Nextcloud

Related articles

• Apache HTTP Server
• Nginx
• OpenSSL
• WebDAV

From Wikipedia:Nextcloud:

Nextcloud is a suite of client-server software for creating and using file hosting services. It is functionally similar to Dropbox, although Nextcloud is free and open-source, allowing anyone to install and operate it on a private server. In contrast to proprietary services like Dropbox, the open architecture allows adding additional functionality to the server in form of applications.

Nextcloud is a fork of ownCloud. For differences between the two, see Wikipedia:Nextcloud#Differences from ownCloud.

Prerequisites

Nextcloud requires several components:[1]

• A web server: Apache HTTP Server or nginx
• A database: MariaDB/MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite or Oracle Database
• PHP with additional modules

These will be configured in #PHP setup.

Make sure the required components are installed before proceeding.

Installation

Install the nextcloud package.

Configuration

The web application is configured in /etc/webapps/nextcloud/config/config.php.

Note: Nextcloud should store user data in /var/lib/nextcloud/data/, as that directory is only accessible by root and the application itself. For the installation of apps using the web application /var/lib/nextcloud/apps/ should be used.

Data directory

By default nextcloud stores its user data in /var/lib/nextcloud/data/. This location is configurable:

/etc/webapps/nextcloud/config/config.php

$CONFIG = [
/* [..] */
'datadirectory' => '/var/lib/nextcloud/data',
/* [..] */
]

Note: The datadirectory needs to be writable by the nextcloud user.

Writable apps directory

The default apps location in /usr/share/webapps/nextcloud/apps/ is not writable to the nextcloud user, as it is part of the package.

To be able to install apps from the app store, it is possible to use a separate, writable apps directory. This defaults to /var/lib/nextcloud/apps/ and is accessible via a symlink (/usr/share/webapps/nextcloud/wapps) in the web application's root directory.

The directories are configurable:

/etc/webapps/nextcloud/config/config.php

$CONFIG = [
/* [..] */
'apps_paths' => [
        [
                'path'=> '/usr/share/webapps/nextcloud/apps',
                'url' => '/apps',
                'writable' => false,
        ],
        [
                'path'=> '/var/lib/nextcloud/apps',
                'url' => '/wapps',
                'writable' => true,
        ],
],
/* [..] */
]

Note:

• The apps_paths entry declared as writable needs to be writable by the nextcloud user. Additionally a symlink to that directory needs to be created in /usr/share/webapps/nextcloud/.
• The above syntax uses php's short array syntax. The same could be written in the syntax most guides use:

/etc/webapps/nextcloud/config/config.php

$CONFIG = (
/* [..] */
  'apps_paths' => array (
        0 => array (
                'path' => '/usr/share/webapps/nextcloud/apps',
                'url' => '/apps',
                'writable' => false,
        ),
        1 => array (
                'path' => '/var/lib/nextcloud/apps',
                'url' => '/wapps',
                'writable' => true,
        ),
  ),
/* [..] */
)

Log directory

By default logs are created in /var/log/nextcloud/nextcloud.log. This location is configurable:

/etc/webapps/nextcloud/config/config.php

$CONFIG = [
/* [..] */
'logfile' => '/var/log/nextcloud/nextcloud.log',
]
/* [..] */

Database setup

An SQL database must be set up and used for your Nextcloud installation. After setting up the database here, you will be prompted for its information when you first create an administrator account.

MariaDB

Note: Create or convert the database with MySQL 4-byte support in order to use Emojis (textbased smilies) on your Nextcloud server [2].

If you want to use Emojis, replace the following CREATE DATABASE... with:

mysql> CREATE DATABASE nextcloud DEFAULT CHARACTER SET 'utf8mb4' COLLATE 'utf8mb4_general_ci';

It is recommended to set up an own database and user when using MariaDB:

$ mysql -u root -p

mysql> CREATE DATABASE nextcloud DEFAULT CHARACTER SET 'utf8' COLLATE 'utf8_unicode_ci';
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON nextcloud.* TO 'nextcloud'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> \q

PostgreSQL

The following is an example of setting up a PostgreSQL user and database:

[postgres]$ createuser -h localhost -P nextcloud

Enter password for new role:
Enter it again:

[postgres]$ createdb -O nextcloud nextcloud

PHP setup

Tip: For all prerequisite PHP modules, see upstream documentation.

Make sure that session.save_path is configured. Install PHP#gd and php-intl as additional modules. Configure OPcache as recommended by the documentation.

Some apps (e.g. News) require the iconv extension. If you wish to use these apps, uncomment the extension in /etc/php/php.ini.

Depending on which database backend will be used:

• For MySQL, see PHP#MySQL/MariaDB.
• For PostgreSQL, see PHP#PostgreSQL.
• For SQLite, see PHP#Sqlite.

Performance may be improved through the implementation of caching, see Configuring Memory Caching on the official documentation for details.

Nextcloud setup

occ is a command-line tool that can be used to control Nextcloud. It is located in /usr/share/webapps/nextcloud/occ and should be run as the nextcloud user. A wrapper is provided in /usr/bin/occ which will run the command using sudo.

To set up Nextcloud, you can use the $ occ maintenance:install command. See Nextcloud documentation for more details. For example, to set up Nextcloud with PostgreSQL:

$ occ maintenance:install --database pgsql --database-name nextcloud --database-host localhost --database-user nextcloud --database-pass=<password> --data-dir /var/lib/nextcloud/data/

Alternatively, set up Nextcloud on a web server, then navigate to your Nextcloud instance in a web browser to access an installation wizard. Enter your database details and the location of the data directory.

Configure caching

It is recommended to enable caching. The Nextcloud documentation provides instructions on Redis, Memcached and APCu.

Install notify_push

To lower the impact of desktop and web clients on your server (polling for file activity and other notifications), you may want to install the notify_push app. You can do so via the web interface or with nextcloud-app-notify_push^AUR. More information can be found on the initial blog post.

Hosting

Note: Nextcloud needs to be run as its own user and group (i.e. nextcloud). It is using /etc/webapps/nextcloud/, /var/lib/nextcloud/, /var/log/nextcloud/ and /run/nextcloud/ for configurations, state data (data and apps from the app store), logs and (potentially) sockets (respectively)!

As stated above, in order to set up Nextcloud, you must set up the appropriate PHP requirements; additionally, you must configure a database and a webserver.

Web server setup

Warning: It is recommended to use HTTPS instead of plain HTTP, see Apache HTTP Server#TLS or Nginx#TLS for examples and implement this in the examples given below.

Depending on which web server you are using, further setup is required, indicated below.

Apache

If you have not already, install Apache HTTP Server and install and enable Apache's PHP module

Copy the Apache configuration file to the configuration directory:

# cp /usr/share/doc/nextcloud/apache.example.conf /etc/httpd/conf/extra/nextcloud.conf

Modify the file according to your preferences. By default it includes an alias for /nextcloud pointing to /usr/share/webapps/nextcloud.

And include it in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:

Include conf/extra/nextcloud.conf

Ensure that the root location of your Nextcloud installation (e.g., /usr/share/webapps/nextcloud) is accessible by the webserver's user http.

Now restart Apache (httpd.service).

If nextcloud keeps reporting an internal server error depending on your setup it might be needed to allow apache to access your files using nextcloud user permission. Install mod_itk and add this to your vhost setup:

/etc/httpd/conf/extra/nextcloud.conf

   <IfModule mpm_itk_module>
       AssignUserId nextcloud nextcloud
   </IfModule>

/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

LoadModule mpm_itk_module modules/mpm_itk.so

Note:

Be aware however that mpm_itk is not compatible with threading, so the Apache server cannot use mpm_event_module nor mpm_worker_module. You will get an error message such as `mpm-itk cannot use threaded MPMs; please use prefork`. For a discussion of pros and cons of these see this Serverfault question (mpm_itk is derived from mpm_prefork). mod_php is not compatible with threaded mpm's either, so unless you are using php-fpm you probably are already "stuck" on mpm_prefork_module. However, note also that the http2_module is not compatible with mpm_prefork_module and hence with mpm_itk…

WebDAV

Nextcloud comes with its own WebDAV implementation enabled, which may conflict with the one shipped with Apache. If you have enabled WebDAV in Apache (not enabled by default), disable the modules mod_dav and mod_dav_fs in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf. See [3] for details.

With php-fpm

Set up #php-fpm if you want to use it as a FastCGI handler with Apache. Then set it as the request handler for PHP files:

/etc/httpd/conf/extra/php-fpm.conf

DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
<FilesMatch \.php$>
  SetHandler "proxy:unix:/run/nextcloud/nextcloud.sock|fcgi://localhost/"
</FilesMatch>

Place <FilesMatch> section directly in <VirtualHost> if you use virtual hosts.

php-fpm

php-fpm is PHP's FastCGI implementation. It can be used by web servers that support the protocol.

Add an additional pool that runs as the nextcloud user/group:

/etc/php/php-fpm.d/nextcloud.conf

[nextcloud]
user = nextcloud
group = nextcloud
listen = /run/nextcloud/nextcloud.sock
env[PATH] = /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin
env[TMP] = /tmp

; should be accessible by your web server
listen.owner = http
listen.group = http

pm = dynamic
pm.max_children = 15
pm.start_servers = 2
pm.min_spare_servers = 1
pm.max_spare_servers = 3

The php-fpm service runs with the system mounted as read-only for hardening purposes, so it is necessary to explicitly grant write permissions on the appropriate Nextcloud paths. Edit php-fpm.service to create a drop-in file and save it with the following contents:

/etc/systemd/system/php-fpm.service.d/override.conf

[Service]
# Your data directory
ReadWritePaths=/var/lib/nextcloud/data

# Optional: add if you've set the default apps directory to be writable in config.php
ReadWritePaths=/usr/share/webapps/nextcloud/apps

# Optional: unnecessary if you've set 'config_is_read_only' => true in your config.php
ReadWritePaths=/usr/share/webapps/nextcloud/config
ReadWritePaths=/etc/webapps/nextcloud/config

# Optional: add if you want to use Nextcloud's internal update process
# ReadWritePaths=/usr/share/webapps/nextcloud

Enable and start the php-fpm service.

Nginx

Make sure #php-fpm has been configured correctly.

Create a server block and add the content according to the Nextcloud documentation.

Use unix:/run/nextcloud/nextcloud.sock as server in the upstream php-handler block and /usr/share/webapps/nextcloud as root location:

/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/nextcloud

upstream php-handler {
    server unix:/run/nextcloud/nextcloud.sock;
}

# ...

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
    # ...
    root /usr/share/webapps/nextcloud;
    # ...
}

See nginx#FastCGI for more information on using FastCGI with nginx.

lighttpd

Enable lighttpd#FastCGI, e.g. by adding server.modules += ( "mod_fastcgi" ) to /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf.

Create a link to /usr/share/webapps/nextcloud in your /srv/http/ directory (or configured root).

Security Hardening

See the Nextcloud documentation and Security. Nextcloud additionally provides a Security scanner.

uWSGI

You can run Nextcloud in its own process and service by using the uWSGI application server with uwsgi-plugin-php. This allows you to define a PHP configuration only for this instance of PHP, without the need to edit the global php.ini and thus keeping your web application configurations compartmentalized. uWSGI itself has a wealth of features to limit the resource use and to harden the security of the application, and by being a separate process it can run under its own user.

The only part that differs from #Nginx is the location ~ \.php(?:$|/) {} block:

  location ~ \.php(?:$|/) {
    include uwsgi_params;
    uwsgi_modifier1 14;
    # Avoid duplicate headers confusing OC checks
    uwsgi_hide_header X-Frame-Options;
    uwsgi_hide_header X-XSS-Protection;
    uwsgi_hide_header X-Content-Type-Options;
    uwsgi_hide_header X-Robots-Tag;
    uwsgi_pass unix:/run/uwsgi/nextcloud.sock;
    }

Then create a config file for uWSGI:

/etc/uwsgi/nextcloud.ini

[uwsgi]
; load the required plugins
plugins = php
; force the sapi name to 'apache', this will enable the opcode cache  
php-sapi-name = apache

; set master process name and socket
; '%n' refers to the name of this configuration file without extension
procname-master = uwsgi %n
master = true
socket = /run/uwsgi/%n.sock

; drop privileges
uid    = nextcloud
gid    = nextcloud
umask  = 022

; run with at least 1 process but increase up to 4 when needed
processes = 4
cheaper = 1

; reload whenever this config file changes
; %p is the full path of the current config file
touch-reload = %p

; disable uWSGI request logging
;disable-logging = true

; enforce a DOCUMENT_ROOT
php-docroot     = /usr/share/webapps/%n
; limit allowed extensions
php-allowed-ext = .php
; and search for index.php if required
php-index = index.php

; set php configuration for this instance of php, no need to edit global php.ini
php-set = date.timezone=Etc/UTC
;php-set = open_basedir=/tmp/:/usr/share/webapps/nextcloud:/etc/webapps/nextcloud:/dev/urandom
php-set = expose_php=false
; avoid security risk of leaving sessions in world-readable /tmp
php-set = session.save_path=/var/lib/nextcloud/data

; port of php directives set upstream in /usr/share/webapps/nextcloud/.user.ini for use with PHP-FPM
php-set = upload_max_filesize=513M
php-set = post_max_size=513M
php-set = memory_limit=512M
php-set = output_buffering=off

; load all extensions only in this instance of php, no need to edit global php.ini
;; required core modules
php-set = extension=gd
php-set = extension=iconv
;php-set = extension=zip     # enabled by default in global php.ini

;; database connectors
;; uncomment your selected driver
;php-set = extension=pdo_sqlite
;php-set = extension=pdo_mysql
;php-set = extension=pdo_pgsql

;; recommended extensions
;php-set = extension=curl    # enabled by default in global php.ini
php-set = extension=bz2
php-set = extension=intl

;; required for specific apps
;php-set = extension=ldap    # for LDAP integration
;php-set = extension=ftp     # for FTP storage / external user authentication
;php-set = extension=imap    # for external user authentication, requires php-imap

;; recommended for specific apps
;php-set = extension=exif    # for image rotation in pictures app, requires exiv2
;php-set = extension=gmp     # for SFTP storage

;; for preview generation
;; provided by packages in AUR
; php-set = extension=imagick

; opcache
php-set = zend_extension=opcache

; user cache
; provided by php-acpu, to be enabled **either** here **or** in /etc/php/conf.d/apcu.ini
php-set = extension=apcu
; per https://github.com/krakjoe/apcu/blob/simplify/INSTALL
php-set = apc.ttl=7200
php-set = apc.enable_cli=1

; web server is already handling URL rewriting, so tell NextCloud not to repeat this
env = front_controller_active=true

cron2 = minute=-15,unique=1 /usr/bin/php -f /usr/share/webapps/nextcloud/cron.php 1>/dev/null

Note:

• Do not forget to set your timezone and uncomment the required database connector in the uWSGI config file
• The open_basedir directive is optional and commented out. You can uncomment to harden security. Be aware that it may occasionally break things.
• Use php-docroot = /usr/share/webapps if placing nextcloud in /nextcloud subdirectory.

Warning: The way the Nextcloud background job is currently set up with uWSGI cron will make use of the default global configuration from /etc/php/php.ini. This means that none of the specific parameters defined (e.g. required modules) will be enabled, leading to various issues. One solution is to copy /etc/php/php.ini to e.g. /etc/uwsgi/cron-php.ini, make the required modifications there (mirroring /etc/uwsgi/nextcloud.ini parameters) and referencing it in the cron directive by adding the -c /etc/uwsgi/cron-php.ini option to php invocation.

Activation

uWSGI provides a template unit that allows to start and enable application using their configuration file name as instance identifier. For example, starting uwsgi@nextcloud.socket would start it on demand referencing the configuration file /etc/uwsgi/nextcloud.ini.

To enable the uwsgi service by default at start-up, enable uwsgi@nextcloud.socket.

Note: Here we make use of systemd socket activation to prevent unnecessary resources consumption when no connections are made to the instance. If you would rather have it constantly active, simply remove the .socket part to start and enable the service instead.

See also UWSGI#Running uWSGI.

Synchronization

Desktop

The official client can be installed with the nextcloud-client package. Alternative versions are available in the AUR: nextcloud-client-git^AUR. Please keep in mind that it is not supported to use the owncloud-client with Nextcloud. Additional packages are needed for some features:

• Auto-login: All of them use qtkeychain-qt5 to store and retrieve account-specific access tokens. To achieve auto-login when the client starts, one of optional dependencies of qtkeychain should be installed as well. Moreover, if you choose libsecret as the backend for qtkeychain, a service that provides org.freedesktop.secrets should be running when the client starts.
• File manager integration: for nextcloud-client, integration with file managers (e.g., show Nextcloud folders in GTK+ file dialogs) requires another package nextcloud-client-cloudproviders. nextcloud-client already includes cloudproviders supports by default.

Thunderbird

Calendar

To access your Nextcloud calendars using Mozilla Thunderbird's Lightning calendar you would use the following URL:

https://ADDRESS/remote.php/caldav/calendars/USERNAME/CALENDARNAME

To access your Nextcloud calendars using CalDAV-compatible programs like Kontact or Evolution, you would use the following URL:

https://ADDRESS/remote.php/caldav

For details see the official documentation.

Contacts

To sync contacts with Thunderbird, follow the official documentation.

Mounting files with davfs2

If you want to mount your Nextcloud using WebDAV, install davfs2 (as described in davfs2).

To mount your Nextcloud, use:

# mount -t davfs https://your_domain/nextcloud/remote.php/dav/files/username/ /path/to/mount

You can also create an entry for this in /etc/fstab

/etc/fstab

https://your_domain/nextcloud/remote.php/dav/files/username/ /path/to/mount davfs rw,user,noauto 0 0

Tip: In order to allow automount you can also store your username (and password if you like) in a file as described in davfs2#Storing credentials.

Note: If creating/copying files is not possible, while the same operations work on directories, see davfs2#Creating/copying files not possible and/or freezes.

Mounting files in GNOME Files (Nautilus)

You can access the files directly in Nautilus ('+ Other Locations') through WebDAV protocol - use the link as shown in your Nextcloud installation Web GUI (typically: https://example.org/remote.php/webdav/) but replace the protocol name from 'https' to 'davs'. Nautilus will ask for user name and password when trying to connect.

Android

Download the official Nextcloud app from Google Play or F-Droid.

To enable contacts and calendar sync (Android 4+):

1. download DAVx⁵ (Play Store, F-Droid)
2. Enable mod_rewrite.so in httpd.conf
3. create a new DAVdroid account in the Account settings, and specify your "short" server address and login/password couple, e.g. https://cloud.example.com (there is no need for the /remote.php/{carddav,webdav} part if you configured your web server with the proper redirections, as illustrated previously in the article; DAVdroid will find itself the right URLs)

iOS

Download the official Nextcloud app from the App Store.

Tips and tricks

Using the ownCloud console

A useful tool for server administration is occ, documented here. You can perform many common server operations with occ, such as managing users and configuring apps.

Tip: A convenience wrapper around /usr/share/webapps/nextcloud/occ is provided with /usr/bin/occ, which automatically runs as the default user (nextcloud), using the default PHP and PHP configuration file. The environment variables NEXTCLOUD_USER, NEXTCLOUD_PHP and NEXTCLOUD_PHP_CONFIG can be used to specify a non-default user, PHP executable and PHP configuration file (respectively).

Warning: When using php-apcu for caching, make sure to set apc.enable_cli=1 in /etc/php/conf.d/apcu.ini, as the occ command will otherwise run out of memory (FS#69726).

Pacman hook

To automatically upgrade the Nextcloud database on package update, you can make use of the included pacman hook:

 # mkdir -vp /etc/pacman.d/hooks
 # ln -sv /usr/share/doc/nextcloud/nextcloud.hook /etc/pacman.d/hooks/

Note: The packaged pacman hook implies, that the global php.ini is used for the application.

Running Nextcloud in a subdirectory

By including the default nextcloud.conf in httpd.conf, Nextcloud will take control of port 80 and your localhost domain.

If you would like to have Nextcloud run in a subdirectory, then

For apache, edit the /etc/httpd/conf/extra/nextcloud.conf you included and comment out the <VirtualHost *:80> ... </VirtualHost> part of the include file.

For nginx, you can use the following config when using Nextcloud with uwsgi:

/etc/nginx/conf.d/nextcloud.conf

location = /.well-known/carddav {
  return 301 $scheme://$host/nextcloud/remote.php/dav;
}

location = /.well-known/caldav {
  return 301 $scheme://$host/nextcloud/remote.php/dav;
}

location /.well-known/acme-challenge { }

location ^~ /nextcloud {

  root /usr/share/webapps;

  # set max upload size
  client_max_body_size 512M;
  fastcgi_buffers 64 4K;

  # Disable gzip to avoid the removal of the ETag header
  gzip off;

  # Uncomment if your server is build with the ngx_pagespeed module
  # This module is currently not supported.
  #pagespeed off;

  location /nextcloud {
    rewrite ^ /nextcloud/index.php$uri;
  }

  location ~ ^/nextcloud/(?:build|tests|config|lib|3rdparty|templates|data)/ {
    deny all;
  }

  location ~ ^/nextcloud/(?:\.|autotest|occ|issue|indie|db_|console) {
    deny all;
  }

  location ~ ^/nextcloud/(?:updater|ocs-provider)(?:$|/) {
    try_files $uri/ =404;
    index index.php;
  }

  location ~ ^/nextcloud/(?:index|remote|public|cron|core/ajax/update|status|ocs/v[12]|updater/.+|ocs-provider/.+|core/templates/40[34])\.php(?:$|/) {
    include uwsgi_params;
    uwsgi_modifier1 14;
    # Avoid duplicate headers confusing OC checks
    uwsgi_hide_header X-Frame-Options;
    uwsgi_hide_header X-XSS-Protection;
    uwsgi_hide_header X-Content-Type-Options;
    uwsgi_hide_header X-Robots-Tag;
    uwsgi_pass unix:/run/uwsgi/owncloud.sock;
  }

  # Adding the cache control header for js and css files
  # Make sure it is BELOW the PHP block
  location ~* \.(?:css|js) {
    try_files $uri /nextcloud/index.php$uri$is_args$args;
    add_header Cache-Control "public, max-age=7200";
    # Add headers to serve security related headers  (It is intended
    # to have those duplicated to the ones above)
    # Before enabling Strict-Transport-Security headers please read
    # into this topic first.
    # add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=15768000;
    # includeSubDomains; preload;";
    add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;
    add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN";
    add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block";
    add_header X-Robots-Tag none;
    add_header X-Download-Options noopen;
    add_header X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies none;
    # Optional: Do not log access to assets
    access_log off;
  }

  location ~* \.(?:svg|gif|png|html|ttf|woff|ico|jpg|jpeg) {
    try_files $uri /nextcloud/index.php$uri$is_args$args;
    # Optional: Do not log access to other assets
    access_log off;
  }
}

Note: Do not forget to configure the .well-known URLs for service discovery. For more information please see General troubleshooting and service discovery section of Nextcloud documentation.

Docker

See the ownCloud or Nextcloud repository for Docker.

Upload and share from File Manager

shareLinkCreator provides the ability to upload a file to OwnCloud via a supported file manager and receive a link to the uploaded file which can then be emailed or shared in another way.

Defining background jobs

Nextcloud requires scheduled execution of some tasks, and by default it achieves this by using AJAX, however AJAX is the least reliable method, and it is recommended to use Cron instead. However, Arch Linux ships with systemd, so the preferred way of executing scheduled tasks is a systemd timer.

Start/enable nextcloud-cron.timer.

Confirm that it is running by running systemctl list-timers.

AUR package

Install nextcloud-systemd-timers^AUR.

Provided services can be checked with:

$ pacman -Ql nextcloud-systemd-timers

Collabora Online Office integration

Solution with Docker

The first, install a docker package to provide collabora files and setup a Collabora server.

Start/enable docker.service.

Then, download the official Docker image:

# docker pull collabora/code

And, installing a Collabora server. Make sure cloud//.example//.com is your nextcloud's domain, not a collabora :

# docker run -t -d -p 127.0.0.1:9980:9980 -e "domain=cloud\\.example\\.com" --restart always --cap-add MKNOD collabora/code

Also make sure to escape all dots with double backslashes (\), since this string will be evaluated as a regular expression (and your bash 'eats' the first backslash.) If you want to use the docker container with more than one Nextcloud, you will need to use 'domain=cloud\\.example\\.com\|second\\.example\\.com' instead. (All hosts are separated by \|.) When using `localhost` as domain for testing you need to add --net host to ensure the docker container can access your Nextcloud server.

If you need to delete or reinstall Collabora server use:

For recognition CONTAINER_ID of server

# docker ps

Stop and delete

# docker stop CONTAINER_ID
# docker rm CONTAINER_ID

Futher, follow the instruction of webserver you are using:

Nginx setup example:

Add following to your nextcloud domain config or add new config file in /etc/nginx/conf.d/ directory, (Do not forget to change office.example.com and ssl_certificate to the right values. If you are using docker image, change http to https.)

/etc/nginx/conf.d/example.conf

 upstream office.example.com {
    server 127.0.0.1:9980;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name office.example.com;
 
    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/office.example.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/office.example.com/privkey.pem;

    # static files
    location ^~ /loleaflet {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9980;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
    }

    # WOPI discovery URL
    location ^~ /hosting/discovery {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9980;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
    }

    # Main websocket
    location ~ /lool/(.*)/ws$ {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9980;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_read_timeout 36000s;
    }

    # Admin Console websocket
    location ^~ /lool/adminws {
	proxy_buffering off;
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9980;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_read_timeout 36000s;
    }

    # download, presentation and image upload
    location ~ /lool {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9980;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
    }

    location ^~ /hosting/capabilities {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:9980;
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    }

}

Restart a nginx:

# nginx -s reload

or restart nginx.service.

Apache setup example:

Add following to nextcloud config file. Do not forget to change to the right values

/etc/httpd/conf/extra/nextcloud.conf

<VirtualHost *:443>
ServerName office.nextcloud.com:443

# SSL configuration, you may want to take the easy route instead and use Lets Encrypt!
SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /path/to/signed_certificate
SSLCertificateChainFile /path/to/intermediate_certificate
SSLCertificateKeyFile /path/to/private/key
SSLProtocol             all -SSLv2 -SSLv3
SSLCipherSuite ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!DSS
SSLHonorCipherOrder     on

# Encoded slashes need to be allowed
AllowEncodedSlashes NoDecode

# Container uses a unique non-signed certificate
SSLProxyEngine On
SSLProxyVerify None
SSLProxyCheckPeerCN Off
SSLProxyCheckPeerName Off

# keep the host
ProxyPreserveHost On

# static html, js, images, etc. served from loolwsd
# loleaflet is the client part of LibreOffice Online
ProxyPass           /loleaflet https://127.0.0.1:9980/loleaflet retry=0
ProxyPassReverse    /loleaflet https://127.0.0.1:9980/loleaflet

# WOPI discovery URL
ProxyPass           /hosting/discovery https://127.0.0.1:9980/hosting/discovery retry=0
ProxyPassReverse    /hosting/discovery https://127.0.0.1:9980/hosting/discovery

# Main websocket
ProxyPassMatch "/lool/(.*)/ws$" wss://127.0.0.1:9980/lool/$1/ws nocanon

# Admin Console websocket
ProxyPass   /lool/adminws wss://127.0.0.1:9980/lool/adminws

# Download as, Fullscreen presentation and Image upload operations
ProxyPass           /lool https://127.0.0.1:9980/lool
ProxyPassReverse    /lool https://127.0.0.1:9980/lool
</VirtualHost>

After configuring these do restart your apache by restarting httpd.service.

Install the Nextcloud app

Go to the Apps section and choose “Office & Text”, install the “Collabora Online” app. In admin panel select Collabora Online tab and specific the server's domain you have setup before.

Solution without Docker

The collabora-online-server-nodocker^AUR package provides the Collabora Office (the desktop suite) and the “CODE” (Collabora Online Development Edition) server, which is based on “lool” (LibreOffice OnLine).

Alter the /etc/coolwsd/coolwsd.xml file, so that:

• config > server_name contains the host and port of the public Nextcloud address, separated by a colon (e.g. example.org:443),
• config > ssl > enable is false (i.e. web browser —HTTPS→ proxy —HTTP→ coolwsd),
• config > ssl > termination is true (I suppose you’ll manage TLS at the proxy level),
• config > storage > wopi > host reflects the actual hostname (or pattern) of the proxy server (e.g. (?:.*\.)?example\.org),
• config > admin_console > username and config > admin_console > password are set to values of your choice.

Then:

• start and enable coolwsd.service;
• configure Nginx by creating a server block including /etc/nginx/snippets/coolwsd.conf, and restart it. Example with SSL (change office.example.com and ssl_certificate to the right values):

/etc/nginx/conf.d/example.conf

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name office.example.com;

    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/office.example.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/office.example.com/privkey.pem;

    include snippets/coolwsd.conf;
}

• in Nextcloud, install the "Collabora Online" app. In the admin panel select the Collabora Online tab and specify the server domain name you have just set up.

Disabling app recommendations

By default, nextcloud reccomends apps to new clients, which can result in a lot of notifications. To disable this, disable the recommendation app using occ.

Backup calendars and address books with calcardbackup

The calcardbackup^AUR package can be installed and configured to provide regular backups of the calendar and/or address book databases. Edit /etc/calcardbackup/calcardbackup.conf to your liking and then start and enable calcardbackup.timer.

Troubleshooting

By default, the logs of the web application are available in /var/log/nextcloud/nextcloud.log.

Issues with permissions and setup after upgrade to >= 21.0.0

Note: Before nextcloud 21.0.0, the web application was run using the http user. This is a security concern in regards to cross-application access of this user (it has access to all data of all web applications).

Since version 21.0.0 nextcloud more closely follows the web application package guidelines. This introduces the separate user nextcloud, as which the web application is run.

After an upgrade from nextcloud < 21.0.0 make sure that

• neither the data directory nor the writable apps directory is located below /usr/share/webapps/nextcloud/, as that directory is owned by root
• both the data directory and the writable apps directory, alongside all files beneath them are writable and owned by the nextcloud user
• the web application configuration file resides in /etc/webapps/nextcloud/config/ and that that directory and its contents are writable and owned by the nextcloud user
• an application server, such as php-fpm or UWSGI is configured to run the web application as the nextcloud user and not the http user
• update the cron job/systemd timer to run with the new user

Issues with MariaDB >= 10.6

Nextcloud is not compatible with MariaDB version 10.6 or higher (see FS#71549). This is due to MariaDB forcing read-only for compressed InnoDB tables and Nextcloud using these kind of tables:

From MariaDB 10.6.0, tables that are of the COMPRESSED row format are read-only by default. This is the first step towards removing write support and deprecating the feature.

Upstream is aware of this problem but a quick fix seems unlikely.

One easy remedy for this issue is to allow write access to compressed InnoDB tables again by means of MariaDB's system variable innodb_read_only_compressed. Just add the following section to your configuration of MariaDB:

/etc/my.cnf.d/server.cnf

[mariadb-10.6]
innodb_read_only_compressed=OFF

Environment variables not available

Uncomment the line in /etc/php/php-fpm.d/www.conf as per Nextcloud documentation:

env[PATH] = /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin

Self-signed certificate not accepted

ownCloud uses Wikipedia:cURL and Wikipedia:SabreDAV to check if WebDAV is enabled. If you use SSL/TLS with a self-signed certificate, e.g. as shown in LAMP, and access ownCloud's admin panel, you will see the following error message:

Your web server is not yet properly setup to allow files synchronization because the WebDAV interface seems to be broken.

Assuming that you followed the LAMP tutorial, execute the following steps:

Create a local directory for non-distribution certificates and copy LAMPs certificate there. This will prevent ca-certificates-updates from overwriting it.

# cp /etc/httpd/conf/server.crt /usr/share/ca-certificates/WWW.EXAMPLE.COM.crt

Add WWW.EXAMPLE.COM.crt to /etc/ca-certificates.conf:

WWW.EXAMPLE.COM.crt

Now, regenerate your certificate store:

# update-ca-certificates

Restart the httpd service to activate your certificate.

Self-signed certificate for Android devices

Once you have followed the setup for SSL, as on Apache HTTP Server#TLS for example, early versions of DAVdroid will reject the connection because the certificate is not trusted. A certificate can be made as follows on your server:

# openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in /etc/httpd/conf/server.csr -signkey /etc/httpd/conf/server.key -extfile android.txt -out CA.crt
# openssl x509 -inform PEM -outform DER -in CA.crt -out CA.der.crt 

The file android.txt should contain the following:

basicConstraints=CA:true

Then import CA.der.crt to your Android device:

Put the CA.der.crt file onto the sdcard of your Android device (usually to the internal one, e.g. save from a mail attachment). It should be in the root directory. Go to Settings > Security > Credential storage and select Install from device storage. The .crt file will be detected and you will be prompted to enter a certificate name. After importing the certificate, you will find it in Settings > Security > Credential storage > Trusted credentials > User.

Thanks to: [4]

Another way is to import the certificate directly from your server via CAdroid^{[dead link 2020-04-01 ⓘ]} and follow the instructions there.

Cannot write into config directory!

If you have set open_basedir in your PHP/web server configuration file (e.g. /etc/httpd/conf/extra/nextcloud.conf), make sure that it includes /etc/webapps.

Restart the web server to apply the change.

You may need to "explicitly grant write permissions on the appropriate Nextcloud paths" if you are getting this error after an upgrade from Nextcloud 17 to Nextcloud 18.

Cannot create data directory

If you have set open_basedir in your PHP/web server configuration file (e.g. /etc/httpd/conf/extra/nextcloud.conf), make sure that it includes the data directory.

Restart the web server to apply the change.

CSync failed to find a specific file.

This is most likely a certificate issue. Recreate it, and do not leave the common name empty or you will see the error again.

# openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout server.key -out server.crt

Seeing white page after login

The cause is probably a new app that you installed. To fix that, you can use the occ command as described here. So with

sudo -u http php /usr/share/webapps/nextcloud/occ app:list

you can list all apps (if you installed nextcloud in the standard directory), and with

sudo -u http php /usr/share/webapps/nextcloud/occ app:disable <nameOfExtension>

you can disable the troubling app.

Alternatively, you can either use phpMyAdmin to edit the oc_appconfig table (if you got lucky and the table has an edit option), or do it by hand with mysql:

mysql -u root -p owncloud
MariaDB [owncloud]> delete from oc_appconfig where appid='<nameOfExtension>' and configkey='enabled' and configvalue='yes';
MariaDB [owncloud]> insert into oc_appconfig (appid,configkey,configvalue) values ('<nameOfExtension>','enabled','no');

This should delete the relevant configuration from the table and add it again.

GUI sync client fails to connect

If using HTTP basic authentication, make sure to exclude "status.php", which must be publicly accessible. [5]

GUI tray icon disappears, but client still running in the background

After waking up from a suspended state, the Nextcloud client tray icon may disappear from the system tray. A workaround is to delay the startup of the client, as noted here. This can be done with the .desktop file, for example:

.local/share/applications/nextcloud.desktop

...
Exec=bash -c 'sleep 5 && nextcloud'
...

Some files upload, but give an error 'Integrity constraint violation...'

You may see the following error in the ownCloud sync client:

   SQLSTATE[23000]: Integrity constraint violation: ... Duplicate entry '...' for key 'fs_storage_path_hash')...

This is caused by an issue with the File Locking app, which is often not sufficient to keep conflicts from occurring on some webserver configurations. A more complete Transactional File Locking is available that rids these errors, but you must be using the Redis php-caching method. Install redis and php-redis, comment out your current php-cache mechanism, and then in /etc/php/conf.d/redis.ini uncomment extension=redis. Then in config.php make the following changes:

   'memcache.local' => '\OC\Memcache\Redis',
   'filelocking.enabled' => 'true',
   'memcache.locking' => '\OC\Memcache\Redis',
   'redis' => array(
        'host' => 'localhost',
        'port' => 6379,
        'timeout' => 0.0,
         ),

and start/enable redis.service.

Finally, disable the File Locking App, as the Transational File Locking will take care of it (and would conflict).

If everything is working, you should see 'Transactional File Locking Enabled' under Server Status on the Admin page, and syncs should no longer cause issues.

"Cannot write into apps directory"

As mentioned in the official admin manual, either you need an apps directory that is writable by the http user, or you need to set appstoreenabled to false.

If you have set open_basedir in your PHP/web server configuration file (e.g. /etc/httpd/conf/extra/nextcloud.conf), it may be necessary to add your /path/to/data directory to the string on the line starting with php_admin_value open_basedir :

/etc/httpd/conf/extra/nextcloud.conf

php_admin_value open_basedir "/path/to/data/:/srv/http/:/dev/urandom:/tmp/:/usr/share/pear/:/usr/share/webapps/nextcloud/:/etc/webapps/nextcloud"

Installed apps get blocked because of MIME type error

If you are putting your apps folder outside of the nextcloud installation directory make sure your webserver serves it properly.

In nginx this is accomplished by adding a location block to the nginx configuration as the folder will not be included in it by default.

location ~ /apps2/(.*)$ {
    alias /var/www/nextcloud/apps/$1;
}

CSS and JS resources blocked due to MIME type error

If you load your Nextcloud web gui and it is missing styles etc. check the browser's console logs for lines like:

The resource from “https://example.com/core/css/guest.css?v=72c34c37-0” was blocked due to MIME type (“text/plain”) mismatch (X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff).

There are a few possible reasons, possibly you have not included any mime types in your nginx.conf add the following to nginx.conf

types_hash_max_size 2048;
types_hash_bucket_size 128;
include mime.types;

Here we use the mime.types provided by mailcap, due to the large number of types included we increase the allowed size of the types hash.

Other possible reasons for these errors are missing permissions on the files. Make sure the files are owned by http:http and can be read and written to by this user.

Security warnings even though the recommended settings have been included in nginx.conf

At the top of the admin page there might be a warning to set the Strict-Transport-Security, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, X-XSS-Protection and X-Robots-Tag according to https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/admin_manual/installation/harden_server.html even though they are already set like that.

A possible cause could be that because owncloud sets those settings, uwsgi passed them along and nginx added them again:

$ curl -I https://domain.tld

...
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
X-Frame-Options: Sameorigin
X-Robots-Tag: none
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=15768000; includeSubDomains; preload;
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
X-Robots-Tag: none

While the fast_cgi sample config has a parameter to avoid that ( fastcgi_param modHeadersAvailable true; #Avoid sending the security headers twice ), when using uwsgi and nginx the following modification of the uwsgi part in nginx.conf could help:

 /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

...
        # pass all .php or .php/path urls to uWSGI
        location ~ ^(.+\.php)(.*)$ {
            include uwsgi_params;
            uwsgi_modifier1 14;
            # hode following headers received from uwsgi, because otherwise we would send them twice since we already add them in nginx itself
            uwsgi_hide_header X-Frame-Options;
            uwsgi_hide_header X-XSS-Protection;
            uwsgi_hide_header X-Content-Type-Options;
            uwsgi_hide_header X-Robots-Tag;
            uwsgi_hide_header X-Frame-Options;
            #Uncomment line below if you get connection refused error. Remember to commet out line with "uwsgi_pass 127.0.0.1:3001;" below
            uwsgi_pass unix:/run/uwsgi/owncloud.sock;
            #uwsgi_pass 127.0.0.1:3001;
        }
...

"Reading from keychain failed with error: 'No keychain service available'"

Can be fixed for Gnome by installing the following 2 packages, libgnome-keyring and gnome-keyring. Or the following for KDE, libgnome-keyring and qtkeychain-qt5.

FolderSync: "Method Not Allowed"

FolderSync needs access to /owncloud/remote.php/webdav, so you could create another alias for owncloud in your /etc/httpd/conf/extra/nextcloud.conf

  <IfModule mod_alias.c>
    Alias /nextcloud /usr/share/webapps/nextcloud/
    Alias /owncloud /usr/share/webapps/nextcloud/
  </IfModule>

See also

• Nextcloud Documentation Overview
• Nextcloud Admin Manual