6 ms·

People looking for easier ways, Nextcloud/Owncloud already does this and you also get with file sync/backup/share for computer/smartphone and more as a bonus; a

by Nux 9y ago

People looking for easier ways, Nextcloud/Owncloud already does this and you also get with file sync/backup/share for computer/smartphone and more as a bonus; all you need is just a LAMP server.

znpy 9y ago
I am commenting to confirm that nextcloud works very very well. I am running the official docker image with an apache2 frontend (http/https) and it pretty much works flawlessly.
- balladeer 9y ago
  They don't offer client side encryption yet, do they? Just checked the GH issue and it is still open: https://github.com/owncloud/client/issues/4327 https://github.com/owncloud/client/issues/4327 and https://github.com/nextcloud/server/issues/5145 https://github.com/nextcloud/server/issues/5145
  - nrtd 9y ago
    Is this relevant? The connection to the server is encrypted (hopefully) and the server is selfhosted so you can trust it. In what use case is client side encryption important?
toadkicker 9y ago
I use http://mailinabox.email http://mailinabox.email which totally automates running your own mail server. Highly recommend taking a look at it!
- fiatjaf 9y ago
  What about spam?
  - acidburnNSA 9y ago
    I use a self-maintained version of the same email stack (Dovecot, Postfix, Spamassassin) and Spam is pretty much not a problem. I train the Bayes filter on my collection of 10,000 spams and a few thousand hams every 6 months and, while I do get an occasional false negative I feel that spam is pretty much fully under control. Self-hosting email is fun you guys!
    - Silhouette 9y ago
      Self-hosting email is fun you guys! I figured that it would be, but trying to set it up was the single most frustrating thing I've ever experienced running a Linux box, and I never did get anything properly working after many days of trying. The principles seemed straightforward enough and there was plenty of software available, but what I really wanted was to self-host the mail store and IMAP server but send/receive via ISPs or other services who are better at administering a full-time SMTP setup than I am, and somehow I just never could find the magic incantations in the settings files to make that go. :-(
      - fencepost 9y ago
        Well, for outbound you'd presumably want an "authenticated smarthost" with setup details on your side varying by what mail server you're using locally. For inbound, you'd presumably want the server using fetchmail or getmail to then push them into your local mailboxes. Should be plenty of documentation on those projects.
        Silhouette 9y ago
        There was plenty of documentation, and what I was trying to do was along the lines you mentioned. My problem was that if anything there were too many different moving parts in the software and too much documentation. Individually it was quite clear what each part was supposed to be doing. Collectively, it simply didn't work: messages weren't reliably sent or delivered, sometimes generating various kinds of logs or error messages, other times silently as far as I could tell. The hard part was trying to pin down which part of the system wasn't set up properly, and I simply didn't have and couldn't find the knowledge to solve that problem within a reasonable amount of time. Given that fundamentally neither email protocols nor mail store structure on a typical Linux box are particularly complicated, and that all of the software I was using was well established and reputable, it was an exceptionally frustrating experience. Someone with more skill than me would surely have installed the relevant half dozen or so packages from the distro, edited a few configuration files to set up the remote mail server details and identify the local processes to each other, and had everything working within a few minutes. Unfortunately, without that knowledge the sheer number of options and possibilities was overwhelming and I never got that far. What I really needed was a one-page HOWTO for the most simple use case and a setting for each package that said "don't try to do anything clever or unusual", but what I had at the time was literally hundreds of screens' worth of detailed parameters and config file options, each written according to the conventions and assumptions of their own package.
octopoc 9y ago
I have about 1TB of data that I tried to sync with NextCloud. The Windows client crashed every night, so I finally gave up and moved to Syncthing. Has anybody else had a similar experience?
- Tharkun 9y ago
  I don't have any experience with their Windows client, but webdav with nextcloud has been painfully slow in my experience.
- dawnerd 9y ago
  For that much data rclone might be better.
acidburnNSA 9y ago
This is a reasonable recommendation, aligned with the summary of the article.
adekok 9y ago
I tried used Owncloud... and stopped. I tried using radicale... and stopped. The software was fragile, slow, and broke often. Maybe it's better now (a few years later). But at the time it was negatively impacting productivity. I've moved to Sogo. Zero problems after install. File sync is Resilio. Bittorrent sync was unusable, the new re-branded (and fixed) Resilio works fine. Just my $0.02
- Nux 9y ago
  As with many things open source a couple of years is a long, long time; Nextcloud has improved a lot as far as I can tell, for me it's decently usable and surprisingly problem free. How's Sogo with regards to maintainability and upgradability?
  - adekok 9y ago
    Sogo: zero maintenance. No problem upgrades. It's really, really, nice.
    - the_common_man 9y ago
      sogo does not release stable packages anymore (it's only for paid users which is basically businesses). How are you updating sogo?
      - ausjke 9y ago
        https://sogo.nu/download.html https://sogo.nu/download.html has all the new releases, where did you find that "only for paid users" info?
  - RaleyField 9y ago
    I have been researching this space recently, what turned me off was them scanning ports and then reporting to ISPs, supposedly because people were running vulnerable versions, but reporting could make problems for users because some ISPs don't allow servers on home connections. And here's the money quote: "The effort has been quite successful. Of the tens of thousands server owners who were informed, over 5% had upgraded already in the first ten days."[1] In other words 95% were left vulnerable and they were responsible for it. Does not inspire trust. [1] https://nextcloud.com/blog/nextcloud-releases-security-scanner-to-help-protect-private-clouds/ https://nextcloud.com/blog/nextcloud-releases-security-scann...

by Nux 9y ago

People looking for easier ways, Nextcloud/Owncloud already does this and you also get with file sync/backup/share for computer/smartphone and more as a bonus; all you need is just a LAMP server.

znpy 9y ago

I am commenting to confirm that nextcloud works very very well. I am running the official docker image with an apache2 frontend (http/https) and it pretty much works flawlessly.

balladeer 9y ago
They don't offer client side encryption yet, do they? Just checked the GH issue and it is still open: https://github.com/owncloud/client/issues/4327 https://github.com/owncloud/client/issues/4327 and https://github.com/nextcloud/server/issues/5145 https://github.com/nextcloud/server/issues/5145
- nrtd 9y ago
  Is this relevant? The connection to the server is encrypted (hopefully) and the server is selfhosted so you can trust it. In what use case is client side encryption important?

toadkicker 9y ago

I use http://mailinabox.email http://mailinabox.email which totally automates running your own mail server. Highly recommend taking a look at it!

fiatjaf 9y ago
What about spam?
- acidburnNSA 9y ago
  I use a self-maintained version of the same email stack (Dovecot, Postfix, Spamassassin) and Spam is pretty much not a problem. I train the Bayes filter on my collection of 10,000 spams and a few thousand hams every 6 months and, while I do get an occasional false negative I feel that spam is pretty much fully under control. Self-hosting email is fun you guys!
  - Silhouette 9y ago
    Self-hosting email is fun you guys! I figured that it would be, but trying to set it up was the single most frustrating thing I've ever experienced running a Linux box, and I never did get anything properly working after many days of trying. The principles seemed straightforward enough and there was plenty of software available, but what I really wanted was to self-host the mail store and IMAP server but send/receive via ISPs or other services who are better at administering a full-time SMTP setup than I am, and somehow I just never could find the magic incantations in the settings files to make that go. :-(
    - fencepost 9y ago
      Well, for outbound you'd presumably want an "authenticated smarthost" with setup details on your side varying by what mail server you're using locally. For inbound, you'd presumably want the server using fetchmail or getmail to then push them into your local mailboxes. Should be plenty of documentation on those projects.
      - Silhouette 9y ago
        There was plenty of documentation, and what I was trying to do was along the lines you mentioned. My problem was that if anything there were too many different moving parts in the software and too much documentation. Individually it was quite clear what each part was supposed to be doing. Collectively, it simply didn't work: messages weren't reliably sent or delivered, sometimes generating various kinds of logs or error messages, other times silently as far as I could tell. The hard part was trying to pin down which part of the system wasn't set up properly, and I simply didn't have and couldn't find the knowledge to solve that problem within a reasonable amount of time. Given that fundamentally neither email protocols nor mail store structure on a typical Linux box are particularly complicated, and that all of the software I was using was well established and reputable, it was an exceptionally frustrating experience. Someone with more skill than me would surely have installed the relevant half dozen or so packages from the distro, edited a few configuration files to set up the remote mail server details and identify the local processes to each other, and had everything working within a few minutes. Unfortunately, without that knowledge the sheer number of options and possibilities was overwhelming and I never got that far. What I really needed was a one-page HOWTO for the most simple use case and a setting for each package that said "don't try to do anything clever or unusual", but what I had at the time was literally hundreds of screens' worth of detailed parameters and config file options, each written according to the conventions and assumptions of their own package.

octopoc 9y ago

I have about 1TB of data that I tried to sync with NextCloud. The Windows client crashed every night, so I finally gave up and moved to Syncthing. Has anybody else had a similar experience?

Tharkun 9y ago
I don't have any experience with their Windows client, but webdav with nextcloud has been painfully slow in my experience.
dawnerd 9y ago
For that much data rclone might be better.

acidburnNSA 9y ago

This is a reasonable recommendation, aligned with the summary of the article.

adekok 9y ago

I tried used Owncloud... and stopped. I tried using radicale... and stopped. The software was fragile, slow, and broke often. Maybe it's better now (a few years later). But at the time it was negatively impacting productivity. I've moved to Sogo. Zero problems after install. File sync is Resilio. Bittorrent sync was unusable, the new re-branded (and fixed) Resilio works fine. Just my $0.02

Nux 9y ago
As with many things open source a couple of years is a long, long time; Nextcloud has improved a lot as far as I can tell, for me it's decently usable and surprisingly problem free. How's Sogo with regards to maintainability and upgradability?
- adekok 9y ago
  Sogo: zero maintenance. No problem upgrades. It's really, really, nice.
  - the_common_man 9y ago
    sogo does not release stable packages anymore (it's only for paid users which is basically businesses). How are you updating sogo?
    - ausjke 9y ago
      https://sogo.nu/download.html https://sogo.nu/download.html has all the new releases, where did you find that "only for paid users" info?
- RaleyField 9y ago
  I have been researching this space recently, what turned me off was them scanning ports and then reporting to ISPs, supposedly because people were running vulnerable versions, but reporting could make problems for users because some ISPs don't allow servers on home connections. And here's the money quote: "The effort has been quite successful. Of the tens of thousands server owners who were informed, over 5% had upgraded already in the first ten days."[1] In other words 95% were left vulnerable and they were responsible for it. Does not inspire trust. [1] https://nextcloud.com/blog/nextcloud-releases-security-scanner-to-help-protect-private-clouds/ https://nextcloud.com/blog/nextcloud-releases-security-scann...