Collabora integration guide

📑 How to
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Collabora integration guide

Nextcloud integrates functionality to edit office documents online (even collaborative - meaning multiple users can work on the same document at the same time). This integration primarily happens with Collabora Online, but other integrations using the same protocol exist with OnlyOffice and Microsoft Online. As this forum primarily targets private users this article covers CODE (Collabora Online Development Edition) which is a free self-hosted Collabora Online variant for testing and home use. The integration builds on a protocol called WOPI which is widely used for similar integrations e.g. in Microsoft 365.

integration overview

Integration between Nextcloud and Collabora (or other WOPI clients) differs from classical web request/response models and results in confusion sometimes. The integration is not one-way where Nextcloud “pulls” integration from Collabora but it’s rather a “communication triangle” between clients, Nextcloud and Collabora, where each component accesses and provides resources from/to another. The requirements might become more clear by reading the process of file editing with the WOPI protocol (see below).

flowchart LR
  clientint(client)
  clientint ---> Nextcloud;
  clientint ---> Collabora;
	Nextcloud(Nextcloud)
	Collabora(Collabora)
	Nextcloud --> Collabora
	Collabora --> Nextcloud

prerequisites

  • Nextcloud (WOPI server)
  • Collabora CODE (WOPI client)
    • public DNS name
    • valid TLS certificate

Technically integration might be possible without a public DNS and TLS certificates. But such integration without TLS makes no sense in most scenarios so we won’t discuss it here.

edit file using WOPI protocol

sequenceDiagram
 participant client
 participant NC as Nextcloud<br>https://cloud.mydomain
 participant CODE as Collabora<br>https://office.mydomain
 loop Healthcheck
   NC->>CODE: GET https://office.mydomain.tld/hosting/discovery
   Note right of CODE: "green checkmark in Nextcloud UI"
 end
 
 client->>NC: open document "the bill.odt"<br>(which is fileid=1234546)
 NC->>client: "use CODE server to open document online<br>the url is https://office.mydomain/???open"
 client->>CODE: GET "https://office.mydomain/?????open&https://cloud.mydomain.tld/richdocuments/fileid=123456"
 CODE->>NC: GET "https://cloud.mydomain/richdocuments/fileid=123456"
 CODE->>client: edit document bill.odt (fileid=123456)

protocol references

implementation and troubleshooting checklist

while the process described above sounds complicated in real life it’s fairly easy to setup and troubleshoot.
Often only need to complete the checklist and your integration likely will work.

  • from the client, verify access to the Nextcloud UI
    (use a browser or run curl https://cloud.mydomain/status.php)
  • from the client, verify access to Collabora
    (use browser or run curl https://office.mydomain/hosting/discovery)
    • the result must be an XML document describing the capabilities of the WOPI client
      (long list of different file types which could be opened)
    • review the content of the XML document reflect the right public hostname
    • verify the content of the document reflect the right - https:// - URL scheme
  • from Nextcloud server console, verify access to Collabora, run:
    • curl https://office.mydomain/hosting/discovery
    • it should return a long XML doc (same as in previous check) with valid https:// URLs
  • from Collabora, verify access to the Nextcloud UI - from CODE console run
    • curl https://cloud.mydomain/status.php
    • it should return a JSON document similar to
{"installed":true,"maintenance":false,"needsDbUpgrade":false,"version":"33.0.2.2","versionstring":"33.0.2","edition":"","productname":"Nextcloud","extendedSupport":false}

  • from any client access Collabora WOPI check endpoint

  • install richdocuments app occ app:enable richdocuments

    # adopt to your system e.g. add sudo, www user etc..
occ app:enable richdocuments
# docker CLI
docker exec --user www-data ${name of NC container} php occ app:enable richdocuments
# docker compose
docker compose exec ${service name} php occ app:enable richdocuments

  • configure CODE server URL

      # adopt to your system e.g. add sudo, www user etc..
  occ config:app:set richdocuments wopi_url --value ${CODE_URL} 
  occ richdocuments:activate-config
 
  # command for docker compose
  docker compose exec ${service name} php occ config:app:set richdocuments wopi_url --value ${CODE_URL} 
  docker compose exec ${service name} php occ richdocuments:activate-config

    # GUI "Administration Settings" > Administration > Office 
# (https://cloud.mydomain/settings/admin/richdocuments)

    image
    image536×472 16.5 KB

  • verify “Allow list for WOPI requests” entries

    • this list should contain Collabora IP address where the request is coming from (often public IP)
    • empty the list for testing then add IPs as needed

troubleshooting tips

if one of the above steps fail - often curl error message help - search the internet to understand the problem
if the error doesn’t help increase verbosity by adding -v to curl command

  1. double check your DNS (for all systems!) - especially in the case of docker or a VM.
    DNS resolution of the server might differ from the client
  2. verify the TLS certificates of cloud and office
  3. verify that both severs trust the assigned TLS certificate of the other system
  4. verify that the client trusts TLS certificates of both office and cloud

common issues

  • don’t use localhost
    • this reserved hostname is always different depending on the point of view:
      • for client, this means “the service running on the client”
      • for Nextcloud it means “the service running on Nextcloud server”
      • for CODE it means “the service running on the CODE server”
  • don’t use local virtual or Docker names and IPs e.g. http://127.0.0.1, http://office:9980, http://192.168.0.7:80
    • this might allow communication from cloud to office and result in a :white_check_mark: within Nextcloud Office settings… but communication from the client will fail
  • don’t use plain http:// http://office:9980, http://cloud:80, http://cloud
    • technically it’s possible to run the whole stack without TLS but you should never expose your system on the internet without TLS.

related forum posts

other references

AiO

AiO uses a “separated” CODE not a built-in version.

The biggest speciality is it is sharing the public fqdn for office and cloud so you will see same domain for https://cloud.mydomain/status.php and https://office.mydomain/hosting/discovery but other troubleshooting steps remain untouched.

:warning: some time ago an ugly hack was implemented to allow internal connection through Docker networks

→ see Local access for Collabora for details

Nextcloud Office aka Built-In CODE collabora-built-in

There is nothing wrong with this installation method but I feel it is harder to troubleshoot, especially for not very skilled admins who look for a “simple” solution. In general if you run Docker(-compose) setup I would recommend separate CODE container which is easier to understand and control.

All above mechanics apply to built-in CODE as well. The most important difference is CODE doesn’t have it’s own public DNS records and lives in a subdirectory of Nextcloud application. Office URLs to check are (replace in the above guide)

  • https://mydomain.tld/apps/richdocumentscode/proxy.php?req=/hosting/capabilities
  • https://mydomain-tld/apps/richdocumentscode/proxy.php?req=/hosting/discovery

another important learning - built-in CODE does not understand/adopt Nextcloud integrated reverse proxy OVERWRITE* settings. Running collabora-built-in behind a reverseproxy highly depends on reverse proxy X_FORWARDED* http headers - make sure your proxy adds them!

discussion on custom webroot (subdirectory): richdocuments ignores custom webroot · Issue #3420 · nextcloud/richdocuments · GitHub

Valuable Github discussion regarding built-in CODE: Collabora Online - Built-in CODE Server in Nextcloud docker. Documents do not load · Issue #1896 · nextcloud/docker · GitHub
Key learning’s

  • Docker -alpine image variant don’t work
  • additional volume -tmpfs might be required
  • additional variable APPIMAGE_EXTRACT_AND_RUN=1 might be required

NGINX reverse proxy with built-in CODE

Apache reverse proxy config for built-in CODE

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4 posts were split to a new topic: Nextcloud Collabora integration questions

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Really just came here to say Thank you for posting this. Really helpful to have this overview. It’s very confusing.

This one seems tricky. For my setup: running coolwsd ‘natively’ on Debian from .deb packages (i.e. not in docker), on the same server as nextcloud, I had to put in

127.0.0.1,11.22.33.44

Where 11.22.33.44 is the public IP of my server. Despite them both being on the same host it appears that this is the IP that the other sees. Also note that there’s no space around the comma.

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A post was split to a new topic: Collabora licensing

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4 posts were split to a new topic: Local access for Collabora

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3 posts were merged into an existing topic: Local access for Collabora