Setup NextCloud Server Using Composer on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 with Nginx, MariaDB and PHP 7.2-FPM Support

Recently we showed students and new users how to always get the latest version of NextCloud using Composer with Apache2, MariaDB and PHP 7.2 support… For those who want to run the same setup with Ngnx HTTP server instead of Apache2, they can continue below…..

For students and new users looking for help installing the latest version of NextCloud Server ( 13.0.6 ) from Github using Composer with Nginx, MariaDB and PHP 7.2 support, the steps below should be a great place to start…

When you use Composer to install NextCloud packages, you can easily upgrade from the commmand line with Composer, which is much simpler…

To upgrade NextCloud, you must manually upgrade its core files and other packages when new versions are available…. and doing that using its starndard method can be challenging for some users…

This brief tutorial is going to show students and new users how to install / upgrade NextCloud from Github repository via Composer with Nginx, MariaDB and PHP 7.2 support on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 LTS servers…

To get started with installing NextCloud, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Install Nginx HTTP Server on Ubuntu

Nginx HTTP Server is probably the second most popular web server in use… so install it since NextCloud needs it..

To install Nginx HTTP on Ubuntu server, run the commands below…

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nginx

After installing Nginx, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable Nginx service to always start up with the server boots.

sudo systemctl stop nginx.service
sudo systemctl start nginx.service
sudo systemctl enable nginx.service

To test Nginx setup, open your browser and browse to the server hostname or IP address and you should see Nginx default test page as shown below.. When you see that, then Nginx is working as expected..

http://localhost

Step 2: Install MariaDB Database Server

MariaDB database server is a great place to start when looking at open source database servers to use with Magento… To install MariaDB run the commands below…

sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client

After installing MariaDB, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable MariaDB service to always start up when the server boots..

Run these on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

sudo systemctl stop mysql.service
sudo systemctl start mysql.service
sudo systemctl enable mysql.service

Run these on Ubuntu 18.04 and 18.10 LTS

sudo systemctl stop mariadb.service
sudo systemctl start mariadb.service
sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service

After that, run the commands below to secure MariaDB server by creating a root password and disallowing remote root access.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

When prompted, answer the questions below by following the guide.

• Enter current password for root (enter for none): Just press the Enter
• Set root password? [Y/n]: Y
• New password: Enter password
• Re-enter new password: Repeat password
• Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: Y
• Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: Y
• Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]:  Y
• Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]:  Y

Restart MariaDB server

To test if MariaDB is installed, type the commands below to logon to MariaDB server

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then type the password you created above to sign on… if successful, you should see MariaDB welcome message

Step 3: Install PHP 7.2 and Related Modules

PHP 7.2 may not be available in Ubuntu default repositories… in order to install it, you will have to get it from third-party repositories.

Run the commands below to add the below third party repository to upgrade to PHP 7.2

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php

Then update and upgrade to PHP 7.2

sudo apt update

Next, run the commands below to install PHP 7.2 and related modules.

sudo apt install php7.2-fpm php7.2-common php7.2-gmp php7.2-curl php7.2-intl php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-mysql php7.2-gd php7.2-xml php7.2-cli php7.2-zip

After installing PHP 7.2, run the commands below to open PHP default config file for Nginx…

sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini

Then make the changes on the following lines below in the file and save. The value below are great settings to apply in your environments.

file_uploads = On
allow_url_fopen = On
short_open_tag = On
memory_limit = 256M
upload_max_filesize = 100M
max_execution_time = 360
date.timezone = America/Chicago

After making the change above, save the file and close out.

Step 3: Restart Nginx

After installing PHP and related modules, all you have to do is restart Nginx to reload PHP configurations…

To restart Nginx, run the commands below

sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Step 4: Create NextCloud Database

Now that you’ve installed all the packages that are required for NextCloud to function, continue below to start configuring the servers. First run the commands below to create a blank NextClouddatabase.

To logon to MariaDB database server, run the commands below.

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then create a database called nextcloud

CREATE DATABASE nextcloud;

Create a database user called nextclouduser with new password

CREATE USER 'nextclouduser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password_here';

Then grant the user full access to the database.

GRANT ALL ON nextcloud.* TO 'nextclouduser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'user_password_here' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Finally, save your changes and exit.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Step 5: Download NextCloud Latest Release

To get NextCloud latest release you may want to use Github repository… Install Composer, Curl and other dependencies to get started…

sudo apt install curl git
curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | sudo php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer

After installing curl and Composer above, change into the Nginx root directory and downaload NextCloud packages from Github… Always replace the branch number with the latest branch….

cd /var/www/html
sudo git clone --branch stable13 https://github.com/nextcloud/server.git nextcloud
cd /var/www/html/nextcloud
sudo composer install
sudo git submodule update --init

Then run the commands below to set the correct permissions for NextCloud to function.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/nextcloud/
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/nextcloud/

Step 6: Configure Nginx

Finally, configure Apahce2 site configuration file for NextCloud. This file will control how users access NextCloud content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called nextcloud

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/nextcloud

Then copy and paste the content below into the file and save it. Replace the highlighted line with your own domain name and directory root location.

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    root /var/www/html/nextcloud;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;
    server_name  example.com www.example.com;

    client_max_body_size 512M;
    fastcgi_buffers 64 4K;

    location / {
        rewrite ^ /index.php$request_uri;
    }

    location ~ ^/(?:build|tests|config|lib|3rdparty|templates|data)/ {
        deny all;
    }
    location ~ ^/(?:\.|autotest|occ|issue|indie|db_|console) {
        deny all;
    }

    location ~ ^/(?:index|remote|public|cron|core/ajax/update|status|ocs/v[12]|updater/.+|ocs-provider/.+)\.php(?:$|/) {
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+?\.php)(/.*)$;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
        fastcgi_request_buffering off;
    }

    location ~ ^/(?:updater|ocs-provider)(?:$|/) {
        try_files $uri/ =404;
        index index.php;
    }

    location ~ \.(?:css|js|woff|svg|gif)$ {
        try_files $uri /index.php$request_uri;
        add_header Cache-Control "public, max-age=15778463";
        access_log off;
    }

    location ~ \.(?:png|html|ttf|ico|jpg|jpeg)$ {
        try_files $uri /index.php$request_uri;
        # Optional: Don't log access to other assets
        access_log off;
    }
}

Save the file and exit.

Step 7: Enable the NextCloud and Rewrite Module

After configuring the VirtualHost above, enable it by running the commands below

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/nextcloud /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/


Step 8 : Restart Nginx

To load all the settings above, restart Nginx by running the commands below.

sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Then open your browser and browse to the server domain name. You should see NextCloud setup wizard to complete. Please follow the wizard carefully.

http://example.com/

Then create an admin account for NextCloud and type in the database info created above and finish the installation….

Enjoy!

Congratulation! You have successfully installed NextCloud on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 and may work on upcoming 18.10…

Upgrading NextCloud

In the future when you want to upgrade to a new released version, simply follow the steps below:

Backup your corrent NextCloud folder….

sudo mv /var/www/html/nextcloud /var/www/html/nextcloud_bak

Then download the latest… replace the stable number with the latest…

cd /var/www/html
sudo git clone --branch stable14 https://github.com/nextcloud/server.git nextcloud
cd /var/www/html/nextcloud
sudo composer install
sudo git submodule update --init

Next, copy the old data folder and the old config.php file from the backed-up folder to the new NextCloud directory….

sudo cp -rf /var/www/html/nextcloud_bak/data /var/www/html/nextcloud
sudo cp /var/www/html/nextcloud_bak/config/config.php /var/www/html/nextcloud/config/

After that, run the commands below to upgrade….

sudo -u www-data php /var/www/html/nextcloud/occ maintenance:mode --on
sudo composer update /var/www/html/nextcloud --with-dependencies
sudo -u www-data php /var/www/html/nextcloud/occ upgrade
sudo -u www-data php /var/www/html/nextcloud/occ maintenance:mode --off

That’s it!

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Install NextCloud Server using Composer on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 with Apache2, MariaDB and PHP 7.2 Support