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B3 and Owncloud - guidance

Posted: 24 Dec 2012, 06:06
by redw0001
Hi,

Just installing my new B3 and as part of the setup I've decided to deploy Owncloud to allow file sharing. I've got the default configuration up and running with Owncloud installed into /home/web/owncloud.

If I'm reading the documentation correctly /home/web/owncloud/data will have the 'user data. I think it might be better to have it in /home/storage.

I'm interested in understanding what others have done in terms of their data storage, I want to be able to share most of the data in /home/storage with my family and some subdirectories in /home/storage/photos with a group of friends. Having a duplicate elsewhere seems a bit wasteful and unnecessarily complex. Any advice/guidance/recommendations in this area would be greatly appreciated.

BTW, if anyone else tries to install Owncloud then I found that the instructions on the Owncloud site are outdated and get an install error (packages not found). A single line install (apt-get) works a treat whereas the website has it as two.

robin

Re: B3 and Owncloud - guidance

Posted: 24 Dec 2012, 06:38
by redw0001
Probably bad policy to reply to my append however, for info here are the steps I used to install owncloud. Note, not complete as I tried to work this from looking back at my console log and dropped several items (nano, ls, ps etc to find out bits of info) that I think were not appropriate, these are the key commands I issued.

change_distribution elvin -u
(found this on the forum - I think it forces access to upstream repositories - it certainly helped resolution of missing packages)

apt-get update
(rebuild package lists for repositories (I think) to include any new items

apt-get install apache2 php5 php5-json php5-gd php5-sqlite curl libcurl3 libcurl3-dev php5-curl php5-common php-xml-parser

wget http://owncloud.org/releases/owncloud-4.5.5.tar.bz2
(get latest owncloud code)

tar -xjf ./owncloud-4.5.5.tar.bz2
(unpack the owncloud code - first time round I discovered bz2 not installed on B3 so had to do that)

cp -r owncloud /home/web
(originally I did this as per the owncloud instructions to /var/www/ however apache2 did not find owncloud in this location so dug around to find where it is in B3)

chown -R www-data:www-data /home/web/owncloud
(checked owner uid/gid for apache2 and changed ownership to that)

service apache2 restart
(restart apache to get new application - not sure if necessary but it was mentioned in docs so did it)

Rest of setup was through web.

To do:
1: decide where/how to share data
2: decide what owncloud apps to use
3: install appropriate frontends for my ipad, windows laptop and linux desktop.
4: make sure it is 'family-proof' - any problems in front of family I'll get shot for!

robin

Re: B3 and Owncloud - guidance

Posted: 31 Jan 2013, 05:24
by GodfatherB
I am also thinking of installing the OwnCloud... however I found it is possible to install it as Linux package... all distributions are hosted by OpenSuse, on this page: http://software.opensuse.org/download/p ... e=owncloud

For debian this code should apply...

Code: Select all

echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/isv:ownCloud:community/Debian_6.0/ /' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/owncloud.list 
apt-get update
apt-get install owncloud
I am no real Linux expert, so I would like some opinion here if this will work? I really don't wish to do something I can't remove later on :)

Re: B3 and Owncloud - guidance

Posted: 31 Jan 2013, 15:25
by nobody
That download site says it is a binary distribution which is likely to be x86 only. Those binaries will not run on the b3 which has an ARM architecture

Re: B3 and Owncloud - guidance

Posted: 01 Feb 2013, 03:48
by ryz
If you look at the install package it is called owncloud_4.5.6-1_all.deb which implies that it should work for all architecture. I do not think there is any compiled stuff in owncloud just some php script and stuff which works regardless which architecture it is installed on. Note that I have not installed owncloud myself.

Re: B3 and Owncloud - guidance

Posted: 01 Feb 2013, 13:34
by nobody
I was thinking the same thing, but then why do they call it a binary?

Re: B3 and Owncloud - guidance

Posted: 01 Feb 2013, 14:56
by theWebalyst
nobody wrote:I was thinking the same thing, but then why do they call it a binary?
So they can feel like "proper" programmers ;-)

Mark

Re: B3 and Owncloud - guidance

Posted: 01 Feb 2013, 17:13
by nobody
that sound plausible
:D

Re: B3 and Owncloud - guidance

Posted: 07 Feb 2013, 03:47
by redw0001
<Update on my progress>

1:Owncloud installed and basics working well. Rightly or wrongly the code is installed in /home/web
I set up the Owncloud directory as /home/storage/cloud. I picked this as everything else I use is in /home/storage (ie /music, /photos and /common). /common was where I stored all the files that were shared between my PCs and my wifes PC. With owncloud this may become redundant and I'll not get into trouble over permissions any more :-)

2: I enabled the RoundCube App. It works OK.

3: I have tried to enable the calendar and contact Apps to try (at long last) to have a single address book and calendar. Not working as I want it yet, but that might be my misunderstanding. I'd hoped this just made my current laptop calendar available through Owncloud but it seems to create a new one .... maybe I've done it wrong, for sure I'm not copying everything across.

4: Installed the 'Share Gallery Widget' App, which I like, however it seems to use significant CPU and takes several minutes to load even a small directory of photos. Will persue further when I have time.

5: Set up directory sync from my laptop to Owncloud and that works great .. automatically, now I have a real backup (despite being lazy!)

Summary: Definitely moving forward with this and moving more data to it.

robin

Re: B3 and Owncloud - guidance

Posted: 09 Feb 2013, 11:14
by GodfatherB
OK, I managed to successfuly instal owncloud as well... even though my Linux knowledge is limied.

I installed with repository hosted by openSuse (as mentioned earlier) and it installed the owncloud successefuly into /var/www/owncloud. In order to make it work I moved (mv) this folder to /home/web/owncloud... is there a way (probably the right way) to leave the installation at /var/www/ and only make it logically appear (somehow) under /home/web?

Also, when searching for all the things needed I noticed that MySQL on B3 does not have root password... I don't know if this is the case, but I could not log in to MySQL with any remote GUI... is there a way to do it?

Re: B3 and Owncloud - guidance

Posted: 10 Feb 2013, 10:34
by DanielM
GodfatherB wrote:is there a way (probably the right way) to leave the installation at /var/www/ and only make it logically appear (somehow) under /home/web?
The easiest way to do that is by using a softlink. Run the command "ln -s /var/www/owncloud /home/web/" and you'll get something in /home/web that looks like the owncloud directory but is really just a link to the real directory.

As for the mysql admin password there has been a lot of discussion about that here lately, don't know if this thread answers your question? http://forum.excito.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4387

/Daniel

Re: B3 and Owncloud - guidance

Posted: 10 Feb 2013, 13:16
by GodfatherB
Thanks for the softlink info... will give it a try.

About MySQL... what I wanted to ask was if there is any way to log into the MySQL server on B3 from a remote computer, with software like MySQL-Front or HeidiSQL. I enter the IP address of my B3, provide user credentials (I tried both, root and another MySQL user), but I cannot connect. I don't know if I am doing anything wrong, or if MySQL is accessible only from localhost (if so, how can I change that), but I do wish to use some remote GUI to more easily manage the databases instead of using SSH and command line.

Re: B3 and Owncloud - guidance

Posted: 10 Feb 2013, 15:05
by DanielM
GodfatherB wrote:About MySQL... what I wanted to ask was if there is any way to log into the MySQL server on B3 from a remote computer, with software like MySQL-Front or HeidiSQL. I enter the IP address of my B3, provide user credentials (I tried both, root and another MySQL user), but I cannot connect. I don't know if I am doing anything wrong, or if MySQL is accessible only from localhost (if so, how can I change that), but I do wish to use some remote GUI to more easily manage the databases instead of using SSH and command line.
Oh. Sorry for not reading your post very well.

Thing is, I think the default mysql config in B3 only allows access on the "localhost" interface (which is off course more secure), I guess this is the problem you're experiencing. Edit /etc/mysql/my.conf and put a # in front of the line saying "bind-adress = 127.0.0.1" and then restart mysql (/etc/init.d/mysql restart) and I think it'll work better.

/Daniel

Re: B3 and Owncloud - guidance

Posted: 10 Feb 2013, 16:59
by GodfatherB
Softlink works, however I am not able to access the folder (link) in /home/web/owncloud... how do I change permissions on this link (or folder behind it) that it will have the same permission as the /home/web/?

MySQL... OK, at least I know what the problem is. When quickly searching the topic on Google I noticed there are some security concerns, but now at least I know what to look for. Thanks for the info.

Re: B3 and Owncloud - guidance

Posted: 10 Feb 2013, 17:45
by ryz
A better way to access the mysql from an other computer would be to do an port forward with ssh. Then you do not have to make mysql accessible from outside. Note that I have never actually used mysql myself but I have used port forwarding to other stuff and I cant see why it should not work with mysql. A quick google on the topic gave me this tutorial which at a glance looked good. http://www.devshed.com/c/a/MySQL/Using- ... essions/1/