2y ago

Docker + Nextcloud = why is it so difficult?

TLDR: I consistently fail to set up Nextcloud on Docker. Halp pls?

Hi all - please help out a fellow self-hoster, if you have experience with Nextcloud. I have tried several approaches but I fail at various steps. Rather than describe my woes, I hope that I could get a "known good" configuration from the community?

What I have:

a homelab server and a NAS, wired to a dedicated switch using priority ports.
the server is running Linux, Docker, and NPM proxy which takes care of domains and SSL certs.

What I want:

a docker-compose.yml that sets up Nextcloud without SSL. Just that.
ideally but optionally, the compose file might include Nextcloud office-components and other neat additions that you have found useful.

Your comments, ideas, and other input will be much appreciated!!

29 comments

Their official image is easy to run, just one container needed: https://hub.docker.com/_/nextcloud
Linuxserver.io images are also good: https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/nextcloud
- +1 for the linuxserver.io container. It is easier to use than anything else I've found.
- It all comes down to which webserver you want to use actually
  Base official image and linuxserver.Io comes with Apache
  With fpm you can choose

Nextcloud is very easy to setup as a container. You just need a MySQL/MariaDB server and a volume mount. Just make sure the volume is owned by www-data user (uid:gid 33:33). That's it. Most problems I've seen so far are related to files permissions, so double check to make sure the volume is owned by www-data.
- is marinade a typo for mariadb or is this some new thing that i missed
  
  I swear I already double checked but Gboard's autocorrect always managed to mess up something

As others have commented, Nextcloud provide an all-in-one docker set up. I managed to follow the instructions and get it working.
However, in the end, I wanted this to replace my Dropbox subscription, and my files and reliable access to them are important to me. Given that, and my relatively low skill level, I didn't want to futz with troubleshooting failed updates and server issues, so I just went with a Hetzner storage share, which is their managed nextcloud subscription: https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-share
- This is a completely valid option and one that more people should consider. You don't have to selfhosted everything, even if you can. I actually prefer to support existing instances of stuff in a lot of cases.
  I use https://disroot.org for email and cloud, and I'm more than happy to kick them a hundred bucks a year to help support a community. Same with https://fosstodon.org for Mastodon. I'm fully capable of self-hosting these things, but instead I actively choose to support them instead so that their services can be extended to more than just myself. I chose those two because they send excess funds upstream to FOSS projects. I'm proud to rep those domains.
- I found the AIO to be kind of quirky in the way it's architected, including having a master container that must be named exactly and I couldn't find a way to make a bind mount for the config/data (that part was a deal breaker). Probably up their with LSIO in simplicity, however, and it doesn't default to sqlite which is nice.

Here's my docker-compose.yml for nextcloud (with minor privacy changes) that includes onlyoffice and drawio containers. SSL is not included and should be handled by NPM and you'll need a proxy host for both drawio and onlyoffice. I use NPM in docker so I just add it to the docs network instead of exposing any additional ports. For onlyoffice the secret key gets regenerated each time the container starts so you'll need to update onlyoffice setting in nextcloud each time (unless someone has a better solution). You can get the secret key by logging into the onlyoffice container and running

cat /etc/onlyoffice/documentserver-example/local.json

I've been running this solution for a few years without any major issues.

docker-compose.yml

    
version: '3.5'

networks:
 docs:
  name: docs 
  driver: bridge

services:
 nextcloud:
  image: linuxserver/nextcloud
  container_name: nextcloud
  environment:
   - PUID=1000
   - PGID=1000
   - MYSQL_DATABASE=nextcloud
   - MYSQL_USER=nextcloud
   - MYSQL_PASSWORD=P@ssWord321!
   - MYSQL_HOST=nextcloud_db
   - TZ="America/Chicago"
  volumes:
   - /home/user/docker/configs/nextcloud:/config
   - /home/user/docker/configs/nextcloud_data:/data
  restart: unless-stopped
  depends_on:
   - nextcloud_db
  networks:
   - docs 

 nextcloud_db:
  image: linuxserver/mariadb:110.4.21mariabionic-ls31
  container_name: nextcloud_db
  restart: always
  environment:
   - PUID=1000
   - PGID=1000
   - MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=P@ssWord123!
   - MYSQL_DATABASE=nextcloud
   - MYSQL_USER=nextcloud
   - MYSQL_PASSWORD=P@ssWord321!
  volumes:
   - /home/user/docker/configs/nextcloud_db/mysql:/config
  restart: unless-stopped
  networks:
   - docs 

 onlyoffice:
  image: onlyoffice/documentserver
  container_name: onlyoffice
  restart: always
  depends_on:
   - nextcloud
  networks:
   - docs 

 image-export:
  image: jgraph/export-server
  container_name: nextcloud-drawio-export
  networks:
   - docs 
  volumes:
   - ./fonts:/usr/share/fonts/drawio
  restart: unless-stopped

 drawio:
  image: jgraph/drawio
  container_name: nextcloud-drawio
  networks:
   - docs 
  depends_on:
   - image-export
  environment:
   - VIRTUAL_HOST=drawio.example.com
   - VIRTUAL_PORT=8080
   - EXPORT_URL=http://image-export:8000/
  restart: unless-stopped

I'm not sure if your goal is to set up nextcloud or to learn docker compose while setting up nextcloud. If you just want it up and running, you could use DockSTARTer to get it going. Heck, even if your goal is mainly learning, you can always tear apart the compose file that dockstarter generates and compare it to your own.

I remember cursing allot with trying nextcloud to work :D and than my serber crashed. I'm currently reinstalling everything but haven't had the courage to get going on nextcloud.

I put together a repo that you should be able to pull down and get running pretty quickly using docker compose. Check it out and let me know if you have any questions.
https://github.com/PHLAK/nextcloud-compose

Have you tried their AIO stack? It's really easy to setup, but I haven't gone beyond that because of performance issues on my server

I would recommend going with the Docker AIO install, it does a lot of the heavy lifting for you as well as dealing with backups and updates for long term maintenance.
- I spun this up just today and had no issues whatsoever. Just a bad aftertase because the AIO package creates and manages other containers on the host, I'd love to have more control over those as well. But for the sake of comfortability I'll just have to accept that. And it truly works out of the box!

A bit of a sidenote and definitely an unpopular opinion coming up... The nextcloud snap is perhaps the easiest and among the most stable ways to run NC. And I base this on my own experience, having installed and tested NC on numerous devices in several ways. You loose some tinkerability and the performance is nothing to write home about. And yes I know - snap no good - Canonical evil. That having been said, If stability and easy setup is what you want, it's worth considering.

With nginx
https://github.com/nextcloud/docker#base-version---fpm
With caddy
https://caddy.community/t/example-docker-nextcloud-fpm-caddy-v2-webserver/9407
I oersonaly run fpm with caddy
Remember to create your admin account on first run and then add your trusted domain
Admin
navigate to localhost:8080
create admin acount
write down your credestials
allowed domains
docker ps
copy container id of nextcloud:fpm
docker exec --user www-data container_id php occ config:system:set trusted_domains 2 --value=your_domain_name_here
docker stop container_id
docker start container_id

FYI docker images binding to an NFS mount can be tricky due to ACL extensions not being supported. Podman is especially bad for this.

I based my instance on this compose file: https://github.com/nextcloud/docker/blob/master/.examples/docker-compose/insecure/postgres/apache/docker-compose.yml

I’ve been fighting nextckoud over the last few days. I got it up and running, yay. But the. I could not get Nextcloud office or Onlyoffice to work at all.
I used the AIO docker install and followed all the instructions for setup behind cloudflare tunnels but I’m guessing it’s something to do with that, but I just don’t have the time or patience to spend hours trying to troubleshoot why I can install onlyoffice but it won’t allow me to create documents.
I may revisit in the future but the frustration levels are just too high atm.

29 comments