compose.yml is written, naming the folder, its owner and mode, and the fix: chown it on the NAS, or set the NFS share's Mapall user to the folder's owner. Then docker compose up -d.

Without a terminal nothing is asked, and a run with an address but a missing path stops and names the key to set. A folder is never replaced by a local directory.

Changing a path​

Edit its EXIST_NFS_PATH_<VOLUME> in .env.shared and run ./existential.sh. Compose refuses to reuse an NFS volume whose definition changed, so remove the old definition and recreate:

docker compose down <service>
docker volume rm <repo-folder>_<volume>   # the definition only; the data on the NAS is untouched
docker compose up -d

docker volume ls shows the volume's full name.

Moving data between folders, or from <repo>/volumes/ to the NAS, is yours to do.