nextcloud-docker/README.md

What is Nextcloud?

A safe home for all your data. Access & share your files, calendars, contacts, mail & more from any device, on your terms.

How to use this image

This image is designed to be used in a micro-service environment. There are two versions of the image you can choose from.

The apache tag contains a full nextcloud installation including an apache web server. It is designed to be easy to use and get's you running pretty fast. This is also the default for the latest tag and version tags that are not further specified.

The second option is a fpm container. It is based on the php-fpm image and runs a fastCGI-Process that serves your nextcloud page. To use this image it must be combined with any webserver that can proxy the http requests to the FastCGI-port of the container.

Using the Apache image

The apache image contains a webserver and exposes port 80. However by default it is not configured to use ssl encryption (See below). To start the container type:

$ docker run -d nextcloud

Now you can access Nextcloud at http://localhost/ from your host system. To make your nextcloud installation available from the internet you must map the port of the container to your host:

$ docker run -p 80:80 -d nextcloud

Using the fpm image

To use the fpm image you need an additional web server that can proxy http-request to the fpm-port of the container. For fpm connection this container exposes port 9000. In most cases you might want use another container or your host as proxy. If you use your host you can address your nextcloud container directly on port 9000. If you use another container, make sure that you add them to the same docker network (via docker run --network <NAME> ... or a docker-compose file). In both cases you don't want to map the fpm port to you host.

$ docker run -d nextcloud-fpm

As the fastCGI-Process is not capable of serving static files (style sheets, images, ...) the webserver needs access to these files. That can be achieved with the volumes-from option. You can find more information in the docker-compose section.

Using an external database

By default this container uses SQLite for data storage, but the Nextcloud setup wizard (appears on first run) allows connecting to an existing MySQL/MariaDB or PostgreSQL database. You can also link a database container, e.g. --link my-mysql:mysql, and then use mysql as the database host on setup. More info is in the docker-compose section.

Persistent data

The nextcloud installation and all data beyond what lives in the database (file uploads, etc) is stored in the unnamed docker volume volume /var/www/html. The docker daemon will store that data within the docker directory /var/lib/docker/volumes/.... That means your data is saved even if the container crashes, is stopped, updated or deleted.

When nextcloud is updated the source files and some system apps, that are shipped with the nextcloud installation are overwritten. To backup your nextcloud installation, you have to take care of five parts: data, config, apps, theming and database. The data and config are stored in respective subfolders inside /var/www/html/. The apps are split into system apps (wich are shipped with nextcloud and you don't need to take care of) and a custom_apps folder. If you use theming you can apply your theming into the theming folder.

Overview of the folders:

• /var/www/html/custom_apps installed / modified apps
• /var/www/html/config local configuration
• /var/www/html/data the actual data of your Nextcloud
• /var/www/html/theming theming/branding

And if you use an external database you need the following folders on your database container:

Mysql / MariaDB:

• /var/lib/mysql database files

PostegreSQL:

• db:/var/lib/postresql/data database files

To get access to your data for backups or migration you can use named docker volumes or mount host folders:

Nextcloud:

$ docker run -d nextcloud \
-v apps:/var/www/html/custom_apps \
-v config:/var/www/html/config \
-v data:/var/www/html/data \
-v theming:/var/www/html/theming

Database:

$ docker run -d mariadb \
-v db:/var/lib/mysql

Running this image with docker-compose

The easiest way to get a fully featured and functional setup is using a docker-compose file. There are too many different possibilities to setup your system, so here are only some examples what you have to look for.

At first make sure you have chosen the right base image (fpm or apache) and added the features you wanted (see at adding features). In almost every case you want to add a database container and https encryption to your setup. You also want to add docker volumes to get persistent data.

Base version - Apache

This version will use the apache image and add a mariaDB container. The volumes are set to keep your data persistent.

version: '2'

volumes:
  apps:
  config:
  data:
  db:

services:
  db:
    image: mariadb
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - db:/var/lib/mysql
    environment:
      - MYSQL_ROOT_PW=...
      - MYSQL_USER_PW=...
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=nextcloud
      - MYSQL_USER=nextcloud

  app:  
    image: nextcloud
    ports:
      - "80:80"
    links:
      - db
    volumes:
      - data:/var/www/html/data
      - config:/var/www/html/config
      - apps:/var/www/html/custom_apps
    restart: always

Base version - FPM

When using the FPM image you need another container that acts as web server on port 80 and proxies the requests to the nextcloud container. In this example a simple nginx container is used. Like above, a database container is added and the data is stored in docker volumes. The nginx container also need access to static files from your nextcloud installation. It gets access to all the volumes mounted to nextcloud via the volumes_from option. The configuration for nginx is stored in the configuration file nginx.conf, that is located next to the docker-compose file and mounted into the container. An example can be found in the examples section here.

version: '2'

volumes:
  apps:
  config:
  data:
  db:

services:
  db:
    image: mariadb
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - db:/var/lib/mysql
    environment:
      - MYSQL_ROOT_PW=...
      - MYSQL_USER_PW=...
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=nextcloud
      - MYSQL_USER=nextcloud

  app:
    image: nextcloud
    links:
      - db
    volumes:
      - data:/var/www/html/data
      - config:/var/www/html/config
      - apps:/var/www/html/custom_apps
    restart: always

  web:
    image: nginx
    ports:
      - "80:80"
    links:
      - app
    volumes:
      - ./nginx.conf:/etc/nginx/nginx.conf:ro
    volumes-from:
      - app
    restart: always

First use

When you first access your nextcloud, the setup wizard will appear and ask you to choose an administrator account, password and the database connection. For the database use db as host and nextcloud as table and user name. Also enter the password you chose in the compose file.

SSL encryption

Until here, we haven't talked about encrypting the connection between your nextcloud host and the clients. Using up-to-date encryption is mandatory if your host is reachable from the internet. There are many different possibilities to introduce encryption.

An easy and free way to get certificates that are accepted by the browsers is Let's Encrypt. The whole certificate generation / validation is fully automated and certificate renewals are also very easy. To integrate Let's Encrypt, we recommend using a reverse proxy in front of our nextcloud installation. Your nextcloud will only be reachable through the proxy, which encrypts all traffic to the clients. See our examples to get an idea how it works.

Update to a newer version

Updating the nextcloud container is done by pulling the new image and throwing away the old container. Since all data is stored in volumes nothing gets lost. The startup script will check for the version in your data and the installed docker version. If it finds a mismatch, it automatically starts the upgrade process.

$ docker pull nextcloud
$ docker run -d nextcloud

When using docker-compose:

$ docker-compose pull
$ docker-compose up -d

Adding Features

A lot of people use additional functionality inside their nextcloud installation. If the image does not include the packages you need, you can easily build your own image on top of it. The examples folder gives a few examples on how to add certain functionalities, like including the cron job, smb-support or imap-authentication. Start your derived image with the FROM statement and add whatever you like.

FROM nextcloud:apache

RUN ...

If you use your own Dockerfile you need to configure your docker-compose file accordingly. Switch out the image option with build. You have to specify the path to your Dockerfile. (in the example it's in the same directory next to the docker-compose file)

  app:
    build: .
    links:
      - db
    volumes:
      - data:/var/www/html/data
      - config:/var/www/html/config
      - apps:/var/www/html/apps
    restart: always

Updating your own derived image is also very simple. When a new version of the nextcloud image is available run:

docker build -t your-name --pull . 
docker run -d your-name

or for docker-compose:

docker-compose build --pull
docker-compose up -d

The --pull option tells docker to look for new versions of the base image. The build instructions inside your Dockerfile are run on top of the new image.

Migrating an existing installation

You're already using nextcloud and want to switch to docker? Great! Here are some things to look out for:

• Define your whole nextcloud instance in a docker-compose file and run it with docker-compose up -d to get the base installation, volumes and database. Work from there.
• Restoring your database from a mysqldump (nextcloud_db_1 is the name of your db container; typically [folder name of the compose file]_db_1 -> if your compose file is in the folder nextcloud then it is nextcloud_db_1)

docker cp ./database.dmp nextcloud_db:/dmp
docker-compose exec db sh -c "mysql -u USER -pPASSWORD nextcloud < /dmp"
docker-compose exec db rm /dmp

• Edit your config.php

  • Set database connection

  'dbhost' => 'db:3306',
  

  • Make sure you have no configuration for the apps_paths. Delete lines like these

  - "apps_paths" => array (
  -    0 => array (
  -            "path"     => OC::$SERVERROOT."/apps",
  -            "url"      => "/apps",
  -            "writable" => true,
  -    ),
  

  • Make sure your data directory is set to /var/www/html/data

  'datadirectory' => '/var/www/html/data',
  

• Copy your data (nextcloud_data is the name of your nextcloud container; typically [folder name of the compose file]_app_1 -> if your compose file is in the folder nextcloud then it is nextcloud_app_1):

docker cp ./data/ nextcloud_data:/var/www/html/data
docker-compose exec app chown www-data:www-data /var/www/html/data
docker cp ./theming/ nextcloud_data:/var/www/html/theming
docker-compose exec app chown www-data:www-data /var/www/html/theming
docker cp ./config/config.php nextcloud_data:/var/www/html/config
docker-compose exec app chown www-data:www-data /var/www/html/config

• Copy only the custom apps you use (or if you just use the store simply redownload them from the web interface):

docker cp ./apps/ nextcloud_data:/var/www/html/custom_apps
docker-compose exec app chown www-data:www-data /var/www/html/custom_apps

Questions / Issues

If you got any questions or problems using the image, please visit our Github Repository and write an issue.