Serving intranet by pointing apache to owncloud data folder

Server
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We have an intranet server (win10) running on top of a folder in our owncloud directory. Currently this is running on a separate computer that has the owncloud desktop client syncing the files. This works ok, but I would like to combine the owncloud server (Ubuntu 24.04, oc 10.14.0) and intranet server into one system.

I experimented with using davfs2 looping back to localhost on the server. This does work but was painfully slow.

So I was thinking, maybe the intranet server could read and serve files directly from the owncloud data folder “…/owncloud/data/{USER}/files/intranet” as this would be the lowest latency option.

Even though I would set the intranet user to read only on the owncloud data directory I am worried about causing interference with owncloud. Is there no risk if only reading from this file set?

How would you tackle this problem?

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Hey Colt,

While directly accessing ownCloud’s data folder can be tempting for low latency, it’s not recommended. It could lead to unexpected conflicts with ownCloud processes.

A safer option might be using ownCloud’s external storage feature. You can define the intranet folder as an external storage location with read-only access for the intranet user. This keeps things separate while allowing read access.

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Readonly access won’t harm ownCloud.
But there are other issues to consider:

  • security: a misconfiguration on your intranet server might expose files from other users.
  • sharing is not visible there. Any shares, that users create won’t appear in the filesystem.

If you want to view one specific owncloud/data/USER/files/intranet subfolder only, all this should be manageable, if you know what you do. (aka not recommended, no official support )

I agree with frelancesage: using an external storage feature is much more recommended. There is e.g. ftp or local avalable as external storages. In any case, the concept would be a bit different: such storage lives outside the owncloud/data tree, your “other” server is “host”, and ownloud is only “guest”.

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Thanks you both for your insight. It is funny, I just disabled the external storage addon so we could get the ‘stay signed in’ checkbox available.

There will only ever be one owncloud user and the intranet folder encompasses the entire user directory. I will give the local external storage a shot and see how it goes.

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Hey,

i found Restore remember me feature by jvillafanez ¡ Pull Request #40176 ¡ owncloud/core ¡ GitHub over at Github and i think this is expected and not supported when the external storage app is in use:

Some apps such as “files_external” or “encryption” can disable this feature if they’re enabled.

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