How to deploy cloud office suite on home network?

The big advantage of installing an open source Linux operating system on your home network is that you can migrate many of the services you’re used to at home. Imagine that you have your own internal cloud service with Nextcloud. You no longer need to rely on Google Drive, OneCloud or iCloud to store your most sensitive information.

Personally, I’m not afraid to put documents and other files on Google Drive. On the other hand, I have files that I prefer to keep at home. And at the same time, I need to be able to access these files from anywhere on my home network. That’s why I use Nextcloud.

What if you want a cloud-based office suite installed on your network that anyone in your family or small business can use? For this, too, there is a solution called OnlyOffice, which combines the functions of projects, CRM, mail, contacts and documents.

Even if you are not a computer person, you just need to know how to copy and paste a few commands into the terminal. So, if you’re a little curious, read on.

How to install Docker

Before you begin, you must have an Ubuntu server instance. Keep one thing in mind: make sure you have more than 40 GB of free space on your server.

Ready to copy and paste commands? Let’s get to work.

1. Login to Ubuntu Server

The first thing you need to do is connect to your Ubuntu Server instance.

2. Install dependencies

Install the required dependencies by pasting the following command into the terminal and pressing the key Entrance from your keyboard:

sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl gnupg lsb-release -y

3. Add a GPG key

GPG keys ensure that the software you are about to install is signed by the developer (in this case, Docker).

To do this, you need to add the official Docker GPG key by pasting the following command into your terminal and pressing the key Entrance from your keyboard:

curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg –dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg

4. Add a Docker Repository

To install Docker, we now need to copy and paste the command to install the official repository. This command:

echo “deb [arch=$(dpkg –print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) stable” | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

5. Install Docker

Now you can install Docker with the following command:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io -y

6. Add your user to the Docker group

The final step in installing Docker is to add your user to the Docker group so that you can run Docker commands without root privileges (which can be a security issue). To do this, run the command below. Then log out and log back in to the server for the changes to take effect.

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Deploying OnlyOffice

We are now ready to deploy the OnlyOffice office suite. Luckily, there is a very handy script that takes care of this. Download the script with the command:

wget https://download.onlyoffice.com/install/workspace-install.sh

Run the script with the command:

sudo bash workspace-install.sh

The script takes a long time to run. When you’re done, give the containers time to install (about five minutes), then open a web browser and point to http://SERVER (where SERVER is the IP address of your Ubuntu server). If you don’t know the server’s IP address, you can find it with the command:

You will see an installation progress bar. This step of the process can take up to 30 minutes. When it completes, an installation window will appear where you need to create an administrator password, register an email address for OnlyOffice, and select a language and time zone.

Then accept the license terms and click Continue.

OnlyOffice web installer.