I love ZimaOS, and I have three small charities who’s IT I support free and they, this years are moving away from the cloud and going to a Simple NAS solution, they like zimaOS and so do I as it just works for most things.
However we have a complex docker install that’s 6 images and around 2TB installed and configured, we have tested this in ubuntu 22.04lts / Debian 12/13 and it works, along with the ZimaOS however they don’t want to work together, the installer is complex and configures, MariaDB, Elastic Search, document management, mail platform, communications and management modules all tied together however, it needs /app to work and after speaking with the software company there is no way around this as they have tried to /DATA/xyz and /media/xyz and it fails.
so I scrap a few potential clients moving to your solution unless I can find a work around
what I need to do is create a directory /app and then map it with fstab to /media/datadrive/product
then I can run the installer and the product works.
the other issue we have is the need for FileZilla to ran so we can copy data direct to the NAS folders,
we have tried this via VM and it fails as the bridge to eth x does not allow you to create a smb connection to the underlying host OS and you can’t add two NICs one bridged to allow the app to run in a VM and one NAT to create the smb to, also the other issue is the VMs don’t restart after a reboot or powerful.
I am aware why the is RO, so please I’m looking for a solution even is I make the OS RW to do this and create the mount points then install and make RO this would resolve my issue.
Thanks
Chris
Chris, I believe this can be solved on ZimaOS without breaking the OS.
1) Create /app using a bind mount (recommended)
Because the vendor hard-requires /app, the clean workaround is to bind-mount /app to a folder on your data drive.
Note: I’m using /media/datadrive/product as a placeholder path because each ZimaOS system mounts disks under a different name (for example /media/ZimaOS-HD/... or /media/<disk-name>/...). The solution is the same either way, you just replace the path with your real one.
sudo mkdir -p /media/datadrive/product
sudo mkdir -p /app
sudo mount --bind /media/datadrive/product /app
Confirm:
mount | grep " /app "
df -h /app
If the installer works after that, make it persistent with /etc/fstab:
sudo nano /etc/fstab
Add:
/media/datadrive/product /app none bind 0 0
Then:
sudo mount -a
If ZimaOS blocks editing fstab due to read-only, I suggest doing the same bind mount via a small startup script/container at boot (no OS modifications needed).
2) FileZilla requirement
I suggest avoiding VM entirely.
Instead, run SFTP in Docker and use FileZilla from your PC/Mac to transfer data directly into the NAS folders. This avoids VM bridge/NIC limitations and reboot auto-start issues.
Good container options:
linuxserver/openssh-serveratmoz/sftp
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/app’: Read-only file system
tried with sudo and as root
I need to switch the OS to RW to create the /app and fstab 
Chris, I believe you are hitting the expected ZimaOS behaviour. The root filesystem / is read-only by design, so you cannot create /app directly, even as root.
The ZimaOS-safe workaround
Instead of changing the OS to RW, I suggest you don’t create /app on the host at all.
Run your 6-container stack in Docker and use a container-level mount so the app still sees /app, but it actually maps to your data disk.
Example (compose style):
services:
yourservice:
volumes:
- /media/<your-disk>/product:/app
This gives you the exact same result the vendor needs (path inside container is /app) without modifying ZimaOS root or fstab.
For the data transfer (FileZilla)
I suggest running SFTP as a container (instead of VM). Then you can upload 2TB using FileZilla from your PC straight into /media/<disk>/... without VM bridge limitations.
this doesn’t work as its and installer that needs /app to work and the software devs said it won’t work any other way due to the complexity of the software and interactions between the various objects
they has to be a way to enable RW on the OS
Chris, the issue is not permissions. ZimaOS mounts the root filesystem (/) as read-only by design, which is why even root gets:
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/app’: Read-only file system
Because of that, creating /app and editing /etc/fstab on the host is not possible using normal Linux methods.
Why we cannot advise “make OS RW”
Yes, there are sometimes ways to remount a read-only OS as RW, but this is a system-level change that can easily:
- break updates
- break boot/recovery behaviour
- corrupt the OS overlay
- brick the device
For that reason, I cannot recommend or provide instructions for forcing ZimaOS into RW mode. The correct RW method (if one exists) must come from IceWhale, because it depends on how ZimaOS is built.
What you should do next
I suggest contacting IceWhale support/community directly and asking for an official supported procedure to temporarily remount the OS RW (create /app, configure mount), and then return it to RO safely.
If IceWhale confirms a supported method, then it’s safe to follow. Without that, doing it manually is a high risk change and nobody here can be responsible if it bricks the system.