I recently decided to use the calendar feature in nextcloud to replace Google Calendar.

In this post, I show how to:

install nextcloud (v19) on a clean Ubuntu 18.04 install. I followed nextcloud's documentation and added missing commands I had to execute to get a working setup
setup the calendar in the iPhone, MacOS and Thunderbird in Linux
backup

Installation on Ubuntu 18.04

Packages from apt

# as root
add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) universe"
apt-get install -y apache2 mariadb-server libapache2-mod-php7.2
apt-get install -y php7.2-gd php7.2-json php7.2-mysql php7.2-curl php7.2-mbstring
apt-get install -y php7.2-intl php-imagick php7.2-xml php7.2-zip
apt-get install -y unzip

In Ubuntu 20.04, install php 7.4 packages instead.

Download Nextcloud

cd /var/www/
wget https://download.nextcloud.com/server/releases/nextcloud-19.0.0.zip
unzip nextcloud-19.0.0.zip
mv nextcloud-19.0.0.zip ~/

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

Configure Apache

vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/nextcloud.conf
# add this text:

Alias /nextcloud "/var/www/nextcloud/"

<Directory /var/www/nextcloud/>
  Require all granted
  AllowOverride All
  Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews

  <IfModule mod_dav.c>
    Dav off
  </IfModule>

</Directory>

Enable site and modules:

a2ensite nextcloud.conf
a2enmod rewrite
a2enmod headers
a2enmod env
a2enmod dir
a2enmod mime
a2enmod ssl
a2ensite default-ssl

systemctl reload apache2

Configure MariaDB

vim /etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-server.cnf
# add in section [mysqld]:

transaction_isolation = READ-COMMITTED
binlog_format = ROW

Start MariaDB shell:

mysql -uroot -p
# Press enter at `Enter password`

Create a database user and a database:

CREATE USER 'dbusername'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'dbpassword';
CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS nextcloud CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_general_ci;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES on nextcloud.* to 'dbusername'@'localhost';
FLUSH privileges;
quit;

Https certificate

A valid certificate is mandatory to be able to use the calendar from Apple devices.

First, setup a dns record to point to your nextcloud server, for example: nc.example.com. You will access nextcloud with the url: https://nc.example.com/nextcloud/

Install Letsencrypt certbot:

add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
apt-get install certbot python3-certbot-apache
certbot --apache

A systemd timer is already setup so the certificate is renewed regularly:

systemctl list-timers

Add your domain in nextcloud's configuration:

vim /var/www/nextcloud/config/config.php

<?php
$CONFIG = array (
  ...
  'trusted_domains' =>
  array (
    0 => 'public ip',
    1 => 'nc.example.com',
  ),
  ...

iPhone calendar

If you already have a calendar, export it in ics format and import it in nextcloud:

On the lower left corner, click Settings & Import
Click Import Calendar

In the iPhone:

Open the settings application.
Select Passwords and Accounts.
Select Add Account.
Select Other as account type.
Select Add CalDAV account.
For server, type the domain name of your server i.e. https://nc.example.com/nextcloud/remote.php/dav/principals/users/username/. You can get the link by clicking Settings & Import and then Copy iOS/macOS CalDAV address
Enter your user name and password.
Select Next.

MacOS calendar

Open Calendar menu
Select Add Account.
Select Other CalDAV account.
Select Account Type Advanced.
For Server Address, type the domain name of your server i.e. https://nc.example.com. You can get the link by clicking Settings & Import and then Copy iOS/macOS CalDAV address
For Server Path, type: /nextcloud/remote.php/dav/principals/users/username/
For port, type 443
Enter your user name and password.
Select Sign In.

Thunderbird calendar in Linux

The CalDAV url for thunderbird is different from the url for macOS and iOS, so get the calendar address by doing this:

In nextcloud calendar, click ... next to the calendar name
Select Copy private link
The url looks like: https://nc.example.com/nextcloud/remote.php/dav/calendars/username/calendarname/

In thunderbird:

In the calendar list, right click and select New Calendar
Select On the Network
Select Format CalDAV
In Username, enter your nextcloud username
In Location, enter the calendar url
Select Next
Enter calendar name
Choose color
Select Next
Select Finish

Backup

Backup calendar only

In Firefox:

Open https://nc.example.com/nextcloud/remote.php/dav/calendars/username/calendarname?export
Save ics file

From command line, for automated backup:

wget --user nextcloudUsername --password nextcloudPassword -O calendarName-`date +"%Y%m%d"`.ics https://nc.example.com/nextcloud/remote.php/dav/calendars/nextcloudUsername/calendarName?export

Create backup

vim /var/www/nextcloud/config/config.php

<?php

 "maintenance" => true,

Set maintenance to false when finished.

Folders:

rsync -Aavx nextcloud/ nextcloud-dirbkp_`date +"%Y%m%d"`/

MariaDB:

mysqldump --single-transaction -h [server] -u [username] -p[password] [db_name] > nextcloud-sqlbkp_`date +"%Y%m%d"`.bak

Restore

Folders:

rsync -Aax nextcloud-dirbkp/ nextcloud/

MariaDB:

Before restoring a backup you need to make sure to delete all existing database tables.

mysql -h [server] -u [username] -p[password] -e "DROP DATABASE nextcloud"
mysql -h [server] -u [username] -p[password] -e "CREATE DATABASE nextcloud"

mysql -h [server] -u [username] -p[password] [db_name] < nextcloud-sqlbkp.bak

Nextcloud documentation

hashtags: #nextcloud