3w ago

18% of people running Nextcloud don't know what database they are using

Nextcloud asked in a poll at https://mastodon.social/@nextcloud@mastodon.xyz/115095096413238457 what database its users are running. Interestingly one fifth replied they don't know. Should people know better where their data is stored, or is it a good thing everything is running so smoothly people don't need to know what their software stack is built upon?

162 comments

If you're running it in a prebuilt container, as long as it works it shouldn't matter and you don't need to care.
Of course, when your database gets corrupted after Nextcloud updates because you had an app running that isn't supported in the new version, it will suddenly matter a lot.
- I‘m using a hosted Nextcloud instance from Hetzner and I have no idea what this is running on either. There’s a significant number of people who didn’t set up their Nextcloud instance, so people not knowing what it’s running on isn’t too surprising.
- Will Nextcloud run apps not marked as compatible with that version?
  
  No.
  
  You can specify the behavior in a few places, gui, occ command, config.php. By default no, but if you have an app you want to force in regardless of the version compatibility you can make it so https://help.nextcloud.com/t/help-what-is-app-install-overwrite-for/71523
  
  Bugs still happen. Just did with the most recent version and the polls app and mysql
- And if you don't know what database you're running, how are you backing it up?
  If you don't know what database you're running, are you bothering to do a full shutdown before backups? Are you doing backups at all...
  
  Exactly. It's not important ... until it is. :D
  
  If you're using the AIO image, backup/restore can handled for you, so no need to worry about the manual steps involved. Or if you're using a VM, a backup can take the form of full system snapshots, so also no need to understand how data are stored. Granted it's always helpful to know what your running, but not necessarily requisite, even for backups.
  
  The poll did not ask specifically for self-hosted instances. You know you can buy hosted Nextclouds where the service provider hopefully cares for that stuff? So customers wouldn't know which database they use. I don't know which database my mail provider uses ¯(ツ)_/¯

I write software for a living, and have worked with all 3 database options in the past. I don't know what DB backend my nextcloud server is using, nor do I care.
- Yeah, that is the kind of concern for the service developer or a very opinionated sys admin. For self-hosting, few people will reach the workload where such a decision has any material or measurable impact.
  
  Exactly. Unless you are actively doing maintenance, there is no need to remember what DB you are using. It took me 3 minutes just to remember my nextcloud setup since it's fully automated.
  It's the whole point of using tiered services. You look at stuff at the layer you are on. Do you also worry about your wifi link-level retransmissions when you are running curl?
  
  Self hosting doesn't mean "being wasteful and letting containers duplicate services". I want to know which DB application X is using, so I pool it for applications Y and Z.

"18% of car owners don't know their brake fluid DOT rating."

That is actually good news. Means that people more likely to be "normies" are adopting an alternative solution.
- I can confirm I'm a newer user (not a normie) to Nextcloud and I don't know or really care what it uses because it works so I haven't had to learn what it is or how to debug it.

Every person using a computer should know what their filesystem is and what database they are using. Otherwise they are fools.
Can you believe kids don’t know what NTFS or APFS are these days?! Stupid iPad babies.
- Haha at some point it did matter to regular folks though. I remember in Junior high when I would try to pirate games or software on Windows, I learned the big difference between fat32 and the new filesystem Microsoft released, NTFS because I couldn't download files larger than 4GB on fat32.
  
  It’s important if you’re using flash drives across platforms though that’s pretty rare these days too. My wife has run into this problem by formatting as ExFAT (GUID partition table) when print shops’ terrible machines only support FAT32 and/or MBR partition tables.
  Thankfully macOS at home understands ExFAT otherwise those formatted drives from her Windows work computer wouldn’t even work.
  
  At that point, were you regular folks though?
  
  I remember having to open ".zip.1" files lol. From the split zips.
  
  I still have a FAT32 external drive that this (very) rarely still bites me 😫 there's nothing important on it, so I've been lazy
- Wait is APFS a new file system than NTFS? Guess I'm too busy on my Tiktoks and Nintendos to keep up to date
  
  Damn kids with your twitternets and me mes.
  
  Apple file system
  
  Armor piercing fin stabilized.
  
  It's used on popular toys and consumer gadgets. Most well to do tech nerds don't bother with such riff raff either.
- Holy Poe's Law...
- Kids don't event know the folder struture of their Home directory, so why would they know what a File System is? Lol
- Sir, this is a Wendy's :)
- That kid is never going to figure out if they downloaded the assignment pdf to “Downloads (iPad)” or “Downloads (iCloud)”

Whatever the docker compose file that I found had

I also have no idea if my place has PVC or galvanized steel plumbing; or its designed electrical load. Why should users care about the DBMS.
- I found this way funnier then I think you meant it.... PVC wasn't persistent volume claim was it?
  
  Unless he installed kubernetes pipes, no.
- If you need to fix something, you should know what it is.
  
  I'll get that info as soon as something breaks, I guess.

The rule of internet polls is that the funniest answer is always over-represented.

I have five users, max, and barely any files. I don't know which one Nextcloud AIO uses and I don't care. There's no wrong answer for such a small deployment. It uses whatever database Nextcloud felt was sensible as the default. They know more about picking the right tool for their requirements than I do.
If I'm building something for myself, then I care.

Isn't that the whole point of containerised solutions? Having some pre-setup, auto-updating solution with very little requirement to dive into the details like what your database is and which dependencies you need to manage...
- You still need to know what database system is being used in order to make backups of the database. You can't just snapshot or backup the data directory while a database is running, because you might end up with an inconsistent state that won't restore properly. You need to either stop the DB before doing the backup, or use the relevant DB-specific tools to perform a backup.
  
  Most of my containerized solutions do that for me.
  
  So one in five doesn't do proper backups. That's much better than expected... 😅

*18% of the people who answered a poll on Mastodon
- It's funny that the headline frames it as "a big number" when in reality majority of users don't know what database they're using and probably don't even know what a database is. Such polls aren't useless but you always get skewed results towards the more technical population. They would have to create a poll inside the nextcloud webapp to get more balanced results.

Theres heaps of hosted nextcloud services. Those users wouldn't know.

Honestly, does it matter to a regular user?
There will be some that do matter, if I were to run NC I would use Lite because why throw the data to another process just to write it to a disk when I only have a single node.
- Well it does depend on your exact use case, but using a proper database is usually the better option for production. Now if this is just some little service you made for yourself use whatever you want.
  
  SQLite is a proper database. Realistically you’ll never exhaust its 278tb storage limits, it’s thoroughly battle tested, and it’s dead easy to backup.
  I doubt nextcloud is running enough parallel db writes for this to actually matter — and if it is WAL mode is still probably good enough.
  Once you have multiple software clients running then you will need a client server dbms like Postgres. For most home or group installations, this should not be an issue.

Nextcloud is pushed as an easy to use docker setup these days, heck most people I know who "use" it don't do much with it at all so what database it is using is gonna be way back in their list of priorities...
\ Plus the users outweigh the admins surely (as in those that just install then forget)

Where's the option for "what's a database?"
- Agree - I'm sharing files, not databases...
  
  I'm not even sharing files, I'm sharing mp3's and some zips. Duh.

Since Nextcloud stores your actually data on the disk, it doesn’t actually matter all that much tbh

Users is the right word here, not admin, not sysadmin, not owner. Docker pull docker up users that’s it
- Also just users. No docker or anything, just using the system someone else setup for them.
  NextCloud is used everywhere, also in commercial use.
  
  I can’t believe they asked end users, the question is sent over the fediverse, not X or Bsky…
  Or else they would have received tons of « it’s missing my Nextcloud runs on Samsung S24 » comments
- Read the comments. Self hosters are little more than users anyway.

If some of them are users rather than admins, it makes sense and maybe it's a good sign that they don't have to know in order to use the service.

Well that's kind of misleading, right? If they didn't set one up, then it's probably SQLite. But if they did set one up, that was years ago, and who cares what it is, if it's working.

I mean.. I set it up many many years ago... Without looking it up I can also just guess.

And 46% have no idea what a database is.
- it's a spreadsheet right?

I don't even know myself because I installed it via YunoHost
- Same here with Freedombox.
  
  A Freedombox user in the wild!! I've been following the project since 2011 but I never thought it really achieved its potential. How do you use yours, and how do you find it?

I can think of few things more boring than databases. I just want my files synced and stored.

I’ve made a choice a while ago while deploying Nextcloud. Now I don’t care, as I trust myself that I have opted for something reasonable which was hopefully not SQLite
- why the hate for SQLite?
  
  SQLite is awesome, but of course not for every project.

Honestly I think if there is a hope for greater detach from "The Cloud" more broadly, it's a testament to nextcloud that folks that don't even know enough to know what DB they are running are able to run a server, and host things well enough to consider themselves users.

It's awesome that you don't have to remember what software you're using underneath. I looked into it before I installed it, but I'd have to check which one I went with. I also have no idea what graphics card I'm using, which headset I'm using, what brand of eyeglass cleaner I'm using etc. I looked into it at the time, made a choice and promptly forgot about why and filled my brain with other things.
If I remembered which database I was running it means that I'd have enough problems with it that I'd look at it a lot.

Who cares.
I'm only on MariaDB because I have brain worms, I have so little data on there SQLite would have been fine. 🪱 🪱 🪱
- SQLite actually has incredible performance these days. But I get your point :)
- Exactly. Who gives a shit?
  I mean… I could recite the exact setup of mine in detail, but I’d probably be happier if my brain matter was dedicated to something else. Do not shame the ignorant. Envy them.
- I use Postgres, because MySQL touched me inappropriately as a kid and MariaDB is too similar. Oh, and also because it's what I use at work.

What's a computer ?
- my computer is really slow. where can i download more rams?
  
  Enable hugepage allocation, it will deduplicate memory chunks and save you lotsaram Especially good with an hypervisor desktop

Yes that's me. I have no idea what my Nextcloud uses

That's because they push the all in one container.

I did know when I set it up, but I can't remember right now. I can easily go check though.
- Same. I'm glad I don't have to think about databases usually.

I don’t think it matters
You could deploy a container and not know what DB is used

I think that's really beautiful.

People don't care and/or haven't looked at the serverinfo page. That actually mentions the type of database in use.
So the "I don't know" option was probably just the easiest.

Are people here trying to "I run arch btw" database services.

Mine is managed hosted so I don't know.

That’s how I’d answer if I set something up years ago and it was stable and never required me to come tinker with it.

. >18% of people running next cloud are not backing it up.
- This is a fallacious. If you have a very small set of users, what exact data is in the database that you would be upset at losing? Maybe your contacts and your calendar. Which you could back up manually, which might actually be simpler than backing up the database.
  
  I'm sorry, but writing down the data from your organizational program and re-entering it all from scratch is NOT a backup solution.
  If you have such scant data to do that, you didn't need to have nextcould installed in the first place.
- Where are you getting that from? The fastest and easiest way to back up any server is a full filesystem backup, especially if you're using something like zfs or btrfs.
  
  I can't decide if you don't know what you're talking about or you're just trying to troll me.

TIL that NextCloud can use an external database.
- Are you still using sqlite?
  
  Aren’t you? WAL mode has made SQLite better than the alternatives at this point.

You can install NextCloud with snap.
- Yeah, and after having dealt with the "I missed a few updates and then the last one put my files out of sync with my schema" Docker issues, I'm very much happy to use the snap. Been on that a couple years and it's been quite solid, even if I did have to install snapd on my Debian base for it

They really push you to install the aio container so it's not surprising to me.

There could be multiple factors. For example, I have a Nextcloud instance that is fully managed by Hetzner, and I didn't bother to find out what database it uses...

I set up everything I use "bare metal" or at least in an lxc container I directly build and maintain, but most people don't. Makes a lot of sense, to be honest. A lot of prepackaged software uses databases and nobody has to care exactly what it's up to.

Should've specifically asked the operators/hosters if they need a better answer. But this has more engagement so

My instance did required me to fix some db issue after an update(it still works but the fix was recommended*). So I knew I am using mariadb. Its not super smooth sailing.

I use the prebuilt Hetzner one and have no idea either.
- Yeah. I have used that. And I'm sure most with personal instances that just pressed the "Install NextCloud" button have no clue, including me.

East or West, SQLite is the best.

...How come so few people are using SQLite?
- Probably also most of those who don't know. SQLite is the default option if you don't set up a database server.
  
  Those who don't know may be using Nextcloud AIO, which is bundled with Postgres.
- Idk, I explicitly set up Postgres, which took extra work since the default is SQLite. I use Postgres for my day job, so it makes sense to me to keep everything the same.
  
  That's quite senseful yes. In the cases where I want to host somewhere that already has a Postgres service going, I just up and use that.

Not sure I understand... Can the type of database be customised during nextcloud installation? If not, then more than 37% gave a wrong answer, which is worse than the 18%?
- Yes, all three are supported configurations. Technically all four, since "I don't know" is apparently a completely valid and functional configuration too.

What's a Next Cloud, what came before it? /s
- Serious answer: ownCloud
- Before Cloud, obviously.
  
  It's cloud all the way down.

MariaDB, only know that because I tried to install ampache (got it to work, hated it).

162 comments