ownCloud Administrators Manual

Uploading big files > 512MB (as set by default)

The default maximum file size for uploads is 512MB. You can increase this limit up to what your filesystem and operating system allows. There are certain hard limits that cannot be exceeded:

  • < 2GB on 32Bit OS-architecture
  • < 2GB with Server Version 4.5 or older
  • < 2GB on Windows (32Bit and 64Bit)
  • < 2GB with IE6 - IE8
  • < 4GB with IE9 - IE11

64-bit filesystems have much higher limits; consult the documentation for your filesystem.

Note

The ownCloud sync client is not affected by this described upload limits as it is uploading files in smaller chunks.

System Configuration

  • Make sure that the latest version of PHP (at least 5.4.9) is installed
  • Disable user quotas, which makes them unlimited
  • Your temp file or partition has to be big enough to hold multiple parallel uploads from multiple users; e.g. if the max upload size is 10GB and the average users uploading the same time is 100: temp space has to hold at least 10x100 GB

Configuring Your Webserver

ownCloud comes with its own owncloud/.htaccess file. Set the following two parameters inside this .htaccess file:

php_value upload_max_filesize = 16G
php_value post_max_size = 16G

Adjust these values for your needs. If you see PHP timeouts in your logfiles, increase the timeout values, which are in seconds:

php_value max_input_time 3600
php_value max_execution_time 3600

The mod_reqtimeout Apache module could also stop large uploads from completing. If you’re using this module and getting failed uploads of large files either disable it in your Apache config or raise the configured RequestReadTimeout timeouts.

There are also several other configuration option in your webserver config which could prevent the upload of larger files. Please see the manual of your webserver how to configure those values correctly:

Apache with mod_fcgid

Configuring PHP

If you don’t want to use the ownCloud .htaccess file, you may configure PHP instead. Make sure to comment out any lines .htaccess pertaining to upload size, if you entered any.

To view your current PHP configuration and to see the location of your php.ini file, create a plain text file named phpinfo.php with just this single line of code in it: <?php phpinfo(); ?>. Place this file in your Web root, for example /var/www/html, and open it in your Web browser, for example http://localhost/phpinfo.php. This will display your complete current PHP configuration. Look for the Loaded Configuration File section to see which php.ini file your server is using. This is the one you want to edit.

If you are running ownCloud on a 32-bit system, any open_basedir directive in your php.ini file needs to be commented out

Set the following two parameters inside php.ini, using your own desired file size values:

upload_max_filesize = 16G
post_max_size = 16G

Tell PHP which temp file you want it to use:

upload_tmp_dir = /var/big_temp_file/

Output Buffering must be turned off in .htaccess or php.ini, or PHP will return memory-related errors:

  • output_buffering = 0