How to install NextCloud 17 server on CentOS 8.x

Open a terminal and input the following commands:

# yum install epel-release
# yum install httpd php php-dom php-mbstring php-gd php-pdo php-json php-xml php-zip php-curl php-pear php-intl php-pecl setroubleshoot-server bzip2

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 enable --now 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 php-fpm

Open a terminal and input the following commands:

# yum install 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.

Lastly, enable and start Redis and restart the webserver:

# systemctl enable --now redis
# systemctl restart httpd php-fpm

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:

# wget https://dl.eff.org/certbot-auto
# mv certbot-auto /usr/local/bin/certbot-auto
# chown root /usr/local/bin/certbot-auto
# chmod 0755 /usr/local/bin/certbot-auto

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

$ sudo /usr/local/bin/certbot-auto --apache

Lastly, restart the webserver:

# systemctl restart httpd

Run the following part to set up automatic renewal through cron:

$ echo "0 0,12 * * * root python -c 'import random; import time; time.sleep(random.random() * 3600)' && /usr/local/bin/certbot-auto renew" | sudo tee -a /etc/crontab > /dev/null