Self hosted cloud service

brandent · September 12, 2020, 5:06pm

Hi!
I have come to the conclusion that I need to set up a self hosting storage (that can be reached from anywhare).
This is just for me and my kids (they just moved away from home! But they still want to have contact with some music and movies!)
Everywhere I read about this it’s always about big entreprises.
I would like to set up something smaller and Open Source!
We use google-drive and drop-box at work and I am not very fond of them.

Should I use a separate computer for this?

It should be compatible with both Mac, IOS and Windows.

Is it possible to create such a solution without being dependent on a third-party?

Thankful for advice and hints

brandent

keybreak · September 12, 2020, 5:18pm

Definitely possible!

I’m sure @linesma will have some useful info on that topic

Root · September 12, 2020, 5:42pm

Depending on the amount of work you will put into it - it is fairly easy to create something shareable.

If you want something which is easy to setup - configure - having the necessary applications for media - I have very good experience with Synology NAS for many years.

Synology has apps for playing media using the mobile device internet connection.

If you want to skip the Synology hardware - you can use xpenology which is Synology DSM applied to non Synology hardware - it can even run in a VM.

Synology - IMO - has by far one of the best experiences as NAS and media sharing.

jonathon · September 12, 2020, 5:53pm

Also, NextCloud.

nate · September 12, 2020, 6:16pm

FileRun is also an option on cPanel shared hosting (can be installed through Softaculous if enabled by hosting provider).

fbodymechanic · September 12, 2020, 6:28pm

I quite enjoy everything nextcloud.

Alexander · September 12, 2020, 6:31pm

You can get free hosting on github

gist.github.com

https://gist.github.com/deanrather/6d63e9dcdf823957b171

Github Web Hosting.md

# Free Hosting on GitHub

This guide will take you from zero webserver knowledge, to having your own free site hosted on GitHub. The only non-free bit is registering a domain name, which can be as cheap as $5/year.

This guide uses CrazyDomains as the Registrar, FreeDNS as the DNS, and GitHub as the Webserver.

---

# 1) Domain Registration and Setup

This file has been truncated. show original

keybreak · September 12, 2020, 6:34pm

Keep in mind that GitHub is Microsoft owned though…
Not best place to keep your personal files this days (well technically any cloud is not best place).

Alexander · September 12, 2020, 6:41pm

I didn’t know MS owned github

brandent · September 12, 2020, 10:25pm

Thanks for answers guys!!
Very thankful!
I am starting to look into nextcloud.

brandent

TomZ · September 12, 2020, 10:36pm

I set up NextCloud on my Arch homeserver for that exact use case So far not a single issue.
In our case it’s mostly pictures though.

T-Flips · September 13, 2020, 11:10am

As for nextcloud, check out NextCloudPi (https://ownyourbits.com/nextcloudpi/). There are ready to use images for the RPi, VMs, Docker, …

brandent · September 13, 2020, 12:00pm

Hi again!
I am still trying to configure nextcloud!
I am using nginx and got into trouble with the web-installer.
I get “internal server error, contact the administrator”.
I have been looking through some logs but have no idea what to look for.
On nextclouds site there are hundreds of pages for me to read. I need a couple of weeks vacation to manage that. It would probably take lesser time to reinstall everything!

I looked at NextCloudPi and I does that support arch-systems?

brandent

I0F · September 13, 2020, 12:18pm

Nextcloudpi itself is an image with debian buster(I think). Just write it to your SD and there you go. You can install Nextcloud itself on every Linux system, simply by downloading it from the NextCloud download section.

jonathon · September 13, 2020, 1:42pm

Use the Docker image instructions. Dead easy to set up.

brandent · September 13, 2020, 3:13pm

But I still have to get nextcloud to work (php,nginx,mariadb…)? I only get errors. Have no idea if it is nginx or php that I configured wrong (or if its a bug!).

brandent

nate · September 13, 2020, 4:09pm

why use nginx instead of apache or litespeed? apache is by far the most documented of them all and litespeed is simple enough to configure once you’re got it up and running.

brandent · September 13, 2020, 4:16pm

You are most certenly right. I should have gone with apache!

brandent

nate · September 13, 2020, 4:41pm

nginx is is supposed to be much faster than apache* and sharing speed characteristics with litespeed, but the truth is most php-based software is built to work on apache (or litespeed, which is a drop-in replacement for apache). nginx is much more painful to configure and sometimes the software needs to be adapted to run on it.
*this claim is in the mean time only in small part true, as with the latest apache versions speed has dramatically improved (say comparing 5.xx vs 7.xx versions)

Anyway speed does not really make a difference here, as we are talking speed of parsing of php here and not speed of data transfer.

brandent · September 13, 2020, 7:17pm

I have switched to apache now. It is going to take some time before I get anywhere with this! I am not giving up though!
In the meantime I found a very easy solution just by chance. Teamviewer.
Works very well so far and will have to do until I am ready with nextcloud.

brandent