Install and host Nextcloud for personal use on my IntelNUC VMware

đź’¸ Nextcloud freelancing
1

I want my family and I to use Nextcloud 18 and all its cool functions (video chat, document collaboration, etc) in an IntelNUC I own. It runs Windows 10 and has VMware.

My technical skills barely allow me to copy a Youtube video to get Nextcloud up and running on an Ubuntu server and access it within my local LAN, but I want to be able to access it from anywhere in the net. Because I travel often, I’d like it to be almost a plug-n-play configuration every time I turn it on. You can teach me what I have to do whenever I have to restart it.

I will probably also want help making sure OnlyOffice is successfully installed in NC.

I don’t like the idea of paying for a VPS if I have my own IntelNUC dedicated to this, or something like PageKite that only allocates me with a certain amount of bandwidth.

What’s the cheapest way to accomplish this? Who can help me figure this out?

Also, I’m currently running FreedomBox in the VMware, accessible through Tor. If you can also help configure it to be accessible through a regular web browser, and host my own Matrix server, even better.

Contact me if you have the skills for this, a general idea of how to do it, and an estimated price.

I’ll give you access to my IntelNUC running Windows 10 and VMware through TeamViewer. And you can teach me what I need to know as your client.

2

What does “Windows 10 and VMware” mean?

  1. Win10 virtual machine on ESXi installed on NUC?
  2. VMware Workstation running on Win10?

Few notes:

  • get a dedicated computer - virtual or physical - to run Nextcloud
  • don’t use TeamViewer. Configure your router to give access to internal PC
  • installing Nextcloud on Ubuntu (for example) is not hard. There are many how-tos around
3

Thanks Henry,

My IntelNUC is running Windows 10. In windows 10 I have VMWare.

As you stated, I had accomplished the not so hard task of installing Nextcloud on Ubuntu server, within that VMware software. But I was unable to set it to be accessible from the Internet.

I understand there is an advantage of a dedicated computer, but I’m trying to keep the cost down. Having that Windows 10 in the NUC is important to me in case my main laptop fails.
I simply want to use the remaining computing power it has to run NC.

I’m not sure I understand “don’t use Teamviewer”. This would be to give someone temporary access to my NUC.

4

What are your NUC’s specs? CPU/RAM/SSD?

If it (NUC) needs Windows as a backup system only, make it dual-boot.
Then install ESXi on a 1GB USB attached to the NUC.
And create a Nextcloud VM (maybe a Windows 10 one, too; depending on specs).

5

Good idea to make it dual-boot.
I am hesitant to make a dual-boot system as last time I tried I made a mess on my XPS laptop.

I don’t know what ESXi is, so I’m going to have to become familiar with the idea.

Specs on my NUC:
OS: Win10 Pro
Ram: 8gb
CPU: i5-3427u (1.8 ghz - 2 cores, 4 processors)
Bios mode: UEFI
SSD with ~240 gb

6

ESXi is a Type-1 hypervisor from VMware, installed directly on bare metal.
It’s free; something around 350MB. Download the ISO, make a bootable USB, boot from it…
It is sort of DOS. Its job is to slice resources and assign it to VMs.
Everything done using a browser…

Here is a decent recent write-up

7

Cool, I’ll try that.

On the other note, any idea how to access Nextcloud from the outside world, if I usually have it behind someone else’s firewall?

8

The solution I found was ngrok.