how can I install AIO Locally without a domain

Fkhrayef · October 16, 2025, 10:15am

How can I install AIO Locally without a domain, without Tailscale, and with an SSL certificate so I can connect to it using desktop client. I’ve seen all the tutorial regarding this in their repo and on the internet and tried them all. still confused as to why it doesn’t work!

Tried to use an SSL certificate and I was able to connect to the desktop client, but the server wasn’t able to connect to itself or something which broke things like collabora websocket connection and I couldn’t open documents.

I know you can’t debug without any insight but generally is it possible? and if you’ve done it please share the compose.

I’m on windows, docker desktop and generally what I do is I modify the hosts file with a domain that points to 127.0.0.1 and use than domain for nextcloud (skip validation) with caddy reverse proxy (tried their internal certificate and tried making my own mkcert)

Thank you in advance

scubamuc · October 16, 2025, 10:17am

github.com/nextcloud/all-in-one

local-instance.md

main

# Local instance
It is possible due to several reasons that you do not want or cannot open Nextcloud to the public internet. Perhaps you were hoping to access AIO directly from an `ip.add.r.ess` (unsupported) or without a valid domain.  However, AIO requires a valid certificate to work correctly. Below is discussed how you can achieve both: Having a valid certificate for Nextcloud and only using it locally.

### Content
- [1. Tailscale](#1-tailscale)
- [2. The normal way](#2-the-normal-way)
- [3. Use the ACME DNS-challenge](#3-use-the-acme-dns-challenge)
- [4. Use Cloudflare](#4-use-cloudflare)
- [5. Buy a certificate and use that](#5-buy-a-certificate-and-use-that)

## 1. Tailscale
This is the recommended way. For a reverse proxy example guide for Tailscale, see this guide by [@Perseus333](https://github.com/Perseus333): https://github.com/nextcloud/all-in-one/discussions/6817

## 2. The normal way
The normal way is the following:
1. Set up your domain correctly to point to your home network
1. Set up a reverse proxy by following the [reverse proxy documentation](./reverse-proxy.md) but only open port 80 (which is needed for the ACME challenge to work - however no real traffic will use this port).
1. Set up a local DNS-server like a pi-hole and configure it to be your local DNS-server for the whole network. Then in the Pi-hole interface, add a custom DNS-record for your domain and overwrite the A-record (and possibly the AAAA-record, too) to point to the private ip-address of your reverse proxy (see https://github.com/nextcloud/all-in-one#how-can-i-access-nextcloud-locally)
1. Enter the ip-address of your local dns-server in the daemon.json file for docker so that you are sure that all docker containers use the correct local dns-server.
1. Now, entering the domain in the AIO-interface should work as expected and should allow you to continue with the setup

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short answer:

Buy a certificate and use that

If none of the above ways work for you, you may simply buy a certificate from an issuer for your domain. You then download the certificate onto your server, configure AIO in reverse proxy mode and use the certificate for your domain in your reverse proxy config.

Fkhrayef · October 16, 2025, 12:23pm

I don’t have a domain to buy a certificate for; I want it set up without one hence I put 127.0.0.1 nextcloud.local in etc/hosts file.

and from the solutions you refer to, Tailscale worked, but the normal way didn’t,

scubamuc · October 16, 2025, 12:28pm

so please be clear, what is your question?

short answer, no that won’t work. you read the docs right?

so its working right?

Fkhrayef · October 19, 2025, 6:41am

Yes I read the docs and it stated that it’s possible
”Perhaps you were hoping to access AIO directly from an ip.add.r.ess (unsupported) or without a valid domain.” ( all-in-one/local-instance.md at main · nextcloud/all-in-one · GitHub )

And yes it worked '“using Tailscale” which I don’t want to have since I want to be able to just compose up and I have it working, so anyone can run it without having to setup Tailscale.

we are working on a project and we’re using nextcloud to store our documents (word, excel, etc.) that are going to be created by our backend, so it’s not reasonable to have everyone set up Tailscale to work on the project, hence I wanted to do the ‘normal way’ and just add a line in hosts file and that’s it for everyone.
Hope what I’m trying to do is clear. maybe my approach is wrong? idk tbh as I’m not that knowledgeable about networks and DNS stuff.

system · October 27, 2025, 6:42am

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