Creating a NextCloud Personal Cloud Service

Prerequisites

To install NextCloud on a Debian server, you must first have the following elements following:

• Apache2
• PHP 7
• Unzip
• MariaDB for a MySQL server
• A domain name
• A domain certificate such as lets encrypt

I assume that all this has already been done. So I'm going to pass off to its installation. My actions are done as a Root!

Installation

MySQL

To install NextCloud, you will need to create a database and an associated user. For to do this you can do this from the command line if you do not have PHP MyAdmin: Opening of the SHELL MySQL:

mysql -u root -p

Now you can type and execute MySQL queries. So we will create a base of data named NextCloud by doing this:

CREATE DATABASE NextCloud;

It is now necessary to create a user named NextCloud with the password Iroise29 :

>CREATE USER@ NextCloud'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY'Iroise29';

Now, let's add all the privileges for this user on this basis:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON NextCloud . TO'NextCloud' @'localhost';

Validation of changes and return to the Linux command prompt:

>FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit;

Download NextCloud

We will now install the NextCloud software. For that we must go to in:

cd /var/www/html

Downloading the NextCloud archive:

wget https://download.nextcloud.com/server/releases/nextcloud-14.0.1.zip

We will now unzip the downloaded file:

unzip nextcloud-14.0.1.zip -d

We will now give all write and read permissions to the NexCloud directory in order to that the software can work normally. To do this, we will you have to do this:

chmod -R 700 nextcloud-14.0.1
											
sudo chown -R http
										

Creation of a VirtualHost Apache to access NextCloud from a browser

For that we will edit the file domain.com.conf, for that we will launch the next order :

nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/domain.com.conf

Now let's enter this ("#" Means it's a comment):

										
										
<VirtualHost *:80>

                                           
 ServerAdmin admin@domain.com # Administrator's email address
                                           
 DocumentRoot /var/www/html/nextcloud
                                           
 ServerName domain.com # Domain name belonging to us allowing us to access the service
                                           
 ServerAlias www.domain.com # Domain aliases
                                            
                                           
 Alias /nextcloud "/var/www/html/nextcloud/"
                                            
                                           
 <Directory /var/www/html/nextcloud>
                                           
 Options +FollowSymlinks
                                           
 AllowOverride All
                                            
                                           
 <IfModule mod_dav.c>
                                           
 Dav off
                                           
 </IfModule>
                                            
                                           
 SetEnv HOME /var/www/html/nextcloud
                                           
 SetEnv HTTP_HOME /var/www/html/nextcloud
                                           
 </Directory>
                                            
                                           
 ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/nextcloud-error_log
                                           
 CustomLog /var/log/apache2/nextcloud-access_log common
                                        
                                        
</VirtualHost>
                                        
                                      	

You can now leave this phase by saving the edited file. We restart Apache 2:

systemctl reload apache2

Let's move on to the configuration.

Configuration

To configure your cloud server, you must go to a browser and go to the address you have previously defined. mydomain.com for example.
You should normally get a result such as the image on the right:


You will first need to enter a user name that will be part of the Administrator group. Then you will choose a password associated with it.
We will also configure the path to the file directory. This one is automatically filled in by default. You will therefore have the choice to modify it if you want it. Be careful however, the web server must have all the rights of reading and writing on the mentioned directory. It is therefore the same with its subfolders.
The part that will interest us to make our server useful is the configuration of the database. Remember, we created an empty database with a user partner. We will connect to it by filling out the form associated with the type MySQL/MariaDB.



You will therefore have to fill in the information in the following order:

• The username of the database, here I had chosen NextCloud.
• The associated password, I had taken Iroise29.
• The name of the database, here NextCloud.
• The IP address of the MySQL server, it can also be local. However, it is necessary to specify the port. Example: localhost:3306 or 127.0.0.0.1:3306.

Then we have to connect and the server will automatically fill the database with tables and will update them with each use. That's it, we've finished the basic configuration of the server and you have a server operational.

Adding Features

To add features you have a market place within your server, with practically only open-source applications. So it's an advantage for our server. You can add a WebMail, a calendar application, a text open-source as well. Nothing could be easier, go to the market place, then click on add the application or installed and then your service is already ready.
I let you discover all the applications.

Conclusion

You therefore have a cloud web application accessible from a connection internet via a browser or an application. To connect via an application you can find them on platforms such as Google Play and the App Store under IOS. There are also applications from other platforms such as MacOS, Windows or Linux.
The advantage of this service is that it is free of rights and we have the possibility to improve it and put it in our image since the source codes are available on Github.

Sources

• NextCloud
• BlogoSquare