Installing and testing Nextcloud

The free cloud storage software ownCloud has blossomed over the past years into a serious competitor for commercial services like Dropbox and Google Drive. Users wanting to take responsibility for storing their own data can enjoy convenient and frequent synchronization between computers and mobile devices by using a small server fitted with an ownCloud package. NAS device users often find it easy to install ownCloud packages in the official, and sometimes also unofficial, package sources of their system.

However, the ownCloud success story met with a serious setback at the end of last April. The ownCloud founder Frank Karlitschek [1] and a number of the original developers all left the project to pursue development of an ownCloud fork, which they call Nextcloud [2]. Jos Poortvliet, who was previously the community manager for ownCloud and is now responsible for communication for Nextcloud, refers to the undertaking as a "re-start." According to Karlitschek and Poortvliet, the new start was prompted by dissatisfaction arising out of structural problems and various business decisions occurring within the ownCloud organization.

Separation

To carry out this endeavor, Nextcloud is cooperating with Spreed.ME [3], a company that sells a computer named Spreedbox [4], which has a pre-installed video conferencing solution that combines a WebRTC server with ownCloud. Karlitschek and Niels Mache lead the new organization. Before joining Nextcloud, Mache was responsible for Spreed.ME. He was also a co-founder of Red Hat Germany. The goal of the new project is to expand the web application significantly beyond its core functionality and integrate something like the WebRTC server from Spreed and its accompanying application. Additionally, the project officially wants to maintain and support frequently used ownCoud applications, like the calendar and contact administration. They also have plans to cooperate with LibreOffice collaborative editing of office documents in the browser.

The current state of Nextcloud 9.0.50 is not very different from the most recent version of ownCloud (see the "Next- vs. ownCloud" box). Frequently, you can use the directions for installing ownCloud when installing Nextcloud. For my tests, Nextcloud shows what it can do on a system with an Ubuntu server 16.04 with Apache and MariaDB, which was previously known as MySQL. Port forwarding from the router makes it possible to access the home server through the Internet. A free SSL certificate from Let's Encrypt [5] protects the privacy of the user data as it traverses the Internet.

Installation

Before beginning installation of Nextcloud, update the system package sources and install all available updates for the distribution (Listing 1); then, it is time to install the Apache web server and MariaDB, plus all of the Apache and PHP extensions that are needed for the service (Listing 2). Afterward, you should activate the Apache module mod_rewrite for readable URLs and mod_headers for the SSL connection. Next, you should start the web server and let it cycle through one time (Listing 3). Theoretically, SQLite would suffice, but MySQL/MariaDB is recommended for a larger installation when more than two or three users will have access.

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt full-upgrade

$ sudo apt install apache2 mariadb-server libapache2-mod-php php-gd php-json php-mysql php-curl php-intl php-mcrypt php-imagick php-xml php-zip php-mbstring

$ sudo a2enmod rewrite
$ sudo a2enmod headers
$ sudo service apache2 restart

The MariaDB database server, based on the MySQL project, requires a little bit of extra work (Listing 4) involving setting a root password (not to be confused with the root password for the Linux system). The mysql_secure_installation script makes for a secure installation. It requires that you enter the current SQL root password. In the example, the password after running the first command would be secret , although it can be changed easily in the installation script. As a rule, all of the other questions can be answered with Y .

$ sudo mysql -u root
MariaDB [(none)]> update mysql.user set password=password(,secret') where user='root';
MariaDB [(none)]> flush privileges;
MariaDB [(none)]> exit;
$ sudo mysql_secure_installation
NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MariaDB
SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE! PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!
In order to log into MariaDB to secure it, we'll need the current
password for the root user. If you've just installed MariaDB, and
you haven't set the root password yet, the password will be blank,
so you should just press enter here.
Enter current password for root (enter for none): secret
[...]
Change the root password? [Y/n] y
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y

Now all that is missing from Nextcloud is a database to organize the data in the cloud. To create a database, you log in again on the MariaDB server and then use Listing 5, together with suitable rights and settings, to set up the database.

$ sudo mysql -u root -p
MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE nextcloud;
MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE USER ,nextcloud'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY ,secret';
MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON nextcloud.* TO ,nextcloud'@'localhost';
MariaDB [(none)]> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
MariaDB [(none)]> exit;