ownCloud Tutorials

ownCloud is a web-based file synchronization and sharing tool that allows you to automatically sync up files saved locally on your computer to a remote server.

How does ownCloud work?

ownCloud is a server/client software. When you setup ownCloud, you can either access your files through the web portal or through the ownCloud client installed in your computer. You can set the client software to automatically startup when the computer is turned on, and sync new or modified files saved in the ownCloud directory every time it detects changes, and if an internet connection is present. The ownCloud client software can be installed in multiple computers including Macs and Linux so you can access your synced files from anywhere you have access to the Internet or the ownCloud client is installed.

Top ownCloud features

Sharing with ownCloud you can share files with everybody including none ownCloud users
Syncing with ownCloud you can sync files from multiple devices including smartphones and tablets
Live Collaboration with ownCloud you can collaborate in real time e.g. editing documents.
Universal File Access from ownCloud you can access all data spread out in multiple locations like Windows shared drives, SharePoint, S3 buckets, etc.
Favorites Files favorite files in ownCloud for easy access
Active Directory/LDAP AD integration for corporate users.

Popular Linux distributions that support ownCloud out of the box :

Debian 7, 8
Ubuntu 14.04, 16.04 LTS
RHEL/CENTOS 6.6, 7

Available only as a download:

Ubuntu 12.04
SLES 11 SP3
SLES 12

Web components required:

Apache: 2.4
PHP 5.6 or greater
GD Library
cURL
Databases: MySQL 5.1 or higher; PostgreSQL 9.1.14 or higher

Virtual platforms supported:

Hyper-V
VMware ESX
Xen
KVM

Note: Windows Server flaky support only on 2008 or greater

Requires PHP 5.6 or greater integrated with IIS including MySQL and CGI.

Install ownCloud in a Windows Server

ownCloud was developed with Linux and Unix based operating systems in mind so if you are looking to implement ownCloud in a production environment you probably should install it in a Linux server. But installing ownCloud in a Windows server is certainly possible now that PHP is supported in all Windows servers starting from Windows server 2008.In this tutorial we…

ownCloud vs Nextcloud – Which one should you choose

I’ve been following the ownCloud project since at least 2012, and I’ve been using ownCloud since version 5.0 which was released around 2013 I believe. ownCloud was created as an alternative to commercial file sharing tools like Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, etc. the difference with ownCloud is that you host the software yourself ( hence the name “ownCloud” ) which…

How to install ownCloud in Ubuntu

There are many good resources on how to install ownCloud on the Internet including the official ownCloud documentation, but I’ve never found a comprehensive guide on how to Install ownCloud in Ubuntu. In this tutorial I’ll try to do that. I have installed ownCloud many times in production and testing servers. The latest release of ownCloud at the time of…

How to build your own Dropbox server

Are you afraid of uploading your files to cloud services like DropBox and Google Drive? do you want to host your own files DropBox style? if that’s the reason you are reading this article then be glad to hear that you can! and it’s not that hard to do, you don’t need to be a tech guru neither, just need to read…

Transferring ownership of files in ownCloud to another user automatically

One of the biggest issues when using ownCloud in a corporate environment is managing ownCloud files ownership especially when people leave the company. ownCloud automatically deletes the files a person has created when his/her account is closed or disabled. We have kept a bunch of AD accounts open because of this issue. We tried a workaround the problem by creating…

Installing the ownCloud Client in Windows 10

To install the ownCloud client in a Windows 10 computer go to this URL and click on the Download button. The latest ownCloud client version at the time of this writing is 2.4.0 Click on the setup.exe file after the downloading is complete, and the ownCloud client installation wizard should come up: Click on Next. Make sure the Integration for Windows Explorer option…