How to install NextCloud 17 server on CentOS 7.x

If you’d rather use PHP 7.3, you can follow this tutorial: how to install PHP 7.3 on CentOS 7. PHP 7.3 isn’t yet available in this repository.

Open a terminal and input the following commands:

# yum install epel-release
# rpm -Uvh https://mirror.webtatic.com/yum/el7/webtatic-release.rpm
# yum install httpd php72w php72w-dom php72w-mbstring php72w-gd php72w-pdo php72w-json php72w-xml php72w-zip php72w-curl php72w-pear php72w-intl setroubleshoot-server bzip2 php72w-pecl-imagick

With these step we download the software and extract it:

# cd /var/www/html
# curl -o nextcloud-17-latest.tar.bz2 https://download.nextcloud.com/server/releases/latest-17.tar.bz2
# tar -xvjf nextcloud-17-latest.tar.bz2
# mkdir nextcloud/data
# chown -R apache:apache nextcloud
# rm nextcloud-17-latest.tar.bz2

Now we need to create a new file in /etc/httpd/conf.d/nextcloud.conf . Feel free to use whatever editor you feel comfortable with and add the following lines:

Alias /nextcloud "/var/www/html/nextcloud/"

<Directory /var/www/html/nextcloud/>
  Options +FollowSymlinks
  AllowOverride All

 <IfModule mod_dav.c>
  Dav off
 </IfModule>

 SetEnv HOME /var/www/html/nextcloud
 SetEnv HTTP_HOME /var/www/html/nextcloud

</Directory>

# semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t '/var/www/html/nextcloud/data(/.*)?'
# semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t '/var/www/html/nextcloud/config(/.*)?'
# semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t '/var/www/html/nextcloud/apps(/.*)?'
# semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t '/var/www/html/nextcloud/.htaccess'
# semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t '/var/www/html/nextcloud/.user.ini'
# restorecon -Rv '/var/www/html/nextcloud/'

If you decided to use a Mariadb/MySQL/PostgreSQL, you also need to allow apache to access it:

# setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect_db 1

In case you chose PostgreSQL you also need to enable httpd_execmem (I’m still investigating why this is needed):

# setsebool -P httpd_execmem 1

Another important thing to do is to raise PHP’s memory limit:

# sed -i '/^memory_limit =/s/=.*/= 512M/' /etc/php.ini

Now that you’ve configured SELinux let’s start and enable Apache:

# systemctl start httpd
# systemctl enable httpd

FirewallD is a newer firewall used to simplify firewall management. If you’re using it you can simply do:

# firewall-cmd --add-service http --permanent
# firewall-cmd --add-service https --permanent
# firewall-cmd --reload

Open a terminal and input the following commands:

# yum install php-opcache

Now you need to edit a file located at /etc/php.d/10-opcache.ini . With your favorite editor, edit the file and make it look like this:

; Enable Zend OPcache extension module
zend_extension=opcache.so
opcache.enable=1
opcache.enable_cli=1
opcache.interned_strings_buffer=8
opcache.max_accelerated_files=10000
opcache.memory_consumption=128
opcache.save_comments=1
opcache.revalidate_freq=1

These values are suggested by NextCloud, but you’re free to tweak them to suit your needs. Once you’re done you can restart apache:

# systemctl restart httpd

Open a terminal and input the following commands:

# yum install redis php72w-pecl-redis

Now you must configure NextCloud to use Redis. To do so you need to edit the NextCloud configuration file located at /var/www/html/nextcloud/config/config.php . The file will look like this, add the highlighted lines:

<?php
$CONFIG = array (
  'instanceid' => '',
  'passwordsalt' => '',
  'secret' => '',
  'trusted_domains' =>
  array (
    0 => 'YOUR_IP',
  ),
  'datadirectory' => '/var/www/html/nextcloud/data',
  'dbtype' => 'mysql',
  'version' => '15.0.0.10',
  'overwrite.cli.url' => 'http://YOUR_IP/nextcloud',
  'dbname' => 'nextcloud',
  'dbhost' => 'localhost',
  'dbport' => '',
  'dbtableprefix' => 'oc_',
  'dbuser' => 'nc_user',
  'dbpassword' => 'YOUR_PASSWORD_HERE',
  'installed' => true,
  'memcache.locking' => '\OC\Memcache\Redis',
  'memcache.distributed' => '\OC\Memcache\Redis',
  'memcache.local' => '\OC\Memcache\Redis',
  'redis' => [
    'host' => 'localhost',
    'port' => 6379,
    'timeout' => 3,
  ],
);

These settings will enable NextCloud to use Redis for caching and file locks. Of course these settings are just an example, you can tweak them to suit your needs.

Now you need to modify (for some reason) the Redis port SELinux label in order to enable Apache to access Redis:

# semanage port -m -t http_port_t -p tcp 6379

Lastly, enable and start Redis and restart the webserver:

# systemctl start redis
# systemctl enable redis
# systemctl restart httpd

Using your favorite text editor, edit the file we created previously at /etc/httpd/conf.d/nextcloud.conf . And make it look like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName YOURDOMAIN.TLD
  ServerAdmin [email protected]
  DocumentRoot /var/www/html/nextcloud

  <directory /var/www/html/nextcloud>
    Require all granted
    AllowOverride All
    Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    SetEnv HOME /var/www/html/nextcloud
    SetEnv HTTP_HOME /var/www/html/nextcloud
  </directory>
</VirtualHost>

It is important to set ServerName according to a domain you own and have configured correctly. Now you need to add YOURDOMAIN.TLD to the trusted domains in the NextCloud config file. You can do so with the following command:

$ sudo -u apache php /var/www/html/nextcloud/occ config:system:set trusted_domains 2 --value=YOURDOMAIN.TLD

Once you complete this step you won’t be able to access NextCloud through http://YOUR_IP_ADDRESS/nextcloud anymore. Instead you will be able to access it through http://YOURDOMAIN.TLD (notice /nextcloud is gone).

Lastly, restart the webserver:

# systemctl restart httpd

Open a terminal and input the following commands:

# yum install certbot certbot-apache

Now you will run the command to install a certificate, follow the procedure and you will get everything configured out of the box:

$ sudo certbot --apache

Lastly, restart the webserver:

# systemctl restart httpd

If you need further help you can follow my other tutorial on Let’s Encrypt on CentOS (the apache part).