Report post You have 30 minutes to complete this form before the CAPTCHA will expire. Security image * Required field JavaScript is required to view this page. Either you do not have JavaScript enabled in your web browser, you do not have cookies enabled in your web browser, or this website is misconfigured such that cookies do not save correctly. This is a reported post for a post in the topic <input class="cms_keep_ui_controlled" size="45" title="[post param="NextCloud"]292[/post]" type="button" value="post Comcode tag (dbl-click to edit/delete)" />, by jacobgkau<br /><br /><comcode-quote param="2">I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to you, I started a new full-time network technician job yesterday (Monday), so I've been very busy. I'll read through your posts now and respond to any questions I see.<br /><br /><comcode-quote param="1123artc">Is it possible to set up my own web server for which I can then use Let's Encrypt, and have NextCloud running at my known physical location and accessible over the internet? I'm still researching this online, but have been coming up short.<br /><input class="cms_keep_ui_controlled" size="45" title="[snapback]287[/snapback]" type="button" value="snapback Comcode tag (dbl-click to edit/delete)" /></comcode-quote>It's entirely possible to host your own Nextcloud server at home, I did this myself for years. I would actually recommend home-hosting over a VPS because it gives you more control.<br /><br /><comcode-quote param="1123artc">For more detail, the error I received was right after editing the 000-default.conf file to include the server name. Running "certbot –apache", while asking if I'd like to activate HTTPS for the name I used, wound up resulting in an failure after "Cleaning up challenges" stating "The server could not resolve a domain name :: No valid IP addresses found for mydomain.com".<br /><input class="cms_keep_ui_controlled" size="45" title="[snapback]288[/snapback]" type="button" value="snapback Comcode tag (dbl-click to edit/delete)" /></comcode-quote>If that's a literal copy-paste error message, the issue is that "mydomain.com" is obviously an example domain name and not one that you control.<br /><br /><comcode-quote param="1123artc">Which I then figured the issue was because I was using my private IP address instead of a public one from a web server.<br /><input class="cms_keep_ui_controlled" size="45" title="[snapback]288[/snapback]" type="button" value="snapback Comcode tag (dbl-click to edit/delete)" /></comcode-quote>To be clear, your PC (or, rather, your home internet connection) <i>does</i> have a public IP address. You can find it by going to DuckDuckGo and searching "what is my ip", then look at the info it returns at the top or use any of the websites in the results. Your home router performs Network Address Translation (NAT) to translate that single public IP into a separate private one for each of your devices.<br /><br /><comcode-quote param="1123artc">I came across this guide: <snip> which outlines additional software needs that I believe weren't in the NOTS tutorial as a VPS was being used. Examples are installation of LAMP, APCu, and Redis.<br /><input class="cms_keep_ui_controlled" size="45" title="[snapback]289[/snapback]" type="button" value="snapback Comcode tag (dbl-click to edit/delete)" /></comcode-quote>LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL/MariaDB, and PHP. All four of those things were included in my tutorial. APCu and Redis are memory caching tools, which were also covered in the tutorial.<br /><br /><comcode-quote param="1123artc">At this point, I figure it must be possible as people host their own sites all the time….<br /><br />Some other reading I've done recommends not hosting one's own server as there are a number of disadvantages, but I'm doing this more as a learning exercise than anything, so I'll continue on that front.<br /><input class="cms_keep_ui_controlled" size="45" title="[snapback]289[/snapback]" type="button" value="snapback Comcode tag (dbl-click to edit/delete)" /></comcode-quote>That's bad advice in my opinion. A home-hosted server gives you complete physical control over your data. The only downsides are that your internet connection may not be very fast and your public IP address is liable to change.<br /><br /><comcode-quote param="1123artc">Looking back at the video, the main discrepancy from my approach is that Jacob does SSH into the root at the IP address provided for Digital Ocean's VPS. That's effectively where I deviate. I guess at this point, my question is:<br /><br />"Is it possible to obtain and SSH into a public IP address on a web server run from my computer at home with no additional hardware, such that I can use Let's Encrypt to get HTTPS when accessing the server?"<br /><br />Alternatively, if that isn't possible:<br /><br />"Is there another simple means of encrypting the private IP address of my PC to get HTTPS when accessing the server over the internet?"<br /><input class="cms_keep_ui_controlled" size="45" title="[snapback]290[/snapback]" type="button" value="snapback Comcode tag (dbl-click to edit/delete)" /></comcode-quote>Like I said, you <i>have</i> a public IP address. You need to find out what that is (very easy to do, just search for it and use any of the tools listed.) Personally, I would register yourself a domain name to make things easier, and set an A record pointing the domain name to your home's IP address; that way, if/when your home's IP address changes (because ISPs don't usually guarantee static IPs for residential connections), you can log into your domain registrar and update the IP address while keeping the domain name the same. Alternatively, if your IP changes too often, there are a number of dynamic DNS resolvers that will basically check what your public IP is periodically (from one of your local machines) and update your domain name for you.<br /><br /><comcode-quote param="1123artc">Following the NOTS video on "Setting up a home web server", I was made aware of port forwarding. Researching more into this now.<br /><input class="cms_keep_ui_controlled" size="45" title="[snapback]291[/snapback]" type="button" value="snapback Comcode tag (dbl-click to edit/delete)" /></comcode-quote>Once you've figured out your public IP address, you will need to go into your router and set a port forward for ports 80 and 443 pointing to the <i>private</i> IP address of your web server. That's how your router knows which device to forward unsolicited requests for those ports to. I can't give specific details on that because it's different for every router, but basically, you should find a settings screen where you can select the outside port (80 and 443, both TCP and UDP for simplicity although HTTP/HTTPS use TCP) and the private IP address (what your web server thinks its IP address is.)<br /><br />I know that's a lot of info, and I also just had to re-type a lot of it because I lost the post I was working on (I guess I need to do some UX research on my website, because right now clicking "whisper" on a post completely trashes anything in the quick reply field.) Let me know if you understand all of that or if you have further questions about any of it. When I used to home-host my Nextcloud server, I had cloud.nerdonthestreet.com resolving to my home's public IP address, and then my router had port forwarding for 80 and 443 sending requests to my web server, which was usually running Debian.<br /></comcode-quote><br />//// PUT YOUR REPORT BELOW \\\\<br /><br /> Add: Add: Font Size Color [Font] Arial Courier Georgia Impact Times Trebuchet Verdana Tahoma Geneva Helvetica [Size] 0.8 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 4 [Color] Black Blue Gray Green Orange Purple Red White Yellow This is a reported post for a post in the topic [post param="NextCloud"]292[/post], by jacobgkau [quote="2"] I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to you, I started a new full-time network technician job yesterday (Monday), so I've been very busy. I'll read through your posts now and respond to any questions I see. [quote param="1123artc"]Is it possible to set up my own web server for which I can then use Let's Encrypt, and have NextCloud running at my known physical location and accessible over the internet? I'm still researching this online, but have been coming up short. [snapback]287[/snapback][/quote] It's entirely possible to host your own Nextcloud server at home, I did this myself for years. I would actually recommend home-hosting over a VPS because it gives you more control. [quote param="1123artc"]For more detail, the error I received was right after editing the 000-default.conf file to include the server name. Running "certbot –apache", while asking if I'd like to activate HTTPS for the name I used, wound up resulting in an failure after "Cleaning up challenges" stating "The server could not resolve a domain name :: No valid IP addresses found for mydomain.com". [snapback]288[/snapback][/quote] If that's a literal copy-paste error message, the issue is that "mydomain.com" is obviously an example domain name and not one that you control. [quote param="1123artc"]Which I then figured the issue was because I was using my private IP address instead of a public one from a web server. [snapback]288[/snapback][/quote] To be clear, your PC (or, rather, your home internet connection) [i]does[/i] have a public IP address. You can find it by going to DuckDuckGo and searching "what is my ip", then look at the info it returns at the top or use any of the websites in the results. Your home router performs Network Address Translation (NAT) to translate that single public IP into a separate private one for each of your devices. [quote param="1123artc"]I came across this guide: <snip> which outlines additional software needs that I believe weren't in the NOTS tutorial as a VPS was being used. Examples are installation of LAMP, APCu, and Redis. [snapback]289[/snapback][/quote] LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL/MariaDB, and PHP. All four of those things were included in my tutorial. APCu and Redis are memory caching tools, which were also covered in the tutorial. [quote param="1123artc"]At this point, I figure it must be possible as people host their own sites all the time…. Some other reading I've done recommends not hosting one's own server as there are a number of disadvantages, but I'm doing this more as a learning exercise than anything, so I'll continue on that front. [snapback]289[/snapback][/quote] That's bad advice in my opinion. A home-hosted server gives you complete physical control over your data. The only downsides are that your internet connection may not be very fast and your public IP address is liable to change. [quote param="1123artc"]Looking back at the video, the main discrepancy from my approach is that Jacob does SSH into the root at the IP address provided for Digital Ocean's VPS. That's effectively where I deviate. I guess at this point, my question is: "Is it possible to obtain and SSH into a public IP address on a web server run from my computer at home with no additional hardware, such that I can use Let's Encrypt to get HTTPS when accessing the server?" Alternatively, if that isn't possible: "Is there another simple means of encrypting the private IP address of my PC to get HTTPS when accessing the server over the internet?" [snapback]290[/snapback][/quote] Like I said, you [i]have[/i] a public IP address. You need to find out what that is (very easy to do, just search for it and use any of the tools listed.) Personally, I would register yourself a domain name to make things easier, and set an A record pointing the domain name to your home's IP address; that way, if/when your home's IP address changes (because ISPs don't usually guarantee static IPs for residential connections), you can log into your domain registrar and update the IP address while keeping the domain name the same. Alternatively, if your IP changes too often, there are a number of dynamic DNS resolvers that will basically check what your public IP is periodically (from one of your local machines) and update your domain name for you. [quote param="1123artc"]Following the NOTS video on "Setting up a home web server", I was made aware of port forwarding. Researching more into this now. [snapback]291[/snapback][/quote] Once you've figured out your public IP address, you will need to go into your router and set a port forward for ports 80 and 443 pointing to the [i]private[/i] IP address of your web server. That's how your router knows which device to forward unsolicited requests for those ports to. I can't give specific details on that because it's different for every router, but basically, you should find a settings screen where you can select the outside port (80 and 443, both TCP and UDP for simplicity although HTTP/HTTPS use TCP) and the private IP address (what your web server thinks its IP address is.) I know that's a lot of info, and I also just had to re-type a lot of it because I lost the post I was working on (I guess I need to do some UX research on my website, because right now clicking "whisper" on a post completely trashes anything in the quick reply field.) Let me know if you understand all of that or if you have further questions about any of it. When I used to home-host my Nextcloud server, I had cloud.nerdonthestreet.com resolving to my home's public IP address, and then my router had port forwarding for 80 and 443 sending requests to my web server, which was usually running Debian. [/quote] //// PUT YOUR REPORT BELOW \\\\ Use of this website implies that you agree to the website rules and privacy policy.
