Setup OwnCloud 9 Server with Nginx, MariaDB and PHP7 on Debian

In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to set up ownCloud personal cloud storage on a Debian 8 VPS with Nginx, MariaDB and PHP7. The installation process is very similar to installing WordPress on Debian 8. This tutorial is demonstrated on a VPS with mere 128MB memory and it can run ownCloud without any problem.  I assume that you have already configured a LEMP stack on Debian 8. If you haven’t done so, please check out the below easy guide to see how to do it.

How To Install LEMP Stack on Debian 8 Jessie (Nginx, MariaDB, PHP7)

Step 1: Install ownCloud 9 Server on Debian 8 VPS

First off,  fetch ownCloud signing key onto your Debian 8 VPS with wget. -nv stands for no-verbose.

wget -nv https://download.owncloud.org/download/repositories/stable/Debian_8.0/Release.key -O Release.key

Then use apt-key to add this signing key to Debian 8.

sudo apt-key add - < Release.key

Next, run this command to add official ownCloud repository.

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://download.owncloud.org/download/repositories/stable/Debian_8.0/ /' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/owncloud.list"

After that, update local package index and install owncloud-files.

sudo apt-get update;sudo apt-get install owncloud-files

There’re two packages you can install: owncloud and owncloud-files. The difference is that if you install owncloud, then it will automatically install apache2, mysql and php5. Since we already configured a Nginx, MariaDB and PHP7 stack on our Debian 8 VPS, we only need to install the standalone owncloud-files.

OwnCloud files are stored in /var/www/owncloud directory.

Step 2: Create a Database and User for ownCloud

Log into MariaDB database server:

mysql -u root -p

Then create a database for owncloud.

create database owncloud;

Create a database user on localhost.

create user ownclouduser@localhost identified by 'password';

Grant this user all privileges on owncloud database.

grant all privileges on owncloud.* to ownclouduser@localhost identified by 'password';

Flush privileges and exit.

flush privileges;

exit;

Step 3: Enable Binary Logging in MariaDB

Open my.cnf file. Your my.cnf file may be located at /etc/mysql/my.cnf.

sudo nano /etc/my.cnf

Add the following three lines in [mysqld] section.

log-bin        = /var/log/mysql/mariadb-bin
log-bin-index  = /var/log/mysql/mariadb-bin.index
binlog_format  = mixed

The format of binary log must be mixed. Save and close the file. Then reload MariaDB service.

sudo service mysql reload         or      sudo systemctl reload mysql

Step 4: Get A Free SSL Certificate from Let’s Encrypt

First install Let’s Encrypt client from Github.

sudo apt-get install git

git clone https://github.com/letsencrypt/letsencrypt

Now cd into the letsencypt directory.

cd letsencrypt/

Stop Nginx process.

sudo service nginx stop       or         sudo systemctl stop nginx

Obtain a SSL certificate for your domain name with this command:

./letsencrypt-auto certonly --standalone --email <your-email-address> --agree-tos -d owncloud.your-domain.com

Note: I assume you are using a domain name like owncloud.your-domain.com to access the ownCloud web interface. You also need to point your domain name to your server IP in DNS before running the above command.

certonly means the client obtains SSL certificate but will not install it. Because Let’s Encrypt is still in beta and does not support auto SSL configuration for Nginx, so we have to manually configure(install) SSL.

Your SSL certificate will be saved under /etc/letsencrypt/live/<your-domain.com> directory.

Step 5: Create a Nginx Config File for owncloud

sudo nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/owncloud.conf

Put the following text into the file.

upstream php-handler {
 #server 127.0.0.1:9000;
 server unix:/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
 }

server {
 listen 80;
 server_name owncloud.your-domain.com;
 # enforce https
 return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
 }

server {
 listen 443 ssl;
 server_name owncloud.your-domain.com;

 ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/owncloud.your-domain.com/fullchain.pem;
 ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/owncloud.your-domain.com/privkey.pem;

# Add headers to serve security related headers
 add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=15768000; includeSubDomains; preload;";
 add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;
 add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN";
 add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block";
 add_header X-Robots-Tag none;

 # Path to the root of your installation
 root /var/www/owncloud/;
 # set max upload size
 client_max_body_size 10G;
 fastcgi_buffers 64 4K;

 # Disable gzip to avoid the removal of the ETag header
 gzip off;

 # Uncomment if your server is build with the ngx_pagespeed module
 # This module is currently not supported.
 #pagespeed off;

 index index.php;
 error_page 403 /core/templates/403.php;
 error_page 404 /core/templates/404.php;

 rewrite ^/.well-known/carddav /remote.php/carddav/ permanent;
 rewrite ^/.well-known/caldav /remote.php/caldav/ permanent;

 # The following 2 rules are only needed for the user_webfinger app.
 # Uncomment it if you're planning to use this app.
 #rewrite ^/.well-known/host-meta /public.php?service=host-meta last;
 #rewrite ^/.well-known/host-meta.json /public.php?service=host-meta-json last;

 location = /robots.txt {
 allow all;
 log_not_found off;
 access_log off;
 }

location ~ ^/(build|tests|config|lib|3rdparty|templates|data)/ {
   deny all;
}

location ~ ^/(?:\.|autotest|occ|issue|indie|db_|console) {
  deny all;
}

location / {
  rewrite ^/remote/(.*) /remote.php last;
  rewrite ^(/core/doc/[^\/]+/)$ $1/index.html;
  try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}

 location ~ \.php(?:$|/) {
    fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
    include fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;
    fastcgi_param HTTPS on;
    fastcgi_param modHeadersAvailable true; #Avoid sending the security headers twice
    fastcgi_pass php-handler;
    fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
 }

 # Adding the cache control header for js and css files
 # Make sure it is BELOW the location ~ \.php(?:$|/) { block
 location ~* \.(?:css|js)$ {
 add_header Cache-Control "public, max-age=7200";
 # Add headers to serve security related headers
 add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=15768000; includeSubDomains; preload;";
 add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;
 add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN";
 add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block";
 add_header X-Robots-Tag none;
 # Optional: Don't log access to assets
    access_log off;
 }

 # Optional: Don't log access to other assets
 location ~* \.(?:jpg|jpeg|gif|bmp|ico|png|swf)$ {
   access_log off;
 }
}

Replace the red-colored text with your actual data. This configuration file assumes that your php-fpm process listens on Unix socket. If your php-fpm listens on 127.0.0.1:9000, you need to change the upstream section. You can also enabled http2 for SSL in this configuration. Note that Nginx doesn’t support http2 until version 1.9.5. Check the following tutorial on how to enable HTTP2 with latest Nginx version on Debian 8 server.

How to enable HTTP2 with latest Nginx version on Debian 8 server

Once you save this configuration file, install needed php7 extensions.

sudo apt install php7.0-common php7.0-gd php7.0-json php7.0-curl  php7.0-zip php7.0-xml php7.0-mbstring

Now restart Nginx process.

sudo service nginx restart      or       sudo systemctl restart nginx

Step 6:Setup the Web Interface

In your browser address bar, type

owncloud.your-domain.com

You need to create an administrative account and connect ownCloud service with MariaDB database.

Once it’s done, you will enter the Web interface of owncloud. Congrats! You can now start using owncloud as your private cloud storage.

As you can see, the process of installing ownCloud is very similar to that of installing WordPress and Drupal.

Comments, questions or suggestions are always welcome. If you found this post useful, ? please share it with your friends on social media! Stay tuned for more Linux tutorials.