The latest release of NextCloudPi is out!

In order to make the setup process even easier, nextcloudpi-config now has the ability to format a USB to ext4 and setup port forwarding in your router.

Also, an option has been added to download and install the latest News app. This is a staple for me, but it is not included in the official bundle.

Of course, there are also tons of fixes and small improvements, the most important one being full support for UTF-8 chars. This means that you can now use emojis in your contacts, calendar, tasks and everywhere else.

NextCloudPi improves everyday thanks to your feedback. Please report any problems, or ask technical questions here. Also, you can discuss anything in the forums.

Last but not least, please download through bitorrent and share it for a while to help keep hosting costs down.

Format USB to ext4

I do not think many people struggle with this, but I guessed it would be a time saver for Linux beginners.

The process is very basic, but it covers most of the use cases.

Make sure only one external USB is plugged in. That external USB will be formatted to ext4 with the specified label.

In combination with the automount feature and nc-datadir, this allows people that do not master Linux to use an external USB drive with NextCloudPi easily.

UPnP Port forwarding

UPnP or Universal Plug and Play, is a set of network protocols for discovery and configuration of network devices, among other things.

Most routers support this feature, and it has been historically used by programs such as aMule or bittorrent clients to open ports in your router, so that said programs can receive connections through your firewall NAT.

This is a requirement in order to host any service at home, because otherwise connections from outside are blocked.

Manually setting up port forwarding is generally an easy process, but again we are aiming at simplifying the process so everyone can host their own private data regardless of their technical skills.

UPnP is an old protocol and is designed without security considerations. If your router has UPnP activated, any device inside your local network can reconfigure your firewall, so it is always recommended to turn it off.

Log in into your router’s administration interface. Typically, this is at 192.168.1.1 Activate UPnP Run nextcloudpi-config > nc-forward-ports . PORT is the external port. Most likely you don’t want to change it. Deactivate UPnP

Remember to disable UPnP after opening your router ports. Depending on your router, this could disable UPnP port forwarding again, so this method is not guaranteed to work. Do it manually then.

News

RSS! Who would not like a simple, suscription based, privacy friendly (*) news aggregator that allows you to receive new posts from your favourite blogs, reddit and many more places.

(*) in the sense that there is generally no login required, no javascript or cookies involved

You can do this with Firefox Live Bookmarks, Thunderbird and many other web based and not web based clients, but the beauty of doing it in NextCloud is that you can privately read and synchronize your feeds.

I recommend the fantastic open source Nextcloud News Android app for your phone or tablet. Check out other sync clients.

You need internet connection in order to download the latest version. Once the process finishes you can activate the App in admin > Apps.

No need to visit ownyourbits again to see what’s new. Let NextCloudPi notify you with the new stuff!

Clear configuration

nc-init can be used to clear Nextcloud configuration. It will reset the database and config.php to fresh NextCloudPi defaults.

This will destroy any configuration, including your file metadata and user accounts.

Only do this in a clean installation, such as after using nc-nextcloud