NextCloud customization

Introduction

The solution indicated here works on a turnkeylinux LXC image for NextCloud.

Change the data location

To change the data location, you need to do a few things:

1. copy the previous storage location to the new one:

    sudo cp -R /var/www/nextcloud-data/* /path/to/your/data/directory/
   

2. create a .ncdata file in the new data location:

   vim .ncdata
   

   And write the following inside:

   # Nextcloud data directory
   

3. change the ownership of the new data directory to www-data:

   sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /path/to/your/data/directory
   

4. edit the /var/www/nextcloud/config/config.php file:

    <?php
    $CONFIG = array (
      'passwordsalt' => 'salt',
      'secret' => 'secret',
      'trusted_domains' =>
      array (
        0 => 'localhost',
        1 => 'example.com',
      ),
   
    ## data directory path ###########################################################################
      'datadirectory' => '/var/www/nextcloud-data',#  <---- change that to '/path/to/your/data/directory'
      'dbtype' => 'mysql',
      'version' => '30.0.0.14',
      'overwrite.cli.url' => 'http://example.com',
      'overwriteprotocol' => 'https',
      'dbname' => 'nextcloud',
      'dbhost' => 'localhost',
      'dbport' => '',
      'dbtableprefix' => 'oc_',
      'mysql.utf8mb4' => true,
      'dbuser' => 'nextcloud',
      'dbpassword' => 'password',
      'installed' => true,
      'instanceid' => 'id-number',
      'memcache.local' => '\\OC\\Memcache\\Redis',
      'redis' =>
      array (
        'host' => '/var/run/redis/redis.sock',
        'port' => 0,
        'timeout' => 0.0,
      ),
      'filelocking.enabled' => true,
      'memcache.locking' => '\\OC\\Memcache\\Redis',
      'log_type' => 'file',
   
    ## log file path #################################################################################
      'logfile' => '/var/www/nextcloud-data/nextcloud.log',# <------ change that to '/path/to/your/data/directory/nextcloud.log'
      'loglevel' => 3,
      'maintenance' => false,
      'theme' => '',
      'updater.secret' => 'secret',
    );
   

Disable the HTTP to HTTPS redirection

⚠️ ONLY DO THAT IF YOU HAVE A VERY VALID REASON TO!

In my case, the NextCloud server is behind HAProxy who is set to offload the SSL encryption from the server and managing the certificates at the same time.

If NextCloud is served by Apache2, then this is the solution:

Edit the file /etc/apache2/sites-available/nextcloud.conf:

ServerName localhost

<VirtualHost *:80>
    UseCanonicalName Off
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    DocumentRoot /var/www/nextcloud/ # <--------- Add this line
#    RewriteEngine On   <-------- Delete or comment this line like it is here
#    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]   <-------- Delete or comment this line like it is here
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>
    SSLEngine on
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    DocumentRoot /var/www/nextcloud/

    <IfModule mod_headers.c>
        Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=15552000; includeSubDomains"
    </IfModule>
</VirtualHost>

<Directory /var/www/nextcloud/>
    Options +FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
</Directory>

Restart apache2 service:

sudo systemctl restart apache2