☁️Nextcloud - Self Hosted file sync & sharing solution

2023-10-21

Nextcloud is an open-source cloud platform that allows you to store, sync, and share files, calendars, contacts, and more. It provides secure and self-hosted cloud storage solutions, allowing you to have control over your data and privacy.

For this installation, I will be using Ubuntu as my distribution of choice. The below commands will work on any Debian-based distribution.

Step 1

Update repositories

sudo apt update -y

sudo apt upgrade -y

Step 2

Install Apache web server

sudo apt install apache2

Start and enable Apache

sudo systemctl start apache2
sudo systemctl enable apache2

Step 3

Install MariaDB database server

sudo apt install mariadb-server

Secure the database (Follow the instructions after running the command)

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Copy the following code into a file

Create the file

sudo nano adduser.sh

Paste the below code in the file and save the file by pressing Ctrl + x, Y & Enter

#!/bin/bash

# Prompt the user for database details
read -p "Enter the desired database name: " db_name
read -p "Enter the desired username: " username
read -s -p "Enter the desired password: " password
echo

# Access the MariaDB server
mysql -u root -p <<EOF
# Create the database
CREATE DATABASE $db_name;

# Create the user and set the password
CREATE USER '$username'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '$password';

# Grant privileges to the user on the database
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON $db_name.* TO '$username'@'localhost';

# Flush privileges
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

EOF

# Inform the user about the success
echo "Database, username, and password created successfully."

Run the script and set your database credentials

sudo bash adduser.sh

Step 4

Install PHP

sudo apt install php libapache2-mod-php php-mysql

Install PHP Modules

sudo apt install php-zip php-dom php-xmlwriter php-xmlreader php-mbstring php-gd php-simplexml php-curl

Step 5

Download Nextcloud

wget https://download.nextcloud.com/server/releases/latest.tar.bz2

Extract the downloaded file and copy the file contents to the html directory

tar -xvjf latest.tar.bz2

sudo cp -r nextcloud/* /var/www/html/

Set the correct permissions

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/

Open a web browser and navigate to your server's IP address Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the Nextcloud installation. Create an admin account and specify the MySQL database details you set in step 3.