Nextcloud

Purpose

The Department of Computer Science has its own in-house Nextcloud instance, a Dropbox/Google Drive like service. Its primary purpose is to facilitate syncing one or more folders from your own machine(s) to the departmental Nextcloud server that is back-upped every night using the departmental backup. Collaboration between users using shared folders is also possible.

To use Nextcloud:

• you need a Nextcloud account
• you can use the Nextcloud web interface (and/or any webdav client) to view (and upload) files in your Nextcloud account
• if you want automatic sync between your own computer(s) and your Nextcloud account, you need the Nextcloud software on your own, local machine(s) - in this way, you have your files with you at all times, including when off-line

Once set up, you can configure how and with whom you want to share some files and/or folders.

The rest of this page describes information about:

• your Nextcloud account
• the Nextcloud web interface
• the local sync client setup
• sharing folders with fellow Nextcloud users and/or others
• accessing your Nextcloud via webdav
• using your Nextcloud on system group administered systems

Accounts

Departmental users can activate their account on this page.

If you wish to collaborate with external users using our Nextcloud service they too will need an account. You can ask helpdesk to create such an account.

Account creation is automated but planned at regular intervals. After some time (a few hours at most) you will receive an e-mail with a username (your e-mail address) and a password. You can/should change the password (and some personal settings) on https://nextcloud.cs.kuleuven.be.

Do notice that both your account name and your password are case-sensitive - it is therefore important to type in your account name (and of course also your password) in the exact same way as it was registered!

Nextcloud web interface

You can access and upload files to Nextcloud through its web interface on https://nextcloud.cs.kuleuven.be. Simply drag and drop a file into the browser window to upload it to the server. You can also create new documents or edit existing Office-documents using the Onlyoffice-integration.

Encryption

Our Nextcloud currently does not support encrypting your files. End-to-end encryption is announced for a future version. As far as we know right now, you will be able to choose one or more folders that will be encrypted. Because of this encryption those folders (most probably) won't be accessible through the web interface. More information on the Nextcloud website.

Local client setup

Base install

• Install the Nextcloud client on your machine:
  • system-group-administered laptops/desktops already have the client installed
  • Linux clients can/should use the Nextcloud client from their own distribution - Debian and Ubuntu users can use the Nextcloud PPA
  • MacOS and Windows users can download the latest version from nextcloud.com
• After installation you will have to configure the client.
  • Start the client (on linux use the command 'nextcloud')

  • Server address: https://nextcloud.cs.kuleuven.be

    

  • Fill in your e-mailadress and password

    

You will then be asked how you want to configure your Nextcloud client: you have 2 options: a simple one and an advanced one:

Simple Setup

• If you choose 'Connect' in the next screen a 'Nextcloud' folder will be created in your home folder. Everything you put in this folder will be uploaded to the (toplevel folder of your account on the) Nextcloud server. This is the easiest way to use Nextcloud. You will only have a single folder that is synced, which is, depending on your needs, both an advantage and a disadvantage. If you choose this method your setup is now complete.
  

Advanced Setup

• The advanced setup requires some more configuration but gives you more freedom/choice. If you do not want the single default Nextcloud folder, you should not accept the default settings but instead, to have better control over what is synced, you should choose 'Skip folders configuration'. You can then select multiple (existing or new) folders to be synced.

• If you use several devices on which you want to use Nextcloud, it might be a good idea to set up several synced folders instead of just one. You can then select which folder is synced to which device instead of syncing everything to every device.

• Click 'Add Folder Sync Connection' and navigate to a folder you wish to sync to Nextcloud.

  

• Create a folder on the Nextcloud server to store your selected folder. Do not use the root Nextcloud folder.

  

• Syncing should now be on the way. Add another folder sync connection if necessary.

  

Sharing

You can share documents and folders in 2 ways:

• share directly with another Nextcloud user
  • they will see the shared document/folder directly in their Nextcloud and it will be synced to the devices they have set up to do so
• share with anybody else using a link
  • they will need to visit that link (in a/any web browser) to access the document/folder

In both ways you can share read-only or read-write.

If you sync your Nextcloud to your local machine, you cannot see the difference between your unshared folders/documents, folders/documents you share and folders/documents that are shared with you - they all are just plain folders/directories/documents in your local sync directory.

To see the difference and/or to manage the sharing, you must use the Nextcloud web interface.

Shared Folders/Documents

You can share folders and/or documents by means of the button/icon of the document/folder.

You can share with other Nextcloud users and/or share a link with others who don't have a Nextcloud account .

Folders and documents somebody else has shared with you are listed/shown in the same way as your own folders and documents - you can see who is the owner in the share icon and details . If the owner allows it, you can re-share the folders/documents with others.

Both your own shared folders and the folders somebody else has shared with you are labeled with the shared folder icon: .
Folders you share by link are labeled with the shared link icon: .

Shared folders you are the owner/initial creator of count in/for your own quota and the contents are removed if/when your Nextcloud account is removed.

Group Folders

Because the same functionality can be obtained using a separate Nextcloud account and because of the disadvantage described below, we no longer support group folders since end of May 2018. Use a personal shared folder or a separate account instead. This explanation is kept here for completeness and archeological reasons.

WebDAV

Nextcloud has support for WebDAV. Access your Nextcloud documents and folders with:

• in a GUI file manager (nautilus, ...) that supports it:
  • davs://nextcloud.cs.kuleuven.be/remote.php/webdav/
  in some cases, you might need to specify the URL with https:// instead of davs://
• on the command line with the fusedav command:
  • fusedav 'https://nextcloud.cs.kuleuven.be/remote.php/webdav/' /path/to/mount/dir
  • as long as the fusedav process is active, your Nextcloud documents and folders will be available in the given directory but only on the same machine as the fusedav command is run on - you can stop the fusedav process with Ctrl-C or with kill ...
    • you can however start a fusedav process on several machines as long as each uses its own directory to mount on
  • upon first access of the given directory, your Nextcloud credentials will be asked
    • you can give your username (i.e. your e-mail address) on the command line using the -u option but we strongly advise against giving your password using the -p option (because command line options are not hidden from other users)

Nextcloud on system group administered systems

The Nextcloud client is installed on all system group administered desktops and laptops. Because the Nextcloud client strongly depends on desktop functionality, it is not installed on servers. Because system group administered desktops and servers share the same home directory, this would also probably cause interference.

System group administered desktops

• When using a single system group administered desktop, we advise to set up the Nextcloud client on that desktop - from then on, your Nextcloud documents and folders will be available in your home directory on any machine that has access to that home directory (including system group administered servers).

  • Do notice however that they will only be kept up to date as long as your Nextcloud client is active on that desktop (i.e. as long as you are logged in on that desktop).

• When using several system group administered desktops, we advise to configure and use the Nextcloud client on only one of them - using the Nextcloud client on several desktops that all share your home directory, most probably will cause interference, possibly leading to unexpected behavior.

• Because the Nextcloud server is included in the departmental backup schedule, make sure the Nextcloud client on your desktop is configured to store your Nextcloud documents and folders in a directory that is not included in the departmental backup - otherwise your Nextcloud documents and folders will be backuped twice. You can easily do so by configuring your Nextcloud client on your desktop to store your Nextcloud data in a (sub-directory of a) directory with name NoCsBack.

System group administered laptops

• A system group administered laptop is just a laptop as any other - more specifically it does not have access to your departemental home directory, just as any other laptop. You can therefore use the Nextcloud client as on any other laptop. The Nextcloud client is already installed and available, you just have to configure it and start using it.

• If you make a backup of your laptop, please observe the same advise about backup as given above for desktops. Do notice that the name of the directory might be different though - just make sure the location where the Nextcloud client puts your local copy is not included in your backup solution.

System group administered servers

• When not using (the Nextcloud client on) a system group administered desktop, you can still access your Nextcloud documents and folders using a web browser or using fusedav.

• In particularly when using system group administered servers without using the Nextcloud client on a (system group administered) desktop, the webdav/fusedav option seems to be the most promising path to explore.

• If applicably, make sure to mount your Nextcloud on a (sub-directory of a) directory with name NoCsBack for the reason explained in the desktop section above about backup.