Execute scripts from docker container

[Mailblocker]

Hi everyone,
I am running NextCloud within docker (based on “with-nginx-proxy/mariadb/fpm”) which works very well. But I can not get Flow working with external scripts.

I want to run a script when a defined file is opened. I have installed the “external script” app and configured a flow with:
“File accessed” and file name is “nextcloud_flow_test.txt” run script at “/var/www/html/config/test.sh”.

But the script is not executed when accessing the file from my NextCloud Webinterface.

The script itself is accessable from the docker container. I started it via an interactive shell from the container (docker exec -it nextcloud bash). Currently the script just inserts the current date to a text file (date >> test.txt) which works fine when executed manually.

Is there anything I am missing?

[blizzz]

Not running on docker, and not having an idea why it should not work in principle about of the usual (user, permissions).

A script is executed from a background job (make they are executed). Set the loglevel to 1 and watch the audit.log (also in data dir), to first verify whether the flow is actually activated and executed.

[Mailblocker]

I checked the logs and can find entries of workflow_script:

Info workflow_script executing sh -c '/var/www/html/config/test.sh' >/dev/null &

with the follwoing details:

{"reqId":"WaQmOM0mhJTg921r8qGr","level":1,"time":"2025-10-07T18:29:05+00:00","remoteAddr":"","user":"--","app":"workflow_script","method":"","url":"--","message":"executing sh -c '/var/www/html/config/test.sh' >/dev/null &","userAgent":"--","version":"31.0.9.1","data":{"app":"workflow_script"},"id":"68e55d1eb268e"}

In the web view my nextcloud instances states cron is being used and the last job ran seconds ago.

I changed the script to write execute date >> /test.txt in case the script is executed in some sub directory and the resulting file is stored anywhere. But still I can not find the file test.txt. Either within the docker container of the nextcloud application, the docker container of the cron job or also on the host machine.

[Mailblocker]

Is there anything else I can try?

[executed]

@Mailblocker
'date >> /test.txt' means it's gonna go into very root of filesystem - probably don't have rights there.
Try this sample script:
touch /var/www/html/data/TEST.txt chmod 777 /var/www/html/data/TEST.txt chown www-data:www-data /var/www/html/data/TEST.txt echo "HELLO WORLD" > /var/www/html/data/TEST.txt
Then verify using this command:
cat /var/www/html/data/TEST.txt
Should output HELLO WORLD obviously.

[Mailblocker]

@Mailblocker 'date >> /test.txt' means it's gonna go into very root of filesystem - probably don't have rights there. Try this sample script: touch /var/www/html/data/TEST.txt chmod 777 /var/www/html/data/TEST.txt chown www-data:www-data /var/www/html/data/TEST.txt echo "HELLO WORLD" > /var/www/html/data/TEST.txt Then verify using this command: cat /var/www/html/data/TEST.txt Should output HELLO WORLD obviously.

Thanks for the input! Unfortunately no change of result.

I created the script as you mentioned and I got this file now in my docker container available:
-rwxrwxrwx 1 www-data www-data 37 Oct 21 19:15 TEST.txt

It is accessable as expected but I needed to change its contents to get an actual timestamp when the script was executed the last time:
echo "date >> /var/www/html/data/test2.txt" > /var/www/html/data/TEST.txt

It worked to execute this script from the container shell itself. But in this case the file test2.txt is created with root ownership. So I deleted it and tried to execute the script via flow with the same result as mentioned my initial post:
The nextcloud log states a script has been executed. But no file test2.txt is created within the docker volume.

[Mailblocker]

Can anyone reproduce this error? I am a little bit stuck here, not sure where the problem is located. Is it me or is this a problem in the combination docker + workflow script?