Moving away from Nextcloud AIO, where do I start setting up a Nextcloud instance WITHOUT Docker?

Hi selfhosted! Hope you're having a good day :)

I'm pretty new to self-hosting and have been traipsing through a minefield attempting to make NextCloud AIO work inside Docker. The instance runs for a few days/weeks and then starts getting extremely slow on the website, then dies entirely. Usually, either the ClamAV or Apache containers get stuck in an unhealthy state that no number of reboots or reinstalls can fix.

Quick context for how this all works. I have one machine that runs Proxmox and a group of VMs for various purposes. One such VM runs my Nextcloud. This VM is running Ubuntu 23.10, Docker, and the NextCloud AIO package.

Another VM hosts OpenMediaVault, which contains a set of SMB Shares mounted to the host VM that act as storage for NextCloud. The symlinks (I think I'm using that word right) on the host VM have user and group permissions updated according to AIO's documentation. Proxmox is configured to boot this VM first, then boot the rest in sequence once the files are available.

Right now I've got Nextcloud handling Synchronization of Files, Calendars, Contacts, and Kanban boards via the Deck Extension. Everything else can be abandoned at this point, these are the only functions I'm truly using. If this gives you an idea for an alternative app I'd love to hear it.

So after AIO broke for about the 5th time in the 8 months since I started trying to self-host it, I've been looking at alternatives. Before I go that route, I want to try installing Nextcloud without Docker. Some of the posts I've read here suggest that the Docker distribution of NextCloud has serious issues with stability and safely installing updates.

I plan to make a new VM entirely for this, Distro undecided. I still want to run it as a VM and still use my SMB shares for bulk storage.

So where would I begin if I planned to install NextCloud directly to the VM rather than through Docker?

Shdwdrgn , (edited )

You got me thinking, so I did a search and ran across this page: https://www.hanssonit.se/nextcloud-vm/
I'm not sure how old these releases are, but at the very least it might provide some hints for building your own? I'm going to keep looking to see if I can find an image built on Debian, but at least now I know some options are out there.

[Edit] I also ran across across this page which builds a VM for you using an Ubuntu machine, so I'm guessing I could probably adjust it to a Debian setup fairly easily. https://github.com/nextcloud/vm

RustyNova ,

If you're willing to use snaps, the next cloud snap is pretty great and easy to set up.

I'm not a fan of snaps nor how canonical push them, but this one gets a pass

terminhell ,

Can confirm, I've been using it for about three years now. With some minimal tweaks for my own us case.

It auto updates itself, can use LetsEncrypt. I've had an A to A+ rating from their own security thing. It does usually stay a few minor point releases behind, but that's never been an issue for me.

stardustsystem OP ,
@stardustsystem@lemmy.world avatar

Trying not to learn another deployment scheme, but keeping this on the list. Thank you for sharing!

StrawberryPigtails ,

Here’s the documentation páge I remember

https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Nextcloud

StrawberryPigtails ,

Might look into running NextCloud on NixOS. Haven’t tried it myself yet but noticed NextCloud referenced in NixOS’s documentation pretty heavily. If I remember correctly it was as simple as

service.nextcloud.enable = true;

in the configuration.nix file to get it started.

Linux unplugged had an episode on it recently and said they were surprised how performative it was. Sounded like they were going to be moving their instance over to it.

dinckelman ,

There’s a little more to it, but that’s how i run it, and my experience has been considerably better, than with the docker AIO. That being said, i’m worried about the potential security implications of this running on my home network. I don’t know enough of this yet to make an educated statement

StrawberryPigtails ,

I’m just guessing myself, but I suspect it’s probably ok-ish. NextCloud is probably better security wise than most things I self host.

Follow security best practices and things should be fine.

  • Don’t expose to the public net anything that doesn’t need to be.
  • Keep it updated.
  • Make sure it can’t see anything it doesn’t need to on your home network.
  • Use strong passwords and don’t reuse them.
  • Keep backups (RAID is not a backup!)
stardustsystem OP ,
@stardustsystem@lemmy.world avatar

Gonna be reading into Nixos, this may be the way forward I'm looking for. Thank you both for your responses!

2xsaiko ,
@2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Join the Matrix support channel if have any problems getting started! The documentation can be very scattered and NixOS throws a lot of new concepts at you :P

halva ,
@halva@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

in theory it should be somewhat more responsive because there's no sandboxing or containerization going on, nix operates with tools that are much more straightforward

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