Snappy Nextcloud

Nextcloud server packaged as a snap. It consists of:

• Nextcloud 12.0.4
• Apache 2.4
• PHP 7
• MySQL 5.7
• Redis 4.0
• mDNS for network discovery

How to install

This Nextcloud snap is available in the store for release series 16 (e.g. Ubuntu 16.04). Install via:

$ sudo snap install nextcloud

How to use

After install, assuming you and the device on which it was installed are on the same network, you should be able to reach the Nextcloud installation by visiting <hostname>.local in your browser. If your hostname is localhost or localhost.localdomain, like on an Ubuntu Core device, nextcloud.local will be used instead.

Upon visiting the Nextcloud installation for the first time, you'll be prompted for an admin username and password. After you provide that information you'll be logged in and able to create users, install apps, and upload files.

Note that this snap includes a service that runs cron.php every 15 minutes, which will automatically change the cron admin setting to Cron for you.

Removable media

Also note that the interface providing the ability to access removable media is not automatically connected upon install, so if you'd like to use external storage (or otherwise use a device in /media for data), you need to give the snap permission to access removable media by connecting that interface:

$ sudo snap connect nextcloud:removable-media

Configuration

Beyond the typical Nextcloud configuration (either by using nextcloud.occ or editing /var/snap/nextcloud/current/nextcloud/config/config.php), the snap exposes extra configuration options via the snap set command.

HTTP/HTTPS port configuration

By default, the snap will listen on port 80. If you enable HTTPS, it will listen on both 80 and 443, and HTTP traffic will be redirected to HTTPS. But perhaps you're putting the snap behind a proxy of some kind, in which case you probably want to change those ports.

If you'd like to change the HTTP port (say, to port 81), run:

$ sudo snap set nextcloud ports.http=81

To change the HTTPS port (say, to port 444), run:

$ sudo snap set nextcloud ports.https=444

Note that, assuming HTTPS is enabled, this will cause HTTP traffic to be redirected to port 444. You can specify both of these simultaneously as well:

$ sudo snap set nextcloud ports.http=81 ports.https=444

Note: Let's Encrypt will expect that Nextcloud is exposed on ports 80 and 443. If you change ports and don't put Nextcloud behind a proxy such that ports 80 and 443 are sent to Nextcloud for that domain name, Let's Encrypt will be unable to verify ownership of your domain and will not grant certificates.

Also note: Nextcloud's automatic hostname detection can fail when behind a proxy; you might notice it redirecting incorrectly. If this happens, override the automatic detection (including the port if necessary), e.g.:

$ sudo nextcloud.occ config:set overwritehost --value="example.com:81"

PHP Memory limit configuration

By default, PHP will use 128M as the memory limit. If you notice images not getting previews generated, or errors about memory exhaustion in your Nextcloud log, you may need to set this to a higher value.

If you'd like to set the memory limit to a higher value (say, 512M), run:

$ sudo snap set nextcloud php.memory-limit=512M

To set it to be unlimited (not recommended), use -1:

$ sudo snap set nextcloud php.memory-limit=-1

Included CLI utilities

There are a few CLI utilities included:

• nextcloud.occ:
  • Nextcloud's occ configuration tool. Note that it requires sudo.
• nextcloud.mysql-client:
  • MySQL client preconfigured to communicate with Nextcloud MySQL server. This may be useful in case you need to migrate Nextcloud installations. Note that it requires sudo.
• nextcloud.mysqldump:
  • Dump Nextcloud database to stdout. You should probaby redirect its output to a file. Note that it requires sudo.
• nextcloud.enable-https:
  • Enable HTTPS via self-signed certificates, Let's Encrypt, or custom certificates. HTTP will redirect to HTTPS. Non-custom certificates will automatically be kept up-to-date. See nextcloud.enable-https -h for more information. Note that it requires sudo.
• nextcloud.disable-https:
  • Disable HTTPS (does not remove certificates). Note that it requires sudo.
• nextcloud.manual-install:
  • Manually install Nextcloud instead of visiting it in your browser. This allows you to create the admin user via the CLI. Note that it requires sudo.

Where is my stuff?

• $SNAP_DATA:
  • Apache, PHP, MySQL, and Redis logs
  • Keys and certificates
  • MySQL database
  • Redis database
  • Nextcloud config
  • Any Nextcloud apps installed by the user
• $SNAP_COMMON
  • Nextcloud data
  • Nextcloud logs

Hacking

If you change something in the snap, build it, install it, and you can run a suite of acceptance tests against it. The tests are written in ruby, using capybara and rspec. To run the tests, you first need to install a few dependencies:

$ sudo apt install gcc g++ make qt5-default libqt5webkit5-dev ruby-dev zlib1g-dev
$ sudo gem install bundle
$ cd tests/
$ bundle install

Make sure the snap has a user called "admin" with password "admin" (used for login tests):

$ sudo nextcloud.manual-install admin admin

And finally, run the tests:

$ cd tests/
$ rake test