[Technology] Nextcloud on a Raspberry Pi: the easy way

Note: nextcloudpi, while easy, is actually going away! But you can do a similar approach with Nextcloud All-in-One which I will try to play with soon.

In my previous post, I talked about setting up Nextcloud from source, including configuring a web server, a database, and PHP, based on Nextcloud's detailed guide.

In comparison, deploying it from a container is much simpler. E.g. using the (recently deprecated :|) ownyourbits' NextcloudPi project:

# # let's make sure our system is up-to-date first :)
# apt update
# apt upgrade   # don't forget to reboot periodically!
#
# # Use docker's handy install script to get it on your Raspberry Pi
# curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh
# bash get-docker.sh          # adds 1.6GB
# 
# # pull nextcloudpi from ownyourbits and run it! (adjust ports to avoid collisions with any existing web servers as necessary)
# docker pull docker.io/ownyourbits/nextcloudpi:latest
# docker run --detach \
           --publish 4443:4443 \
           --publish 443:443 \
           --publish 80:80 \
           --volume ncdata:/data \
           --name nextcloudpi \
           ownyourbits/nextcloudpi YourPisHostName
           

Then visit https://YourPisHostName/ and follow steps for configuration. It will give provide you with administrative and user credentials, defaulting to the username 'ncp'. There will be some administrative configuration on port 4443 and regular user/admin experience on 443. Stored data will end up in /var/lib/docker/volumes/ncdata (based on the volume label given above in the docker run command). If you'd like to enter the container while it's running to adjust something, you can use

sudo docker exec -it nextcloudpi bash

I had to install vim once inside to have an editor. :) A useful tool for administering nextcloudpi from the command-line is ncp-config.