Guides - Deploying Nextcloud through the Linode Marketplace

Nextcloud is an open source solution to file hosting and sharing. With Nextcloud, you can synchronize files from a local computer to the Linode server and share them with collaborators. Nextcloud’s customizable security features and intuitive user interface help to keep files safe and easy to manage.

Deploying a Marketplace App

The Linode Marketplace allows you to easily deploy software on a Compute Instance using the Cloud Manager. See Get Started with Marketplace Apps for complete steps.

1. Log in to the Cloud Manager and select the Marketplace link from the left navigation menu. This displays the Linode Create page with the Marketplace tab pre-selected.

2. Under the Select App section, select the app you would like to deploy.

3. Complete the form by following the steps and advice within the Creating a Compute Instance guide. Depending on the Marketplace App you selected, there may be additional configuration options available. See the Configuration Options section below for compatible distributions, recommended plans, and any additional configuration options available for this Marketplace App.

4. Click the Create Linode button. Once the Compute Instance has been provisioned and has fully powered on, wait for the software installation to complete. If the instance is powered off or restarted before this time, the software installation will likely fail.

To verify that the app has been fully installed, see Get Started with Marketplace Apps > Verify Installation. Once installed, follow the instructions within the Getting Started After Deployment section to access the application and start using it.

Note

Estimated deployment time: Nextcloud should be fully installed within 5-7 minutes after the Compute Instance has finished provisioning.

Configuration Options

• Supported distributions: Debian 10
• Recommended minimum plan: All plan types and sizes can be used.

NextCloud Options

• The name of the admin user for NextCloud (required): The administrator username for nextcloud. This will be used to log in to the application.
• The password for NextCloud’s admin user (required): The administrator password. This will be used to log in to the application.
• MySQL database root password (required): The root user’s password for the Nextcloud database.
• MySQL user password (required): Your new MySQL user’s password.
• The name of the MySQL database: The name to assign to the Nextcloud instance’s MySQL database. If no value is provided, the database is named nextcloud.
• The name of the MySQL user to create: The name of a new MySQL user to create. If no value is provided, the user is named nextcloud.
• Admin email for the NextCLoud server: The email address to use for the Nextcloud instance’s admin user.
• Would you like to use a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate? (Requires domain): Enable a free HTTPS CertBot SSL certificate on the Nextcloud domain. If you do not provide a value, no is set by default.

Limited User (Optional)

You can optionally fill out the following fields to automatically create a limited user for your new Compute Instance. This is recommended for most deployments as an additional security measure. This account will be assigned to the sudo group, which provides elevated permission when running commands with the sudo prefix.

• Limited sudo user: Enter your preferred username for the limited user.
• Password for the limited user: Enter a strong password for the new user.
• SSH public key for the limited user: If you wish to login as the limited user through public key authentication (without entering a password), enter your public key here. See Creating an SSH Key Pair and Configuring Public Key Authentication on a Server for instructions on generating a key pair.
• Disable root access over SSH: To block the root user from logging in over SSH, select Yes (recommended). You can still switch to the root user once logged in and you can also log in as root through Lish.

Custom Domain (Optional)

If you wish to access your application using a custom domain, fill out the following fields.

• Linode API Token: If you wish to use the Linode’s DNS Manager to manage DNS records for your custom domain, create a Linode API Personal Access Token on your account with Read/Write access to Domains. If this is provided along with the subdomain and domain fields (outlined below), the installation attempts to create DNS records via the Linode API. See Get an API Access Token. If you do not provide this field, you need to manually configure your DNS records through your DNS provider and point them to the IP address of the new instance.
• Subdomain: The subdomain you wish to use, such as www for www.example.com.
• Domain: The domain name you wish to use, such as example.com.

Getting Started after Deployment

Log Into Your Nextcloud Instance

1. Open a browser window and navigate to the NextCloud instance’s domain. For example, enter nextcloud.example.com into the browser, replacing example.com with the value of your own domain. If you do not install the App with a domain name, the domain is the public IP address of the Linode appended with a forward slash and “nextcloud. For example, 192.168.17.43/nextcloud/.

2. Enter the administrator username and password set during initial app creation in the presented form.

3. Once you have successfully logged in, the Nextcloud Hub page appears where you can upload files to the Nextcloud server.

Next Steps

Note

Currently, Linode does not manage software and systems updates for Marketplace Apps. It is up to the user to perform routine maintenance on software deployed in this fashion.

• Configure Nextcloud to use Linode Object Storage as an External Storage Mount. You can use Object Storage as a secondary place to store your Nextcloud files. Using Linode Object Storage to store files prevents you from running out of storage space that is limited by your Linode’s plan size.
• Install the Nextcloud desktop synchronization client on a local computer to easily synchronize the desktop files to the Nextcloud server.

More Information

You may wish to consult the following resources for additional information on this topic. While these are provided in the hope that they will be useful, please note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of externally hosted materials.

• Nextcloud Documentation Overview