I’m looking for something to replace cloud storage for myself and family. I’ve tried to use/like NextCloud but honestly I despise it. The UI/UX really bothers me, and administering it is a pain. It also just does way more that I want or need.
What I’m looking for:
- Supports a virtual/sync folder on Mac. Like iCloud does, it needs to create a local folder on a Mac. I personally just use SMB, but for family members that’s not as easy (see next point).
- Accessible from the internet. I don’t want to put my family members on the VPN, but I do have a central OAuth for other stuff so I want it to be secured with behind that.
- Doesn’t need to have a web interface or phone app. If it integrates into the computer, it doesn’t really need this. I can just use (FileBrowser)[https://filebrowser.org/]. It’s mostly used for documents and the like, so desktop/laptop use is the most important.
Anyone use anything that fits this? Or anyone in general dislike NextCloud and use something else?
Edit: Maybe I can just setup webdav and use something like https://mountainduck.io/? Would be better to find something FOSS though, if possible.
Maybe syncthing?
This. Syncthing is weird at first, but once you get it, it’s simply perfect! Simple, straightforward, decentralized and to the point.
Aren’t they not the same thing at all?
+1 For Seafile. They put out a docker image that works well. It hasthe fastest sync I’ve ever seen and it has good clients.
Does Seafile store data in a flat file, or as files/folder hierarchy on disk?
It stores it however you want it stored, bby ;)
Okay I’m trying out seafile and it seems awesome, so maybe that will be the way to go.
It stores them in a custom format in blocks, which is the only real downside because that means it can’t interop with things like FTP or SMB
I haven’t tried it but it can theoretically support webdav. You can also mount it read only via fuse with a bit of effort.
Those are both on my list of things to experiment with. I love the speed but I miss the real files of NextCloud.
It does allow you to found the files, just not via smb or ftp. It requires it’s own filesystem but works very well.
https://manual.seafile.com/extension/fuse/
I’ve tested this on my backups for which I use borg backup.
First I mount a remote borg repository using one command. Then mount the seafile repository via the fuse command above.
Note that the sea drive client app does the same thing as above but in the gui and mounts the library as a virtual hard drive.
https://help.seafile.com/drive_client/drive_client_for_win10/
This is different than the actual seafile client app which is the standard folder sync / Dropbox like behavior that most users will only ever use. All the other things I mentioned above are for advanced use cases only and not normally needed but very nice to have.
BTW authentik for Single sign on works super well
Oh this is huge. Just tested that out and it’s very cool. I need to figure out how to host it properly behind my reverse proxy though. Seems like it has nginx build in but that’s conflicting I think with my traefik that I put everything behind…
Om using it with traefik and don’t havr anything special other than my standard traefik labels that i put on all docker containers.
Make sure you have added this to the config: https://forum.seafile.com/t/csrf-verification-failed-error-after-upgrading-from-ce-9-0-10-top-11-0-4/19257
Also on first boot you might still have to login with the IP address and set the URL in the settings
Afyer that it all worked well with traefik and authentik
Still having trouble, but it might be because the service itself is unhealthy because I cant connect even directly with the ip. Something I’ve learned already about Seafile that I don’t love: debugging it is a massive pain. Why TF are the config files spread out across like 15 different python files lol. Seems like a crazy setup to me.
Is this a fresh install? Why is there any debugging? To just connect with an ip requires no config files at all.
I only changed 1 config file add the crfs URL and also added some lines for oAuth. No config file changes are needed by default. It’s all docker compose
ITT: where the hell is Owncloud coming from? It’s barely maintained, its now owned by some shitbirds, and it’s like a poor version of Nextcloud.
I haven’t heard anyone talk of Owncloud in years, it’s like the OpenOffice of sync suites.
I was thinking that too! I’ve basically never heard of anyone using it, but everyone here prompted me to check it out. Turns out they have a new version that’s a re-write in go which is neat. Just tried it out and… It’s not exactly good. UI at least is pretty broken haha
At this point why not just run… no software? A plain Linux VPS server. And plain files.
You can do two-way sync with Syncthing or Unison. One way sync with rsync. Can mount external or network drives for almost unlimited storage expansions. Easy access from mobile devices via SFTP. Everything with single (passwordless) login for every member. And above all run any arbitrary command.
This sort of thing works fine for me, but falls apart a bit with non-technical users (aka my family). Even syncthing is actually pretty difficult to use IMO (compared to google drive or the like). I’d have to manually setup and maintain this on all their devices basically
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web IP Internet Protocol VPN Virtual Private Network VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting) nginx Popular HTTP server
4 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 15 acronyms.
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Pydio Cells, just to give another option.
Pydio used to be called ajaxplorer and was a pretty solid and lightweight (although featureful) solution, but then they rewrote the UI with lots of misguided choices (touch controls and android inspired interactions on desktop devices) and it became so horrendous, heavy and clunky that I almost forgot about it. I wonder if they reversed the trend (but from the screenshots it doesn’t look so).
What I’d really like is something more akin to google drive streaming. Let me see all the files in the file system but only go get them if I try to open it. I don’t have room for all 2TB of files on my laptop but I don’t want to constantly go click on which folders to sync either.
I am running OCIS on a Raspberry Pi at home. I like it. The Android app is not the best, but you dont need that.
I’m too, but recently I encountered a problem that’s making me think of changing software. Do you know if or how to remove the max download limit from the webUi? The ocis documentation is shit
Here to say Seafile. I also don’t like nextcloud. I used pydio cells for a while but the windows sync client absolutely never worked for me. Seafile has been flawless for 2 months for me.
After being really desapoonted by NC, I feel ownckoud is much superior. No joke.
Like others already mentioned, seafile is a solid option too.
OwnCloud has been acquired by KiteWorks a few months ago. Doesn’t have to mean anything, but makes me feel cautious about it’s future.
Interesting! What’s better about owncloud?
No bloat, super fast, just works out of the box.
Ocis was even faster.
Seafile?
How about nextcloud with only the bare minimum amount of plugins? Filles alone is pretty snappy.
https://www.spacedrive.com/ will be later connectable with different Protocolls.
That looks really interesting! I will have to add it to my list to check out
I wouldn’t make any storage accessible to the internet without VPN.
Might not be technically what you are asking for, but you really can’t go wrong with Synology for this stuff.
I just finished building a cloud solution leveraging an AWS EFS (elastic file system), a secure ZeroTier mesh, and a simple EC2 instance (vm) running Samba (or just sshfs/scp/sftp if multi-user file locking isn’t needed). EFS does have some pretty big limitations like the fact users can’t be in more than 16 groups (because it behaves like an NFS mount), and it lacks xattr and ACL support. Still, if you can work around these shortcomings you can build a very secure, surprisingly speedy cloud filesystem. Largest expense is the EFS, but after 30 days infrequently accessed files automatically move to slower storage, which is way cheaper. ZeroTier is an important piece of the puzzle, making your security and encryption a breeze. This allows you to run SMB over the internet without actually exposing any services. Connections are only made through your ZT mesh, which is highly secure.
I run Tailscale which is basically the same a ZeroTier, so I theoretically could do this, but I’m not super enthused about having to put family members onto my VPN. I’d have to do some complicated networking stuff to keep things secure (aka make sure “normal” users don’t have access to machines and systems they shouldn’t). That said, I should look into it because if there is an easy way to do that, then this could be the simplest way
Yeah, they provide a “Flow” section where you can setup firewall-like rules to control your flow of traffic. You can configure rules that say, allow ssh to a specific server, but only from a specified devices, while allowing ssh, https and smb to another server from any device, blocking all other TCP traffic. UDP is a little weirder to control, but there’s a decent tutorial with example configs.
I hear about TailScale a lot, and I know its super popular in the self-hosting & linux communities. I haven’t used it myself though, so can’t offer a comparison vs ZeroTier. I found ZeroTier refreshjngly easy to use and install on client devices, so haven’t had reason to look elsewhere yet.
Anyway, have fun with your endeavor!
