NextCloud on Pi 2/3 Start to finish Guide

First a little about myself. I don't normally do write-ups but after spending 4 days googling/IRC Chatting/reinstalling I compiled a complete guide to install Nextcloud on the PI so not only does it run off an external hard drive (Space and Speed), but it has all the protection needed to be safe to run and trust worthy. I am by no stretch a Linux SuperUser. I'm more like a geek that loves to learn new things. If anyone finds any issues in the guide or has ideas to make it better please feel free to contact me and I'll do what I can to make it happen.

That being said I take no responsibility if you cause damage or have issues with your pi afterwards. Again this is a collections of info put in order for an easy smooth install.

Any real superuser feel free to make this a script and send it out should make the process much easier for people that way.

This is turn key. When you are done you will have a complete install with all the basic functions enabled and ready.

This tutorial uses the following files and versions. I did the best I could to make sure I worked with everything as up to date at possible at the time of this writing. (Make it a total pain to complete.) If done correctly you can have one up if a couple hours instead of days like to took me.

2016-05-27-raspbian-jessie/NextCloud 10.0.0.0/PHP7/Apache2/MariaBD version?

A couple preinstall things you can do to make life easier later are. If your router supports static mapping via DHCP thats really handy. Otherwise you will have to set one up on the pi yourself. I will not go in to that on this tutorial. You will need a named address so you can get a SSL Cert I use www.no-ip.com (Only because I've been with them for years.) make sure it points to your house . If you have a decent router it will support a client with them and keep that address point correct. If yours doesn't support that you can always get a linux or windows client to do that for you. If you don't have a computer that stays in all the time I would install it on the Pi it self and the site has instructions to do so. Next if your router supports DNS Resolver/Forwarder set it up to forward all internal requests for the external Named site to point to the internal address. This solves Many problems with the Cert later. If your router doesn't do these things check out http://dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database and see if you can upgrade your router to a better OS.


Installation.

Download the image and write it to your card. (I assume if you are attempting this you know how to do that if not https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/README.md.)

Insert the SD in the Pi 2/3 Hook up all the cables except power. (This tutorial is made to work with a wired connection on wifi you may experience slower rates or disconnectivity issues. If you want wifi feel free to google that yourself first before continueing)

If you can have the external hard drive wiped of all partitions as we will create them in the tutorial. If not we can delete the partitions in linux. (Just easier to use GPARTED -=Linux=- or diskpart -=windows=-)

On first boot (while you will do most of this from SSH I recommend using the GUI for this part) run Raspbian Config.
Setup all your main settings Keyboard/Timezone/Location ect. after a reboot you can make this a headless box if you like.
I however like to have TOP Running in a terminal window to see the usage of the processor and ram. Doesn't Hurt.

If possible use the SSH Client to log in from a computer for the rest of this tutorial. If you can't or prefer not to you can do all the work from with in the terminal but when writing the script you will have much more typing to do. Also is you can't cut and paste the command in to the terminal you might not get the intended results.

once in lets get admin status with the following command

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sudo su

just in case there are partitions on this drive you should try this command if it errors you good to go if not good thing we did it.

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umount /dev/sda1
umount /dev/sda2
umount /dev/sda3
umount /dev/sda4

If you had partitions you must delete them in fdisk before you create the partition. If you previously deleted the parts on the disk you can skip this step.

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fdisk /dev/sda
Press d
if it asks for a partition number you must repeat the process until the drive is wiped of all partitions
then press w

Now lets partition the disk for its new use. After pressing N if it asks Primary or secondary press P if not just follow the instructions as listed.

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fdisk /dev/sda
press n
press 1
press enter 2x
press w

Now lets format the drive for use

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mke2fs -t ext4 -L rootfs /dev/sda1

now mount the new partition.

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mount /dev/sda /mnt

We need a backup tool for the next part

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apt-get install rsync

Mirror the current rootfs to the new location Must use sudo or it will create a loop

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sudo rsync -axv / /mnt

Back up your startup file

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cp /boot/cmdline.txt /boot/cmdline.orig

edit startup file

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nano /boot/cmdline.txt

You need to edit 2 parts of this line do not make any other changes. Change the root= to /dev/sda and at the end add rootdelay=5
in the end my line looks like this

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dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=serial0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/sda1 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline fsck.repair=yes rootwait rootdelay=5

Now we need to edit a file on the new location

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nano /mnt/etc/fstab

make the changes so it looks like the following.

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proc            /proc           proc    defaults          0       0
/dev/sda1       /               ext4    defaults,noatime  0       1
/dev/mmcblk0p1  /boot           vfat    defaults          0       2
#/dev/mmcblk0p2  /               ext4    defaults,noatime  0       1

now we need to reboot to load on the new drive.

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shutdown -r now

You will need to log back in to the system with your SSH if the box still has a head watch for errors on start if something went wrong you will know pretty quickly. Otherwise the boot process is about 30 seconds.

once in the box regain root with this

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sudo su

enlarge the swap now that we have TONS of space

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nano /etc/dphys-swapfile

change 100 to 512

Run the following to make use of the change

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sudo dphys-swapfile setup
sudo /etc/init.d/dphys-swapfile stop
sudo /etc/init.d/dphys-swapfile start

for some reason you must still use sudo here even with root access. (don't know why didn't work for me with out it)

get all the system updates

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apt-get update
apt-get upgrade -y
apt-get dist-upgrade -y
rpi-update
apt-get autoremove

Reboot

SSH back in and get root

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sudo su

Install Apache2

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apt-get install apache2 -y

Install PHP7

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nano /etc/apt/sources.list

add the following line

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deb http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org/raspbian/ stretch main contrib non-free rpi

Make a new file thats needed to continue

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nano /etc/apt/preferences

paste in the following

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Package: *
Pin: release n=jessie
Pin-Priority: 600

Run all of the following command in order

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apt-get update
apt-get install -t stretch php7.0 php7.0-curl php7.0-gd php7.0-fpm php7.0-cli php7.0-opcache php7.0-mbstring php7.0-xml php7.0-zip -y
apt-get install php7.0-APC -y
apt-get install mysql-server php7.0-mysql -y
a2enmod proxy_fcgi setenvif
a2enconf php7.0-fpm
service apache2 reload
apt-get install libxml2-dev php-zip php-dom php-xmlwriter php-xmlreader php-gd php-curl php-mbstring -y
a2enmod rewrite
service apache2 reload
apt-get install mariadb-server -y
cd /var/www/html
nano index.html

Add the following line to the top where "MY.NEXTCLOUD.NAMEDADDRESS.COM" should be the address you created earlier.

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<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; URL='http://MY.NEXTCLOUD.NAMEDADDRESS.COM/nextcloud'" />

install Nextcloud

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cd /var/www/
wget https://download.nextcloud.com/server/releases/nextcloud-10.0.0.zip
unzip nextcloud-10.0.0.zip
rm nextcloud-10.0.0.zip
cd /
mkdir CloudDATA
cd /home/pi
nano permissions.sh

Paste in the following

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#!/bin/bash

ocpath='/var/www/nextcloud'

htuser='www-data'

htgroup='www-data'

rootuser='root'


printf "Creating possible missing Directories\n"

mkdir -p $ocpath/data

mkdir -p $ocpath/assets

mkdir -p $ocpath/updater


printf "chmod Files and Directories\n"

find ${ocpath}/ -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 0640

find ${ocpath}/ -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 0750


printf "chown Directories\n"

chown -R ${rootuser}:${htgroup} ${ocpath}/

chown -R ${htuser}:${htgroup} ${ocpath}/apps/

chown -R ${htuser}:${htgroup} ${ocpath}/assets/

chown -R ${htuser}:${htgroup} ${ocpath}/config/

chown -R ${htuser}:${htgroup} ${ocpath}/data/

chown -R ${htuser}:${htgroup} /CloudDATA/

chown -R ${htuser}:${htgroup} ${ocpath}/themes/

chown -R ${htuser}:${htgroup} ${ocpath}/updater/

chown -R ${htuser}:${htgroup} /tmp


chmod +x ${ocpath}/occ


printf "chmod/chown .htaccess\n"

if [ -f ${ocpath}/.htaccess ]

then

 chmod 0644 ${ocpath}/.htaccess

 chown ${rootuser}:${htgroup} ${ocpath}/.htaccess

fi

if [ -f ${ocpath}/data/.htaccess ]

then

 chmod 0644 ${ocpath}/data/.htaccess

 chown ${rootuser}:${htgroup} ${ocpath}/data/.htaccess

fi

make it a executable and run it

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chmod +x permissions.sh
sudo ./permissions.sh

Configure Apache2

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cd /etc/apache2/sites-available
nano nextcloud.conf

Paste in the following

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Alias /nextcloud "/var/www/nextcloud/"

<Directory /var/www/nextcloud/>
 Options +FollowSymlinks
 AllowOverride All

<IfModule mod_dav.c>
 Dav off
</IfModule>

SetEnv HOME /var/www/nextcloud
SetEnv HTTP_HOME /var/www/nextcloud

</Directory>

Do the following commands

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ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/nextcloud.conf /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/nextcloud.conf
a2enmod headers
a2enmod env
a2enmod dir
a2enmod mime
a2enmod ssl
a2ensite default-ssl
service apache2 reload

Setup the DataBase

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mysql -u root -p

enter the following commands Where it says "PASSWORD" enter a password for the database to use DON'T FORGET IT well need it later.

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CREATE DATABASE nextcloud;
CREATE USER 'nextclouduser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'PASSWORD';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON nextcloud.* TO nextclouduser@localhost;
EXIT

Setup SSL

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apt install git -y
cd /etc
git clone https://github.com/letsencrypt/letsencrypt
cd letsencrypt
sudo ./letsencrypt-auto
crontab -e

Enter the following line at the bottom of the file

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* 1 * * 1 /etc/certbot-auto renew --quiet

Now were ready to login to the server to generate the configfile we need to edit
open a browse and go to the named address you created earlier it should take you to your cloud.
Enter the name and password you will use as the site administrator
Change the Data Folder to the following

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/CloudDATA

the data base info is as follows with PASSWORD being the password you used for the DataBase

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nextclouduser
PASSWORD
nextcloud

Enable Mem Cache most guides say this is optional it really isn't just do it

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sudo nano /var/www/nextcloud/config/config.php

There before ); insert

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'memcache.local' => '\OC\Memcache\APC',

Clean the disk from all the mess
apt-get clean

Set File size limit

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cd /var/www/nextcloud
nano .htaccess

find the line that says php_value upload_max_filesize 512M and the line below it that says php_value post_max_size 512M
Change both to the size you want if in Gigs use a G instead of the M

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nano .user.ini

Find upload_max_filesize=512M and post_max_size=512M
Change these to the same size you used before and don't forget to change to a G if in Gigs

Now harden the box as much as I know how by preventing Man in the Middle Attacks

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cd /etc/apache2
nano apache2.conf

at to bottom of the file add the following

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<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=15768000; includeSubDomains; preload"
</IfModule>

Reboot

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shutdown -r now

When it come back up go to your browser and login to go to app page choose productivity and pick documents, now go to admin then additional settings and setup to use the libreoffice (Top option at the time of this writing) click save and test

Done and Enjoy. Everything is all set and you can configure the rest to your liking on the site.

The previous Errors have been corrected. A Friend pointed out errors.

Claw

"MY.NEXTCLOUD.NAMEDADDRESS.COM" you said it has been created earlier but I have not created it. How to create it ? I run all commands successfully before this step. Please help me.

Go to http://www.noip.com and sign up. You just need to have an named address. I hope you already forwarded your ports 80 and 443 to your Pi on your router. Brfore the instructions You will see I talked about some things that you need to do before your setup your pi. Let me know if you need help with that. I have TeamSpeak or we could meet on IRC. Let me know.

Claw

Thanks for the detailed writeup.

I see this in now in dietpi which makes everything so much simpler.

Dietpi? A mag? The write up uses all the newest available versions helping with security. Glad people are getting use out of it.

DrClaw

Great guide!

I must be doing something wrong, got stuck right at the beginning trying formatting my 2TB HDD and ended up with a 6.9Mib propitiation?! I went through the process twice with the same results. (i never formatted a HDD on raspberry pi or Linux before )

Can you pleas point out what am i missing here?

Many thanks
Avi

You still have another partition on the drive (it only gives you the option of creating 1, 3 or 4 because partition 2 already exists).

Try the "p" option to list the current partitions.

You can then use the "o" option to clear the partition table before starting to create your new partition.

Great guide!

I must be doing something wrong, got stuck right at the beginning trying formatting my 2TB HDD and ended up with a 6.9Mib propitiation?! I went through the process twice with the same results. (i never formatted a HDD on raspberry pi or Linux before )

Can you pleas point out what am i missing here?

Many thanks
Avi

Sorry it's taken me so long to respond. Your issue is size. You need to use GPT. Fdisk won't do that. The easiest way is to download gparted live cd boot it on a different system. And make the partition with that.

I'm typing from my phone so I won't go into more detail now. If you need more help let me know well setup a time to chat on my TeamSpeak server.

Claw

Great! Thanks, that worked pretty well. Got my 2T disk space back, so i can continue installing nextcloud now...

Capture2.JPG (18.37 KiB) Viewed 33827 times

Its up and running!

one again, many thanks for this excellent guide.

My Best Regards
Avi

I'm glad it's getting use. I'm also surprised someone put a 2Tb drive on a Pi. That's awesome.

Enjoy let me know your experience.

I have been having trouble mounting my new drive. Everytime I attempt to do so I get this error.

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mount:  wrong fs type. bad option. bad superblock on /dev/sda.
missing codepage or helper program, or other error.

Thank you for the great guide. I hope I can successfully do this later eventually.

I have been having trouble mounting my new drive. Everytime I attempt to do so I get this error.

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mount:  wrong fs type. bad option. bad superblock on /dev/sda.
missing codepage or helper program, or other error.

Thank you for the great guide. I hope I can successfully do this later eventually.

A few questions might help me solve this...

1.) What is the size of the drive?

2.) Did Fdisk have any errors while creating new partitions.

3.) Did you get an error when unmounting before using Fdisk?

4.) Did you try setting up the partition before hand in GParted Live CD?

Claw

I have been having trouble mounting my new drive. Everytime I attempt to do so I get this error.

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mount:  wrong fs type. bad option. bad superblock on /dev/sda.
missing codepage or helper program, or other error.

Thank you for the great guide. I hope I can successfully do this later eventually.

A few questions might help me solve this...

1.) What is the size of the drive?

2.) Did Fdisk have any errors while creating new partitions.

3.) Did you get an error when unmounting before using Fdisk?

4.) Did you try setting up the partition before hand in GParted Live CD?

Claw

It is a 1tb Seagate ultra slim drive.
I had no other errors before hand.
I did clean the drive using diskpart on windows before hand, but did not try and partition or format.

Get the version appropriate to your system and do the partition manually

http://gparted.org/download.php

Sending from my phone so might have typos

After that skip the fdisk part. You still need to unmount and remount to /mnt
Let me know what happens

Claw

Get the version appropriate to your system and do the partition manually

http://gparted.org/download.php

Sending from my phone so might have typos

After that skip the fdisk part. You still need to unmount and remount to /mnt
Let me know what happens

Claw

Should I mount it using?

mount /dev/sda /mnt

or mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

Thanks for all the help Im not great at this.

/dev/sda1

I finsihed the guide and had the server working great until I restart my pi. After restarting my pi when I go to my webpage I can see the apache2 default home page for second, then it redirects to a page that says my web address is unreachable. Not sure what went wrong.

That's a tough one. I will probably need to work with you to figure that out. I have a public TeamSpeak server voice.clawfest.com. I'm not sure what time I'll be available but if you have the time let's do it. We can post or findings here afterwards. Let me know if your interested. The software you need is free at TeamSpeak.come.

Thanks
Claw

That's a tough one. I will probably need to work with you to figure that out. I have a public TeamSpeak server voice.clawfest.com. I'm not sure what time I'll be available but if you have the time let's do it. We can post or findings here afterwards. Let me know if your interested. The software you need is free at TeamSpeak.come.

Thanks
Claw

I got it figured out. For reason mysql had disabled itself and needed to be uninstalled and reinstalled then all worked great. Thanks for this amazing up to date guide.

No problem. After all the work I put in to making the server I thought it would be nice to share and try and save people the time. It's nice to give back and see it being used.

Claw

Thanks for the awesome job!

I got a Nextcloud Box, but this is so much better! I have Zero Linux experience and this really helped out a lot.

Thanks Again!

Everything seemed to go smoothly until I tried to create a new user. I get the following error in my apache log:

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[Mon Oct 10 09:39:28.932574 2016] [proxy_fcgi:error] [pid 1780] [client 192.168.1.166:52966] AH01071: Got error 'PHP message: PHP Fatal error:  Couldn't find implementation for method \x06::__tostring in Unknown on line 0\n'
[Mon Oct 10 09:39:47.825243 2016] [proxy_fcgi:error] [pid 1780] [client 192.168.1.1:52979] AH01071: Got error 'PHP message: PHP Fatal error:  Couldn't find implementation for method \x06::__tostring in Unknown on line 0\n'
[Mon Oct 10 09:40:32.477223 2016] [proxy_fcgi:error] [pid 1782] [client 192.168.1.166:53002] AH01071: Got error 'PHP message: PHP Fatal error:  Couldn't find implementation for method \x06::__tostring in Unknown on line 0\n'

For reference of the IPs: 166 is my desktop, 147 is the RPi, and 1 is obviously my router.

I have been able to resolve the problem by restarting php with

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sudo service php7.0-fpm restart

. Again, evereything works until I attempt to create a new user. I can install apps, create and edit documents, transfer files, etc. But the moment I click "Create" the whole server crashes. Any advice?

Sorry for such a late reply. I have no idea why the email didn't notify me that someone was sending posts. Any future people with issues please send requests to me via skype @ Claw22000 / Steam @ Dr. Claw / Origin @ Claw22000 / and Teamspeak on my private server everyone is welcome to use @ voice.clawfest.com. I am not always on teamspeak but if you need help you can message me and well get on together. I can then talk you through the issues your having.

As for the current issue I need some more information as to whats going on to be able to tell you what to do to fix it. Please let me know when you have read this since it has been so long and I don't know if you are still trying to solve this.

Thanks

Claw