How to install Nextcloud on CyberPanel

Blog Posts
1

To view this tutorial on Nextcloud (with proper Markdown formatting): https://nuage.fiatlux.tk/s/o4gBeiR2gYkmbXR

Prerequisites:

  • Create a PHP website/domain with SSL certificate for your Nextcloud site
  • Create a blank mysql database for Nextcloud
  • SSH access to the VPS (or a SSH access to the website account)
    • Alternatively : an FTP access to the website

Steps :

  • 1. Get the Nextcloud archive and installer
  • 2. Run the installer
  • 3. PHP settings (CyberPanel)
  • 4. Nextcloud basic config
  • 5. Force HTTPS (.htaccess)
  • 6. Tweak and optimize your instance

1. Get the Nextcloud archive and installer

Select the version of Nextcloud you want to use here: https://nextcloud.com/install/#instructions-server

SSH (CyberPanel)

Log to your VPS and switch to the webite user. To list usernames for each website:

# sudo ls -l /home

To switch user :

# sudo su <username>

I guess you can use a SSH account created in CyberPanel for the website too, in which case you wouldn’t need to switch user (I didn’t try).

Move to the public directory and download the archive and installer (here with Nextcloud 21.0.0) :

# cd ~/public_html
# wget -O nc.zip https://download.nextcloud.com/server/releases/nextcloud-21.0.0.zip
# wget https://download.nextcloud.com/server/installer/setup-nextcloud.php

FTP

Simply upload the archive and the installer to the website’s public_html. Make sure you rename the archive nc.zip before launching the installer.

2. Run the installer

Navigate your broswer to https://<domain>/setup-nextcloud.php and follow the instructions.

A few notes:

  1. Dependency Check screen : enter . to install Nextcloud at the root of the site (unless you want to access your instance via https://<domain>/nextcloud/)
  2. Use a (very) strong password for the admin account
  3. Storage and database :
    • Data directory : remove public_html from the path, eg. enter /home/<domain>/data in place of /home/<domaine>/public_html/data (default vallue) – this will ensure that user data will not accidentally get exposed publicly.
    • Database : select MySQL/MariaDB and enter the database credentials. Leave localhostas hostname.

There you go, you have a running Nextcloud instance.

3. PHP settings (CyberPanel)

We’ll override some PHP settings for that specific website instead of tweaking php.ini for the entire server. Set this way, they will also apply regardless of the version of PHP used, so you can switch them freely.

In CyberPanel, go to Websites > List Websites > Manage (for the Nextcloud website)

Under Configurations, click the vHost Conf icon.

Spot the phpIniOverride section (which should be empty) and replace it with this and hit the Save button:

phpIniOverride  {
  php_value mbstring.func_overload 0
  php_value always_populate_raw_post_data -1
  php_value default_charset "UTF-8"
  php_value output_buffering 0
  php_value memory_limit "512M"
  php_value max_execution_time 300
  php_value upload_max_filesize "1024M"
  php_value post_max_size "1280M"
  php_value max_input_time 600
}

(Some of these values would be debatable, be my guest!)

4. Nextcloud basic config

Edit the Nextcloud configuration file located at ~/public_html/config/config.php (or ~/public_html/nextcloud/config/config.php if Nextcloud was installed in the default directory).

# nano ~/public_html/config/config.php

For now, we’ll simply set the default locale/language and get rid of the ugly index.php compound in the URLs. Insert the following lines, save and exit (CTRL+X in nano):

  'default_locale' => 'en_US',
  'default_language' => 'en',
  'htaccess.RewriteBase' => '/',
  'htaccess.IgnoreFrontController' => true,

Then ask Nextcloud to rebuild .htaccess to account the changes (you need SSH for this).

# php ~/public_html/occ maintenance:update:htaccess

Doing so might destroy custom rules in your .htaccess, that’s why we do it now. You only need to run that command if you change any htaccess.* value.

5. Force HTTPS (.htaccess)

In CyberPanel, go to Websites > List Websites > Manage (for the Nextcloud website)

Under Configurations, click the Rewrite Rules icon.

Right under #### DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE ####, paste the following:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
## Forcer HTTPS
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTPHOST}%{REQUESTURI} [R,L]
</IfModule>

6. Tweak and optimize your instance

There is a lot more you can do to optimize your Nextcloud instance. A good start is to login into your Nextcloud administrator account, navigate to Settings (top right menu) > Overview, and follow the recommendations that show up on that screen.

2

I get it to work in much much simplest way. However, I found issue with SSL (rewrite rule) and can’t figure where is mistake.

So, my manual cli installation of CyberPaanel is different from original only as docRoot is not on /var/www/ instead it is on /home/xxxx.mydomain.com/nectcloud/. However, rewrite rules what worth for other PHP applications (WP, Matomo, …) not works here. I have message as - “This website does not supply ownership information”.

So, vHost (part) looks like:

docRoot $VH_ROOT/seopanel
vhDomain $VH_NAME
vhAliases www.$VH_NAME
…
enableGzip 1
enableIpGeo 1

Rules are:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^/?(.*) https://%{SERVER_NAME}/$1 [R,L]

What I’m doing wrong?

3

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R,L]

Browser showing “This website does not supply ownership information” indicates a problem with the SSL certificate.

CyberPanel uses /home//public_html as default docRoot. Why not stick with it?

As for my tutorial, I wanted to balance between being as straightforward as thorough, assuming a fairly standard CyberPanel installation. From those steps, anyone would easily know where to look if they needed to tweak something. You’ll need to go through any of those essential steps at some point anyway.

But every path leads to Rome! If you’ve found a simplest way to get a Nextcloud up and running, please kindly share it with us!

4

Before this step everything seems to works OK…
After doing this step, it shows 404 error, any idea?

5

Its not direct an answer for your question, but my Necxtcloud installation was broken from the mod_security rulez.

I fixed it using this link (in german language)