103 lines
5 KiB
Markdown
103 lines
5 KiB
Markdown
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---
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title: 'Nextcloud'
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date: 2024-02-25T13:48:03+01:00
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draft: true
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---
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[Nextcloud](https://nextcloud.com/), written in PHP[^1] primarily serves as a
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file sharing[^2] solution for me. Due to its extensible design it can also be a
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communication hub and project management platform. If you'd like to host your
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own Nextcloud take a look at [Nextcloud at home](https://nextcloud.com/athome/).
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[^1]: [PHP website](https://www.php.net/) by The PHP Foundation
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[^2]: [File sharing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing) in the
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Wikipedia
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{{< figure src="img/nextcloud-logo-blue.svg" alt="Nextcloud Logo" width="25%">}}
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## Basic setup
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For the initial installation and basic setup instructions I refer to the
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[Nextcloud — UberLab 7 documentation](https://lab.uberspace.de/guide_nextcloud)
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and the [installation and server configuration documentation](https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/admin_manual/installation/index.html).
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After installation I navigate to *Settings* > *Overview* (of the Administration
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section below) and look for security warnings. You can also use your URL in the
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[official security scan](https://scan.nextcloud.com/) to check your instance.
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## Security options
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For further hardening I recommend changing the [User password policy](https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/admin_manual/configuration_user/user_password_policy.html)
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in the *Security settings* to enforce passwords with lower, uppercase, and
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numeric characters. A best practice is to limit login attempts to 5 or less and
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use [Two-factor authentication](https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/admin_manual/configuration_user/two_factor-auth.html).
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Another optimization is to [disable preview image generation](https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/admin_manual/installation/harden_server.html#disable-preview-image-generation)
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as mentioned in the official hardening and security guidance. This is achieved
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by adding `enable_previews = 'false'` to the `config.php` file. The safest way
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is to use the [occ command](https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/admin_manual/configuration_server/occ_command.html)
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for this task:
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```bash
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php occ config:system:set enable_previews --value="false"
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```
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## Useful apps
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### Audio player
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When sharing music, I found that in place playback of audio files (no download)
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can be enabled with [Audio Player](https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/audioplayer).
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Additionally, I use the [Metadata](https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/metadata) app
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to show file metadata (title, artist, album etc.) in the details sidebar.
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### Bookmarks, Calendar, Contacts, and Notes
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I synchronize my bookmarks, calendars, contacts, notes, and tasks across devices
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using the following Nextcloud apps:
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- [Bookmarks](https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/bookmarks)
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- [Calendar](https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/calendar)
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- [Contacts](https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/contacts)
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- [Markdown Editor](https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/files_markdown)
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- [Notes](https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/notes)
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- [Tasks](https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/tasks)
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For bookmarks synchronization I use [floccus](https://floccus.org/) as an addon
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in the web browser and Android app. The calendar and contacts synchronization is
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natively supported by [Thunderbird](https://www.thunderbird.net/) and the addon
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[CardBook](https://addons.thunderbird.net/de/thunderbird/addon/cardbook/) can be
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used to extend built-in CardDAV[^3] features. On Android I use [DAVx⁵](https://www.davx5.com/)
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with the [Etar Calendar](https://github.com/Etar-Group/Etar-Calendar) app. To
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access and synchronize notes and task on Android I use the official
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[Notes](https://github.com/nextcloud/notes-android) app and [Tasks.org](https://tasks.org/).
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[^3]: [CardDAV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CardDAV) in the Wikipedia
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### Cookbook
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One of my favorites is the [Cookbook](https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/cookbook)
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app. In tandem with the [Nextcloud Cookbook Mobile Client written in Flutter](https://github.com/Teifun2/nextcloud-cookbook-flutter)
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managing and sharing cooking recipes is real fun.
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### Talk
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The [Talk](https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/spreed) app offers video conferencing
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within Nextcloud and is backed by [eturnal](../eturnal/) in my infrastructure to
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support users in NAT[^4] environments.
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[^4]: [Network address translation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_address_translation)
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(NAT) in the Wikipedia
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## Known issues
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This section is about issues I came accross in relation to the interaction with
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other services of my [infrastructure](../../) and documents **quick and dirty**
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solutions rather than implementing secure and clean code.
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### Code integrity check
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If using [delegation](../matrix/synapse/#delegation), the code integrity check
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introduced due to [code signing](https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/admin_manual/issues/code_signing.html#code-signing-fix-warning-label)
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complains about the extra file `.well-known/matrix/server` and an invalid hash
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for `.htaccess`. As there is no option to exclude files by design and any code
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alterations also affect the integrity check, there's currently no way to get rid
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of that error message.
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