How to install and configure Nextcloud on CentOS 7
Introduction
Nextcloud provides client applications for Windows, Linux, macOS, Android and iOS which are used to sync files between your Desktop and the Nextcloud file server. It also has a modern and easy-to-use web interface which enables you to access files from a web browser.
In this article, we will show you how to install NextCloud on a CentOS 7 server/VPS instance.
Prerequisites
- an active KVM VPS
- root user
1. Install PHP and httpd
You will have to install PHP and Apache to run Nextcloud on CentOS 7. For PHP, we will use PHP 7.3 since it is the latest stable release of PHP available for CentOS 7.
yum -y install epel-release yum-utils
yum -y install http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm
Disable default PHP 5.x enabled repository and enable one for PHP 7.3:
yum-config-manager --disable remi-php54 yum-config-manager --enable remi-php73
Then install Apache and PHP packages:
yum -y install vim httpd php php-cli php-mysqlnd php-zip php-devel php-gd php-mcrypt php-mbstring php-curl php-xml php-pear php-bcmath php-json php-pdo php-pecl-apcu php-pecl-apcu-devel
Confirm your PHP version
php -v
2. Install and configure MariaDB / MySQL
Install MariaDB / MySQL database server on CentOS 7 following our previous guides here:
How to Install MariaDB 10.4 on CentOS 7
After the installation, login as a root user to MySQL console and create a new database for Nextcloud.
$ mysql -u root -pCREATE DATABASE nextcloud;
CREATE USER 'nextclouduser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'yourpassword';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON nextcloud.* TO 'nextclouduser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'yourpassword' WITH GRANT OPTION;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;
Make sure to replace the database name “nextcloud”, the database username “nextclouduser”, and the database user password “yourpassword” in each and every command with your own ones.
3. Download and install Nextcloud on CentOS 7
Download the latest stable version of NextCloud from its official website:
yum -y install wget unzip
wget https://download.nextcloud.com/server/releases/latest-20.zip
Unzip the downloaded file:
unzip latest-20.zip
rm -f latest-20.zip
Move all of the NextCloud files to /var/www/html directory
mv nextcloud/ /var/www/html/
Create data directory to store Nextcloud uploaded files. This can be any path e.g. NFS mount point, SAN mount point etc.
mkdir /var/www/html/nextcloud/data chown apache:apache -R /var/www/html/nextcloud/data
Give apache user and group the ownership of Nextcloud folder.
chown apache:apache -R /var/www/html/nextcloud
4. Configure Apache VirtualHost – without SSL
Now create an Apache configuration file for Nextcloud.
vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/nextcloud.conf
Paste the content below to the file:
ServerName files.example.com ServerAdmin [email protected] DocumentRoot /var/www/html/nextcloud Require all granted AllowOverride All Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews SetEnv HOME /var/www/html/nextcloud SetEnv HTTP_HOME /var/www/html/nextcloud
Set the correct ServerName
and change other settings to suit your use. When done, save the file and start httpd service.
Run:
systemctl enable --now httpd semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_content_t "/var/www/html(/.*)?" sudo restorecon -Rv /var/www/html
Configure Firewall:
If you have an active firewall service, allow http and https ports.
firewall-cmd --add-service={http,https} --permanent firewall-cmd --reload
5. Configure Apache With Let’s Encrypt SSL
To use Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate, first install certbot
wget https://dl.eff.org/certbot-auto
chmod a+x certbot-auto
mv certbot-auto /usr/local/bin
Then request for SSL certificate:
export DOMAIN="files.example.com"
export EMAIL="[email protected]"
certbot-auto certonly --standalone -d $DOMAIN --preferred-challenges
http --agree-tos -n -m $EMAIL --keep-until-expiring
Modify your VirtualHost configuration file to look like below:
ServerName files.example.com
ServerAdmin [email protected]
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}$1 [R=301,L]
ServerName files.example.com
ServerAdmin [email protected]
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/nextcloud
Require all granted
AllowOverride All
Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews
SetEnv HOME /var/www/html/nextcloud
SetEnv HTTP_HOME /var/www/html/nextcloud
SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/files.example.com/fullchain.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/files.example.com/privkey.pem
6. Access Nextcloud UI and finish installation
Open up your web browser, point a URL to
http://files.example.com
or http://your VPS/Server's IP address
, and use the NextCloud admin account to log in.
The browser will take you automatically to NextCloud setup page where you have to begin the setup of NextCloud.
You can choose either SQLite or MySQL/MariaDB. If you want to SQLite database, then you do not have to enter the database details (not recommended for production use). Whereas MariaDB requires database user, password, and database name.
For this tutorial, we will use MariaDB as a backend database.
Provide admin username and password. Also configure MySQL / MariaDB database.
When done click the “Finish Setup” button. You should get the Files dashboard of Nextcloud now.