Unable to log on to server web interface

I receive a message that I took to long to log in. I used a password manager to fill the user/pass fields. Maybe a second or two from clicking the credentials in my PW manager and clicking login.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Go to server URL (http://ingest.wmssfm.com)*
  2. Enter credentials (tried both the administrative creds and my personal creds)
  3. Click the ‘Login’ button.
  • I am having SSL issues at the moment - that is a topic for another post.
    SSL is fixed! Still having an access issue, though - connecting now lists the /var/www/owncloud directory contents and clients STILL cannot connect!

Expected behaviour

Successful log in to the system

Actual behaviour

An error is received:

You took too long to log in, please try again now

Server configuration

Operating system:

Debian 11
Linux 5.10.0-33-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 5.10.226-1 (2024-10-03) x86_64 GNU/Linux

Web server:

Apache 2.4.6.2

Database:

mariadb Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.5.26-MariaDB, for debian-linux-gnu (x86_64)

PHP version:

PHP 7.4.33 (cli) (built: Oct 14 2024 17:47:44) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.4.0, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
with Zend OPcache v7.4.33, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

ownCloud version: (see ownCloud admin page)
Unable to log in to admin page. Version is 10.? Updated on 5 August 2024 using ‘owncloud-complete-latest.tar.bz2’

Updated from an older ownCloud or fresh install: Updated

Where did you install ownCloud from: Source indicated in the upgrade documentation at doc.owncloud.org.

Signing status (ownCloud 9.0 and above):

I am unable to log in. If I can retrieve this another way, I will gladly do so (CLI unless there is a way to bypass the login page to get the information)

The content of config/config.php:

<?php
$CONFIG = array (
  'instanceid' => <redacted>,
  'passwordsalt' => <redacted>,
  'secret' => <redacted>,
  'trusted_domains' => 
  array (
    0 => 'localhost',
    1 => <redacted>,
    2 => <redacted>,
    3 => <redacted>,
    4 => <redacted>,
    5 => <redacted>,
    6 => <redacted>,
  ),
  'datadirectory' => '/var/www/owncloud/data',
  'overwrite.cli.url' => 'http://localhost',
  'filelocking.enabled' => true,
  'memcache.local' => '\\OC\\Memcache\\APCu',
  'dbtype' => 'mysql',
  'version' => '10.15.0.2',
  'dbname' => <redacted>,
  'dbhost' => <redacted>,
  'dbtableprefix' => 'oc_',
  'mysql.utf8mb4' => true,
  'dbuser' => <redacted>,
  'dbpassword' => <redacted>,
  'logtimezone' => 'America/New_York',
  'apps_paths' => 
  array (
    0 => 
    array (
      'path' => '/var/www/owncloud/apps',
      'url' => '/apps',
      'writable' => false,
    ),
    1 => 
    array (
      'path' => '/var/opt/owncloud/apps-external',
      'url' => '/apps-external',
      'writable' => true,
    ),
  ),
  'log_type' => 'syslog',
  'logfile' => '',
  'log.syslog.format' => '[%reqId%][%remoteAddr%][%user%][%app%][%method%][%url%] %message%',
  'installed' => true,
  'loglevel' => 1,
  'maintenance' => false,
  'trashbin_retention_obligation' => 'auto, 15',
  'mail_domain' => <redacted>,
  'mail_from_address' => <redacted>,
  'mail_smtpmode' => 'smtp',
  'mail_smtpauth' => <redacted>,
  'mail_smtpauthtype' => <redacted>,
  'mail_smtphost' => <redacted>,
  'mail_smtpport' => <redacted>,
  'mail_smtpname' =><redacted>,
  'mail_smtppassword' => <redacted>,
  'mail_smtpsecure' => <redacted>,
  'theme' => '',
);

List of activated apps:
Unable to retrieve

Are you using external storage, if yes which one: local/smb/sftp/…
None

Are you using encryption: yes/no
No

Are you using an external user-backend, if yes which one: LDAP/ActiveDirectory/Webdav/…
None

Client configuration

Browser: FireFox, Edge, Google Chrome (depends on the machine)

Operating system: Debian Linux 12, Windows 10, Windows 11.

Logs

Web server error log

error.log (12.0 KB)

ownCloud log (data/owncloud.log)

Logfile is 0 bytes

Browser log

From FireFox:

Hi, Logs, there are no logs. If you are looking for history you can find that in several places like mouse to the top of the browser to a empty spot and Right Click and turn on the Menu Bar.

If there is something specific, let me know and I will look it up.

While gathering this information, I encountered another error - seems something may not be right with the www-data user. When I attempted to use that user, instead of executing the command I get prompted for a password. Which should not happen - especially if I start as root.

With the time aspect of the error message, my first thought was system clock. The system clock is currently accurate (both my system and the server). They should be, since they both sync to NIST NTP time servers.

This issue was noticed today, while I am working on attempting to get certbot and apache to play nicely together to pull an SSL cert from Let’s Encrypt. That issue has been going on for a while now, the error when attempting to log in is new as of today.

Thanks in advance for any and all help!

I made an edit to the original post, but am also separating it out here.

I was able to get SSL to work. I had a misunderstanding of a particular path. Now that I fixed that issue, I can connect. Still not logging in - in fact, I am not even seeing the login page now. I get a directory listing instead - which should also not be happening.

I am going to make a separate post about the issues I am currently having with accessing the site. SSL is fixed, the server errors are fixed, now I have a permissions error.

I did not exactly fix the login error when connecting via non-ssl connection. There is a redirect now active that, unless the connection is for /.well-known/acme-challenge, ownCloud is served via SSL.

That issue was fixed by fixing my understanding of certbot and it’s behavior.

Certbot will create /.well-known/acme-challenge/ under whatever you tell it is the web root directory. If you are using an alias in Apache to get there, then you need to provide the actual directory. In this case, /var/www/letsencrypt/ was the root I needed. I fixed that in my owncloud.conf, so I have:

alias /.well-known/acme-challenge/ /var/www/.well-known/acme-challenge/

in place of

alias /.well-known/acme-challenge/ /var/www/acme-challenge/

I also fixed the directory configuration in the owncloud.conf to reference the correct path as well. I was able to get a certificate, I enabled the SSL configuration (I had owncloud-ssl.conf enabled, but had commented out the parts that actual caused the site to use SSL), and Apache started without complaint, since there is now a certificate.

After testing the certbot behavior, I reenabled the redirect statements that I had commented out in the owncloud.conf and set up the cron job to renew the certificate.

Now, I get a ‘403 Forbidden’ when connecting to the site. But I get it using SSL, so progress, I suppose?

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