Nextcloud is open-source software for creating public and private file storage. It allows you to create your self-hosted services like Dropbox, Google Drive, or Mega.nz. Originally, it's created by the original owncloud developer Frank Karlitschek. In 2016, he forks the Owncloud project and creates a new project with the new name "Nextcloud"

By this time, the Nextcloud project growing rapidly and becoming more than file hosting software, it's more like a file sync and content collaboration platform. Backed with a lot of plugins, Nextcloud becomes such a powerful collaboration software. You can install plugins for project management, video conferencing, collaborative editing, note-taking, email client, etc.

In this guide, you will learn how to install Nextcloud on the latest Debian 12 Bookworm. You will be installing Nextcloud under the LAMP Stack (Linux, Apache2/httpd, MySQL/MariaDB, and PHP).

Prerequisites

• A Debian 12 server. Ensure all packages are updated to the latest version.
• A root user or a user with root privileges. This user will be used for installing new packages and editing system configurations.

Get Root and Update Repositories

First, execute the following command to get the root privileges.

• If you have sudo installed, execute the sudo command below.

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Now type the password login for your user.

• After that, update all your Debian repositories using the apt command below.

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• Install wget if missing

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Installing and Configuring PHP

For this guide, you will be deploying Nextcloud with the latest stable version of PHP 8.2.

By default, the Debian repository provides packages for PHP 8.1. But, Nextcloud requires some additional PHP packages that can be installed from a 3rd-party repository. And you will be adding a new repository to your Debian system.

1. Execute the command below to add a PHP repository for the Debian system.

• Install the Sury php Repository

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Installing and Configuring MariaDB

For this stage, you will be installing the mariadb database server, securing mariadb deployment, and creating a new database and user for Nextcloud.

• To install the mariadb database server, run the command below and the MariaDB Repository via thew install script

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Install the needed packages

Now install all the packages for the system LAMP & Redis

• To install all the needed packages, run the command below.

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Adapt the PHP 8.2 ini Values for Netxtcloud

The following ini settings should be adapted for Nextcloud.

• Uncomment the date.timezone parameter and input the proper timezone for PHP.

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• Increase the default value of parameters memory_limit, upload_max_filesize, post_max_size, and max_execution_time. Change the value as you need.

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• Enable file_uploads and allow_url_fopen by changing the default value to On.

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• Disable the parameter display_errors and output_buffering by changing the default value to Off.

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• APCu is disabled by default on CLI which could cause issues with nextcloud’s cron jobs. so activate it

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• Uncomment the zend_extension parameter and change the value to opcache. This will enable PHP OPcache, which is needed for Nextcloud.

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• Add the following lines to the [opcache] section. The OPCache configuration is recommended by Nextcloud.

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• Lastly, enter the systemctl command below to restart the apache2 service. Every time you make changes to the PHP configuration, restart the apache2 service to apply the changes that you've made.

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memcached configuration

We install the memcached server to increase Nextcloud performance, as memcached reduces the load on the MariaDB Nextcloud database.

• Customize the memcached configuration by customizing the configuration by running the commands below

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• Lastly, enter the systemctl command below to restart the redis service.

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• You can verify that the Memcached daemon is running with ps ax

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  	root@nextcloud:~# ps xa | grep memcached
  	23830 ?        Ssl    0:00 /usr/bin/memcached -m 128 -p 11211 -u memcache -l 127.0.0.1 -P /var/run/memcached/memcached.pid

Installing and Configuring MariaDB

For this stage, you will be installing the mariadb database server, securing mariadb deployment, and creating a new database and user for Nextcloud.

• To install the mariadb database server, run the command below.

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• Type 'y' to confirm and install mariadb packages.

• Once the installation is complete, check the mariadb service using the following command.

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• The mariadb service is active and running, and it's enabled to start automatically at system startup.

[image:72::Checking MariaDB Database Service:6-checking-mariadb-service.png]

• Next, you need to secure your mariadb deployment by setting up the root password for mariadb and remove some default configuration. To do that, you can use the command-line tool 'mysql_secure_installation', which is included on the default mariadb installation.

• Execute the "mysql_secure_installation" command below.

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• At the first, you will be asked to enter the mariadb root password. Just press 'Enter' to continue.

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• Type 'Y' to enable the 'unix_socket' authentication for the user 'root'.

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• Type your strong mariadb root password and repeat, then press "Enter" to continue.

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• Now type "Y" and press "Enter" to remove the default anonymous user from the mariadb server.

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• After that, disable the remote login for the default user 'root'. Type "Y" and press "Enter" to continue.

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• Type "Y" again to remove the default database "test" and press "Enter".

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• And the last, type "Y" again to reload all tables privileges to apply a new configuration.

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• Now the process is complete and you will see the following output.

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Creating Database and User for Nextcloud

• log in to the mariadb shell using the mysql command below.

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• Now execute the following mysql query to create a new database "nextcloud".

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• Execute the following query to create a new database user "nextcloud". Change the "strongpassword" with your strong password.

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• Allow the user "nextcloud" to access and write the "nextcloud" using the following query.

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• Now reload all tables privileges to apply the new database configuration.

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• Then you can type "quit" and press "Enter" to exit from the mariadb shell.

[image:75::Create new database and user for Nextcloud:7-create-database-user-nextcloud.png]

Generating SSL Letsencrypt

In this stage, you will be installing the certbot tool and generate the SSL certificates for the Nextcloud installation. You will be generating SSL Letsencrypts with the webroot plugin.

• Execute the following command to install the certbot tool for generating SSL Letsencrypt.

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Type 'y' and press 'Enter' to continue the installation.

[image:78::Install Certbot:9-install-certbot.png]

• Once the installation is complete, create a new directory for letsencrypt authorization using the following commands.

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• Next, change the working directory to the "/etc/apache2/conf-available/" and create a new configuration "well-known.conf" using nano.

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Copy and paste the following configuration.

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strong>Ctrl+x" and type "y" and press 'Enter' to save the configuration and exit.

Now activate the new configuration by creating a symlink of the 'well-known.conf' file to the directory 'conf-enabled' using the 'ln' command below.

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• Now execute the following commands to verify the apache configuration and restart the apache service.

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If you've no error, you're ready to generate SSL Letsencrypt with the webroot plugin.

[image:81::Setup SSL Verification for Letsencrypt:10-setting-ssl-verification-letsencrypt.png]

• Before generating SSL Letsencrypt, ensure your domain name is resolved to the server IP address. After that, you can generate SSL Letsencrypt with the webroot plugin by running the certbot command below. Also, change the email address and domain name to your own.

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When the process is complete, your SSL certificates are available at the "/etc/letsencrypt/live/files.domain-name.io/" directory.

Apache Web server configuration

Configuring Apache requires the creation of a single configuration file. On Debian, Ubuntu, and their derivatives, this file will be /etc/apache2/sites-available/nextcloud.conf.

• Change the working directory to "/etc/apache2/sites-available/" and create new configuration "nextcloud.conf" using mcedit.

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• if you want http/2 & hsts support uncomment the Protocol & Header line

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  "amc_line">

  "amc_line">

  "amc_line">

  	amc_code_even">		DocumentRoot /var/www/nextcloud/
  ServerName your.server.com
  	SSLEngine On
  	SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/files.domain-name.io/fullchain.pem
  	SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/files.domain-name.io/privkey.pem
  	="amc_code_even">		Require all granted
  AllowOverride All
  	Options +FollowSymLinks
  	s="amc_code_odd">		Dav off
  tr>
  	SetEnv HOME /var/www/nextcloud
  	SetEnv HTTP_HOME /var/www/nextcloud
  	tr>
  	tr>

  nd exit the editor.

Now enter the following systemctl command to restart the apache2 service and apply the Nextcloud virtual host configuration.

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Additional Apache configurations

• For Nextcloud to work correctly, we need the module mod_rewrite. Enable it by running:

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• Additional recommended modules are mod_headers, mod_env, mod_dir and mod_mime:

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Next, run the a2ensite command below to enable the virtual host configuration nextcloud.conf. Then verify the overall Apache2 configuration via the apachectl command below.

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You should see the output Syntax OK if you have correct and proper Apache configurations. Now lets start with the nextcloud install

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• Lastly, enter the systemctl command below to restart the apache2 service. Every time you make changes to the PHP configuration, restart the apache2 service to apply the changes that you've made.

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Installing Nextcloud from command line

It is now possible to install Nextcloud entirely from the command line. This is convenient for scripted operations, headless servers, and sysadmins who prefer the command line. There are three stages to installing Nextcloud via the command line:

Download and Install Nextcloud

• Change the working directory to "/var/www" and download the latest version of Nextcloud source code using the wget command as below.

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• Change the ownership of your nextcloud directory to your HTTP user, like this example for Debian/Ubuntu.

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Memory caching

You can significantly improve your Nextcloud server performance with memory caching, where frequently-requested objects are stored in memory for faster retrieval. There are two types of caches to use: a PHP opcode cache, which is commonly called opcache, and data cache for your web server, commonly called “memcache”.

• Activate Memcached for local and distributed caching, as well as transactional file locking.

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Set up a cron job for Nextcloud as “www-data” user:

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Insert this line at the bottom

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Then save and close the file and reconfigure the Nextcloud job from “Ajax” to “Cron” using the Nextclouds CLI:

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Pretty URLs

Pretty URLs remove the index.php-part in all Nextcloud URLs, for example in sharing links like https://example.org/nextcloud/index.php/s/Sv1b7krAUqmF8QQ, making URLs shorter and thus prettier.

• mod_env and mod_rewrite must be installed on your webserver and the .htaccess must be writable by the HTTP user

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• It isn’t installed in a subfolder. Finally run this occ-command to update your .htaccess file:

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• After each update, these changes are automatically applied to the .htaccess-file.

Modify the “.user.ini”

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• and customize the Nextcloud apps as user www-data

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Optional Nextcloud Office:

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Add qOwnNote API to the Nextcloud install

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Conclusion

Congratulation! You have successfully installed Nextcloud on Debian 12 Bullseye. The Nextcloud server is running under the LAMP Stack with SSL enabled. Also, your Nextcloud installation is running with memory caching enabled with PHP APC and opcache extensions.