NextCloud plugin vs NextCloud on a linux server

[twyrick]

This is some really good insight, IMO! I'm a long time FreeNAS (now TrueNAS) user who is pretty experienced with computing in general, but not exactly a Unix/Linux guru. I've learned a lot as I've gone along with integrating FreeNAS into my environment and doing various things with it.

One thing I've definitely found is that the plug-ins are embarrassingly sub-par. Even for commonly used ones that don't have a real complex environment, like Plex server? You have to download additional tools and use a custom script added to it, just to make it possible to update Plex to the latest releases. (The plug-in is never updated regularly enough to keep up with them.) And on top of that, I've had issues where I installed the Plex plug-in and it appeared to run, except it was only partially functioning at transcoding (lots of errors when a Roku unit tried to stream video from it, for example) and its web UI wouldn't pull up from my local server at all. Installing the latest version over the top of what the plug-in set up fixed all of it immediately.

I ran Nextcloud in an iocage jail for quite a while now, with pretty decent results. I did the whole thing using Samuel's web site on how to install a "hardened" one and it was super helpful.

Unfortunately, that installation completely broke on me recently (I think as a result of doing the latest FreeNAS upgrade, which seemed to bring the iocage jails to a newer version of BSD and subsequently require a newer SQL version and so on.) I think things really went wrong for me when I tried to do a "pkg update" command from a shell in it, and it decided to update something like 40 or 50 packages. In the middle of all of that, I didn't notice it was uninstalling mariadb completely (due to dependency issues, it said). That rendered the SQL server non-functional for my installation at that point, and I never really got it all working again when I tried to get a newer mariadb installed manually.

(I should probably note that I'd previously edited a file on the TrueNAS that allowed the pkg command to check for package updates from a whole BSD update tree, vs the "limited/locked down" subset they normally allow you to do from jails.)

Anyway -- short story is, I'm starting over from scratch now and considering a different approach. Looking at how viable it is to just run Nextcloud 21 from inside an Ubuntu Server v20 running as a virtual machine under TrueNAS. I guess I have to do some voodoo with creating a VLAN and bridge so it can talk to the outside world, via the TrueNAS? I'm hoping this option lets me set up Collabra Office suite to run from that same VM so Netcloud can properly link to and use it....

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Unfortunately, that installation completely broke on me recently (I think as a result of doing the latest FreeNAS upgrade, which seemed to bring the iocage jails to a newer version of BSD and subsequently require a newer SQL version and so on.)

Yes, you need to migrate the database to MySQL 8 to run Nextcloud 20. Why do you think this would be any different in a Linux VM? You need to know MySQL/MariaDB to run Nextcloud.

I guess I have to do some voodoo with creating a VLAN and bridge so it can talk to the outside world, via the TrueNAS?

Just assign the VM's virtual network interface to the same bridge or physical interface that you already use for your jails. That will most probably work. No need for advanced vodoo unless you have advanced requirements.

 

[twyrick]

Yes, you need to migrate the database to MySQL 8 to run Nextcloud 20. Why do you think this would be any different in a Linux VM? You need to know MySQL/MariaDB to run Nextcloud.

It's not that I thought this would be different under a Linux VM. What really threw me off is that I'd upgraded successfully to NextCloud v20 already, and everything was still working after that. It was only on the v21 update, which I did around the same time as I did the latest TrueNAS update, that I realized the whole environment was broken. And to be honest? Like a lot of other people I've seen posting on the forums for help with the same basic issue? I wasn't keeping up with what was changing with MySQL and MariaDB. This is where I continue to find Linux (and FreeBSD by extension) a little frustrating to work with. Unlike a Windows or Mac OS X environment, you don't just run app upgrades and have them automatically handle updating whatever other pieces they depend on, or at least prompt with detailed instructions first about what new requirements you'll need to have in place before the new version will work.

I mean, I'm not the sysadmin for my personal NextCloud as a paid day job for a business or anything. I work in I.T. and I get paid to keep track of a whole lot of moving parts for my company's Windows environment. But it's too much to ask that I invest all my free time staying aware of all the changes the various Unix devs are doing to 50+ packages that NextCloud makes use of. I generally assume that the package managers will handle things gracefully if I issue a "pkg update" for a package like NextCloud, and all the way from back in version 9 through 19, I'd say they generally did. That's how I kept mine going through all those revisions ... just following the steps of issuing a few commands to do each update.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

@twyrick Understood. I got the impression you were blaming FreeBSD/TrueNAS specifically in contrast to Linux. Sorry.

But - as I repeatedly preached - Nextcloud is a complex three-tier server based web application with a dozen moving parts and a codebase at least as large and complex as the entire TrueNAS appliance system. This belongs into the hands of a system administrator.
Why people who are either not experienced enough or just not inclined to take on that burden insist on running Nextcloud on their home NAS instead of shopping for a 10 bucks/month hosted solution is one of the things that puzzles and frustrates me, because i would rather have us "old guys" here concentrate on doing support for explicitly TrueNAS specific issues. I really try to phrase this not coming across as condescending because I do not mean to.

But if one cannot comfortably run open source applications on Linux/FreeBSD on their own, gather the necessary documentation and howtos and FAQs from the respective upstream projects (Nextcloud, MySQL, Nginx, ...) then one should really not try to do that. Nextcloud's documentation is exceptionally good. The webserver config examples can be used almost verbatim with less than a handful of pathname tweaks here and there.

That's why I have come to think (and repeatedly stated) that the plugin system in its current state is a failure. Without the commitment and manpower to actually make this a turnkey solution for completely inexperienced users, it will just raise expectations that cannot be met.

Still not at all sure how we as a community can solve this.

P.S. I really applaud @DanB's effort with the install script. But he is also suffering a lot of questions about SSL, DNS, dynamic DNS providers, how to create static host entry on some desktop OS ... absolutely none of which has got anything to do with TrueNAS.

 

[danb35]

But he is also suffering a lot of questions about SSL, DNS, dynamic DNS providers, how to create static host entry on some desktop OS ... absolutely none of which has got anything to do with TrueNAS.

True, but at least SSL is usually related to software installed by my script. Most of the other stuff I push off with "RTFM," though I usually try to be more polite about it.

 

[ornias]

Nextcloud's documentation is exceptionally good.

LoL, you carefully ignored all docs deamed "enterrpise" which they moved behind a paywall?...

(which was actually a ruse because they just silently stopped support for enterprise features like SAML and by paywalling the instructions they didn't have to respond to any complaints about it not working)

And don't get me started about them being "so proud" on being the solution provider for dictatorial regimes murdering minorities and making promises about putting the code under a "non-profit" which they never actually did.

It's a worse company than Owncloud previously was tbh. They just have the devs which Owncloud didn't. But at least OwnCloud was somewhat honest about their intend most of the time.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

LoL, you carefully ignored all docs deamed "enterrpise" which they moved behind a paywall?

https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/admin_manual/ had everything I needed, so far.
And the software is GPL'ed or GAPL'ed, more precisely.

 

[twyrick]

@twyrick Understood. I got the impression you were blaming FreeBSD/TrueNAS specifically in contrast to Linux. Sorry.

But - as I repeatedly preached - Nextcloud is a complex three-tier server based web application with a dozen moving parts and a codebase at least as large and complex as the entire TrueNAS appliance system. This belongs into the hands of a system administrator.
Why people who are either not experienced enough or just not inclined to take on that burden insist on running Nextcloud on their home NAS instead of shopping for a 10 bucks/month hosted solution is one of the things that puzzles and frustrates me, because i would rather have us "old guys" here concentrate on doing support for explicitly TrueNAS specific issues. I really try to phrase this not coming across as condescending because I do not mean to.

But if one cannot comfortably run open source applications on Linux/FreeBSD on their own, gather the necessary documentation and howtos and FAQs from the respective upstream projects (Nextcloud, MySQL, Nginx, ...) then one should really not try to do that. Nextcloud's documentation is exceptionally good. The webserver config examples can be used almost verbatim with less than a handful of pathname tweaks here and there.

That's why I have come to think (and repeatedly stated) that the plugin system in its current state is a failure. Without the commitment and manpower to actually make this a turnkey solution for completely inexperienced users, it will just raise expectations that cannot be met.

Still not at all sure how we as a community can solve this.

P.S. I really applaud @DanB's effort with the install script. But he is also suffering a lot of questions about SSL, DNS, dynamic DNS providers, how to create static host entry on some desktop OS ... absolutely none of which has got anything to do with TrueNAS.

Oh! No... definitely didn't intend to say I was trying to redo my NextCloud setup under a Linux VM because I thought TrueNAS was failing vs Linux. I guess my reason for attempting it this way, this time is two-fold.

First, I know the Collabra Office suite won't run natively under FreeBSD. (Supposedly there's one library it requires that they never ported to BSD, which forces you to use it under Linux.) I know there are several "how to's" on the net describing ways to set up Collbra Office in its own Docker or Linux VM so your NextCloud running in an iocage jail can access it, as needed. But I figured you may as well run both in the same Linux VM at that point instead.

Second? I found it interesting that Ubuntu Server now includes a NextCloud installation as a "snap" bundle, and wanted to give that a try as a faster way to get the bulk of it up and running. (Jury's still out if it's "better" than something like DanB's install script? But I figured I'd give it a shot.)

As for your question about why people like me aren't just paying someone $10/month for a hosted solution? I'm really not a big fan of putting my personal data up in the cloud. I get the upsides to it, but I've worked for several companies who got comfortable with cloud-hosted solutions, only to have the terms of the agreements with them change. (Dropbox for Teams, for example, was extensively used at a previous employer and it generally worked well for us. But when the contract was up for renewal, they price gouged us badly, and it became the single largest annual software expense we had! The process to pull of that data back off and get it on a competing service was a huge undertaking by that point.) And with cheaper options for personal use, you never know when they'll discontinue a service and force you to take out time you may not have to move everything off of it and find a new option. (Went through that years ago with my Flickr photo collection online, and again with Google Music when they decided to end that one....)

I already spend the money for the electricity to run a home server for Plex and HomeBridge, plus a Time Machine backup destination for my Mac. So why not also have it handle a personal NextCloud type server as the destination to sync my iPhone photo collection to it and so forth? That's my use-case and reasoning. I'd love it if TrueNAS had someone committed to making a NextCloud plugin that was really "plug and play" in nature, with all the dependencies and updates kept up with and made non issues for users of it. But it seems to be more than anyone involved really wants to tackle.

 

[twyrick]

Oh, also ... just wanted to put one other general thought out here. (And no Patrick, I don't take any of your comments as condescending!)

I think with a product like FreeNAS / TrueNAS, you inevitably get the attention and interest of a whole lot of people who are computer hobbyists/power users. We work in the industry and get ahold of Enterprise-class hardware "hand me downs" at bargain prices, and try to give those products a second life as home servers. That or we build our own home servers with Xeon motherboards and custom rack-mount cases that can hold a bunch of drives. And that's a market niche that there's just not much support for. Microsoft used to have a "Windows Home Server" product back around the 2007-2009 time-frame that targeted this crowd, but they decided to end it.

But again, because this is all done on a "home user" budget, there's always that expectation that you can do more with the box than it ONLY serving as a storage server. (Obviously, on the opposite end of the spectrum, your Enterprise customers largely don't care about any of that. They just need a reliable and fast box that holds all the data and serves it back out.) I definitely can't justify the cost to keep a server running if all it does for me is lets me save my files/folders to shares on it. But one that's flexible enough to run apps like NextCloud and HomeBridge and Plex suddenly becomes a really viable option.... even the "best" option for what I want to do.

I get that you "long timers" developing the product are more concerned on the core functionality. But to a lot of us using it? We care just as much about it being easy to get these other applications to work on it!

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

I get that you "long timers" developing the product are more concerned on the core functionality. But to a lot of us using it? We care just as much about it being easy to get these other applications to work on it!

I absolutely get that. My company e.g. doesn't have a product that delivers Linux VMs. That's why I run two instances of Atlassian Confluence here at home instead of my data centre where I could get a handful of jails for free.
My point is more along the lines of "please go to the Grafana community for Grafana support, the OPNsense community for OPNsense support, and the Nextcloud community for Nextcloud support ..."

I think the plethora of possible applications that can be run on TrueNAS is just to much for this community to support. See the Photoprism thread for example. Yes, it can be made to work if you know your way around FreeBSD. Same for e.g. Calibreweb, which is next on my personal list of things I want to run. Each of these applications is an entire system and community of its own.

And then we have not even touched everything inside Linux VMs. UEFI booting, renaming of network devices, ... are all Linux themes. Many people here try their best to cover that, too. But I hope you agree that this approach has a high probability of failing due to scale. Even more so the more attractive the base product becomes and the more users we draw here.

As for your question about why people like me aren't just paying someone $10/month for a hosted solution? I'm really not a big fan of putting my personal data up in the cloud. I get the upsides to it, but I've worked for several companies who got comfortable with cloud-hosted solutions, only to have the terms of the agreements with them change. (Dropbox for Teams, for example, was extensively used at a previous employer and it generally worked well for us. But when the contract was up for renewal, they price gouged us badly, and it became the single largest annual software expense we had!

That sucks and I very much feel you, here. Atlassian has cancelled almost all self-hosted options trying to force users into their cloud. The last self-hosted option would more than double our yearly cost.

OTOH even for private or e.g. not-for-profit org use, I would have no problem picking a small or medium sized supplier like my own company and host Nextcloud there. Germany based, GDPR compliant by law, and a size where you can get someone on the phone. And if you are not satisfied you can always switch. I would not go to a large company like Dropbox or anyone of that size and structure and shareholder value constraints ...

 

[ornias]

I agree with @Patrick M. Hausen here.
If you self-host, you're also expected to self-solve.

That doesn't change when you run a snap, container, jail or VM.
Often with things like plugins or apps, snaps or helmcharts, a lot of work is already done for your (which is awesome) and there are people to fall back to. But even in these cases, it's not a support packages.

 

[twyrick]

My point is more along the lines of "please go to the Grafana community for Grafana support, the OPNsense community for OPNsense support, and the Nextcloud community for Nextcloud support ..."

I think the plethora of possible applications that can be run on TrueNAS is just to much for this community to support. See the Photoprism thread for example. Yes, it can be made to work if you know your way around FreeBSD. Same for e.g. Calibreweb, which is next on my personal list of things I want to run. Each of these applications is an entire system and community of its own.

And then we have not even touched everything inside Linux VMs. UEFI booting, renaming of network devices, ... are all Linux themes. Many people here try their best to cover that, too. But I hope you agree that this approach has a high probability of failing due to scale. Even more so the more attractive the base product becomes and the more users we draw here.

Yeah... I understand that sentiment. Except in the case of NextCloud at least? I used to try to use their official support forums, and felt like it wasn't really productive. My impression of them is they're fine for announcing new versions and what changes are in them. But most of the troubleshooting there winds up being a haphazard mess. I see a lot of users asking questions that never get answered, except by others with issues or suggestions that don't quite apply because they're using NextCloud in a different environment or on a different platform. There's also a considerable language barrier at times. (I see quite a few posts made by native French or German speakers, for example - who try to help but it's difficult to communicate with them in English.) I started asking more NextCloud type questions in the FreeNAS sub-forum for supporting add-ons/plug-ins because the quality of help was just so much better. Many posters on the NextCloud support forum don't understand anything about what edits are needed to fix X or Y under Apache vs nginx and so forth.....

I guess you guys are just cursed with being "too knowledgeable" so the rest of us keep getting drawn here for help on these issues! :)

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

I guess you guys are just cursed with being "too knowledgeable" so the rest of us keep getting drawn here for help on these issues! :)

Except in the case of NextCloud at least?

Yeah ... Nextcloud looks like such an obvious extension of a NAS platform. Except it's one hell of a complex pile of software on its own.
We'll probably have to deal with that.