How to Install Nextcloud on CentOS 8

Nextcloud is a web based application provides self-hosted file hosting service. You can install nextcloud application on your server and use it as your own file server. Where you can easily upload/sync files from the client machine. It also provides options to sync and share across devices—all under your control. This tutorial will help you to install Nextcloud on CentOS 8 Linux system.

Prerequisites

• The newly installed system’s follow initial server setup.
• Shell access with sudo privileges account.

Step 1 – Disable SELinux

Before starting, it is a good idea to disable the SELinux in your system.

To disable SELinux, open the /etc/selinux/config file:

nano /etc/selinux/config

Change the following line:

SELINUX=disabled

Step 2 – Install LAMP Stack

The first of all, to set up Nextcloud you must have running LAMP server on your CentOS 8 system. If you already have running LAMP stack skip this step else use the following commands to install it.

Install Apache2

sudo dnf install httpd

Install MySQL

sudo dnf install @mysql
sudo mysql_secure_installation

Install PHP

NextCloud required PHP 5.6 or higher version. Let’s install PHP on your system using below comamnd.

sudo dnf install php php-gd php-curl php-zip php-dom php-xml php-simplexml php-mbstring php-intl php-json

Step 3 – Download Nextcloud

After successfully configuring lamp server on your system, Let’s download latest Nextcloud from its official website.

cd /tmp
wget https://download.nextcloud.com/server/releases/nextcloud-18.0.1.zip

Now extract downloaded archive under website document root and set up appropriate permissions on files and directories.

cd /var/www
sudo unzip /tmp/nextcloud-18.0.1.zip
sudo chown -R apache:apache nextcloud
sudo chmod -R 755 nextcloud

Nextcloud required a directory to keep its data. So create a data directory and set the proper permissions on nextcloud directory

mkdir -p /var/nextcloud/data
sudo chown -R apache:apache nextcloud
sudo chmod -R 755 nextcloud

Step 4 – Create MySQL User and Database

After extracting code, let’s create a MySQL database and user account for configuring Nextcloud. Use following set of command to login to MySQL server and create database and user.

mysql -u root -p
Enter password:

mysql> CREATE DATABASE nextcloud;
mysql> CREATE USER 'nextcloud'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '_password_';
mysql> GRANT ALL ON nextcloud.* to 'nextcloud'@'localhost';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> quit

Step 5 – Configure Apache

Now configure Apache server to host Nextcloud. Create a configuration file with an Alias to Nextcloud directory.

sudo vim /etc/httpd/conf.d/nextcloud.conf

Add below values:

Save file and close it. Now, restart Apache service to reload changes.

sudo systemctl restart httpd

Step 6 – Run Nexctloud Web Installer

Now access the Nextcloud directory on a web browser as below. Change localhost to your server IP address or domain name.

 http://webhost.tecadmin.net/nextcloud/

Enter new admin credentials to create an admin account and provide the location of the data folder.

Now slide your page down and input the database credentials and click on Finish Setup.

After completing the setup you will get the admin dashboard. Where you can create a user, groups, assigned them permissions, etc.

Conclusion

Congratulations, You have a working Nextcloud file hosting service on your CentOS 8 Linux system.