nextcloud

Our nextcloud installation is running on lucius, which is currently running Debian jessie. The nextcloud application is instatlled from source.

Important details

• The application runs as the www-data user
• Directories:
  • The code is in /var/www/nextcloud.
  • The data (files) are in /var/lib/nextcloud/data.
  • Our configuration is in /etc/nextcloud (symlinked from /var/www/nextcloud/config)
• We're using the postgres package not the mysql package. If you want to muck around in the database: su - www-data and then psql nextcloud
• We're authenticating using the login-service (web api).
  • That happens via our own mfplauth app, which depends on the ​external user auth app
• The admin username (mfpl-admin) and password are in keyringer. However, try to avoid logging in as mfpl-admin, and if you change any configuration options, /etc/nextcloud/config.php will get overwritten
• A 5GB per user quota is set. This is configured by logging in as mfpl-admin and then clicking to administer users. Quotas can be changed on a per user basis.
• To fix #8125, we've added our own custom theme called "mayfirst", which is in lucius.mayfirst.org:/var/lib/nextcloud/themes and it is activated via the theme => "mayfirst" line in lucius.mayfirst.org:/etc/nextcloud/config.php. Currently, it only adds a style sheet that simply hides the password change form.
• We have committed to maintaining four extra apps, which are installed in /var/lib/nextcloud/apps-local:
  • ​Calendar - allows users to create, share and sync calendars
  • ​Contacts - allows users to create, share and sync contacts
  • ​Markdown editor - provides a live preview while editing files in the markdown syntax (useful for storing static content generated web sites like ​hugo).
  • ​circles - allows users to create "circles" of people to share documents, calendars, etc. with.
  • ​Bookmarks (see #10696) - save, sync and share bookmarks
  • ​External user authentication - The base application allowing us to write our own external auth plugin (see below). The full nextcloud apps repository is checked out in /srv/nextcloud-apps. The user_external app is copied from /srv/nextcloud-apps/user_external to /var/lib/nextcloud/apps-local.
  • MF/PL custom auth app (​git://git.mayfirst.org/mfpl/mfplauth) - Allowing users to login using their own May First/People Link username and password. this module is checkout via git directly in /var/lib/nextcloud/apps-local/mfplauth.
  • ​Rich Documents/Collobora - web edit word and spreadsheet files.

Upgrading

Steps to upgrade from source:

• Visit ​https://nextcloud.com/changelog/ and download the appropriate version to /root using wget and unpack
• Create symlinks that mirror the symlinks in /var/www/nextcloud
• If upgrading a major version, backup /var/lib/nextcloud/apps-local and download new versions of all apps in /var/lib/nextcloud/apps-local, replacing the existing apps with the new ones.
• Copy /etc/nextcloud/config.php to /etc/nextcloud/config.php.bak
• Enter maintenance mode (edit to /etc/nextcloud/config.php)
• Backup the database with:

  su -c "pg_dump nextcloud" www-data > nextcloud.pre.$(date +%Y.%m.%d).backup.sql
  

• Ensure the dump completed successfully:

  tail nextcloud.sql
  

• Make a backup of the current nextcloud installation:

  mv /var/www/nextcloud /var/www/nextcloud.version.n.n.n
  

• Move the new copy in:

  mv /root/nextcloud /var/www/
  

• Ensure all database udpates have been run, su to the www-data user and then:

  su - www-data
  cd /var/www/nextcloud
  php occ upgrade
  

Collabora online

For the richtext editor to work, we have to have Collabora Online installed. Fortunately it can be installed as a docker image.

The docker service is installed and managed via puppet (m_docker.pp).

We are loosely following ​these instructions for installation with nginx (that page includes an nginx configuration file). They depend on a ​collabora-code docker image, which has a ​Docker file that lives on github. Rather than pull in their unverified docker image, I have forked their Docker file (​git://git.mayfirst.org/mfpl/collabora-code), with instructions on how to build it from scratch.

On lucius it should be installed via puppet and found in:

/usr/local/share/collabora-code

See the README.mfpl.md for directions on installing and upgrading the docker images

Nginx and php fpm

A working ​nginx configuration file for nextcloud is available.

In addition, php5-fpm should work mostly out of the box but requires these tweaks:

• /etc/php5/fpm/pool.d/www.conf:
  • Uncomment the the lines starting with env (so environment variables are available to nextcloud)
  • Change:

    pm.max_children = 50
    pm.start_servers = 10
    pm.min_spare_servers = 10
    pm.max_spare_servers = 15
    

• Add the file /etc/php5/fpm/conf.d/100-nextcloud.ini with the contents:

  always_populate_raw_post_data = -1