Obsidian/05.01 Computer setup/Nextcloud.md

Tag	Date	DocType	Hierarchy	TimeStamp	Product	CollapseMetaTable	banner	banner_icon
Admin Computer Privacy Cloud	2021-08-10	Product	NonRoot		Type Link Value IT https://nextcloud.com Average	yes	!	☁️

Parent:: Storage and Syncing, Server Cloud

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name Edit Product parameters
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action MetaEdit: Run MetaEdit
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name Save
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NextCloud

 

title: Summary
collapse: open
Overview of NextCloud, secure and private Cloud & devices-synchronisation service

 

style: number

 

---

 

Characteristics

 

Criteria	Rating	Observation
Security	strong	App/Service-specific PWs, No known attack or vulnerability; long-standing service
Privacy	strong	E2EE, 0-k
Service Integration	strong	WebDAV + native Apps
User Exp	average	Easy-to-use service but syncing can be buggy
Pricing	average	Within market rate

 

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Structure and usage

 

NextCloud is a Cloud Management solution with integrated Apps that aims at managing and syncing a vast array of data between connected devices. This section gives an overview of the structure of the service.

 

Host

NextCloud needs to be hosted on a server with two options available:

1. Rent space with a service provider
2. Selfhosting (Server, Raspberry Pi, NAS)

I selected to Selfhosting . All parameters can be found below including the VPN provider and server parametrisation.

 

Services

NextCloud offers various services in what they called Apps, similar to Phone Apps:

1. Mail
2. Calendar
3. Contact Management
4. Photo
5. Music
6. Notes
7. Password Management

As well as a wide array of other apps available here

In addition, NextCloud support End-2-End Encryption.

 

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Setup

 

As of today, the services I have set up are described below.

 

Contacts (CardDAV)

App-specific password (per device) Activated   CardDAV Account: server.address/remote.php/dav/principals/users/USERNAME/

 

Pictures

From within the NextCloud iOS App: 'auto-upload Pictures from Camera Roll'.

 

Music (WebDAV)

App-specific password (per device): Activated

 

WebDAV Account: https://server.address/remote.php/dav/files/username/

 

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Selfhosting guide

 

title: Installation
[Tutorial](https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-install-nextcloud-22-on-ubuntu-server-20-04/)
[Tutorial2](https://nextcloud.com/athome/)
[Tutorial3](https://blog.ssdnodes.com/blog/installing-nextcloud-docker/)

 

Installed dependencies

#^Top  

Apache2

Webserver for Nextcloud. Apache2 has notorious issues with over-clogging memory usage (topping 100% of memory usage). In order to minimise memory usage, #APCu has been installed as a cache manager. In addition, Appache has been paired with:

• php-fpm for php7.4, enabling faster interaction between apache and backend.
• the 'event' multi-processing module (MPM) enabling decluttering of processing between ports & Apache

All relevant dependencies have been installed and the set-up tested. A comprehensive tutorial on the MPM switch can be found here or here.

php.ini files can be found at:

/etc/php/7.4/fpm/php.ini
/etc/php/7.4/apache2/php.ini
/etc/php/7.4/cli/php.ini

 

Certbot

#^Top Provides SSL certification from Let's Encrypt. Installation dependencies are different from Nginx and explained here

 

MySQL

Nothing particular to note on MySQL apart from initial set-up and user management.

Configuration file is under:

/etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf

title: Optimise memory usage of mysql
~~~yaml
[mysqld]
% Disable performance schema to hugely reduce RAM usage
performance_schema = OFF
~~~

In order to restart mysql, the command is:

~~~bash
sudo service mysql restart
~~~

 

APCu

#^Top Memory caching addon for Nextcloud. Memory caching management is provided by Nextcloud and needs to be set up as a system cron job. After installing APCu, the webserver needs to be restarted and the cron job defined:

1. Define the cronjob

~~~bash
sudo crontab -u www-data -e
~~~

2. Add cronjob

~~~bash
 */5  *  *  *  * php -f /var/www/html/nextcloud/cron.php --define apc.enable_cli=1
~~~

3. Verify that the cron job is added

~~~bash
sudo crontab -u www-data -l
~~~

 

SVG support

#^Top SVG support is installed in the form of a package.

~~~bash
sudo apt-get update -y
sudo apt-get install -y libmagickcore-6.q16-6-extra
~~~

 

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Service management

#^Top Nextcloud offers two alternatives for managing the service:

1. An admin webpanel
2. A command line tool

 

Admin webpanel

Accessed through login into the service with admin credentials. Settings offer an admin section.

 

Nextcloud command line tool

#^Top From the server's command line, Nextcloud offers the ability to perform some tasks like user management.

 

Introduction to the command

Nextcloud offers a command-line tool which permission needs to be set to "executable". It is located here:

/var/www/html/nextcloud/occ

The tool needs to be invoked by the "www-data" user and compiled with PHP:

~~~bash
sudo -u www-data php /var/www/html/nextcloud/occ
~~~

 

Generic commands

Nextcloud offers a simple description of all commands here

 

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Nextcloud server hardening

#^Top

title: Nextcloud tutorial
[Here](https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/admin_manual/installation/harden_server.html)

 

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Data transfer

#^Top After each data transfer, run the following command to refresh Nextcloud's webapp:

~~~bash
sudo -u www-data php /var/www/html/nextcloud/occ files:scan --all
~~~

More info can be found here

 

Upload from local

[Curl](https://cylab.be/blog/33/how-to-upload-your-files-to-nextcloud-file-drop-using-curl)
[Nextcloud help](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-upload-and-share-file-automatically/19202)

 

Directories

#^Top

1. Local file structure

/var/www/html/nextcloud/data/USERNAME/files

2. Webdav file structure

/remote.php/dav/files/USERNAME

 

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Pricing

 

NextCloud/tab.digital pricing page

 

Storage space	price p.m.
8G	Free
32G	€1.95
128G	€4.95

 

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Further steps

 

• Selfhosting server instance
• Explore native NextCloud Apps
• Nextcloud: Transfer NetNewsWire to NC ✅ 2021-09-15