Host Your Own Cloud Server With OwnCloud
The buzz word of 2012 is the cloud, as every big company seems to start their own service. Just lately we have seen the rise of Google Drive and Cubby, two new contenders in the race for the best cloud service. When you look behind the cloud, you'd probably come to the conclusion that it is only another word for online storage. And to make the date more accessible, syncing was included. If you are a privacy conscious user, you may have preferred to stay away from all cloud offerings until now, or use encryption before you shove your files on to cloud servers.
But what would you say if you could create your own custom server that is running on your own web server, or a web server that you have access to.
ownCloud
Enter ownCloud, an open source cloud hosting script that you can install on a Windows or Linux based web server. And since it would not really be cloud space without synchronization, you also get Windows, Linux and Mac apps for syncing, plus mobile apps for Android, and soon iOS as well.
Without doubt the biggest step to getting your own cloud running is the installation on the web server. The following requirements need to be met:
Linux: PHP 5.3, php5-json, php-xml, php-mbstring, php5-zip, php5-gd, and optionally php5-sqlite (>=3), curl, libcurl3, libcurl3-dev, php5-curl, php-do
Windows:Â IIS with CGI support, PHP, MySQL
Linux
On the web server run the following two commands
apt-get install apache2 php5 php5-json php-xml php-mbstring php5-zip php5-gd apt-get install php5-sqlite curl libcurl3 libcurl3-dev php5-curl php-pdo Download the latest stable release or latest development version, and run the following commands
tar -xjf path/to/downloaded/owncloud-x.x.x.tar.bz2
cp -r owncloud /path/to/your/webserver
Then set the permissions for config/ and data/
chown -R www-data:www-data /path/to/your/owncloud/install/data
Last but not least, you should make sure that .htaccess is configured properly for that extra bit of security.
If you are running the apache webserver, it is recommended that you enable .htaccess files as ownCloud uses them to enhance security and allows you to use webfinger. To enable .htaccess files you need to ensure that ‘AllowOverride’ is set to ‘All’ in the ‘Directory /var/www/’ section of your virtual host file. This is usually in /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default. You should also run ‘a2enmod rewrite’ and ‘a2enmod headers’. Then restart apache:
service apache2 restart(for Ubuntu systems).
Once that is done, you need to start the install wizard by loading the http://IP/owncloud/index.php and follow the wizard. Take a look at the distro notes for additional instructions for specific distributions.
Windows Server
For Windows, you need to complete the following steps.
- Install IIS with CGI support
- Install PHP
- Install MySQL
- Install ownCloud
Just check the detailed installation instructions for Windows to get it started.
Usage
You can log in the web interface to access the files there, or install the synchronization clients to start syncing data from local systems with your own cloud server. Besides the ability to access files both on the web server directly by using the web interface, and locally by connecting via WebDav or syncing the files, ownCloud offers calendar integration and synchronization, access to a media player to play music, a photo viewer, and contacts. It is likely that the developers will add more features to the server.
Alternatives
If you do not have access to your own web server running Linux or Windows, or do not want to use it for hosting your files online, then you could make use of third party hosting providers that offer free and paid plans. With the providers linked on the owncloud homepage, you get for instance 5 or 6 gigabytes of free cloud hosting space respecitively, OwnCloud can host files for you, an account with 100 Gigabytes of free space sets you back $6.60 per month, an admin account for a multiple users and 150 Gigabytes of free storage $13 per month.
Closing Words
I'd advise you to check with your web hosting provider before you start to install the server, as it may be against their terms of service.
The idea of hosting your own cloud server, along with syncing apps for all major devices and operating systems, makes sense in a world where privacy is a growing concern. OwnCloud, with its open source approach, and apis that developers can make use of to extend the service's functionality, could make the cloud available to users who do not want to host their files on third party servers. It could also be an interesting option for businesses who can't host their files on third party servers due to business regulations. (via Caschy)
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Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.
When will you put an end to the mess in the comments?
Ghacks comments have been broken for too long. What article did you see this comment on? Reply below. If we get to 20 different articles we should all stop using the site in protest.
I posted this on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/] so please reply if you see it on a different article.
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Article Title: Reddit enforces user activity tracking on site to push advertising revenue
Article URL: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
No surprises here. This is just the beginning really. I cannot see a valid reason as to why anyone would continue to use the platform anymore when there are enough alternatives fill that void.
I’m not sure if there is a point in commenting given that comments seem to appear under random posts now, but I’ll try… this comment is for https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
My temporary “solution”, if you can call it that, is to use a VPN (Mullvad in my case) to sign up for and access Reddit via a European connection. I’m doing that with pretty much everything now, at least until the rest of the world catches up with GDPR. I don’t think GDPR is a magical privacy solution but it’s at least a first step.