FreedomBox for Communities/Digital Library
A community digital library might host files of various types like documents, books, audio, video, software etc. Hence a generic cloud solution must be used instead of specialized library software like Calibre which only manages ebooks.
A NextCloud server on the FreedomBox can be used to host the files for a community digital library. NextCloud does not have an official Debian package and must be installed manually.
Installation instructions[edit | edit source]
Installing dependencies[edit | edit source]
Install the necessary Debian packages required for NextCloud. The following installation instructions are for NextCloud 16.
sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php
sudo apt-get install postgresql
sudo apt-get install php-gd php-json php-pgsql php-curl php-mbstring php-intl php-imagick php-xml php-zip
Check whether all the required dependencies are installed against this checklist
Database setup[edit | edit source]
Setup PostgreSQL database. The following instructions are for PostgreSQL 11.
Open the psql console as user postgres
sudo -u postgres psql
Create a new user and database for nextcloud. Please use a strong password.
CREATE USER nextcloud WITH PASSWORD 'some$trongPW';
CREATE DATABASE nextcloud TEMPLATE template0 ENCODING 'UNICODE';
ALTER DATABASE nextcloud OWNER TO nextcloud;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE nextcloud TO nextcloud;
Exit the console by pressing Ctrl+D or by typing \q and enter.
Web installer[edit | edit source]
The easiest way to install NextCloud is using its web installer.
Add the web installer script to your Apache server root and set the permissions as follows:
wget https://download.nextcloud.com/server/installer/setup-nextcloud.php
sudo mv setup-nextcloud.php /var/www/html/
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/
sudo systemctl restart apache2
Access the web installer at the path https://<freedombox-url>/setup-nextcloud.php from a web browser. If the installer says that any dependencies are missing, install the corresponding Debian packages.
After the nextcloud files are setup, you will be prompted with a screen to enter admin credentials and database credentials.
| property | value |
|---|---|
| username | nextcloud |
| password | some$trongPW |
| database name | nextcloud |
| database url | localhost:5432 |
After submitting the above details, the NextCloud installer will finish installation and log you in as the administrator user.