The primary objective of this book is to provide an introduction to ownCloud, the different scenarios and use cases for it. It'll help beginners and new users to do a basic setup and use ownCloud in their daily lives. The book will also be helpful for advanced users and system administrators who want to indulge in slightly complex tasks such as LDAP integration and backups. For app developers, the book contains an introduction on developing ownCloud apps. After reading this book, the reader should be able to manage personal as well as corporate instances of ownCloud easily.
ownCloud's benefits are manifolds. While many reader might think of it as a tool to store and share files, it is much more than that. In today's world, protecting one's data and privacy from malicious elements on the Internet is of utmost importance. ownCloud gives the user control to their data. Encryption further strengthens the data confidentiality. With ownCloud apps, the functionality of ownCloud increases to a level where it has no match.
Chapter 1, Setting up ownCloud will get the reader started with ownCloud installation. It covers steps to install ownCloud on different operating systems. It also gives minor tweaks for improving the usability and helps the reader in picking up the right database for the different scenarios they may face.
Chapter 2, Usage of ownCloud and Its Apps introduces the reader to some common uses and apps of ownCloud. The chapter shows how common tasks such as uploading and sharing files can be done with ease using ownCloud. ownCloud's syncing capabilities among multitude of devices is highlighted here. Reader will also get a grasp of how to manage events and appointments using the ownCloud Calendar app, and how to use the ownCloud contacts app to maintain address books. We take a step ahead and talk about how to sync the Calendar events and contacts to a compatible third-party application.
Chapter 3, User Management And Admin Tools starts with introducing readers to basic administrative tasks such as users and group creation and management. It goes ahead deeper to accommodate corporate administrators who want to integrate LDAP or Active Directory with ownCloud. Later in the chapter, tips about how to enable file versioning and ZIP downloads are provided.
Chapter 4, Securing your ownCloud will help the readers in increasing the security of their web servers, Apache and Microsoft IIS. Further, the way to secure ownCloud data directory is discussed. Some standard MySQL securing tips are also provided in this chapter. At the end, there is an introductory text to ownCloud encryption.
Chapter 5, ownCloud Backup, Restore, and Logging discusses some common methods of backing up ownCloud and various other components such as database and restoring an ownCloud instance from the backups created before. Readers will also get to know about setting up a syslog server and configuring it to receive ownCloud logs.
Chapter 6, Load Balancing and HA for ownCloud provides with some basic strategies for load balancing large scale ownCloud installations. Readers will learn about setting up shared storage systems, for example, WebDAV and using them for storage instead of regular filesystem. Various load balancing algorithms and methods for Apache and Microsoft IIS are also discussed. At the end, we'll see how to use MySQL cluster feature to scale MySQL database as well.
Chapter 7, ownCloud Application Development will introduce the readers to ownCloud application development. This is particularly helpful to those who wish to extend the functionality of ownCloud. This chapter also presents a walk through a pre-written app as an example to make understand much easier.
The following are the minimum requirements for setting up ownCloud:
A web server (Apache or IIS)
PHP and certain PHP libraries as discussed in Chapter 1, Setting up ownCloud
A database (MySQL or SQLite)
Other than these requirements, a reader may install certain other components as per the interest and requirement. These tools and software are discussed in chapters individually.
This book is for all the ownCloud enthusiasts as well as ownCloud professionals. It'll help users in setting up and maintaining ownCloud instances easily while introducing them to the intricacies of the various setups.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "JavaScript files goes in the js directory."
A block of code is set as follows:
<Location />
DAV On
AuthType Basic
AuthName "webdav"
AuthUserFile /var/www/webdav/passwd.dav
Require valid-user
</Location>
</VirtualHost>Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
sudo yum install cadaver cadaverhttp://webdav.owncloudbook.com
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "We will first have to go to the Familiar Apps section."
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