To introduce an open-source, on-premise file share, and collaborative platform, you will learn How to install NextCloud on CentOS 8. NextCloud allows you to save your files and access them across multiple devices such as PCs, smartphones, and tablets. As a popular self-hosting platform that works much like DropBox, it allows you to seamlessly collaborate on various projects, manage your calendar, send and receive emails as well as make video calls.
Table of Contents
Prerequisites:
Since you will be accessing NextCloud via a browser, it’s crucial to ensure that the LAMP stack is already installed on CentOS 8.
How to install NextCloud on CentOS 8
Let’s walk through the steps of this article to show you How to install NextCloud on CentOS 8.
1- Install Additional PHP Modules
Some requisite PHP modules are required for NextCloud to function well.
sudo dnf install php-mysqlnd php-xml php-zip php-curl php-gd php-intl php-json php-ldap php-mbstring php-opcache
2- Create a NextCloud Database
Once the necessary PHP modules installation completed, create a database that will contain NextCloud’s data by log in to the MariaDB database engine using the command below and provide the password.
mysql -u root -p
After logging in, create a database and a database user for NextCloud using the commands below.
MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE nextcloud_db; MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL ON nextcloud_db.* TO ‘nextcloud_user’@’localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘StrongP@ssword’; MariaDB [(none)]> FLUSH PRIVILEGES; MariaDB [(none)]> EXIT;
3- Install NextCloud on CentOS 8
At this point, you must download NextCloud zipped file from NextCloud’s official site. By the time of writing down this guide, the latest version of NextCloud is 18.0.1.
sudo wget https://download.nextcloud.com/server/releases/nextcloud-18.0.1.zip
Then, unzip the file to the /var/www/html/ path.
sudo unzip nextcloud-18.0.1 -d /var/www/html/
Now, create a directory to store the admin user data.
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/html/nextcloud/data
Next, to let the Apache user can append data into it, you need to modify NextCloud’s directory permissions.
sudo chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html/nextcloud/
4- Setting Up SELinux and Firewall for NextCloud
This step requires you to make a few configurations for SELinux so that it can handle Nextcloud without any problems. Type the following commands to do this:
sudo semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t '/var/www/html/nextcloud/data' sudo semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t '/var/www/html/nextcloud/config(/.*)?' sudo semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t '/var/www/html/nextcloud/apps(/.*)?' sudo semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t '/var/www/html/nextcloud/3rdparty(/.*)?' sudo semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t '/var/www/html/nextcloud/.htaccess' sudo semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t '/var/www/html/nextcloud/.user.ini' sudo restorecon -Rv '/var/www/html/nextcloud/
Also, you need to open the webserver port 80 to allow external users to access NextCloud from your server. Type the following commands to do this:
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=80/tcp --zone=public --permanent sudo firewall-cmd --reload
5- Finalizing the NextCloud Installation
To start this step, first, create an Admin username and password. secondly, click on ‘Storage and database’.Then, select ‘MariaDB’ as the preferred database engine and fill in the database details. And once the database details have been filled, click on the ‘Finish’ button to complete the setup.
After all, this takes you to the login page. Provide the username and password and hit ‘ENTER’ or click on the ‘Login’ button.
Note: A brief walkthrough about NextCloud will be given in a slide format if you are logging in for the first time. Feel free to scroll to the right for more tips.
Finally, you can close the window to give you access to the dashboard.
Good job! You are now at the end of this guide and you can backup, sync, and share files with your friends and colleagues on NextCloud.
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