What is ownCloud and how to setup an ownCloud ?
In the first place it is important to know what is cloud storage and know a little bit about its history.
The definition is a model of computer data storage which store your data in logical pools, and the data accessed/updated through a web browser or an app(Android, IOS , Linux ,macOS , or Windows).
Cloud computing is nothing new and invented by J.C.R Licklider for ARPANET in the 1960’s and the first commercial versions came to market in 1983 by CompuServe TM (Verizon Media TM) and today there are so many cloud providers like :
Amazon, Google cloud, smugMug, Dropbox, iCloud from Apple, One Drive from Microsoft, Pinterest and Box and etc.
But why we need cloud storage?
· If you have multiple devices, cloud storage allows you to sync your files across all of your devices automatically.
· Cloud storage also can permit you to share files with other people.
· Creat a backup for your own personal data.
· Protect your work from accidential destruction.
· Extend the strorage on devices with limited storage
types of cloud storage :
· Public cloud :
- Stores your data on somebody else’s computers.
- Devide the storage cost among many users.
- Security is provided by the cloud provider.
- Pay for what you use.
· Private cloud :
- Stores your data on your computer.
- Costs for hardware, storage and electricity are yours to bear.
- Security is your problem.
-Data can not be mined by cloud provider.
,and by using self hosted clouds we can have our own private cloud .
SELF hosted cloud storage :
· ownCloud:
- ownCloud is file syncing solution.
- Open source with 50 million users worldwide.
· NextCloud :
- NextCloud is a fork of ownCloud.
- NextCloud is a file syncing and collaboration platform.
- Open source_HIPA and GDDR compliant.
- Offers more than cloud storage.
· SeaFile:
- Designed for high performance file syncing
- Open source
- Community version which is free to license
-Offers paid support for commerical use
- Built _in Encryption
- Knowledge management built in
what is ownCloud?
OwnCloud is a software system that offers file hosting services like OneDrive, Dropbox and Google Drive, but unlike them, OwnCloud is free and open-source software. Users can install OwnCloud within a private server at no cost and without limiting the amount of storage or the number of clients connected, except for hard disk fit.
There are 3 usage options of OwnCloud. It can be deployed in private data center on-premises at a service provider. Online version,( Software-as-a-Service) collaboration platform, can be used, and there is hybrid version of it.
It can run on the most popular operating systems in the world, such as Windows, MAC OS X, Linux, Android and iOS.
But here is some of the main reasons to use OwnCloud instead of Dropbox:
- to take your privacy back and your data under your control.
- when the features don’t suffice, and in order to extend File Sync & Share with the apps from the ownCloud marketplace.
- Many organizations can’t even use a traditional File Sync & Share provider.
- In some cases it is irresponsible or even legally impossible to give sensitive data to a third party.
ownCloud marketplace :
- Allows third party developers a platform to distribute owncloud extentions.
- Many of them are free
Server downloads for
· Stand alone servers(tar file)
· Docker images(docker Compose)
· Appliance for virtual machine :
- VMWARE ESXI
- Virtual box
- QCOW2 for KVM based systems
- VMWARE image
- Linux packages
Pre-requests of Installation of OwnCloud
(for windows,web and desktop version )
First of all you need a server and there are many ways to host ownCloud, which can be your old computer or a virtual machine.
Hosting ownCloud on a Virtual machine (VM), makes it easy to back up and restore all the data files. Here are my 4 reasons why Oracle VirtualBox is best for Hosting ownCloud if you are hosting it yourself.
1) System Specs
Usually an old computer would have low specs. Example: low RAM, old processor and a regular old HDD.
By using Oracle VirtualBox one can make the Linux OS for ownCloud system think that is a high performance PC by adding additional virtual Processors, Video card, and Storage space that the physical PC do not have.
2) Storage Space
Say the physical hard drive storage space on the “old PC” is 100GB. UsingVirtualBox we can again make the virtual system think its using a lot more stoage space if 100GB is not enough space.
Say we need 2 Terabyte (TB) of storage space, we can assign that space to the virtual Linux OS for ownCloud in VirtualBox. Because a 2 TB would occupy about 6.5 GB of physical hard drive space, and that means we can store 2 TB of physical data on a physical 6.5 GB of hard drive space.
By using an “old PC” to host ownCloud we can assume that we might not be running an SSD hard drive, again by hosting ownCloud virtually we can assign an SSD to our ownCloud server boosting the performance for better data transfer and uploading speed.
3) Backup
The virtual, Linux OS for ownCloud hard drive is a small .vdi file usually located in C:\Users\UserName\VirtualBox VMs.
The backup for this file is simple all you need to do is turn off the VM, then copy and paste this file some where other than the pc where you are hosting ownCloud. Example: a network hard drive or off site like on Carbonite.com .By backing up this .vdi file you are backing up all data plus the entire database.
4) Restore
To restore from a backup is just as simple as the backup when restoring the Oracle VirtualBox .vdi file. There is 2 methods of restoring ownCloud from a .vdi:
- Restoring the just .vdi file
- Restoring to a new pc.
If you are restoring just the .vdi file all you need to do is, copy the vdi from the backup location and paste it back to the original location.
If you are restoring to a new PC then you would need to install Oracle VB, then copy the vdi from the backup location to the original location C:\Users\UserName\VirtualBox VMs.
Create a new VM, with the same specs as the original one and when asked choose the “Use an existing virtual hard disk file” and click on the small folder icon to browse and select the .vdi file.
Installation of ownCloud :
First, we download OwnCloud from this link: Download Server Packages — ownCloud
As can be seen in the description in the screenshot below, OwnCloud has application options that can run without using code. All these 4 options are hypervisors for running a virtual machine. They all do basically the same job. We continue with VirtualBox.
As shown in the screenshot below, the program will take up 1.9 GB of space on the computer.
VirtualBox will run the OwnCloud installation file in the ova format that downloaded on our computer.
Of course, if we don’t have a VirtualBox on our computer, we need to download it, first. Link of download page is: Downloads — Oracle VM VirtualBox
Also, VirtualBox will take up 218 MB of space on the computer.
Then we import the ‘ova’ formatted OwnCloud installation file to VirtualBox by leaving the settings as default.
After importing, we start OwnCloud again by setting all the arrangements as default. Unfortunately, we cannot take screenshots during the launch.
After that, our setup is successful, and we click on the ‘FINISH’ tab. Then, we follow the steps in the OwnCloud guide:
1. Open a browser window
2. Navigate to the following address: https://***.***.**.** , which is your IP.
3. Open the web management interface
At first, we cannot proceed with this port. However, by selecting ‘advanced’ version we can continue.
Then, we request activation through our mail address.
We download license file which is sent to our mail.
We upload this license file for activation.
Finally, since OwnCloud is activated, we can use it.
- Open the web management interface
We should type ‘Administrator’ as a username, and the password we created before.
These are the empty files and a manual pdf which came as default.
We can share files now.For example, I can create a public link that provides us to share.
Or we can upload files, and download if we want etc.
For example, I can upload 1 word file.
Finally, we want to also use the desktop version of OwnCloud for testing our account for using our space locally.
We will use the application for Windows 64bit version.
Again, you can select any other depending on your operating system version.
And we install it.
We must type our public IP for OwnCloud same as before we typed on browser. Of course, VirtualBox has to be run, already.
Again, we should type ‘Administrator’ on username, and our password.
Configurations at this step is optional, and we connect.
Our files are synchronized.
We click ‘Open folder’ tab.
And our files, including the ‘BAU mt-2.docx’ file we uploaded before, located on our OwnCloud account are stored in our local computer, also. 😊
