Setup ownCloud on Ubuntu 20.04 | 18.04 with Nginx and Let’s Encrypt

This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to install ownCloud platform on Ubuntu 20.04 | 18.04 with Nginx HTTP server and Let’s encrypt wildcard SSL certificates.

ownCloud is an open source, self-hosted file sync and share app platform that enables private cloud services on users’ own servers in their environments. ownCloud provides similar functions like Dropbox and similar cloud storage services, and it’s free to download and install on your own servers without paying service providers.

You can use ownCloud to run your online cloud service platform and build amazing digital experiences with little efforts.

If you’re looking for a enterprise-grade cloud storage platform for your business or for individual needs, ownCloud should probably be a starting point for you. And if you want to learn how to easily install and mange it, then this post is all you need.

For more about ownCloud, please check their Homepage

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

How to install Nginx on Ubuntu

ownCloud requires a web server to function, and Nginx is one of the most popular opensource web server available today.

To install Nginx on Ubuntu, 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 whether Nginx is installed and functioning, open your web browser and browse to the server’s IP address or hostname.

http://localhost

If you see the above page in your browser, then Nginx is working as expected.

How to install MariaDB on Ubuntu

You’ll also need a database server to run ownCloud. A database server is where ownCloud content get stored.

A true open source database server that you can use with ownCloud is MariaDB database server. It is fast, secure and the default server for almost all Linux servers.

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.

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

Next, run the commands below to secure the database server with a root password if you were not prompted to do so during the installation.

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

To verify and validate that MariaDB is installed and working, login to the database console using the commands below:

sudo mysql -u root -p

type the root password when prompted.

If you see a similar screen as shown above, then the server was successfully installed.

How to install PHP 7.4 on Ubuntu

ownCloud is a PHP based application, and PHP is required to run it. Since some versions of Ubuntu don’t have the latest version of PHP, you can add a third-party PPA repository to install PHP from there.

The command below will add a third-party PPA to Ubuntu.

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

Then update and upgrade to PHP 7.4

sudo apt update

Next, run the commands below to install PHP 7.4 and related modules.

sudo apt install php7.4-fpm php7.4-common php7.4-mysql php7.4-gmp php7.4-curl php7.4-intl php7.4-mbstring php7.4-xmlrpc php7.4-gd php7.4-xml php7.4-cli php7.4-zip

After installing PHP 7.4, go and configure some basic settings that may be required for ownCloud to function properly.

Run the commands below to open PHP

sudo nano /etc/php/7.4/fpm/php.ini

Below are good settings to configure for most ownCloud websites.

file_uploads = On
allow_url_fopen = On
short_open_tag = On
memory_limit = 256M
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0
upload_max_filesize = 100M
max_execution_time = 360
date.timezone = America/Chicago

That should get PHP 7.4 installed with some basic settings to allow ownCloud to function.

How to create ownCloud database

When all the servers installed above, it’s now time to begin setting up ownCloud environment. First, run the steps below to create a blank database for ownCloud to use.

Logon to MariaDB database console using the commands below:

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then create a database called owncloud

CREATE DATABASE owncloud;

Next, create a database user called ownclouduser and set password

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

Then grant the user full access to the database.

GRANT ALL ON owncloud.* TO 'ownclouduser'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Finally, save your changes and exit.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

How to download ownCloud

At this point, ownCloud is ready to be downloaded and installed. Use the commands below to download the latest version of ownCloud.

https://owncloud.org/download/

At the time of this writing, the current version is 10.4.1.

Run the commands below to download it.

Then run the commands below to create ownCloud directory and extract the downloaded content there.

cd /tmp
wget https://download.owncloud.org/community/owncloud-10.4.1.zip 
unzip owncloud-10.4.1.zip 
sudo mv owncloud /var/www/owncloud

After that, run the commands below to set the correct permissions for ownCloud to function.

Then run command below to allow www-data user to own the ownCloud directory.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/owncloud/
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/owncloud/

How to configure Nginx to support ownCloud

Below is where you configure Nginx VirtualHost file for the ownCloud site you’re creating. This file defines how client requests are handled and processed.

Run the commands below to create a new VirtualHost file called owncloud in the /etc/nginx/sites-available/ directory.

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

A very good configuration settings for most ownCloud site on Nginx server is below. This configuration should work great.

Copy the content below and save into the file created above.

upstream php-handler { 
    server unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
}
server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    root /var/www/owncloud;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;
    server_name  example.com www.example.com;

    client_max_body_size 512M;
    fastcgi_buffers 8 4K;
    fastcgi_ignore_headers X-Accel-Buffering;
    gzip off;

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

    location ~ ^/(?:build|tests|config|lib|3rdparty|templates|data)/ {
       return 404;
        }

    location ~ ^/(?:.|autotest|occ|issue|indie|db_|console) {
       return 404;
        }

    location ~ ^/(?:index|remote|public|cron|core/ajax/update|status|ocs/v[12]|updater/.+|ocs-provider/.+|ocm-provider/.+|core/templates/40[34]).php(?:$|/) {
    fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+.php)(/.*)$;
    include fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_NAME $fastcgi_script_name;
    fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;
    fastcgi_param modHeadersAvailable true;
    fastcgi_param front_controller_active true;
    fastcgi_read_timeout 180;
    fastcgi_pass php-handler;
    fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
    fastcgi_request_buffering off;
      }

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

Save the file and exit.

After saving the file above, run the commands below to enable the new site, then restart Nginx server.

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/owncloud /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

At this stage, ownCloud is ready and can be launched by going to the server’s IP or hostname.

http://example.com

However, if you want to enable SSL or accept web traffic over HTTPS, then you can continue below to install and configure Let’s Encrypt free SSL certificates.

How to setup let’s encrypt wildcard certificates

At step 6, ownCloud is ready to use without SSL. However, if you want to serve web traffic over HTTPS, then installing and configuring Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate or other public certificates is a must.

To install Let’s Encrypt, run the commands below.

sudo apt update
sudo apt-get install letsencrypt

The commands above will install certbot tool and all dependencies that will be allowed to make the tool function.

Let’s Encrypt provides many ways to challenge you to validate that you own the domain you want to provide SSL certificates for. You will not be able to generate certificates if you can’t prove that you own the domain you want to secure.

For wildcard certificates, the only challenge method Let’s Encrypt accepts is the DNS challenge, which we can invoke via the preferred-challenges=dns flag.

So, to generate a wildcard cert for domain *.example.com, you run the commands below:

sudo certbot certonly --manual --preferred-challenges=dns --email admin@example.com --server https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory --agree-tos -d example.com -d *.example.com

The command options above are explained below:

• certonly:                                     Obtain or renew a certificate, but do not install
• –manual:                                    Obtain certificates interactively
• –preferred-challenges=dns:      Use dns to authenticate domain ownership
• –server:                                      Specify the endpoint to use to generate
• –agree-tos:                                 Agree to the ACME server’s subscriber terms
• -d:                                               Domain name to provide certificates for

After executing the command above, Let’s Encrypt will provide a text string to add a text record to your DNS entry.

Example:

Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log
Plugins selected: Authenticator manual, Installer None

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Would you be willing to share your email address with the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, a founding partner of the Let's Encrypt project and the non-profit
organization that develops Certbot? We'd like to send you email about EFF and
our work to encrypt the web, protect its users and defend digital rights.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Y)es/(N)o: y
Obtaining a new certificate
Performing the following challenges:
dns-01 challenge for example.com

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: The IP of this machine will be publicly logged as having requested this
certificate. If you're running certbot in manual mode on a machine that is not
your server, please ensure you're okay with that.

Are you OK with your IP being logged?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Y)es/(N)o: y

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please deploy a DNS TXT record under the name
_acme-challenge.example.com with the following value:

x4MrZ6y-JqFJQRmq_lGi9ReRQHPa1aTC9J2O7wDKzq8

Before continuing, verify the record is deployed.

Go to your DNS provider portal and add a text record for the string above and save.

Wait a few mins before continuing from the prompt.

Some DNS providers take a wile to propagate changes so it may depend on your provider’s platform.

After the changes above and Let’s encrypt is able to validate that you own the domain, you should see a successful message as below:

IMPORTANT NOTES:
Congratulations! Your certificate and chain have been saved at:
/etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem
Your key file has been saved at:
/etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem
Your cert will expire on 2020-01-09. To obtain a new or tweaked
version of this certificate in the future, simply run certbot
again. To non-interactively renew *all* of your certificates, run
"certbot renew"

The wildcard certificate is now generated and ready to be used.

To verify that the certificate is ready, run the commands below:

sudo certbot certificates

That should display similar screen as below:

Found the following certs:
Certificate Name: example.com
Domains: *.example.com
Expiry Date: 2020-01-05 07:48:04+00:00 (VALID: 85 days)
Certificate Path: /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem
Private Key Path: /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem

Now, Let’s Encrypt’s certificates are valid for 90 days. You’ll want to setup a crob job to automate the renewal process. To do that, open crontab and add the entry below:

sudo crontab -e

Then add the line below and save.

0 1 * * * /usr/bin/certbot renew >> /var/log/letsencrypt/renew.log

Save and you’re done!

With Let’s Encrypt installed, reopen Nginx VirtualHost file created above and add Let’s Encrypt configurations to secure your website.

Run the commands below open the file.

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

Then add the highlighted lines to the VirtualHost file as shown below:

upstream php-handler { 
    server unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
}
server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    root /var/www/owncloud;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;
    server_name  example.com www.example.com;

    client_max_body_size 512M;
    fastcgi_buffers 8 4K;
    fastcgi_ignore_headers X-Accel-Buffering;
    gzip off;

    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem;
    ssl_trusted_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/chain.pem;
    ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
    ssl_ciphers 'TLS13+AESGCM+AES128:ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!DSS';
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
    ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:50m;
    ssl_session_timeout 1d;
    ssl_session_tickets off;
    ssl_ecdh_curve X25519:sect571r1:secp521r1:secp384r1;

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

  location ~ ^/(?:build|tests|config|lib|3rdparty|templates|data)/ {
    return 404;
    }

  location ~ ^/(?:.|autotest|occ|issue|indie|db_|console) {
    return 404;
    }

  location ~ ^/(?:index|remote|public|cron|core/ajax/update|status|ocs/v[12]|updater/.+|ocs-provider/.+|ocm-provider/.+|core/templates/40[34]).php(?:$|/) {
    fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+.php)(/.*)$;
    include fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_NAME $fastcgi_script_name;
    fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;
    fastcgi_param modHeadersAvailable true;
    fastcgi_param front_controller_active true;
    fastcgi_read_timeout 180;
    fastcgi_pass php-handler;
    fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
    fastcgi_request_buffering off;
  }

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

After the above, restart Nginx and PHP 7.4-FPM

sudo systemctl reload nginx
sudo systemctl reload php7.4-fpm

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

https://example.com/

ownCloud installer should begin the setup wizard. Choose the installation language and continue.

Accept the licensing terms, validate that all requirements are met, then contnue.

Next, type in the database name, username and password created above and continue.

After that, your store should be ready.

That’s it!

Conclusion:

Congratulation! You have successfully installed ownCloud on Ubuntu 18.04 | 20.04. If you find any error above, please use the comment form below to report it.

Thanks,

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