OpenCloud on Raspberry Pi

1.1 Hardware requirements

• Minimum Raspberry Pi 4B with at least 4 GB RAM connected via LAN or WLAN
• Micro SD card with at least 32 GB storage space
• External hard disk or USB-Stick (optional) for additional storage space

1.2 Install operating system

• Install Raspberry Pi OS A very detailed and understandable guide is available at:
  Raspberry Pi Getting Started
• SSH must be activated

• If the Raspberry Pi is to be connected to WLAN, the login data for the WLAN must be entered.

1.3 Connecting with SSH

Start the Raspberry Pi with the SD card and connect via SSH.
The IP for this can be viewed in your router.

Establish connection via SSH:

ssh pi@YOUR-IP

After the first login, you should change the password for security reasons:

passwd

1.4 Installing Docker and Docker Compose

Detailed installation instructions for docker can be found here:
Install Docker on Raspberry Pi

• Perform update and upgrade

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

• Install Docker via Script

curl -fsSL test.docker.com -o get-docker.sh && sh get-docker.sh

• Add current user to the Docker Group

sudo usermod -aG docker ${USER}

• Check if it's running:

groups ${USER}

• Reboot the Raspberry Pi to let the changes take effect

sudo shutdown -r now

• Install Docker-Compose

sudo apt install docker-compose

• Check the installation

docker-compose --version

1.5 Clone OpenCloud repository

git clone https://github.com/opencloud-eu/opencloud.git

1.6 Start the docker compose setup

cd opencloud/deployments/examples/opencloud_full

docker compose up 

Now you have running OpenCloud locally on your RaspberryPi and you can adjust it to your needs. We will describe how you can mount an external disk or USB-Stick and make your OpenCloud available outside of the local network with No-IP

1.7 Mount external hard disk or USB-Stick

1. Find your external hard disk or USB-Stick on your Raspberry-Pi

lsblk

2. Format the drive to ext4 filesystem

sudo mkfs.ext4 PATH-TO-DRIVE -L DATA

PATH-TO-DRIVE is in this example /dev/sda1 so the command would be

sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1 -L DATA

3. Add entry in fstab for automatic mounting when restarting

• open fstab with sudo

  sudo nano /etc/fstab

• add the following line in the fstab file

LABEL=DATA /mnt/data ext4 auto,defaults 0 0

4. Create the /mnt/data directory and give the user 1000 access

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/data

sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /mnt/data

5. mount the drive automatically

sudo mount -a

Maybe you get following error

then please perform the recommended command

systemctl daemon-reload

and try to mount again.

1.8 Mount external storage

Stop the running docker

docker compose down

Go to the deployment folder and open the .env file with e.g. nano

cd opencloud/deployments/examples/opencloud_full

nano .env

When you added an external hard disk or USB-Stick for the storage, you need to set the OC_DATA_DIR variable and adjust the path to your storage

Here it is /mnt/data

Start the docker again

docker compose up

1.9 Make your OpenCloud available from outside

1. Create a DynDNS account and the hostname

To make your Raspberry Pi accessible from the outside, you need a DynDNS entry (dynamic DNS). This is necessary because Let's Encrypt only creates SSL certificates for domain names, not for IP addresses. A DynDNS service ensures that your Pi always remains accessible under a fixed domain, even if the IP address changes.

You can create a free DynDNS account at No-IP, for example. After registering, log in to the No-IP web interface and create a new host name under “Create Hostname”. In this example, we use opencloud.webhop.me as the address for the Raspberry Pi.

2. Configure DynDNS in your router

If your router supports integrated Dynamic DNS (DynDNS), you can update your IP address directly via the router. This eliminates the need to install the Dynamic Update Client (DUC) from No-IP on your Raspberry Pi. How to set up DDNS in the router:

• Log into your router's web interface (usually via 192.168.1.1 or a similar address).
• Search for the DDNS settings - these are usually located under Network, Internet or Dynamic DNS.
• Select No-IP as your provider from the list of supported DDNS services.
• Enter your No-IP credentials (username & password).
• Enter the hostname you previously created with No-IP (e.g. opencloud-at-home.ddns.net).
• Save the settings and test the connection.

The router will now automatically update your public IP address at No-IP so that your Raspberry Pi always remains accessible under the selected subdomain.

You can also look in the documentation from No-IP

3. Configure port forwarding in your router

To make your Raspberry Pi accessible from the Internet, you must set up port forwarding in your router. This means that requests from outside to certain ports are automatically forwarded to your Raspberry Pi in the local network.

1. Make sure that your Raspberry Pi always has the same IP address:

• By making a fixed DHCP assignment in the router settings
• Or via a static IP address in the network settings of your Pi

2. In the router menu, search for “Port forwarding”, “NAT” or “Port sharing” (the name may vary depending on the router model)

3. Create a new portforwarding with TCP for 80 and 443

Example from a Speedport 4

4. Change the OpenCloud domain in the configuration

Now you need to change the environment variable OC_DOMAIN in the .env file

1. Connect via ssh on your Raspberry-Pi

2. Navigate to the correct folder

cd opencloud/deployments/examples/opencloud_full

3. Stop running OpenCloud docker

docker compose down

4. open the .env file with e.g. nano

nano .env

5. Look for the OC_DOMAIN variable and enter your URL, here we used opencloud.webhop.me

6. Start the docker again

docker compose up

Now your OpenCloud should be reachable via your URL.