I Made My Own ownCloud!

Written by: Mike Helmers

Have you heard the saying, "There is no cloud — it's just someone else's computer"? Ever thought about what would happen if that computer disappeared overnight? The chances of Google or Dropbox vanishing are slim, but it does happen. After my wife and I got married, we started thinking about how to preserve all those digital wedding photos. We had them on a flash drive and in Google Drive, but I wanted more control. Time to build a Helmers Family Dropbox.

⚠️ Historical note: This post was written in 2017. Since then, the ownCloud project forked and Nextcloud has become the more actively maintained and community-supported option — it's what I'd recommend today. ownCloud also had a serious security vulnerability (CVE-2023-49103) disclosed in 2023. If you're starting fresh, use Nextcloud instead.

Why ownCloud (at the time)? It was open-source, free, and transparent. It had a Google Play app for phone backups. I liked the interface. And there was a large community to lean on for help.

For this project I used a Raspberry Pi 3 (built-in WiFi, 4 USB ports, more powerful processor than the Zero) and a 1TB Seagate external hard drive to store all the data.

Steps to Follow

Raspberry Pi prep
Build a web server
Add SSL to web server
Install ownCloud
Prep and mount the hard drive
Configure access from phone and internet

1. Raspberry Pi Prep

I used Raspbian Jessie Lite (no GUI) to save resources. After the initial setup, I ran:

sudo apt-get update

I also set a static local IP for the Pi using my router's DHCP Reservations feature — in my case, 192.168.1.143.

2. Build a Web Server

sudo apt-get install apache2
sudo apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5 -y
sudo service apache2 restart

This installs Apache and PHP, which form the foundation for accessing ownCloud. To confirm it worked, navigate to the Pi's IP address in a browser — you should see the Apache default page.

3. Add SSL to the Web Server

HTTPS ensures that no one can intercept my data in transit, whether I'm accessing ownCloud from home or anywhere else in the world.

Create a folder for the certificate:

sudo mkdir /etc/apache2/ssl

Generate a self-signed certificate:

sudo openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 1095 -newkey rsa:2048 \
  -out /etc/apache2/ssl/server.crt \
  -keyout /etc/apache2/ssl/server.key

Edit the SSL config to point to the new certificate:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl.conf

Replace the placeholder certificate lines:

SSLCertificateFile    /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key

With:

SSLCertificateFile    /etc/apache2/ssl/server.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/server.key

Enable SSL and restart Apache:

sudo a2enmod ssl
sudo service apache2 reload

4. Install ownCloud

sudo wget -nv https://download.owncloud.org/download/repositories/stable/Debian_8.0/Release.key -O Release.key
sudo apt-key add - < Release.key
sudo sh -c "echo 'deb https://download.owncloud.org/download/repositories/stable/Debian_8.0/ /' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/owncloud.list"
sudo apt-get install owncloud

Redirect Apache's default page to ownCloud:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf

Change DocumentRoot to /var/www/owncloud.

Increase upload limits so ownCloud can handle large files (up to 2GB):

sudo nano /var/www/owncloud/.htaccess

php_value upload_max_filesize 2000M
php_value post_max_size 2000M
php_value memory_limit 2000M

sudo nano /var/www/owncloud/.user.ini

upload_max_filesize=2000M
post_max_size=2000M
memory_limit=2000M

5. Prep and Mount the Hard Drive

The Pi's 16GB SD card isn't nearly enough storage. I needed to mount a 1TB external drive for ownCloud to use.

Install NTFS support (so the drive can also be read on Windows if needed):

sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g

Format the drive:

sudo mkfs.ntfs /dev/sda1 -f -v -I -L untitled

Create a mount point:

sudo mkdir /media/ownclouddrive

Find the drive's UUID:

sudo blkid

Add a persistent mount entry so the Pi always reconnects the drive on boot:

sudo nano /etc/fstab

Add the following line (replacing YOUR-UUID with the value from blkid):

UUID=YOUR-UUID /media/ownclouddrive auto nofail,uid=33,gid=33,umask=0027,dmask=0027,noatime 0 0

6. Configure Access from Phone and Internet

Navigate to https://192.168.1.143 or https://192.168.1.143/owncloud in a browser. You'll get a certificate warning — that's expected, since the certificate is self-signed. Click through it.

Create your admin account, then go to Storage & Database and point ownCloud at /media/ownclouddrive.

To enable access from outside your home network, forward TCP port 443 (HTTPS) on your router to the Pi's local IP. You can then reach ownCloud from anywhere using your external IP address.

Download the ownCloud (or Nextcloud) app from your app store of choice, enter your server address, and you're syncing.

Desktop clients are also available if you want to sync to a computer.

Takeaways and Future Thoughts

Unexpected problems: I made a lot of mistakes — editing wrong files, mistyping commands. At one point I wanted to start fresh but needed to overwrite files I'd already mangled. Eventually found this:

sudo -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-overwrite" apt-get install apache2

Future concerns: The usual — what happens if my IP address changes? I also want to verify that the NTFS-formatted drive is actually readable from a Windows machine, but I don't want to risk data I've already stored on it.

Future enhancements: I want to sync my existing Google Drive and Photos into this setup someday.