Avatar - image won't appear, 403 Forbidden error

Seafile Server
,
1

I’ve been using Seafile for almost a year, and it works wonderfully, but since the very beginning I have not been able to make my avatar image appear in my current (preferred) setup. I get a 403 Forbidden error when I try to view the image directly in a browser. Furthermore, I seem to have the same problem with a custom login background. Both these images were uploaded to my server via Seafile’s settings page.

I’m using the latest Community Edition via docker (see YAML file below), with Traefik as a reverse proxy for HTTPS, but I can also access the instance via my server’s local IP on port 80. I mount the db directory locally on the docker server, and the data directory is mounted via NFS on my NAS.

Here is my compose.yaml:

# seafile
---
services:

  seafiledb:
    image: mariadb:10.11
    container_name: seafile-mysql
    environment:
      - MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=${DB_PASS}
      - MYSQL_LOG_CONSOLE=true
      - MARIADB_AUTO_UPGRADE=1
    volumes:
      - /home/user/docker-config/seafile/db:/var/lib/mysql # local folder on server
    restart: always
    networks:
      - seafile-net

  memcached:
    image: memcached:1.6.18
    container_name: seafile-memcached
    entrypoint: memcached -m 256
    restart: always
    networks:
      - seafile-net

  seafile:
    image: seafileltd/seafile-mc:latest
    container_name: seafile
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      # - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - /nfs/documents/seafile/data:/shared # remote folder on NAS
    environment:
      - DB_HOST=seafiledb
      - DB_ROOT_PASSWD=${DB_PASS}
      - TIME_ZONE=America/XXXXXXX
      # - SEAFILE_ADMIN_EMAIL=
      # - SEAFILE_ADMIN_PASSWORD=
      - SEAFILE_SERVER_LETSENCRYPT=false
      - SEAFILE_SERVER_HOSTNAME=seafile.mydomain.com
      - FORCE_HTTPS_IN_CONF=true
    depends_on:
      - seafiledb
      - memcached
    restart: always
    networks:
      - seafile-net

networks:
  seafile-net:
    name: seafile-net

I did test out a fresh install where the database and data folders are both on the server. In that case, the images work perfectly, but I’m looking to see if I can find a solution for my use case. I don’t have the space to keep the data on the same machine, but I want the server to have direct access to the database locally. Make sense?

Thanks for any help.

2

Please post your nginx configuration for the /media folder.

3

Is this what you need, from seafile.nginx.conf? :

location /media {                                           
    root /opt/seafile/seafile-server-latest/seahub;
}
4

Hi, see this issue Requests for avatars denied with default nginx configuration · Issue #228 · haiwen/seafile-docker · GitHub

In short, check the permissions of the following folders and/or ensure to have 755 on all levels

/shared/seafile/seahub-data/avatars
5

Sorry it took so long to look back into this.

Your tip worked perfectly, thank you so much! I even got the login background image to work by chmod-ing the whole seahub-data folder.

I also double-checked the owner and groups and made sure they were all well and set to root:root, as a few sections were set to root:nogroup, due to my NFS server settings.

Here are the commands I ran:

# /SEAHUB-DATA : recursively for avatars and login background images
chmod -R 755 seahub-data
chown -R root:root seahub-data

# /SEAFILE
chmod 755 seafile
chown root:root seafile

# /SHARED : bind mounted "data" folder
chmod 755 data
chown root:root data
6

Please, what are the parameters of your NFS server? My Seafile only works properly locally; as soon as I switch to NFS, I encounter issues such as unreadable videos, custom logo not displaying, etc. In my fstab, I have added this:

192.168.1.100:/volume1/Docker/seafile /nfs/seafile nfs4 defaults,user,exec 0 0

7

Hard to say exactly what your issue with NFS share is. I’ve been using autofs for quite a while. Once set up, it works wonderfully.

Here are the notes I’ve made for myself, in case they can help you:

Automount & Autofs

Be sure to unmount any previous static mounts with umount and comment out old NFS entries in /etc/fstab. A reboot may be required.

Enable NFS on client machines :

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nfs-common

Install autofs :

sudo apt install autofs

Edit /etc/auto.master :

sudo nano /etc/auto.master

# Add the following line :
/nfs /etc/auto.nfs

Note: /nfs will be the local mount directory for this examples.

Create /etc/auto.nfs

sudo nano /etc/auto.nfs

# Add as many shares as you require :
video -fstype=nfs4 192.168.0.10:/mnt/main/video
documents -fstype=nfs4 192.168.0.15:/mnt/main/documents
# Only need "-fstype=nfs4" if NFS shares use NFSv4

For NFSv4, make changes to /etc/default/nfs-common

sudo nano /etc/default/nfs-common

# make sure these settings are set
NEED_IDMAPD=yes
NEED_GSSD=no # no is default

Reload /etc/init.d/autofs

sudo service autofs reload

Now when you navigate to /nfs/videos you will see the contents of your NFS share.

Note: The mount will only be visible when the directory is accessed directly. So if you go to /nfs the folder will appear to be empty, but going directly to /nfs/videos will reveal the NFS share and will be visible in the file browser for a limited time, but accessible to apps whenever and however often they need to read/write data.

1 Like
8

Hello,

First of all, thank you for your help, and congratulations on your notes, they are very clear and comprehensive. I simply followed them and was able to install Autofs and get it working. Now, my NFS mount is done via AutoFS.

Unfortunately, the issue persists, but at least I’ve made some progress. I now know that the configuration on the Docker server side is correct, thanks to you.

2025-03-23_15h24_17
2025-03-23_15h24_17814×168 2.93 KB

1 Like