MCP FileSystem problem

Questions
1

Hey everyone,

I’m Pau, and I’m new to this community. I’m hoping you can help me with a problem I’m having with n8n.

I’m trying to set up a workflow to read files from my VPS server, but I’m running into some serious difficulties. I’ve been working with the ModelContextProtocol (MCP) Filesystem node, and honestly, I’m having a hard time getting it to work.

The Problem I’m Facing

Every time I try to access a file, n8n returns an error saying the file or directory does not exist. I’m pretty sure the file is in the right place and the path is correct, but I just can’t seem to make it work.

Some Technical Details That Might Help

  • I’m using n8n version 1.89.2, self-hosted on my server
  • The node I’m using is n8n-nodes-mcp.mcpClient
  • I’m on the latest node version

Here’s the full error I’m receiving:

NodeOperationError: Failed to execute operation: The file or directory does not exist

What I’ve Already Tried

I’ve checked several aspects to make sure everything is correct:

  • I’ve double-checked that the file path is exactly what I expect
  • I’ve verified the file permissions on my VPS
  • I’ve confirmed that the MCP node is installed correctly

My Main Questions

I’d love some help with these:

  1. How do you correctly configure the credentials for this type of node?
  2. What specific arguments do I need to provide?
  3. Are there any common mistakes I might be making?

To be honest, I’m quite new to n8n and I’m trying to automate some processes on my server. Any advice or suggestions you can give will be greatly appreciated.

I’m eager to learn and solve this problem. If someone could walk me through this step by step, I would be incredibly grateful.

Thanks in advance for your help, Pau

2

Hello, welcome @pablopl94

Could you share your workflow so we can see how we can help?

Thanks

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I’m trying to connect an AI Agent in n8n (with MCP nodes) to a specific folder on my VPS — kind of like how Claude Desktop can browse and read files from your local machine.

Basically, I want the agent to read files directly from a folder on the server, but I’m not sure if this is actually possible. If it is, I can’t seem to find clear documentation on how to do it, or what credentials/config I need to set up to give the agent permission to access that folder.

Has anyone managed to do this? Like, run the MCP FileSystem tool and point it to a specific directory on the server? If so, how did you configure the credentials in n8n and restrict access just to that folder?

Any help would be awesome — thanks!