Stand alone NextCloudPi

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 ā€œBad Connectionā€ 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

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.

I agree this is very strange uncommon but interesting requirement.

I think following discussions might be helpful for you

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 ā€œinternalā€ 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 ā€œlocal network to goā€ :wink:

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 ā€˜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 ā€˜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?