MySelf

● A.Mohammed Adam

● Activist in FSFTN

What is Cloud Storage?

● Cloud storage stands for virtualised pool of network storage most commonly hosted by third parties. Cloud storage is a network-based service which physically do not exist but remains somewhere in the cloud. To be more clear, cloud storage means sharing data over network, rather than having local servers or personal device.

Cloud Storage Applications

● Cloud storage is all around us in our smart phones, on desktops and servers etc. The Dropbox application which is now available on smart phone is nothing but cloud storage application. Google Drive is another cloud storage application which lets you store and access your stored data from anywhere and anytime.

Cloud storage using OwnCloud

● OwnCloud is a free, open-source and powerful web application for data synchronization, file sharing, and remote storage of files. ownCloud is written in PHP/JavaScript languages. It is designed to work with several database management systems, including MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite, Oracle Database, and PostgreSQL. Moreover owncloud can be deployed on all known platforms viz., Linux, Macintosh, Windows and Android. In short it’s a robust, platform Independent, flexible in terms of configuration and usability, easy-to-use open source Application.

Install ownCloud Storage in Linux

● In order to setup your own personal cloud storage (ownCloud), you must have LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack installed. Other than LAMP stack you might need Perl and Python based upon your use.

● On Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint

● # sudo apt-get install apache2 apache2-doc apache2-utils mysql-server mysql-client php5 php5-mysql

● On RedHat/CentOS/Fedora

● # yum install httpd mysql-server mysql-client php php-mysql

Create Cloud Database● Once you setup LAMP stack on your personal box, just login to your database

(MySQL, here).

● # mysql -u root -p

● Enter mysql root password. Now we will be creating a database (say cloud).

● mysql> create database cloud ; ● Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

● It is not a good idea to access your database from root, hence grant all the permission to a normal user (say tecmint).

● mysql> grant all on cloud.* to tecmint@localhost identified by 'my_password'; ● Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Download and Install ownCloud Application

● Now its time to Download latest ownCloud (i.e version 7.0.0) application using below link.

●

● http://owncloud.org/install/●

● Alternatively, you may use wget command to download the source tar-ball package.●

● # wget https://download.owncloud.org/community/owncloud-7.0.0.tar.bz2●

● You may alternatively install from source package using APT or YUM. The installation instruction can be found at:

●

● Install ownCloud using APT or YUM●

● However we choose the TAR package which is universally accepted and works on most of the known system.

●After Downloading the owncloud package

● After Downloading the owncloud package, move it to your Apache working directory, which is /var/www (for Debian) and /var/www/html (for RedHat).

●

● # cp owncloud-7.0.0.tar.bz2 /var/www/ [For Debian based Systems]● # cp owncloud-7.0.0.tar.bz2 /var/www/html/ [For RedHat based Systems]●

● Next, extract the package using tar command as shown below.●

● # tar -jxvf owncloud-7.0.0.tar.bz2●

● Since the TAR Archive is extracted you may remove the Archive.●

● # rm -rf owncloud-7.0.0.tar.bz2●

● We might need to change the file permission of owncloud, in our Apache working directory.●

● # chmod -R 777 owncloud/

Configuring Apache for ownCloud● For security purpose ownCloud uses Apache‘s .htaccess files, in order to

use them. We need to enable two Apache modules mod_rewrite and mod_headers for ownCloud to function properly. Type the following command to enable these modules under Debian based systems only, for RedHat systems they are enabled by default.

●

● # a2enmod rewrite● # a2enmod headers●

● Additionally, we need to enable mod_rewrite rules to work properly under Apache‘s main configuration file. Open the Apache global configuation file.

●

● # nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/default [For Debian based Systems]● # vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf [For RedHat based Systems]

Allowing ● There, find “AllowOverride None” and change this to

“AllowOverride All” as shown.●

● AllowOverride None●

● Change this to:●

● AllowOverride All●

● Now we need to restart Apache to reload new changes.●

● # service apache2 restart [For Debian based Systems]● # service httpd restart [For RedHat based Systems]

Access ownCloud Application● Now you can acess your very personal cloud

storage at:

● http://localhost/owncloud● OR

● http://your-ip-address/owncloud

● We need to enter username, password and mysql database username, password and database name, (Here the one we created above- cloud).

Screenshot of Access ownCloud Application

Login● Once all the correct values are entered, click Finish

and your private cloud storage is ready, you may have a test drive. Login to owncloud

Working Interface ● After successful login, you are greeted with the

working interface

Upload a picture file

Upload videos, pictures, PDF, etc similarly

Uploaded Mp3/Video Files

Note● You can add users or imports user account, change

password, assign user role and allocate space by clicking the Gear icon on left bottom of the page.

● You may now add folder, sync media files be it pictures, images and videos from the mobile application. Owncloud lets you add new user, and sync calendar, contacts, Media files, etc.

●

● It also has a built in MP3 Player, PDF Viewer, Document Viewer, and a lot many which is worth a try and explore. So what are you waiting for? Become a proud owner of private cloud storage, give it a try!

Thank You