Stand alone NextCloudPi

[biguscj7]

I’m trying to create a stand alone NextCloudPi for travel. My goal is to be able to run the Pi off a USB power pack and have the Pi host a WiFi AP so family can connect to the AP, open the NextCloud app and share pictures without the complications and security concerns of joining the Pi to a local WiFi network. This also allows us to share media without any requirement for internet access at all (else I would cloud host it).

I’ve been successful with the following:

• NextCloudPi installed/configured connected into home network via eth0
• Pi hosting secured WiFi AP
• iOS NextCloud app connecting to server at IP on home network
• iOS device successfully connects to Pi WiFi AP and receives IP via DHCP

However, once connected to the wifi AP the iOS NextCloud app gives a “Bad Connection” error when directed to connect to the server’s IP address in the wifi network.

I’ve tried to find some documentation/tutorials on this kind of setup but my Google-fu has failed me thus far.

Mark

[KarlF12]

That’s a very unusual thing to try to do. I think you’re likely to run into weird problems like that which may or may not be resolvable. The iOS app isn’t going to be happy about having no internet on the ad hoc connection.

[wwe]

I agree this is very strange uncommon but interesting requirement.

I think following discussions might be helpful for you

How to https when accessed via local IP address?

I have set up NC behind Nginx Proxy Manger and Cloudflare, with Let’s Encrypt certificates, in Docker on a QNAP NAS. Works well. However, I need a way to access NC locally via the server’s IP address, with the connection still being via https. I can’t for the life of me figure out how to do that. Do I need to generate my own certificates, even set up my own Certificate Authority, etc.? The alternative is to access NC (only locally!) via http. It’s my reasonably secure home network. What kinds …

Lost acces from inside LAN

Nextcloud version (eg, 20.0.5): 23 Operating system and version (eg, Ubuntu 20.04): unraid Apache or nginx version (eg, Apache 2.4.25): nginx reverse proxy v2.9.12 PHP version (eg, 7.4): replace me The issue you are facing: Can acces from outside but not from LAN Is this the first time you’ve seen this error? Y Steps to replicate it: Install mariadb docker Install nextcloud docker Config nextcloud to point mariadb and create admin user All works (only inside lan) Modify config.php so c…

I think with lot of work you could achieve your goal if you

• first build the local network with internet connection so you can follow normal installation path e.g. request certificates
• setup split-brain DNS to access Nextcloud using local IP when inside of network (must be hosted on same Raspi)
• isolate and host all “internal” network components like DNS, router, firewall etc on your Raspi (or something you carry withyou)
• develop a procedure how to setup internet connection with DynDNS like service from time to time to refresh certificate (and perform updates)

I would call the project “local network to go”

[biguscj7]

Thanks for the input and point outs. The home network connection was simply to make it easy for updating packages. Once I stepped away to travel it would be entirely self-contained. I’m not super concerned about https connections and refreshing certs as my ‘access control’ is not sharing the WPA2 key for the wifi with anyone but trusted agents.

KarlF12, you’re right that iOS sometimes squawked about not being connected to the internet.

wwe summed it up well as a ‘local network to go.’

I’ll do some checking, but could it be as simple as the iOS client refusing http or unsigned https connections?