Nextcloud

What it's good for#

Nextcloud does the job Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive do, on a machine you own. You keep a folder on your laptop that stays in step with the server, your phone uploads its photos to it, and you can send someone a link to a file instead of an attachment. Each person in the house gets their own account and their own space, and you can share folders between you.

It's also a platform. Its own app store adds calendars, contacts, notes, tasks and a lot more, so for many people it becomes the one place their stuff lives.

Signing in#

Open it with the Web Interface button on its page. There's no setup wizard to click through and no page where the first visitor becomes the owner: Nextcloud's own installer runs as it first starts, and creates the account before it serves a single page. That account is called admin, and its password is in the Login Details shown when the install finishes. Press Welcome on the app's page to see it again.

The first start takes a few minutes while Nextcloud builds its database. Afterwards LibrePortal switches on its memory cache and file locking (Redis), which makes syncing lots of small files noticeably quicker.

The addresses it answers on#

Nextcloud only answers to addresses on its trusted domains list. Open it by any other name and you get "Access through untrusted domain" instead of the sign-in page. LibrePortal keeps that list up to date for you: every time Nextcloud starts, it adds whatever your server is reachable on that day. That's your server's address on your home network (like 192.168.1.50), its public address, the app's address on your domain, its local name such as nextcloud.lan.internal, and the server's address on the LibrePortal VPN. It only ever adds; nothing is taken off.

So if you set up a domain or turn on local names after installing Nextcloud, restart it and the new name works. For any other name, run Add Trusted Domain on the Tools tab with just the host part, like files.example.com (no http://, no port), and reload the page. It adds to the list without replacing anything already on it.

Nextcloud works on plain http:// on your server's address and port, and over HTTPS through Traefik, side by side.

Adding people#

Make accounts from the Tools tab rather than handing out the admin login.

The others do what they say: Reset User Password (leave it empty to generate one), Set Admin Status, List Users and Delete User Account, which removes the person's files too and can't be undone. If you reset the admin password here, LibrePortal updates the one it shows you as well.

Getting your files onto it#

In the browser you can drag files and folders straight onto the Files page. For anything more than a handful, use the apps.

On your computer, install the Nextcloud desktop app (Windows, macOS and Linux) from nextcloud.com. Give it your Nextcloud's address, exactly as you open it in the browser, and it opens a browser window where you sign in and approve it. It then keeps a folder on your computer in step with the server, in both directions.

On your phone, the Nextcloud app for Android and iPhone signs in the same way and can upload new photos automatically.

Neither app keeps your real password. When you approve one, Nextcloud gives it an app password of its own, and you can see and revoke each device in Nextcloud's personal security settings. That's also where to make an app password by hand for anything that asks for a username and password directly, like a calendar app.

Files you copy in on the server#

Nextcloud keeps its own index of what's in each person's folder. If you copy files into its data folder directly on the server (from an old backup, say), Nextcloud won't see them until you run Rescan Files on the Tools tab. Give it a username to scan one person, or leave it empty to scan everyone, which can take a while on a big collection.

Extras#

Nextcloud has its own app store, and LibrePortal offers a short list of its apps as extras that you can tick while installing. See Choosing extras for how the step works.

• Talk: chat, voice and video calls with the people on your Nextcloud. It has a sub-option, Calls from outside your home, and group calls, covered below.
• Calendar: calendars you can sync to your phone and share.
• Contacts: an address book you can sync to your phone.
• Tasks: to-do lists that sync with your calendar apps.
• Notes: simple notes, kept as files in your Nextcloud.
• Deck: boards and cards for planning, on your own or together.
• Music: play the music in your Nextcloud files in the browser.
• External storage: show other folders and drives inside Nextcloud.
• Office: open and edit documents, spreadsheets and slides with OnlyOffice.

Each one comes from the Nextcloud app store, so your server needs internet while it installs. If one can't be added, the install says which and why, and Nextcloud is installed and working anyway. To change them later, run Add or Remove Extras on the Tools tab: it shows the list with what's on already ticked. Removing an extra switches the app off inside Nextcloud but deletes nothing, so boards, notes and calendars are back as they were if you tick it again. This is also how a Nextcloud installed before extras existed gets them.

Phones sync calendars, contacts and tasks over the standard CalDAV and CardDAV (on Android, the free DAVx⁵ app does it). LibrePortal's web server already answers the addresses those apps look for, so you can usually give them just your Nextcloud's address. Anything not on the list is still in Nextcloud's own app store, under Apps in the admin's menu.

Good to know#

• Updates are automatic within a version. LibrePortal follows one major version of Nextcloud (34 at the moment) and takes its fixes as they come. A new major version shows as Newer version on the app's Updates tab and waits for you to press Upgrade. Nextcloud refuses to skip a version, so LibrePortal steps through them one at a time and checks each one has really finished, maintenance mode and all, before the next. See Updates.
• Maintenance mode locks everyone out and shows a notice. Toggle Maintenance Mode is there for repairs; Nextcloud switches it on and off by itself while it upgrades, so you rarely need it. If Nextcloud is stuck saying it's in maintenance mode, System Status tells you, and the same tool turns it off.
• Background jobs (scanning files, making previews, emptying old versions and the trash, notifications) run every five minutes on their own, in a separate cron container, and the heaviest daily ones at night. A Nextcloud installed with 0.4.6 or earlier has no cron container and runs them only when people use the web page, until you reinstall it.
• It's a bigger app. Nextcloud is five containers (Nextcloud itself, its web server, its database, its cache and the background jobs) and wants about 1 GB of free memory once it's in use.
• Big files are fine. The web server in front of Nextcloud accepts uploads up to 10 GB in one go, and the apps upload in chunks anyway.
• Backups include everything: the database and the whole Nextcloud folder, which holds everyone's files. That can be big, so it's worth reading Storage if Nextcloud is going to hold a lot, and moving it to a bigger disk before it fills the one it's on.
• Several copies. You can run more than one Nextcloud, each with its own users and files, for example one for the family and one for a club.
• Something wrong? Tail Logs on the Tools tab shows Nextcloud's own recent log lines.