User Limit

Hard cap on the total number of users per Nextcloud instance. Hooks BeforeUserCreatedEvent and aborts creation once the configured ceiling is reached - covers the web UI, occ user:add, the provisioning API and the registration app.

Install

From the App Store (comming soon)

Not available for now

Manually (Docker)

Copy the folder into the app container's custom_apps/, then enable:

docker cp userlimit <app_container>:/var/www/html/custom_apps/userlimit
docker exec -u www-data <app_container> php occ app:enable userlimit

For a compose setup that does not persist /var/www/html, bind-mount the app read-only instead of copying, and enable it from a startup hook:

volumes:
  - ./apps/userlimit:/var/www/html/custom_apps/userlimit:ro

# hooks/before-starting/10-userlimit.sh   (idempotent, safe every boot)
php occ app:enable userlimit || true
php occ config:app:set userlimit limit --value=5

Configure

Default cap is 5 (enforced immediately on enable)

occ config:app:set userlimit limit --value=10
occ config:app:get userlimit limit
occ config:app:set userlimit limit --value=0   # 0 or negative = disabled

Logs

Structured entries land in nextcloud.log. The blocked-attempt line logs at warning (visible at the default loglevel); permit/debug lines need loglevel <= 1 in config.php.

occ log:watch
grep userlimit /var/www/html/data/nextcloud.log | jq

Behaviour and caveats

• countUsers() counts every backend, LDAP included. To cap local accounts only, count the Database backend specifically.
• Enforces at the application layer. Raw SQL writes to oc_users bypass it; add a DB trigger if that is in your threat model.
• Existing accounts above the cap are never touched — the hook only fires on new creations.
• NC 34's typed AppConfig is strict about value types; the listener degrades to the default on AppConfigTypeConflictException. To clear a bad value: occ config:app:delete userlimit limit, then set it again.