Best system set-up for Nexcloud on WD Pi kit?

Dear all,

A while back I bought the WD pi kit (1 TB) and a Pi 3 to create my own cloud. Now I finally have the time to work on this, and looking in this forum, I have a couple of questions before starting off:

Which distro to run
Raspbian is possible, but I guess I’ll be going for Ubuntu for its snap-functionality. While this guide uses Ubuntu Server, the new Nextcloud box is based on Snappy Ubuntu Core.
So now I’m wondering, what to use?
I must say that I’d also like to make my own VPN host using the Pi (which I hope this BBC guide will get me started). Would it be possible to get VPN to work using Snappy Core?
Also: are there other (dis)advantages of using one or the other?

Other

  • filesystem: I guess Ubuntu’s defaults are fine?
  • web server: it seems [1] Nginx is faster (for persona-scale use)?
  • database: again, I guess [2] MariaDB is a good one to go?
  • on Twitter someone suggested to boot from the drive [3] rather than the SD on the raspberry. Does it make a difference for Nextcloud’s performance? Is SD-install default and should I pay extra attention to reach this?

(if only there was a noob install guide by Nextcloud :wink: )

[1] Which distro/image to choose to run Nextcloud on Raspberry Pi 3?
[2] https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/10/admin_manual/installation/deployment_recommendations.html#relational-database

[3] https://twitter.com/gammadoradus/status/770622080106672129


(Stupid link restriction)

I just bought a WD PiDrive Kit thinking that I’d install ownCloud but now that Nextcloud is out is there an easy installer? The hardware appears to be the same as the Nextcloud Box. Is the image on the microSD card available for download?

We can’t offer a download link yet and it only works for the Pi2 (until November).

Thanks. I was intending to use my RPi2 anyway. I tried to install Snappy Ubuntu Core via BerryBoot but didn’t have much success.

That’s because Ubuntu Core isn’t finalised yet.
Installing another OS should work and then you could install snapd and install the Nextcloud snap.
Things should improve in the coming months :slight_smile:

I like the raspberian-lite image because its only the basics.
Then only some apt-get for php7, nginx, smb, sql - according to the various guides - and you have a minimal and quick basis

I, too, use raspbian lite - However, I only use a very small sd card for /boot and stick the root / with everything else on (a raid 1 stack of) powered USB disks.

Every SD Card I tried, corrupted at some time due to the heavy read and write operations from owncloud/nextcloud. Now with everything running from disks, there’s no problem whatsoever

Here’s a nice tutorial: https://learn.adafruit.com/external-drive-as-raspberry-pi-root/overview

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But in terms of snaps, Ubuntu is the only OS supporting this at the moment, right? Is Ubuntu’s filesystem fine for Nextcloud - or, now I’m thinking, that shouldn’t matter too much?

No, you can install snapd on many different systems and then you’ll be able to install any snap you want :slight_smile:

Has anyone done throughput testing on this type of setup? With SSL enabled and encryption I would be curious how much the pi can do.

Just for future reference (for myself & others):

  • I installed Raspbian Lite and let my RPi3 boot from the HDD
  • I created a separate ext4 partition mounted at /data
  • I installed Nextcloud using this (German) guide, so not based on snaps nor using a ppa
  • I used MariaDB and apache webserver (still thinking to change that later, nextcloud does seem a bit slow)

On a Pi Apache isn’t the most resource-friendly option, nginx would be better even if not supported officially.

Thanks for your comment. Dyou know if it’s easy or even possible to switch after installation? (Or do I need to reinstall nextcloud and/or other stuff).
And is there extra steps required to get it working with nginx? (I didn’t come across a dedicated manual I think)

I should think swapping out Apache for nginx won’t be a problem*, but getting the configuration right is obviously important. I won’t expect to see documentation as it’s not officially supported, but I recall seeing a guide on here somewhere, if not I guess Google will shine a light on someone who’s done it.

*caveat includes setting up SSL, pretty URLs or anything inherently outside of the basic .htaccess file.

Php7 & nginx1.10 works pretty nice on PI

In the official docs there is a config for nginx available. I dont have the link right now…

Nextcloud running very smoothly on RPI3 with Apache2 PhP5 and Mysql.
I used Berryboot to load Nextcloud on my RPI model 3, works like a charm. :wink:
Downloaded Berryboot from http://www.berryterminal.com/doku.php/berryboot
unzip into 8Gb microSD
Just installed mysql and phpmyadmin before going to web interface to go thru creating user/password.
Love the fact that there is Native Linux Desktop App so when I take a picture with my android phone it gets auto uploaded to my RPi-Nextcloud and synct to my Nextcloud desktop folder.
Nextcloud is here to stay, as far as I m concerned, great job everyone, keep it up!