Data Center: Using NextCloud

It is STAGGERING how many web-pages purport to tell you where the NextCloud files are and just don't.

If you install Ubuntu in mostly default mode, at one point there's an option to install some 3rd-party tools along the way, and one of the choices is NextCloud.

https://georgenswebsite.com/operating-systems/ubuntu-server.jpg

You can see NextCloud is the second choice. It installs into some folder, you aren't told what it is. Mostly you don't care.

Answer: /snap/nextcloud/current/

Why I went to look for this: I'm getting an error I don't understand, it says I need to look at the log files. Which I can't find. 

/snap/nextcloud/current/ has a folder called "logs" but that is empty. I did find an indication that maybe that just holds mysql errors.

Some online reading suggest the log files are in the "data" directory, but I can't find that either.

Apparently NC uses an Apache install as its server/interface. Normally you would find that in /var/www/ but no.

If you did a manual installation:

https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/stable/admin_manual/installation/installation_wizard.html

that says /var/www/ but the ubuntu/snap installation does something else...you get a bunch of defaults chosen behind the scenes, which are difficult to change later.

One thing I would like to do is occasionally add disk capacity, but that has looked difficult. Setting NC to use non-default file-space looks hard, at best.

Best I can tell is that the data folder is inside the Apache folder, and the logs I want are there. But as I write this I don't know where Apache is either. And "data" is def not in /snap/nextcloud/

The intent here appears to be that your NextCloud host machine is doing NC and *nothing else* are you don't want to mess with it.

So when you do the initial NC setup, and are giving the admin account name, you get this:

So the data will be in /var/snap/nextcloud/common/nextcloud/data/.

Logs are in /var/snap/nextcloud/current/logs/ -- You will have to sudo to look at this, and maybe chmod to "logs" in order to get into the folder to look at the files. The window with the error message was this:

which isn't especially helpful. Turns out it means the server has to name itself as a "trusted machine". You have to go edit 

/var/snap/nextcloud/current/nextcloud/config/config.php

to fix this, there's an entry for "trusted_domains" that needs IPs added. You probably want to be VERY specific about this.

Check it first with:

nextcloud.occ config:system:get trusted_domains

If you need to add one or more, do this:

nextcloud.occ config:system:set trusted_domains 2 --value=exampledomain.com

where exampledomain.com could be an IP address. You can have multiple, the "2" is just a sequence number. I tried changing this, reboot, etc. Didn't help, so it was simpler to just reinstall from scratch than to try any harder to figure it out.

What my problem had been: I changed the underlying IP address for the machine. NC has some security controls related to this, so that's harder than it ought to be. (I am also using ProxMox, that has some complicated IP aspects.)

You database info is this:

If you want to do external access into the database (mysql in this case) you should show and save that password, it's a random string. An inch farther down is the "install" button. I clicked it and it is taking a good while to finish up, a couple of minutes in the end.

This is all almost absurdly complicated. Don't be wanting to fiddle with it more than once, that's for sure.

Once that "Install" is done, you now have a data folder, and can go, on a command line, to that folder to verify that a Admin folder exists under the name you just gave.

I went ahead and installed "Recommended Apps" because I expect customers to want to use some of them.

I am hoping that "Talk" is like Zoom, but it might be more like Slack. Apparently it is.

https://nextcloud.com/talk/

I have read that you can change which folder holds all the "data space" for NC, away from the default. It too sounds difficult, where in fact it should be made easy to allow me to add space, for down the line when I can afford bigger disk drives.

The way to begin with this is to get a standard HP DL380 15xLFF 3.5" drive spaces. They aren't expensive. Put the full 15 of 4TB drives in there, config that at boot time as one large RAID 50 (or 60 if you have had disk troubles). Then install ubuntu server (using PXE boot installer if you followed that other blog), check true for install NextCloud. All the default things will behave the right way, give it the IP you want, all is good.

Now you are at the startup screen to make the admin account, and can begin creating accounts, etc.