How to Install OwnCloud on Ubuntu 20.04

In this article, we will have explained the necessary steps to install and configure OwnCloud with LAMP on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Before continuing with this tutorial, make sure you are logged in as a user with sudo privileges. All the commands in this tutorial should be run as a non-root user.

OwnCloud is an open-source, self-hosted file sync and file share platform, similar to Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and Google Drive. OwnCloud is written in PHP and JavaScript languages. It works with various database management systems such as MySQL, ORACLE, PostgreSQL, or MariaDB. It maintains the synchronization with all the computers either it is a window-based or Linux based operating system.

Install OwnCloud on Ubuntu 20.04

Step 1. First, before you start installing any package on your Ubuntu server, we always recommend making sure that all system packages are updated.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Step 2. Install LAMP Stack on Ubuntu.

OwnCloud is built with PHP. You can host it like you would any other web app is written in PHP. So, you’re going to need to set Ubuntu up as either a LAMP server. If you haven’t done so already, use our traditional LAMP guide to set up Ubuntu to serve PHP before you continue.

Step 3. Install OwnCloud on the Ubuntu system.

Now it’s time to download Owncloud from the official page:

wget https://download.owncloud.org/community/owncloud-complete-20200731.zip

Once the download is complete, extract the archive to the /var/www directory:

sudo unzip /tmp/owncloud-complete-20200731.zip -d /var/www

Next, we are going to assign Apache permissions with the following commands:

sudo chown -R www-data: /var/www/owncloud

Step 4. Creating a MySQL database for Owncloud.

Owncloud uses the MySQL database to store all its data like posts, pages, users, plugins, and themes settings. Log in to your MySQL server with the following command and enter your MySQL root password:

mysql -u root -p

Once you’re in the MySQL console, create a new database:

create database cacti;
grant all privileges on cacti.* to [email protected] identified by 'your-passwd';
flush privileges;
quit;

Step 5. Configuring Apache for OwnCloud.

Create a new virtual host configuration file for your Owncloud website, named your-domain.com.conf:

nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/your_domain.com.conf

And add the following content to the file:

<VirtualHost *:80>
     ServerAdmin [email protected]
     DocumentRoot /var/www/owncloud
     ServerName your-domain.com
     ServerAlias www.your-domain.com

     ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
     CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

     <Directory /var/www/owncloud/>
            Options FollowSymlinks
            AllowOverride All
            Require all granted
     </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

To enable the virtual host we have just created, run the following command:

ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/your-domain.com.conf /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/your-domain.com.conf

For the new configuration to take effect, restart the Apache service by typing:

sudo a2ensite your_domain.com.conf
sudo a2enmod rewrite 
sudo systemctl restart apache2

Step 6. Secure OwnCloud with Let’s Encrypt SSL.

First, you will need to install the Certbot client to install and manage the Let’s Encrypt SSL. You can install it with the following command:

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-apache

Once the Certbot is installed, run the following command to download and install Let’s Encrypt SSL for your website:

certbot --apache -d your_domain.com

Step 7. Completing the OwnCloud Installation.

Open your favorite web browser and go to https://your_domain/owncloud

That’s all you need to do to install OwnCloud on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa. I hope you find this quick tip helpful. For further reading on OwnCloud, please refer to their official knowledge base. If you have questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment below.