How To Install OwnCloud 8 on CentOS 7

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install your ownCloud 8 on CentOS 7. For those of you who didn’t know, OwnCloud is free and open-source software that enables you to create a private “file-hosting” cloud. OwnCloud is similar to DropBox service with the difference of being free to download and install on your private server. Owncloud is made by PHP and backend database MySQL (MariaDB), SQLLite, or PostgreSQL. OwnCloud also enables you to easily view and sync address books, calendar events, tasks, and bookmarks. You can access it via the good-looking and easy-to-use web interface or install the OwnCloud client on your Desktop or Laptop machine (which supports Linux, Windows, and Mac OSX).

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple. I will show you the step-by-step installation OwnCloud 8 on CentOS 7.

• A server running one of the following operating systems: CentOS 7.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install OwnCloud 8 on CentOS 7

Step 1. First, we need to install the latest Remi repository RPM suited to your architecture.

wget http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm
rpm -Uvh remi-release-7.rpm

Step 2. Install the necessary PHP packages.

yum update
yum install httpd php php-mysql sqlite php-dom php-mbstring php-gd php-pdo php-json php-xml php-zip php-gd curl php-curl php-mcrypt php-pear -y

Step 3. Install MySQL.

yum install mysql-server

Start Apache and MySQL:

systemctl start mysql.service
systemctl start httpd.service

## Auto start the service at system start-up ##

systemctl enable mysql.service
systemctl enable httpd.service

By default, MySQL is not hardened. You can secure MySQL using the mysql_secure_installation script. you should read and below each step carefully which will set a root password, remove anonymous users, disallow remote root login, and remove the test database and access to secure MySQL.

mysql_secure_installation

Step 4. Configure a new MySQL database using the following commands.

#mysql -uroot -p

CREATE DATABASE owncloud;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON owncloud.* TO 'owncloud_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'owncloud_user_pasword';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Step 5. Configuring Apache for OwnCloud.

While configuring the Apache web server, it is recommended that you enable .htaccess to get enhanced security features, by default .htaccess is disabled in the Apache server. To enable it, open your virtual host file and make AllowOverride is set to All. For example, here I used an external config file instead of modifying the main file.

#nano /etc/httpd/conf.d/owncloud.conf

<IfModule mod_alias.c>
Alias /owncloud /var/www/html/owncloud
</IfModule>
<Directory “/var/www/html/owncloud”>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>

Remember to restart all services related to the Apache server.

systemctl restart httpd.service

Step 6. Install OwnCloud and dependencies.

wget https://download.owncloud.org/community/owncloud-8.0.0.tar.bz2
tar -xjf owncloud-8.0.0.tar.bz2
mv owncloud /var/www/html/owncloud/

Set the directory permissions:

chown -R apache.apache /var/www/html/owncloud/

Step 7. Access the OwnCloud application.

Navigate to http://your-domain.com/ and follow the easy instructions. Enter username and password for the administrator user account, click on the ‘Advanced options’ hyperlink and enter the data directory (or leave the default setting), then enter database username, database password, database name, host (localhost), and click ‘Finish setup’.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Owncloud 8. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing Owncloud on CentOS 7 systems. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official OwnCloud website.