Certification track: Associate Cloud Engineer (ACE)
Nextcloud on Google Cloud Run
Nextcloud is the leading self-hosted file sync and collaboration platform, trusted by 400 million users across 100,000+ organisations — including governments and healthcare providers seeking a GDPR-compliant alternative to Google Drive and OneDrive. This module deploys Nextcloud on Cloud Run v2 on top of the App_CloudRun foundation, which provisions and manages the shared Google Cloud infrastructure.
This guide focuses on the cloud services Nextcloud uses and how to explore and operate them from the Google Cloud Console and the command line. For the mechanics common to every Cloud Run application — service identity, ingress and load balancing, scaling and concurrency, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC Service Controls, backups, and the deployment lifecycle — refer to the App_CloudRun foundation guide rather than repeating them here.
What Nextcloud costs on RAD, and how that compares
Nextcloud on RAD's Cloud Run module costs about US$102 a month, with the module fee charged once in RAD credits. Need Nextcloud to stay up continuously, scale across pods, or run beside other Kubernetes workloads — or see the GKE guide for that option. If you only need it occasionally — a demo, a seasonal project, something you're evaluating — a RAD-managed project can be deleted and restored within 30 days for a handful of credits (under US$1) instead of paying for it to sit idle. See Pause it for free, below. Figures are as at 8 October 2026; sources are listed at the end of this section.
What you pay on RAD
RAD deploys Nextcloud, which is open source, so there is no licence fee per user. You pay for three things:
| In a Google Cloud project you own | In a project RAD manages for you | |
|---|---|---|
| Module fee, once per deployment | 175 credits (US$18 at the top-up price) | 157.5 credits (10% lower) |
| Build time | About 3-6 credits per build | The same |
| Google Cloud running cost | Billed by Google to your own billing account, about US$102 a month for the default configuration (table below) | Metered hourly in credits; RAD publishes 32 credits a day, about 960 a month (about US$96 at the top-up price, US$77 at the Scale plan's rate) |
| Who owns what | You own the project and its billing; RAD deploys and updates it | RAD owns the project, with guardrails, quotas and budget alerts; you get console access, and a minimum purchased balance is held in reserve |
10 credits cost US$1 on a one-off top-up, and less on a monthly plan. In a project RAD manages, the database, file server and network are shared by every application in the project, so a second application does not add a second set of them.
Default running cost in your own project (us-central1, Google list prices):
| Resource (module default) | Per month |
|---|---|
| Cloud Run, 2x vCPU / 4 GiB (scaleToZero) | US$31.53 |
| Cloud SQL for MySQL, 1 vCPU / 3.75 GB, zonal, 10 GB SSD | US$51.02 |
| NFS/cache file server (small VM) | US$13.43 |
| Cloud NAT and networking | US$5 |
| Cloud Storage (add-ons, backups) | US$1 |
| Total | about US$102 |
How it compares
- No turnkey managed SaaS was verified for Nextcloud itself, so the honest comparison is a self-managed server: a Hetzner CPX22 (2 vCPU/4 GB) costs about $24/month, a DigitalOcean 2 vCPU/4 GB Droplet about $24/month, and a GCP Compute Engine e2-standard-2 (2 vCPU/8 GB) about $49/month.
- No managed SaaS offering for this exact open-source project had a published price that fit a typical small-team deployment, so no figure is given here. The realistic comparison for most Nextcloud users is a commercial cloud-storage subscription against a self-hosted copy you fully control, which is the GDPR-compliance argument the module exists for in the first place.
- The VPS price is not the whole cost. On a bare VPS you are also the one patching the OS, rotating backups and keeping the database (if any) healthy. RAD's managed Cloud SQL, Secret Manager and monitoring cover that for you, which is the real argument for RAD over a cheaper box — not the sticker price.
Pause it for free: delete a RAD-managed project, restore it when you need it
If Nextcloud runs in a project RAD manages for you, you have a second option that goes well beyond scaling to zero: delete the whole project, and restore it within 30 days for close to nothing. This suits Nextcloud you only need occasionally — a demo, an evaluation, a seasonal project — far better than running it continuously.
- How it works. Deleting a RAD-managed project unlinks its billing first, then asks Google to delete the project. Google does not remove the project immediately: it keeps it, recoverable, for 30 days. Because billing is already unlinked, nothing is charged while it waits. Unlike deleting one module, this does not tear down the database, the VM or the compute resource one by one — the whole project, and everything in it, simply stops.
- Restoring costs a few credits, not a rebuild. Within 30 days, the project's owner can restore it. RAD asks Google to undelete the project and reattaches its billing account, then asks you to run Update on each deployment to confirm everything came back. Because nothing was individually destroyed, that Update finds the same resources already there — it is a check, not a rebuild, and an Update never charges the module fee again. That costs roughly a handful of credits (under US$1) in total for a typical 2-3-deployment chain.
- So a month of occasional use can cost a few dollars, not US$102. Deploy Nextcloud, use it for a while, delete the project. Restore it next time you want it, confirm with Update, and delete it again when you're done. You pay only for the module fee once, the builds, and whatever time Nextcloud was actually live.
- What this needs. You must own the project (not a bring-your-own one RAD only manages billing for), and you restore it yourself within the 30 days — after that, Google deletes it for good. Restoring is admitted like creating a new project: your purchased credit balance must still clear the tier's floor (100 credits for the sandbox tier most study and demo use fits). Google says most services are fully working again within 36 hours of a restore.
- One real gap: nightly backups don't survive. Backups are written to a bucket inside the project, and that bucket is not protected by Cloud Storage's soft-delete, so it is very likely gone as soon as you delete the project — even though the project itself is recoverable for 30 days. If you've customised Nextcloud and want to keep that work, copy a backup out (to Google Drive, or a bucket outside the project) before you delete. For a default installation with nothing irreplaceable in it, this does not matter.
Pay only while you use it, the other way: delete and redeploy
The option above only applies to a RAD-managed project; in your own project, or once the 30-day window has passed, the way to stop paying is to delete the deployment and deploy it again when you need it.
- What a redeploy costs. The module fee again plus the builds: about 180 credits (US$18) in your own project, or 162 credits in a RAD-managed one. Deleting saves money once Nextcloud would otherwise sit unused for about 5 days or more in your own project (about US$3.40 a day), or about 5 days or more in a RAD-managed one (32 credits a day).
- Most of the running cost is usually the database and any shared file/cache VM. They stop only when nothing else in the project uses them, so deleting Nextcloud while something else shares the project saves only this app's own compute part.
- Keep your data first. Nightly backups go to a bucket inside the deployment and are deleted with it, so copy the latest backup out before deleting if you want to keep it.
Lab sessions and Managed Environments
- Lab sessions, for training. A trainer runs a session for a class. Each participant gets Nextcloud in their own Google Cloud project for 15 minutes to 24 hours, within an allowance the trainer sets. Either the trainer funds every place, or each participant pays for their own. Everything is deleted when the session ends and unused credits go back to the trainer.
- Managed Environments, for consultancies. A partner runs Nextcloud for a client from a ring-fenced wallet it funds, and settles with the client directly. If the wallet runs low, billing pauses and the data is kept, so nobody receives an unexpected charge. At the end the partner hands the project over and the deployments become the client's own.
- Credits can be bought in more than 20 currencies, including XAF, XOF, NGN, GHS, KES and ZAR, by card, bank transfer or mobile money.
Sources (8 October 2026): Google Cloud list prices from the Cloud Billing Catalog API; Delete and restore projects for the 30-day recovery window and what it says about Cloud Storage objects without soft delete; RAD fees and the daily-credit estimates from radmodules.dev/pricing. Prices change; check each source before relying on a figure.
1. Overview
Nextcloud runs as a PHP/Apache container on Cloud Run v2. The deployment wires together a focused set of Google Cloud services:
| Capability | Google Cloud service | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Compute | Cloud Run v2 | PHP/Apache service, 2 vCPU / 4 GiB by default, request-based autoscaling |
| Database | Cloud SQL for MySQL 8.0 | Required — Nextcloud does not support PostgreSQL in this deployment |
| Shared files | Filestore (NFS) | config/ and data/ directories shared across all instances (gen2 required) |
| Object storage | Cloud Storage | A nc-data bucket provisioned per deployment |
| Cache & locking | Redis | Enabled by default; prevents file-locking conflicts across instances |
| Secrets | Secret Manager | Auto-generated admin password; post-install config secrets |
| Ingress | Cloud Run URL / Cloud Load Balancing | Default run.app URL, optional external HTTPS load balancer + custom domain |
Sensible defaults worth knowing up front:
- MySQL 8.0 is mandatory. Selecting PostgreSQL or
NONEbreaks startup. - NFS is enabled by default and requires the gen2 execution environment. All
instances must share
config.phpand the user data directory. Without NFS, every cold start discards files. - Redis is enabled by default. Without a shared cache and lock backend, concurrent writes across instances cause "File is locked" HTTP 503 errors.
- PHP limits are baked into the container image at build time. Changing
php_memory_limit,upload_max_filesize, orpost_max_sizerequires a new Cloud Build run. - The admin password is generated automatically and stored in Secret Manager; you never set it in plain text.
- First-boot is intentionally slow. Nextcloud runs
occ maintenance:installsynchronously before Apache starts. The startup probe allows up to 10 minutes for the first installation to complete. scale-to-zerois the default (min_instance_count = 0). For production deployments with WebDAV sync clients, setmin_instance_count = 1to avoid cold-start disconnections.
2. Google Cloud Services & How to Explore Them
All commands assume PROJECT and REGION are set. Service and resource names are
reported in the deployment Outputs.
A. Cloud Run — the Nextcloud service
Nextcloud runs as a Cloud Run v2 service that autoscales by request load between the minimum and maximum instance counts. Each deployment creates an immutable revision; traffic can be split across revisions for safe rollouts.
- Console: Cloud Run → select the service for revisions, traffic, logs, and metrics.
- CLI:
gcloud run services list --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
gcloud run services describe <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
gcloud run revisions list --service <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
See App_CloudRun for scaling, concurrency, execution environment, and traffic splitting.
B. Cloud SQL for MySQL 8.0
Nextcloud stores all application data (files metadata, users, shares, calendar, and
contacts) in a managed Cloud SQL for MySQL 8.0 instance. The service connects privately
through the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy over a Unix socket (no public IP). On first deploy
an initialization Job creates the application database and user with utf8mb4 character
set and collation.
- Console: SQL → select the instance for connections, backups, flags, metrics.
- CLI:
gcloud sql instances list --project "$PROJECT"
gcloud sql instances describe <instance-name> --project "$PROJECT"
gcloud sql connect <instance-name> --user=<db-user> --project "$PROJECT"
The instance name, database, user, and password secret are in the Outputs. See App_CloudRun for the connection model, backups, and password rotation.
C. Filestore (NFS) and Cloud Storage
Nextcloud user file data is written to a Filestore (NFS) share mounted into every
instance. entrypoint.sh sets NEXTCLOUD_DATA_DIR=<nfs_mount_path>/nextcloud-data (/mnt/nfs/nextcloud-data
by default; the wrapper passes the same nfs_mount_path to the entrypoint as
NFS_MOUNT_PATH, so the mount and the data directory cannot disagree) so all
instances share the same user files. config.php is not stored on NFS — it is
reconstructed locally on every instance from Secret Manager secrets (see §3
"Post-install config secrets" below). A Cloud Storage nc-data bucket is also
provisioned per deployment.
- Console: Filestore → Instances; Cloud Storage → Buckets.
- CLI:
gcloud filestore instances list --project "$PROJECT"
gcloud storage buckets list --project "$PROJECT"
gcloud storage ls gs://<nc-data-bucket>/
See App_CloudRun for the NFS mount, GCS Fuse, and CMEK.
D. Redis cache and file locking
Redis backs Nextcloud's distributed cache (memcache.distributed) and file locking
(filelocking.enabled). With more than one instance this is mandatory — without it,
concurrent writes produce "File is locked" HTTP 503 errors. When no external Redis host
is configured and NFS is enabled, the NFS server IP is used as the default Redis
endpoint.
- Console: Memorystore → Redis (if using a managed instance).
- CLI:
redis-cli -h <redis-host> ping
redis-cli -h <redis-host> info keyspace
E. Secret Manager
The Nextcloud admin password and four post-installation config secrets (instance ID,
password salt, app secret, and optionally the Redis auth password) are stored in
Secret Manager and injected into the service at runtime. The three config secrets
start as "UNSET" placeholder values; the container's post-install hook writes the
real values after occ maintenance:install completes.
- Console: Security → Secret Manager.
- CLI:
gcloud secrets list --project "$PROJECT" --filter="name~nextcloud"
gcloud secrets versions access latest --secret=<admin-password-secret> --project "$PROJECT"
See App_CloudRun for injection and rotation details.
F. Networking & ingress
The service is reachable at its run.app URL by default. An external HTTPS load
balancer with a custom domain, Cloud CDN, and Cloud Armor can be layered on; ingress
settings and VPC egress control connectivity. Custom domains are also added to
Nextcloud's NEXTCLOUD_TRUSTED_DOMAINS list automatically.
- Console: Cloud Run (service URL); Network services → Load balancing.
- CLI:
gcloud run services describe <service-name> --region "$REGION" --format='value(status.url)'
gcloud compute addresses list --project "$PROJECT"
See App_CloudRun.
G. Cloud Logging & Monitoring
Container logs flow to Cloud Logging; Cloud Run and Cloud SQL metrics flow to Cloud Monitoring, with optional uptime checks and alert policies.
- Console: Logging → Logs Explorer; Monitoring → Dashboards / Alerting.
- CLI:
gcloud run services logs read <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION" --limit 50
3. Nextcloud Application Behaviour
- First-deploy database setup. An initialization Job creates the Nextcloud
database and user with
utf8mb4character set before the service starts. It is idempotent. occ maintenance:installon first boot. On the very first start Nextcloud runs its installation routine synchronously before Apache begins serving. This can take several minutes on a cold Cloud SQL instance. The startup probe allows up to 10 minutes (60 s initial delay + 40 failures × 15 s period) for this to complete.- Post-install config secrets. After
occ maintenance:installcompletes, a hook in the container writes the realinstanceid,passwordsalt, andsecretvalues to Secret Manager. Subsequent starts read these back to reconstructconfig.phpwithout requiring NFS. - PHP upgrade on start.
NEXTCLOUD_UPDATE=1is set by default, so Nextcloud runsocc upgradeautomatically on every container start. SetNEXTCLOUD_UPDATE=0inenvironment_variablesand manage upgrades manually when crossing major versions. - Trusted domains. Nextcloud enforces a trusted-domain whitelist. The module seeds
NEXTCLOUD_TRUSTED_DOMAINSfromapplication_domains. The Cloud Run service URL is resolved at startup byentrypoint.shfromCLOUDRUN_SERVICE_URLand also added. Requests from unlisted hostnames receive an "Access through untrusted domain" error. OVERWRITEPROTOCOL=https. Nextcloud is told it sits behind an HTTPS proxy so it generates correct absolute share links and WebDAV URLs.- Health path. Startup and liveness probes target
/status.php, which returns an HTTP 200 with a JSON status object regardless of Nextcloud's setup state — making it the canonical health endpoint. - Admin login. The initial admin username is configurable; the password is retrieved from Secret Manager (see §2.E).
4. Configuration Variables
Variables are grouped exactly as they appear on the deployment platform. Only settings specific to or notable for Nextcloud are listed; every other input is inherited from App_CloudRun with its standard behaviour.
Group 1 — Project & Identity
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
project_id | (required) | Target Google Cloud project. |
region | us-central1 | Region for the service and regional resources. |
Group 2 — Deployment Environment
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
tenant_id | demo | Short suffix that makes resource names unique per environment. |
support_users | [] | Emails granted project access and monitoring alerts. |
resource_labels | {} | Labels applied to all resources. |
Group 3 — Application Identity
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
application_name | nextcloud | Base name for resources. Do not change after first deploy. |
display_name | Nextcloud | Friendly name shown in the Console. |
description | Nextcloud self-hosted collaboration and file sharing platform | Cloud Run service description. |
application_version | 31 | Nextcloud image version tag. |
Group 4 — Runtime & Scaling
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
deploy_application | true | Set false to provision infrastructure only. |
cpu_limit | 2000m | CPU per instance; 2 vCPU recommended. |
memory_limit | 4Gi | Memory per instance; 4 GiB recommended. |
min_instance_count | 0 | Minimum instances; set to 1 to avoid cold starts for WebDAV clients. |
max_instance_count | 1 | Maximum instances. Requires Redis + NFS when > 1. |
container_port | 80 | Nextcloud/Apache listens on port 80. |
execution_environment | gen2 | Gen2 required for NFS mounts. |
enable_cloudsql_volume | true | Cloud SQL Auth Proxy for socket connections. |
enable_image_mirroring | true | Mirror the Nextcloud image into Artifact Registry. |
Group 5 — Access & Ingress Control
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
ingress_settings | all | Which networks may reach the service. |
vpc_egress_setting | PRIVATE_RANGES_ONLY | How outbound traffic is routed through the VPC connector. |
enable_iap | false | Require Google sign-in via Identity-Aware Proxy. |
iap_authorized_users / iap_authorized_groups | [] | Who may access through IAP. |
Group 6 — Environment Variables & Secrets
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
environment_variables | {} | Extra non-secret settings. Core Nextcloud vars are set automatically. |
secret_environment_variables | {} | Map of env var → Secret Manager secret name. |
secret_propagation_delay | 30 | Seconds to wait after secret creation before proceeding. |
secret_rotation_period | 2592000s | Secret Manager rotation notification frequency. |
Group 7 — Backup & Restore
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
backup_schedule | 0 2 * * * | Automated backup cron (UTC). |
backup_retention_days | 7 | Retention; raise for production/compliance. |
enable_backup_import / backup_source / backup_uri / backup_format | restore options | Restore from a backup on deploy. |
Group 8 — CI/CD & Binary Authorization
Standard App_CloudRun Cloud Build / Cloud Deploy integration — see
App_CloudRun. Key inputs: enable_cicd_trigger,
github_repository_url, github_token, enable_cloud_deploy,
enable_binary_authorization, binauthz_evaluation_mode.
Group 9 — Custom SQL
enable_custom_sql_scripts, custom_sql_scripts_bucket, custom_sql_scripts_path,
custom_sql_scripts_use_root — run SQL from a GCS bucket after provisioning. See
App_CloudRun.
Group 10 — Load Balancer, CDN & Image Retention
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
enable_cloud_armor | false | Provision Global HTTPS LB + Cloud Armor WAF. |
admin_ip_ranges | [] | CIDRs exempted from WAF rules. |
application_domains | [] | Custom domain names for the HTTPS LB; also added to NEXTCLOUD_TRUSTED_DOMAINS. |
enable_cdn | false | Enable Cloud CDN on the LB backend. |
max_images_to_retain / delete_untagged_images / image_retention_days | (set) | Artifact Registry cleanup policy. |
Group 11 — Storage & Filesystem
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
create_cloud_storage | true | Provision the nc-data bucket. |
storage_buckets | [] | Additional GCS buckets to provision. |
enable_nfs | true | Shared Filestore volume for Nextcloud config and data. Requires gen2. |
nfs_mount_path | /mnt/nfs | Mount path inside the container. User data goes to <nfs_mount_path>/nextcloud-data. |
nfs_instance_name / nfs_instance_base_name | (set) | Existing NFS instance / base name for an inline one. |
gcs_volumes | [] | GCS buckets to mount via GCS Fuse. |
manage_storage_kms_iam / enable_artifact_registry_cmek | false | CMEK options. |
Group 12 — Database Backend
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
database_type | MYSQL_8_0 | Fixed — do not change. |
db_name | nextcloud | Database name. Immutable after first deploy. |
db_user | nextcloud | Application user. Immutable after first deploy. |
database_password_length | 32 | Generated password length (16–64). |
enable_auto_password_rotation / rotation_propagation_delay_sec | off | DB password rotation. |
db_host_env_var_name / db_name_env_var_name / db_user_env_var_name / db_port_env_var_name / service_url_env_var_name | "" | Additional env var names under which connection details are injected. |
Group 13 — Jobs & Scheduled Tasks
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
initialization_jobs | [] | Leave empty to use the built-in db-init job. |
cron_jobs | [] | Recurring Cloud Run jobs triggered by Cloud Scheduler. |
Group 14 — Observability & Health
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
startup_probe | { path="/status.php", initial_delay_seconds=60, failure_threshold=40 } | Allows up to ~10 minutes for first-boot occ maintenance:install. |
liveness_probe | { path="/status.php", initial_delay_seconds=120, failure_threshold=3 } | Restarts the instance after 3 consecutive failures. |
uptime_check_config | { enabled=false, path="/" } | Cloud Monitoring uptime check; disabled by default. |
alert_policies | [] | Metric alert policies. |
Group 21 — Redis Cache
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
enable_redis | true | Use Redis for distributed caching and file locking. |
redis_host | "" | Leave empty to use the NFS server IP; set explicitly when NFS is disabled. |
redis_port | 6379 | Redis port. |
redis_auth | "" | Optional Redis auth password (sensitive). |
Group 22 — VPC Service Controls & Audit Logging
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
enable_vpc_sc | false | Enforce a VPC-SC perimeter (requires organization_id). |
vpc_cidr_ranges / vpc_sc_dry_run | (set) | Access level CIDRs / dry-run mode. |
enable_audit_logging | false | Detailed Cloud Audit Logs. |
Group 23 — Nextcloud Application Settings
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
nextcloud_admin_user | admin | Initial administrator username. Change from the default for public-facing deployments. |
php_memory_limit | 512M | PHP memory limit — baked into the container image at build time. |
upload_max_filesize | 512M | Maximum upload file size — baked into the image. |
post_max_size | 512M | PHP POST body limit — must be ≥ upload_max_filesize. |
Group 24 — Email / SMTP
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
smtp_host | "" | SMTP server hostname. Leave empty to disable email. |
smtp_secure | "" | Encryption: ssl, tls, or empty for none. |
smtp_port | "" | SMTP port; defaults to mode default when empty. |
smtp_authtype | LOGIN | Authentication mechanism: LOGIN, PLAIN, or NONE. |
smtp_name | "" | SMTP login username. |
mail_from_address | "" | Local part of the From address (before the @). |
mail_domain | "" | Domain part of the From address (after the @). |
5. Outputs
Returned on a successful deployment — the quickest way to locate and explore the running resources.
| Output | Description |
|---|---|
service_name | Cloud Run service name. |
service_url | Default run.app URL of the service. |
service_location | Region the service runs in. |
stage_services | Stage-specific service URLs (Cloud Deploy). |
load_balancer_ip / load_balancer_url | External HTTPS load balancer IP / URL (when enabled). |
database_instance_name | Cloud SQL instance name. |
database_name / database_user | Application database name / user. |
database_password_secret | Secret Manager secret holding the DB password. |
database_host / database_port | DB endpoint / port. |
storage_buckets | Created Cloud Storage buckets. |
network_name / network_exists / regions | VPC network, presence, regions. |
container_image / container_registry | Deployed image and Artifact Registry repo. |
monitoring_enabled / monitoring_notification_channels / uptime_check_names | Monitoring status, channels, uptime checks. |
initialization_jobs | Names of the setup jobs. |
deployment_id / tenant_id / resource_prefix | Naming identifiers. |
project_id / project_number | Project identifiers. |
cicd_enabled / github_repository_url / github_repository_owner / github_repository_name / cicd_configuration | CI/CD status and details. |
artifact_registry_repository / cloudbuild_trigger_name / cloudbuild_trigger_id | Registry and build trigger. |
vpc_sc_enabled / vpc_sc_perimeter_name / vpc_sc_dry_run_mode | VPC-SC status. |
audit_logging_enabled / artifact_registry_cmek_enabled | Audit logging and CMEK status. |
6. Configuration Pitfalls & Sensible Defaults
Risk: Critical (data loss / outage / security) — High (service degraded) — Medium (cost or partial degradation) — Low (minor).
| Setting | Sensible value | Risk | Consequence if wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
database_type | MYSQL_8_0 | Critical | Nextcloud requires MySQL; other engines break the init job and startup. |
enable_nfs | true | Critical | Without shared storage all user files and config.php are lost on each cold start. |
enable_cloudsql_volume | true | Critical | Nextcloud connects via Unix socket; removing the sidecar breaks all DB connections. |
db_name / db_user | set once | Critical | Immutable after first deploy; renaming recreates the DB/user and destroys data. |
application_domains | include all access hostnames | Critical | Nextcloud blocks requests from unlisted domains with "Access through untrusted domain". |
enable_backup_import | false unless restoring | Critical | Enabling without a valid backup_uri fails the import job. |
execution_environment | gen2 | Critical | NFS mounts require gen2; gen1 cannot mount NFS and the service fails to start. |
enable_redis | true | High | With > 1 instance, file locks become stale and concurrent writes return HTTP 503. |
redis_host | "" or explicit IP | High | No valid Redis endpoint when NFS is off and no host is set. |
upload_max_filesize / post_max_size | increase for large files | High | Baked into image; files above the limit silently fail. post_max_size must be ≥ upload_max_filesize. |
memory_limit | 4Gi | High | Too little memory causes PHP OOM during large uploads or thumbnail generation. |
NEXTCLOUD_UPDATE | 1 (default) or 0 | High | Leaving 1 on a major-version upgrade can corrupt the database. Set to 0 and run occ upgrade manually. |
min_instance_count | 1 for WebDAV use | Medium | Scale-to-zero causes cold-start disconnections for desktop sync clients. |
max_instance_count > 1 | requires Redis + NFS | High | Multiple instances without Redis cause file-locking errors and possible data corruption. |
php_memory_limit | 512M (raise for heavy use) | Medium | Baked into image; requires rebuild to change. |
nextcloud_admin_user | change from admin | Medium | Default admin is a common brute-force target on public deployments. |
enable_iap / enable_cloud_armor | enable for admin-facing | Medium | Without these the Nextcloud admin panel is publicly reachable. |
backup_retention_days | 7 (raise for prod) | Medium | Too short for compliance retention. |
For the foundation behaviour referenced throughout — service identity, scaling and concurrency, ingress and load balancing, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC-SC, backups, and image mirroring — see App_CloudRun. Nextcloud-specific application configuration shared with the GKE variant is described in Nextcloud_Common.
Related guides
- Hands-on lab: Nextcloud on Cloud Run — deploy it step by step, with the console screens and commands at each stage.
- Nextcloud on GKE Autopilot — the same application on Kubernetes, for when you need the other deployment target.
- Nextcloud Common — Shared Application Configuration — the configuration shared by both deployment targets.
- Deployed alongside Dolibarr on Google Cloud Run, Invoice Ninja on Google Cloud Run, Kimai on Google Cloud Run, Docuseal on Google Cloud Run in the Small Business Suite solution.
Need RAD to do something it does not do yet? Request it on the roadmap, or vote on what is already there.