Nextcloud And OpenMediaVault

[JamesCRocks]

Hi,

I have a Raspberry Pi 5/8Gb and was hoping to create a machine that hosted BOTH Nextcloud and OpenMediaVault but, having installed Nextcloud, OMV says it demands the Pi Lite OS. I’m fine with that but it raises questions, namely will Nextcloud also run on a Lite OS and can both run on the same machine.

BTW, I’d really rather avoid Docker/Portainer if I can.

Thanks

James

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[bb77]

@JamesCRocks

OMV says it demands the Pi Lite OS.

Pi OS Lite is essentially Pi OS without the desktop environment, otherwise, it’s the same. And since Pi OS itself is basically Debian with additional drivers and tools for the Raspberry Pi hardware, yes, you can install Nextcloud on it.

But, and that’s a big but…

Installing OpenMediaVault on Pi OS effectively turns it into an appliance. This means that you should only use officially supported methods to install additional services such as Nextcloud. As far as I know, these are Docker Compose or Kubernetes via OMV-Plugins.

Trying to manually install Nextcloud alongside OMV will almost certainly lead to conflicts with web server and PHP configurations, permissions, or package management. This means there is a high risk of breaking OMV in the process. And even if you manage to get it working, OMV may overwrite or revert certain configuration files during updates.

[JamesCRocks]

@bb77

Thank you for that. Looks like I might have to accept my older Samba NAS but this time with multiple shares to allow connection of separate drives on Windows clients. I might have to try something like Cockpit to make share management easier.

James

[bb77]

@JamesCRocks

Thank you for that. Looks like I might have to accept my older Samba NAS

Why not install Nextcloud AIO via Docker? OMV Quick Configuration Guide - Guides - openmediavault

@JamesCRocks

I might have to try something like Cockpit to make share management easier.

I’m not currently using OMV, but I have in the past and found it to be quite good, especially for managing SMB shares. I find it hard to believe that Cockpit would be better than OMV for that purpose, considering OMV is specifically designed as a NAS appliance. But I could be wrong.

That said, pease don’t try installing Cockpit alongside OMV and then use it to edit the shares managed by OMV. The reasoning is the same as with Nextcloud: editing things outside of OMV’s own management tools may lead to unexpected behaviour.

[JamesCRocks]

Blockquote
Why not install Nextcloud AIO via Docker? OMV Quick Configuration Guide - Guides - openmediavault

I’m not a fan of either Docker or Portainer so I’ll avoid them if I possibly can.

Blockquote
That said, pease don’t try installing Cockpit alongside OMV and then use it to edit the shares managed by OMV. The reasoning is the same as with Nextcloud: editing things outside of OMV’s own management tools may lead to unexpected behaviour.

OMV’s out of the window now, so I was thinking of going back to using a straightforward Samba NAS (essentially, a Samba install configured to act like a NAS) but it’d be nice to have some kind of front end to it, hence my interest in Cockpit.

James

[bb77]

@JamesCRocks

OMV’s out of the window now, so I was thinking of going back to using a straightforward Samba NAS (essentially, a Samba install configured to act like a NAS) but it’d be nice to have some kind of front end to it, hence my interest in Cockpit.

Well then, I suggest you give Cockpit a try. But at that point, the discussion it’s not really related to Nextcloud anymore, so I think we can wrap it up here.

One final note:
Unlike OMV and possibly Cockpit, Nextcloud is not a front end for managing Samba shares. Rather, it is intended to replace them. It’s mainly a front end for users to collaborate and manage and share their files. You can integrate Samba shares using the External Storage app, but you definitely can’t manage them with Nextcloud. Conceptually, it couldn’t be more different (although, you can kind of replicate the concept of Samba shares via the Groupfolders app).

[JamesCRocks]

@bb77

Well then, I suggest you give Cockpit a try. But at that point, the discussion it’s not really related to Nextcloud anymore, so I think we can wrap it up here.

I’ve installed Nextcloud already, so it was more a question of what NAS I could get to work with it.

@bb77

Unlike OMV and possibly Cockpit, Nextcloud is not a front end for managing Samba shares. Rather, it is intended to replace them. It’s mainly a front end for users to collaborate and manage and share their files. You can integrate Samba shares using the External Storage app, but you definitely can’t manage them with Nextcloud. Conceptually, it couldn’t be more different (although, you can kind of replicate the concept of Samba shares via the Groupfolders app).

That’s cool… while I’m no expert, I’ve used Nextcloud for a couple of years so I know some stuff about it. I’m also a retired (probably brain damaged) Windows ex-tech who has learned most of what he knows about Linux from the humble Raspberry Pi. I have 3 Pi 5s and 1 Pi 4 (also a Mini-PC) and my aim this time round was to combine as many services as possible onto as few machines as possible. Pi-Hole clashed with Apache (Nextcloud) so I put that on the Pi 4 and I’m hoping to put the rest of my apps on one of my Pi 5’s (8Gb with 2 x 2TB storage). I can’t see any reason why Nextcloud won’t play nice with a basic Samba install manually configured to act as a NAS as long as I keep the data storage separate… if it doesn’t, I have other machines spare.

Anyway, thanks… you’ve been a great help

James

[bb77]

@JamesCRocks

I’ve installed Nextcloud already, so it was more a question of what NAS I could get to work with it.

On most NAS appliances, you would typically need to install it either in a VM (e.g. TrueNAS supports this, as do commercial NAS appliances like Synology or QNAP), or in containers, usually via Docker. Some NAS systems may also support LXC as an alternative.

@JamesCRocks

I can’t see any reason why Nextcloud won’t play nice with a basic Samba install

Because Nextcloud is not meant to be a Samba frontend or a management tool for Linux servers. It provides its own backend for managing users, permissions, and shares. As I mentioned before, you can connect to existing Samba shares, or replicate similar concept and behavior using the Group Folders app, but Nextcloud fundamentally relies on its own internal backend to deliver its features.

Again, Nextcloud is not designed to manage or serve services like Samba or NFS, as a typical NAS appliance would. Nor is it intended to act as a front-end or middleware for managing Linux servers, like tools such as Cockpit or Webmin.

[JamesCRocks]

@bb77

On most NAS appliances, you would typically need to install it either in a VM (e.g. TrueNAS supports this, as do commercial NAS appliances like Synology or QNAP), or in containers, usually via Docker. Some NAS systems may also support LXC as an alternative.

Sure but not necessarily a Samba “NAS”…

@bb77

Because Nextcloud is not meant to be a Samba frontend or a management tool for Linux servers. It provides its own backend for managing users, permissions, and shares. As I mentioned before, you can connect to existing Samba shares, or replicate similar concept and behavior using the Group Folders app, but Nextcloud fundamentally relies on its own internal backend to deliver its features.

Again, Nextcloud is not designed to manage or serve services like Samba or NFS, as a typical NAS appliance would. Nor is it intended to act as a front-end or middleware for managing Linux servers, like tools such as Cockpit or Webmin.

… especially as I plan to run them separately although on the same machine. I have a 400Gb partition purely for use with Nextcloud and the rest of the 4Tb space will be given over to my “NAS”… a single machine running two separate applications. Doesn’t that makes a difference?

Although I’ve rewritten it to suit my needs, attached is the Pi-NAS document that is the foundation of the “NAS” I’ll [re]build:
Raspberry Pi (Building A Pi Based NAS).pdf (284.3 KB)

Thanks

James

[bb77]

Yes, if you set up a LAMP or LEMP stack for Nextcloud on a standard Linux server and run Samba on the same machine to serve separate SMB shares, managed, for example, through Cockpit, I don’t see any issues with that.

However, problems can arise when you do this on a NAS appliance like OMV. These systems are generally designed to have full control over the underlying system. So if you manually modify PHP settings, web server configurations, or other components that the NAS appliance expects to manage itself, this can lead to unintended side effects, and/or your changes may be overwritten during updates.

Another thing you should avoid is share the Nextcloud data folder via Samba and then access the files directly via SMB rather than through Nextcloud. Nextcloud won’t then detect changes unless you manually rescan the files using occ.

But yes, of course, as long as everything is cleanly separated, there should be no problem running both Samba and Nextcloud on the same server.

[kick54]

Hi,
For personnal use, I have OMV over debian without graphical interface and Nextcloud in docker compose using the OMV plugin, on a old single proc dell machine with 16G RAM and 256 G + 1T SSD. My Data storage is on a third one (no access from internet) always with OMV.
The backup is on a second machine (no access from internet) with 4T HD running OMV.
On the first one i add a jellyfin in docker compose and on the same machine, I will soon install an apache-php-mariadb application on docker stacks. This is a way for me to improve my docker skills.
For the past 3 months, I have already been able to appreciate the simplicity of managing updates and backups of the Docker stack using docker compose.