Nextcloud

Nextcloud is a self-hosted productivity platform for managing files, calendars, contacts, and collaborative workflows. My primary use is as a file storage and synchronisation service.

This compose file deploys Nextcloud with a PostgreSQL database, and Valkey for caching. Upload limits are set high (128 GB) for large file transfers. All data is stored on NFS volumes, and the service is served via nginx which is exposed through a Traefik reverse proxy with Cloudflare TLS certificates.

Docker Compose

# compose.yaml

services:
  nextcloud:
    image: nextcloud:fpm
    container_name: nextcloud-app
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      nextcloud-valkey:
        condition: service_healthy
      nextcloud-db:
        condition: service_healthy
    networks:
      - nextcloud
    volumes:
      - type: volume
        source: nextcloud-nfs
        target: /var/www/html
        volume:
          subpath: data
    healthcheck:
      test:
        [
          "CMD-SHELL",
          'php -r ''exit(is_file("/var/www/html/status.php") ? 0 : 1);''',
        ]
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 3
      start_period: 30s
    environment:
      NEXTCLOUD_ADMIN_USER: ${NEXTCLOUD_ADMIN_USER}
      NEXTCLOUD_ADMIN_PASSWORD: ${NEXTCLOUD_ADMIN_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_DB: ${POSTGRES_DB}
      POSTGRES_USER: ${POSTGRES_USER}
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_HOST: nextcloud-db
      REDIS_HOST: nextcloud-valkey
      REDIS_HOST_PASSWORD: ${VALKEY_PASSWORD}
      # Increase limits for large file uploads
      PHP_MEMORY_LIMIT: 16G
      PHP_UPLOAD_LIMIT: 128G
      APACHE_BODY_LIMIT: 0
      # Remove the warning about X-Forwarded-For headers coming from untrusted proxies
      TRUSTED_PROXIES: ${TRUSTED_PROXIES}
      NEXTCLOUD_TRUSTED_DOMAINS: ${NEXTCLOUD_TRUSTED_DOMAINS}
      TZ: Europe/London

  nextcloud-db:
    image: postgres:18
    container_name: nextcloud-db
    restart: unless-stopped
    networks:
      - nextcloud
    volumes:
      - type: volume
        source: nextcloud-nfs
        target: /var/lib/postgresql
        volume:
          subpath: postgres
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U ${POSTGRES_USER} -d ${POSTGRES_DB}"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5
      start_period: 30s
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: ${POSTGRES_USER}
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_DB: ${POSTGRES_DB}
      TZ: Europe/London

  nextcloud-valkey:
    image: docker.io/valkey/valkey:9
    container_name: nextcloud-valkey
    restart: unless-stopped
    networks:
      - nextcloud
    volumes:
      - type: volume
        source: nextcloud-nfs
        target: /data
        volume:
          subpath: valkey
    logging:
      driver: "json-file"
      options:
        max-size: "1m"
        max-file: "1"
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "valkey-cli", "ping"]
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 10s
      retries: 5
      start_period: 5s
    command: valkey-server --save 30 1 --loglevel warning --requirepass ${VALKEY_PASSWORD}
    environment:
      TZ: Europe/London

  nextcloud-nginx:
    image: nginx:latest
    container_name: nextcloud-nginx
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      nextcloud:
        condition: service_healthy
    # ports:
    #  - 8080:80
    networks:
      - nextcloud
      - nextcloud_proxy
    volumes:
      # https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/admin_manual/installation/nginx.html
      - ./nginx.conf:/etc/nginx/nginx.conf:ro
      - type: volume
        source: nextcloud-nfs
        target: /etc/ssl/nginx/
        read_only: true
        volume:
          subpath: certs
    volumes_from:
      - nextcloud
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "curl", "-fsk", "https://localhost:443"]
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 3
      start_period: 15s
    environment:
      TZ: Europe/London
    labels:
      - "traefik.enable=true"
      - "traefik.docker.network=nextcloud_proxy"

      # Use HTTPS to connect to Nextcloud backend - uses HTTP/2 internally
      - "traefik.http.services.nextcloud.loadbalancer.server.port=443"
      - "traefik.http.services.nextcloud.loadbalancer.server.scheme=https"

      - "traefik.http.routers.nextcloud.rule=Host(`nextcloud.${TRAEFIK_BASE_URL}`)"
      - "traefik.http.routers.nextcloud.entrypoints=websecure"
      - "traefik.http.routers.nextcloud.tls=true"
      - "traefik.http.routers.nextcloud.tls.certresolver=cloudflare"
      - traefik.http.routers.nextcloud.middlewares=nextcloud_redirectregex,nextcloud

      # Remove warnings about missing security headers
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.nextcloud.headers.stsSeconds=155520011"
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.nextcloud.headers.stsIncludeSubdomains=true"
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.nextcloud.headers.forceSTSHeader=true"
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.nextcloud.headers.customFrameOptionsValue=sameorigin"
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.nextcloud.headers.contentTypeNosniff=true"
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.nextcloud.headers.browserXssFilter=true"
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.nextcloud.headers.referrerPolicy=same-origin"

      # fix redirects for caldav and carddav (radicale)
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.nextcloud_redirectregex.redirectregex.permanent=true"
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.nextcloud_redirectregex.redirectregex.regex=https://(.*)/.well-known/(?:card|cal)dav"
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.nextcloud_redirectregex.redirectregex.replacement=https://$${1}/remote.php/dav"

volumes:
  nextcloud-nfs:
    driver: local
    driver_opts:
      type: nfs
      o: addr=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx,nolock,soft,rw,nfsvers=4.2
      device: ":/mnt/nfs-volume"

networks:
  nextcloud:
    name: nextcloud
  nextcloud_proxy:
    name: nextcloud_proxy

Environment Variables

# .env

POSTGRES_USER=
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=
POSTGRES_DB=
VALKEY_PASSWORD=
NEXTCLOUD_ADMIN_USER=
NEXTCLOUD_ADMIN_PASSWORD=
TRUSTED_PROXIES=

TRAEFIK_BASE_URL=example.com
NEXTCLOUD_TRUSTED_DOMAINS=nextcloud.${TRAEFIK_BASE_URL}

nginx Configuration

# nginx.conf

worker_processes auto;

error_log  /var/log/nginx/error.log warn;
pid        /var/run/nginx.pid;


events {
    worker_connections  1024;
}


http {
    include mime.types;
    default_type  application/octet-stream;
    types {
        text/javascript mjs;
    }

    log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                      '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                      '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

    access_log  /var/log/nginx/access.log  main;

    sendfile        on;
    #tcp_nopush     on;

    # Prevent nginx HTTP Server Detection
    server_tokens   off;

    keepalive_timeout  65;

    # Set the `immutable` cache control options only for assets with a cache busting `v` argument
    map $arg_v $asset_immutable {
        "" "";
    default ", immutable";
    }

    #gzip  on;

    resolver 127.0.0.11 valid=2s;
    upstream php-handler {
        zone backends 64k;
        server nextcloud:9000 resolve;
    }

    server {
        listen 443 ssl;
        http2 on;

        ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/nginx/selfsigned.crt;
        ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/nginx/selfsigned.key;

        # HSTS settings
        # WARNING: Only add the preload option once you read about
        # the consequences in https://hstspreload.org/. This option
        # will add the domain to a hardcoded list that is shipped
        # in all major browsers and getting removed from this list
        # could take several months.
        #add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=15768000; includeSubDomains; preload;" always;

        # set max upload size and increase upload timeout:
        client_max_body_size 128G;
        client_body_timeout 3600s;
        fastcgi_buffers 64 4K;

        # Increase proxy timeouts
        proxy_connect_timeout 3600s;
        proxy_read_timeout 3600s;
        proxy_send_timeout 3600s;
        fastcgi_read_timeout 3600s;

        # The settings allows you to optimize the HTTP2 bandwidth.
        # See https://blog.cloudflare.com/delivering-http-2-upload-speed-improvements/
        # for tuning hints
        client_body_buffer_size 512k;
        large_client_header_buffers 4 16k;
        keepalive_requests 1000;
        client_header_timeout 30s;

        # Enable gzip but do not remove ETag headers
        gzip on;
        gzip_vary on;
        gzip_comp_level 4;
        gzip_min_length 256;
        gzip_proxied expired no-cache no-store private no_last_modified no_etag auth;
        gzip_types application/atom+xml text/javascript application/javascript application/json application/ld+json application/manifest+json application/rss+xml application/vnd.geo+json application/vnd.ms-fontobject application/wasm application/x-font-ttf application/x-web-app-manifest+json application/xhtml+xml application/xml font/opentype image/bmp image/svg+xml image/x-icon text/cache-manifest text/css text/plain text/vcard text/vnd.rim.location.xloc text/vtt text/x-component text/x-cross-domain-policy;

        # Pagespeed is not supported by Nextcloud, so if your server is built
        # with the `ngx_pagespeed` module, uncomment this line to disable it.
        #pagespeed off;

        # HTTP response headers borrowed from Nextcloud `.htaccess`
        add_header Referrer-Policy                      "no-referrer"       always;
        add_header X-Content-Type-Options               "nosniff"           always;
        add_header X-Frame-Options                      "SAMEORIGIN"        always;
        add_header X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies    "none"              always;
        add_header X-Robots-Tag                         "noindex, nofollow" always;
        add_header X-XSS-Protection                     "1; mode=block"     always;

        # Remove X-Powered-By, which is an information leak
        fastcgi_hide_header X-Powered-By;

        # Path to the root of your installation
        root /var/www/html;

        # Specify how to handle directories -- specifying `/index.php$request_uri`
        # here as the fallback means that Nginx always exhibits the desired behaviour
        # when a client requests a path that corresponds to a directory that exists
        # on the server. In particular, if that directory contains an index.php file,
        # that file is correctly served; if it doesn't, then the request is passed to
        # the front-end controller. This consistent behaviour means that we don't need
        # to specify custom rules for certain paths (e.g. images and other assets,
        # `/updater`, `/ocm-provider`, `/ocs-provider`), and thus
        # `try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$request_uri`
        # always provides the desired behaviour.
        index index.php index.html /index.php$request_uri;

        # Rule borrowed from `.htaccess` to handle Microsoft DAV clients
        location = / {
            proxy_ssl_verify       off;
            proxy_ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;

            if ( $http_user_agent ~ ^DavClnt ) {
                return 302 /remote.php/webdav/$is_args$args;
            }
        }

        location = /robots.txt {
            allow all;
            log_not_found off;
            access_log off;
        }

        # Make a regex exception for `/.well-known` so that clients can still
        # access it despite the existence of the regex rule
        # `location ~ /(\.|autotest|...)` which would otherwise handle requests
        # for `/.well-known`.
        location ^~ /.well-known {
            # The rules in this block are an adaptation of the rules
            # in `.htaccess` that concern `/.well-known`.

            location = /.well-known/carddav { return 301 /remote.php/dav/; }
            location = /.well-known/caldav  { return 301 /remote.php/dav/; }

            location /.well-known/acme-challenge    { try_files $uri $uri/ =404; }
            location /.well-known/pki-validation    { try_files $uri $uri/ =404; }

            # Let Nextcloud's API for `/.well-known` URIs handle all other
            # requests by passing them to the front-end controller.
            return 301 /index.php$request_uri;
        }

        # Rules borrowed from `.htaccess` to hide certain paths from clients
        location ~ ^/(?:build|tests|config|lib|3rdparty|templates|data)(?:$|/)  { return 404; }
        location ~ ^/(?:\.|autotest|occ|issue|indie|db_|console)                { return 404; }

        # Ensure this block, which passes PHP files to the PHP process, is above the blocks
        # which handle static assets (as seen below). If this block is not declared first,
        # then Nginx will encounter an infinite rewriting loop when it prepends `/index.php`
        # to the URI, resulting in a HTTP 500 error response.
        location ~ \.php(?:$|/) {
            # Required for legacy support
            rewrite ^/(?!index|remote|public|cron|core\/ajax\/update|status|ocs\/v[12]|updater\/.+|ocs-provider\/.+|.+\/richdocumentscode(_arm64)?\/proxy) /index.php$request_uri;

            fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+?\.php)(/.*)$;
            set $path_info $fastcgi_path_info;

            try_files $fastcgi_script_name =404;

            include fastcgi_params;
            fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
            fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $path_info;
            fastcgi_param HTTPS on;

            fastcgi_param modHeadersAvailable true;         # Avoid sending the security headers twice
            fastcgi_param front_controller_active true;     # Enable pretty urls
            fastcgi_pass php-handler;

            fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
            fastcgi_request_buffering off;

            fastcgi_max_temp_file_size 0;
        }

        # Serve static files
        location ~ \.(?:css|js|mjs|svg|gif|ico|jpg|png|webp|wasm|tflite|map|ogg|flac)$ {
            try_files $uri /index.php$request_uri;
            add_header Cache-Control "public, max-age=15778463$asset_immutable";
            add_header Referrer-Policy                   "no-referrer"       always;
            add_header X-Content-Type-Options            "nosniff"           always;
            add_header X-Frame-Options                   "SAMEORIGIN"        always;
            add_header X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies "none"              always;
            add_header X-Robots-Tag                      "noindex, nofollow" always;
            add_header X-XSS-Protection                  "1; mode=block"     always;
            access_log off;     # Optional: Don't log access to assets

            location ~ \.wasm$ {
                default_type application/wasm;
            }
        }

        location ~ \.(otf|woff2?)$ {
            try_files $uri /index.php$request_uri;
            expires 7d;         # Cache-Control policy borrowed from `.htaccess`
            access_log off;     # Optional: Don't log access to assets
        }

        # Rule borrowed from `.htaccess`
        location /remote {
            return 301 /remote.php$request_uri;
        }

        location / {
            try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$request_uri;
        }
    }
}

Traefik Configuration

# compose.yaml (excerpt)

services:
  traefik:
    image: traefik:latest
    container_name: traefik
    ...
    networks:
      - traefik
      # here
      - nextcloud_proxy
    ...

networks:
  # here
  nextcloud_proxy:
    name: nextcloud_proxy