Nextcloud is a versatile and community-driven project, making it a popular choice for individuals, businesses, and organizations looking for a secure and self-hosted cloud storage and collaboration solution.

It is similar in functionality to popular cloud storage services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive but gives users greater control over their data and privacy because it can be deployed on their own servers or a cloud infrastructure of their choice.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Nextcloud on Debian 12 OS.

Step 1: Update Operating System

Update your Debian 12 operating system to make sure all existing packages are up to date:

# apt update && apt upgrade

Step 2: Install Nginx webserver

You can install Nginx via apt package manager by executing the following command.

# apt install nginx

You can start the Nginx service and configure it to run on startup by entering the following commands:

# systemctl start nginx
# systemctl enable nginx

Verify the status of the Nginx service using systemctl status command:

# systemctl status nginx

Output:

● nginx.service - A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running)
       Docs: man:nginx(8)
    Process: 1280 ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/nginx -t -q -g daemon on; master_process on; (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Process: 1281 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on; (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 1304 (nginx)
      Tasks: 2 (limit: 2273)
     Memory: 1.7M
        CPU: 23ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service
             ├─1304 "nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on;"
             └─1307 "nginx: worker process"

Step 3: Install PHP and PHP extensions for Nextcloud

To install PHP and the necessary extensions, run the following command:

# apt install php php-cli php-fpm php-json php-common php-mysql php-zip php-gd php-intl php-curl php-xml php-mbstring php-bcmath php-gmp

Once the installation is complete verify if PHP is installed:

# php -v

Output:
PHP 8.2.7 (cli) (built: Jun  9 2023 19:37:27) (NTS)
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v4.2.7, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v8.2.7, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

After installing all the packages, edit the php.ini file:

# nano /etc/php/8.2/fpm/php.ini

Change the following settings per your requirements:

max_execution_time = 300
memory_limit = 512M
post_max_size = 128M
upload_max_filesize = 128M

To implement the changes, restart the php-fpm service:

# systemctl restart php8.2-fpm

Step 4: Install MariaDB database server

To install the MariaDB database server, run the following command:

# apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client

Verify the status of the MariaDB service using systemctl status command:

# systemctl status mariadb

Output:

● mariadb.service - MariaDB 10.11.3 database server
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mariadb.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running)
       Docs: man:mariadbd(8)
             https://mariadb.com/kb/en/library/systemd/
   Main PID: 14433 (mariadbd)
     Status: "Taking your SQL requests now..."
      Tasks: 11 (limit: 2273)
     Memory: 163.8M
        CPU: 513ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/mariadb.service
             └─14433 /usr/sbin/mariadbd

Once the installation is complete, run the following command to secure your MariaDB server:

# mysql_secure_installation

Configure it like this:

- Set root password? [Y/n] Y
- Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] Y
- Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] Y
- Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] Y
- Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] Y

Restart the database server for the changes to take effect.

# systemctl restart mariadb

Step 5: Create a New Database for Nextcloud

Once you have installed MariaDB, you’ll need to create a new database and user for Nextcloud to use.

To do this, log in to your MariaDB server using the following command:

# mysql -u root -p

You will be prompted to enter your root password. Once you have entered your password, you will be taken to the MariaDB prompt.

Run the following commands to create a new database and user:

MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE nextcloud;
MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON nextcloud.* TO 'nextcloud'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'Password';
MariaDB [(none)]> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
MariaDB [(none)]> EXIT;

Note: Make sure to replace 'Password' with a strong password of your choice.

Step 6: Download and Install Nextcloud

You can download the latest version of Nextcloud from the Nextcloud Official site.

Use the following command to download the latest version of Nextcloud:

# wget  https://download.nextcloud.com/server/releases/latest.zip

Extract file into the folder /var/www/ with the following command:

# unzip latest.zip -d /var/www/

Change ownership of the /var/www/nextcloud directory to www-data.

# chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/nextcloud

Step 7: Configure Nginx for Nextcloud

Run the commands below to create a new VirtualHost file called nextcloud in the /etc/nginx/conf.d/ directory.

# nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/nextcloud.conf

Paste the content as shown below:

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name your-domain.com www.your-domain.com;
  root /var/www/nextcloud;
  index index.php index.html;
  charset utf-8;
  location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
  }
  location ~ .php$ {
    fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php8.2-fpm.sock;
    fastcgi_index index.php;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    include fastcgi_params;
  }
}

Remember to replace your-domain.com with the domain name of your server.

Save and exit the configuration file.

To implement the changes, restart Nginx webserver:

# systemctl restart nginx

Step 8: Install free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate

First we need to install the Certbot client which is used to create Let’s Encrypt certificates:

# apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx

To get the SSL certificate using the Certbot, type the command given below:

# certbot --nginx -d your-domain.com -d www.your-domain.com

If the SSL certificate is successfully obtained, certbot displays a message to show the configuration was successful:

IMPORTANT NOTES:
 - Congratulations! Your certificate and chain have been saved at:
   /etc/letsencrypt/live/your-domain.com/fullchain.pem
   Your key file has been saved at:
   /etc/letsencrypt/live/your-domain.com/privkey.pem
   Your cert will expire on 2023-12-03. To obtain a new or tweaked
   version of this certificate in the future, simply run certbot
   again. To non-interactively renew *all* of your certificates, run
   "certbot renew"
 - Your account credentials have been saved in your Certbot
   configuration directory at /etc/letsencrypt. You should make a
   secure backup of this folder now. This configuration directory will
   also contain certificates and private keys obtained by Certbot so
   making regular backups of this folder is ideal.
 - If you like Certbot, please consider supporting our work by:

   Donating to ISRG / Let's Encrypt:   https://letsencrypt.org/donate
   Donating to EFF:                    https://eff.org/donate-le

Now, you have successfully installed SSL on your website.

Step 9: Access Nextcloud Web Interface

Open your web browser and type the URL https://your-domain.com. You should see the Nextcloud installation page.

Click the Install button, you will see the Web interface of NextCloud.

Comments and Conclusion

That’s it. You have successfully installed NextCloud on Debian 12 OS.

For additional help or useful information, we recommend you to check  the official Nextcloud documentation.

If you have any questions please leave a comment below.