Iâd like to reopen Friedbertâs thread regarding this topic. Just closing a thread because you donât like the message isnât the way to improve Nextcloud. I 100% agree with Friedbert and others in the thread did too.
There are many people who would like to run Nextcloud on a shared hosting provider. To insist that Nextcloud wonât be designed to allow that (or at least to make it difficult) is obviously limiting Nextcloudâs penetration in the marketplace . If that is the goal, then fine.
The ability to not overwrite configuration that is a fundemental security setup and requiring that its be manually redone after every update is asinine.
It would be helpful to provide some context or better link to the thread you are referring to, if you want to start a discussion about itâŚ
It was this thread in case somebody is wondering. And it was about adding the HSTS header to the .htaccess file, which seems to be overwritten during an upgrade of Nextcloud, not about HTTP/2 or HTTPS in general.
Itâs not just updates. As silly as it is, that might be the easier problem the circumvent. Even though backing up and replacing the htacess file before updating is an annoyance, itâs at least relatively easy. But running update:htaccess in occ performs a full overwrite of the entire htaccess file as well. That is a bigger problem, IMO, because it complicates initial setup and it really complicates changes that may be needed or desired after the fact. How is one to predict that all changes that may need to involve running update:htaccess should be completed first, before one proceeds to make any necessary or desired manual updates to their htaccess?
Itâs just plain sloppy work any which way you slice it. And itâs very bizarre that the Nextcloud devs seem to have a stubborn attitude as if they own our htacces files and those of implementing the software donât have a right to choose our own server solutions and configurations.
While I can understand your points, I can also understand, that shared hosting is not the top priority of the Nextcloud devs. And letâs be honest, if you wouldnât just book the cheapest 0.99⏠plan at your hosting company, but maybe something for 5 Euros, you would probably have other options to manage your Apache configuration, instead of only the .htaccess file
Thank you for demonstrating what I, and likely others, have been suspecting: That the treatment of this issue is being fueled by an elitist and judgemental attitude rather than based on the facts.
You donât know what my hosting plan is, or what it entails. But youâre quick to rush to assumptions based on your goal of trying to shame people. So, let me put your faulty assumptions to rest. While I may be using a shared hosting provider, Iâm actually on their maxed out plan. I have multiple websites, and I certainly spend more than $5 a month on my hosting plan. I choose to stay on a shared hosting plan because the cost jump to a VPS is prohibitive for my needs. And while I might lack access to httpd.conf (any shared hosting will plan will be the same) it hasnât stopped me from building my websites from scratch.
Now, if youâve had your fill with patronizing people, perhaps youâd care to get back to the subject at hand. Or is that all you can contribute?
Sorry it was not my intention to be rude. I thought it was clear that my post was not meant to be dead serious.
Unfortunatly it is. Because I canât change the fact that the Nextcloud devs decided to go this route. Also this has been publicly disussed on GitHub and also here in the forums many times and workarounds for all possible scenarios have been proposed in these threads. If you want to change something about it, GitHub would be the right place, but if the Nextcloud devs donât want to implement it, you are left with workarounds or developing something yourself. The forum is community driven and we canât offer you solutions that donât exist or change the product design of Nextcloud.
Comming from the person, who complains about not having the right to use free and open source software the way he wants and about sloppy work here. How many applications with as many features as Nextcloud do you know that run from a Raspi to shared web hosting to large clusters for several 1000 users and are also completely free and open source?
100% agree with this post. I too have chosen to used a shared host because Iâm just doing this for my family use, as an alternative to the devil Google or Dropbox but donât want to administer my own server top to bottom. I too use the top end of my providers shared hosting plan.
Iâve put up with the minor inconveniences of Nextcloud upgrades but I think the suggestions are being made in the spirit of making Nextcloud better and more applicable to broader user bases - isnât this the goal of Nextcloud, or no?
What Iâm hearing is Nextcloud is not intended for the shared hosting approach. Seems very short sighted for all of the reasons discussed in this and other similar threads.
Anyway, enough. I feel that several of us are banging our heads against a brick wall.
I think itâs not a matter of short-sightness or not. So you can be sure that if it was easy to maintain NC would love doing it⌠(My personal opinion).
Itâs technically just NOT that easy. Since every hoster has their own policies, technical standards, definitions for updates, some are too easygoing with securityissues, while others arenât really interested in giving support to their paying customers⌠etc.
PLUS: Pls take into consideration that NC can be - at times - quite demanding in technical resources⌠and well⌠shared hosting lives from shared technical ressources. Meaning. while a NC would need some more CPU-time to run there would be less left for other users.
So you can see, hopefully, that it seems to be impossible to have a product that deals with all of that.
Thus the brains behind NC came up with the idea that instead of using a shared hoster NC should be able to run on litte, lightweighted homeservers, like e.g. a raspberry. It just costs $40-50 which should be affordable for everyone (take your monthly payment, multply it by 12 and see if you could compete with that amount anyhow)⌠and easy to maintain (like via ncp)⌠Perfect for familyneeds. And you would be the master of your own data.
We just have diffrent opinions. But Iâm not the one who could change things anyways. And itâs not like Nextcloud wonât run on shared hosts anymore, unlike many other software projects.
And honestly, sometimes the expectation of some and the always same subliminal critisism formulated as a question gets annoying and then I just get a little cynical. I mean it is free and opensource software. And itâs not difficult to find all the existing threads about this topic, but everyone wants to have his own personal explanation on the subject, as if this was a customer service frontdesk here that is obliged to offer you a solution or compensation when something doesnât work the way you imagined.
Itâs free and open source software. You can fork it an make it your own better product. Thatâs exactley what the Nextcloud project did with OwnCloud once.
They really donât and they donât owe anything to anyone. And beside of that, nobody stops you to start your own software project or fork the existing one and then make it right to everyone. Thatâs a huge task. And Nextcloud does already more in this regard than most other projects.
No. But statements like like: âItâs just plain sloppy work any which way you slice it. And itâs very bizarre that the Nextcloud devs seem to have a stubborn attitude as if they own our htacces files and those of implementing the software donât have a right to choose our own server solutions and configurations.â are proove that you not interested in discussing things but rather just want to complain.
Expressing wishes is ok. Making concrete suggestions for changes would be even better. Calling the developers sloppy, who provide you with a complex product like this for free and without any restrictions, is not ok. Or to say it in your own words: âpatheticâ
And even the beginning of your post is really just complaining, because you have to do one or two additional steps, while upgradeing your instance. And you say it yourself: This makes it a little more complicated but not impossible to run it on a shared host.
The last discussion on this topic got closed because whoever didnât like it, so I created a new one regarding the question at hand. So itâs not a conspiracy. Its actually the exact opposite.
Surely the purpose of community forums is to hear from the community, take input and maybe add suggestions to a backlog (which can be made low priority if whoever makes those decisions sees fit) but donât just dismiss and/or close down suggestions/dialogue.
I didnât say it was a conspiracy, I said InsufficientlyGeek sounded like a QAnnon conspiracy theorist. Thereâs a big difference there.
InsufficientlyGeek claimed âthe powers that be donât like too much truthâ, and went on to assert Communist China is maintaining Nextcloud so they can overtake our data. InsufficientlyGeek is either a troll, or has serious mental stability issues.
Now, your post here wasnât very clear, Iâm not sure what you want, or what youâre asking for. When bb77 asked for clarification, you stayed relatively silent and let InsufficientlyGeek speak for you (âthe issue is fueled by an elitist and judgemental attitudeâ, and âyou donât know what my hosting plan isâ while giving vague and non-specific details so they can can keep evading).
After InsufficientlyGeek spouts bullshit a couple more times, you pop up saying you â100% agreeâ with them, then go silent again. You provide no further detail of what you want or what your issue is, other than upgrading Nextcloud is a âminor convenienceâ. Uh, ok.
Once I called InsufficientlyGeek out for being irrational, you jump in claiming the topic was closed last time because âwhoever didnât like itâ. Could it have been because there was no real issue brought up? You didnât provide any explanation of why you need to enforce HTTP/2, or why it isnât, what the benefits or trade-offs would be, or anything. I donât know what your issue is.
And you still havenât explained or addressed it. You instead wax lyrical about the âpurpose of community forumsâ. Could the problem be the lack of communication skills of people like you and InsufficientlyGeek, rather than any inherent issue with Nexcloud or the purpose of forums?
Iâm probably assuming people read the prior thread (with the same name minus the â2â) which I acknowledged is probably lazy of me.
In my head itâs become a general gripe than the general attitude/answer is that Nextcloud is only for people not using shared hosting. I donât want to run my own server, do my own backups, ensure my power supply is secure, my network is up etc. I want people who are professionals to do that sort of stuff and thatâs what shared hosting provides. I want to leverage IaaS/PaaS not run a server in my basement but then devs (or whoever responds to posts here) seem to want to support enterprises with enough resources to support on prem infrastructure or techies who know enough and have the time interest, knowledge and knowledge to manage the whole shebang. Iâm in tech but am not a programmer/admin and can just about do what is necessary to install and maintain a Nextcloud install but if it was a little easier Nextcloud could penetrate further (if thatâs the goal)
In any case, I sense this is a futile discussion. I do appreciate those that develop Nextcloud and provide a free alternative to Google, Dropbox et al.
In most threads about shared hosting, workarounds are suggested. But the questioners donât want to hear them and prefer to hang on to side notes. And yes, those who reply to these posts, sometimes mention that Nextcloud is not suitable for shared hosting and that shared hosting is not a priority for the Netxloud devs. I donât even know if thatâs true. But these answers also come from the fact that most of these questioners already show in their initial post that they are not really interested in a solution, but rather just want to complain.
Most limitations of shared hosting can be worked around somehow, but not always with a one-klick solution for everything. But for example whatâs the big deal, when one has to backup the .htaccess file before an update and/or re-add a few lines to it after an upgrade. This takes five minutes of that persons time and I wouldnât say that Nextcloud is unusable on a shared host because of that. Btw. maintaining a manual installation is way more time consuming.
The clearer the question, the better the answers. Does Nextcloud really have a fundamental problem with the implementation of the HTTPS/2 protocol?
On the other hand, do you have concrete statistics by hand on the installed base of Nextcloud? I see hundreds of requests here on the forum regarding shared hosting, so it seems to be a very common variant after allâŚ
So what are you specifically talking about here in this thread? There is no fitting-all solution, each installation approach has advantages and disadvantages. You have to cope with that or look for better alternatives, either by switching to a product that meets your requirements better, or by a concrete and constructive formulation of improvement suggestions by submitting enhancement requests to the development teams. This is how it works. My 2 cents.
No it does not. Works perfectley fine on my instance. (manual installation in a VM)
The problem on a shared host is, that you often cannot configure the main apache config or VirtualHosts. Your only chance to configure things is the admin panel of your hosting company and the .htaccess file, which gets overwritten during a Nextcloud upgrade. Also if you donât have command line access you canât run PHP scripts like the Nextcloud OCC commands. At least not in a direct and easy way.
Besides, various things like HTTPS, HTTP/2 and HSTS (coming from the other thread OP refers to) have been mixed up here.
