Phase 6 · Run over SSH

Data Drive Setup

Format, mount, and secure your dedicated Nextcloud storage drive.

This will permanently erase the target drive

The formatting command below destroys all data on the drive you specify. Triple-check the device name before running it.

Step 1 — Identify Your Data Drive¶

List all block devices to find your data drive:

lsblk

Look for the drive that is not your OS drive. It will show as a raw device with no mounted partitions (no / or /boot next to it). Common device names:

sda, sdb — SATA drives
nvme1n1 — a second NVMe drive

Example output:

NAME        SIZE  TYPE  MOUNTPOINT
nvme0n1     500G  disk
└─nvme0n1p1 500G  part  /          ← This is the OS drive. Leave it alone.
sda         2TB   disk             ← This is your data drive.

In this example, sda is the data drive. Your device path would be /dev/sda.

Step 2 — Format the Drive¶

Replace /dev/sdX with your actual device path (e.g. /dev/sda or /dev/nvme1n1):

DATA_DRIVE="/dev/sdX"   # ← CHANGE THIS to your actual drive

sudo parted "$DATA_DRIVE" --script mklabel gpt
sudo parted "$DATA_DRIVE" --script mkpart primary ext4 1MiB 100%
sudo partprobe "$DATA_DRIVE"
sleep 2

# Get the new partition name (e.g. /dev/sda1 or /dev/nvme1n1p1)
DATA_PART=$(lsblk -rn -o NAME "$DATA_DRIVE" | tail -n 1 | awk '{print "/dev/"$1}')
echo "Partition: $DATA_PART"

sudo mkfs.ext4 "$DATA_PART"

Step 3 — Mount the Drive Permanently¶

3a — Create the mount point with an immutable guard:

sudo mkdir -p /srv/nextcloud-data
sudo chattr +i /srv/nextcloud-data

The +i (immutable) flag on the empty directory is a safety measure: if the data drive ever fails to mount at boot, Docker tries to write to the bare directory on your OS drive. The immutable flag causes a "permission denied" error instead, which is much easier to diagnose than discovering your Nextcloud data silently ended up on the wrong drive.

3b — Add to /etc/fstab for automatic mounting at boot:

PART_UUID=$(sudo blkid -s UUID -o value "$DATA_PART")

echo "UUID=${PART_UUID}  /srv/nextcloud-data  ext4  defaults,nofail  0  2" \
  | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

sudo mount -a

The nofail option in fstab means: if the drive is missing at boot, the system still boots normally instead of dropping to an emergency shell.

Verify the drive is mounted:

df -h /srv/nextcloud-data

You should see the drive's capacity listed. If you see the OS drive's capacity, something went wrong.

Step 4 — Apply SELinux Labels¶

SELinux needs to know that Docker containers are allowed to read and write this directory. Apply the container_file_t label:

sudo semanage fcontext -a -t container_file_t "/srv/nextcloud-data(/.*)?"
sudo restorecon -Rv /srv/nextcloud-data

Verify the label:

ls -Zd /srv/nextcloud-data

Expected output:

system_u:object_r:container_file_t:s0 /srv/nextcloud-data

✅ Phase 6 Complete¶

Your data drive is formatted, mounted at /srv/nextcloud-data, set to auto-mount at boot safely, and labelled correctly for Docker containers.

Next: Phase 7 — Core Services →