Retired Techie
Getting older, not necessarily wiser!
Next Cloud ISP Shared Hosting
Published on June 16, 2022 at 12:10 am by LEWIntroduction
In this post I will be setting up a Next Cloud server on an ISP shared hosting plan. There are a number of reasons you might want to do this.
In my case it was because of CGNAT that I went this route, so I could access my cloud server from anywhere.
I am going to do my best to avoid naming names, as most shared hosting plan should work. To make this work you will also need a public domain name, a SSL certificate, ssh access, and database access. A separate email address is also nice to have for administrative purposes.
Looking at multiple hosting platforms, you can usually get all these together. I was able to get the whole thing from one hosting provider for around $40 US for the first year. Most hosting companies have all in one special starter plans. Just be aware of what happens when your plan expires and how expensive it will be to renew everything.
Testing Your Environment
Once you have purchased a hosting plan you should log in and find out how their control panel works. It used to be pretty standard, but I have found out things have changed over the years.
You should have an option for details. From here you should be able to verify resources.
Next I usually test SHH and FTP access. Most control panels will also have a built in file manager as well. Then I check how the SQL database part of the control panel works. If this is all working then your account is setup correctly. If not, then you need to get a hold of your hosting provider. Be prepared to supply error messages and screen shots as required.
You can also look around at some of the additional features. For example the host I am using has some PHP tools built into the control panel (c0nfiguration settings and phpMyAdmin).
They may also have one button installs. My host had one for Next Cloud, but it was an older version. So I did my own install.
Setting up the Environment
At this point I like to run a little test. I create a simple text file with the name phpinfo.php (must be php extension). It contains only the following line.
<?php phpinfo() ?>
I then upload it (FTP or built in file manager) to the root of my hosting directory. Then I point my browser at it. If PHP is working you will get the PHP info page.
Next I set up my SQL database using the built in control panel tools. You will need to have the following information, which you need to remember.
- User Name
- User Password
- Database name
I generally wait until after the Next Cloud install to set up the SSL certificate. I want to make sure the cloud server runs under http before setting up https. This is probably not strictly necessary, but I prefer to minimize possible trouble areas until the install is working.
And finally I setup an email address if one is available. This will be used with the administrative account.
Installing Next Cloud
For a host environment, I go to the Next Cloud web site, then Get Nextcloud, then Web Installer. Here you can download a script called setup-nextcloud.php. You will want to upload this to the root of your host share. If you are installing Nextcloud in a directory, then that is where the script should be. In my case I installed at the root level.
Point your browser at the script, and it should run. The first thing it does is check that your host meets all the NextCloud requirements.
If no problems are found, you can advance, and the script will download the latest version of NextCloud to your hosting share.
Once downloaded, you will drop into the web installer itself. Here you must set an admin account, and database information from earlier.
Now just wait for everything to finish.
Conclusion
If everything goes well you will be dropped into the Administrative Account. At this point you can log out and install a SSL Certificate. Then force https login only.
It is a pretty simple install assuming everything went well.
I will be doing a followup post in a couple of weeks, on what to do if some things do not go well. So stay tuned.
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