Raspbian with Joomla, Owncloud, SSL aka LAMP + website + NAS

Check out the final product at: https://blackbox.gg:86

Successfully implemented on Raspberry Pi 3 and 4, and also on a Raspberry Pi Zero W!

As it is a server, it runs headless (i.e., without display). First, however, you must download the Raspbian image and flash the image to your microSD card (there are instructions on how to do this). Set up Raspbian with a monitor and keyboard attached to the Pi (it will boot to Desktop), and go into Raspi Config to have the Pi boot to CLI (instead of Desktop) and to enable SSH. Take note of the IP address of the Pi in the upper right corner, when you hover over the Internet connection. Once this is done, reboot the Pi and use Putty to access the Pi once it's up and running, using the IP address. Username/password: pi/raspberry (or whatever password you chose).

When you use a domain name, or to access your project remotely, please enable port forwarding to your RPi3 on your router for ports 80 and 443.

Install Apache web server

Run the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install apache2 -y
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo systemctl restart apache2
sudo chown -R pi:www-data /var/www/html/
sudo chmod -R 770 /var/www/html/
sudo nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

Find the directory for /var/www/ and change the "AllowOverride" setting to "All":

Directory /var/www/
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All                       #<-changed
Require all granted
/Directory

Ctrl-X to exit, Y to save.

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf

You must update the domain name of the website you are building at this time. If you are content to host this internally, then you may skip this, but you will always have to use the IP address of the Raspberry Pi to access the site.

# multiple ports? add port numbers here; example with port 99 below:
# <VirtualHost *:80 *:99>
ServerName example.com 
ServerAdmin user@example.com

Ctrl-X to exit, Y to save. If you have added multiple ports in the .conf file, then also remember to add them in the ports.conf file:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/ports.conf

Under Listen 80, also add Listen 99 for example, if you want the Pi to listen on port 99. Ctrl-X to exit, Y to save.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Install MySQL

sudo apt install mariadb-server
sudo mysql_secure_installation

I usually say "Yes" to everything. You will also be asked to provide a password for the "root" user account. You can test that MySQL is running by entering:

sudo mysql -u root -p

Type quit to exit MySQL.

Install PHP

This article was originally prepared using PHP 5.6, but I have amended below instructions to use PHP 7.4. Moreover, Joomla will only run 4.1 with PHP 7.4 or higher.

sudo apt install php7.4 libapache2-mod-php7.4 php7.4-mbstring php7.4-mysql php7.4-curl php7.4-gd php7.4-zip php7.4-intl -y
sudo rm /var/www/html/index.html
echo "<?php phpinfo ();?>" > /var/www/html/info.php

Test that you have successfully set up PHP by entering your browser and using http://your-IP-address/info.php

Install Joomla

sudo wget https://downloads.joomla.org/cms/joomla4/4-1-2/Joomla_4-1-2-Stable-Full_Package.zip
sudo unzip Joomla_4-1-2-Stable-Full_Package.zip -d /var/www/html/ 
sudo rm Joomla_4-1-2-Stable-Full_Package.zip
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www
sudo systemctl restart apache2
sudo mysql -u root -p 
CREATE DATABASE joomladb; 
CREATE USER joomlauser@localhost; 
SET PASSWORD FOR 'joomlauser'@'localhost' = PASSWORD("my_12_character_password"); 
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON joomladb.* TO 'joomlauser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'my_12_character_password' WITH GRANT OPTION; 
FLUSH PRIVILEGES; 
quit 
sudo touch /etc/apache2/sites-available/joomla.conf 
sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/joomla.conf /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/joomla.conf 
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/joomla.conf

Add the following text into the newly created file:

<VirtualHost *:80>
# add additional ports in above line as you did for 000-default.conf
ServerAdmin admin@yourdomain.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/
ServerName your-domain.com
ServerAlias www.your-domain.com
<Directory /var/www/html/>
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/your-domain.com-error_log
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/your-domain.com-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

Ctrl-X to exit, Y to save.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Configure your Joomla setup by accessing the URL: http://your-IP-address/index.php

There are about many questions to answer; but if you have used Joomla before, they should be self-explanatory. Version 4.1 is much simplified versus its 3.x predecessor version. It's important is to link Joomla with MySQL, by giving the username (joomlauser) and password you specified, and referring to joomladb as the database you just set up.

Install PhpMyAdmin

During the setup of PHPMyAdmin, you will be asked some questions; choose Apache and Yes to the DB Common. You will be asked to provide a password for the "phpmyadmin" user account as well.

sudo apt install phpmyadmin
sudo nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

You must add an include to the end of the apache.conf file:

Include /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf

Ctrl-X to exit, Y to save.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

To access PHPMyAdmin, you can access using the new link: http://your-IP-address/phpmyadmin

Install OwnCloud (with Webdav!)

cd /home/pi/Downloads
sudo wget https://download.owncloud.org/community/owncloud-latest.tar.bz2
sudo tar xvf owncloud-latest.tar.bz2
sudo rm owncloud-latest.tar.bz2
sudo mv owncloud/ /var/www 
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf

You must add an alias for Owncloud before the </VirtualHost:>

Alias /owncloud "/var/www/owncloud/" 
<Directory "/var/www/owncloud/"> 
Order allow,deny 
Allow from all 
Require all granted 
</Directory>

Ctrl-X to exit, Y to save.

sudo mysql -u root -p
CREATE DATABASE owncloud;
GRANT ALL ON owncloud.* to 'owncloud'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'my_password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
quit
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www

Configure OwnCloud by accessing the URL at http://my-IP-address/owncloud

When completing the configuration, instead of using MySQLLite, please make sure to refer to the MySQL database owncloud, and give the username (root) and password you set up.

In order to upload images, templates, modules, plugins and extensions to Joomla (so you can configure your website), it's useful to map the Joomla directory in Owncloud.

sudo nano /var/www/owncloud/config/config.php

Add the following towards the end of the config file but before the close brackets );

'files_external_allow_create_new_local' => true,

Additionally, when you use example.com instead of an IP address, you will want to add it here too:

'trusted_domains' => array ( 
  0 => '192.168.x.x',
  1 => 'example.com',
),

Ctrl X to exit, Y to save. In Owncloud, go to Apps, and enable External Storage Support. Then go to Admin, External Storage, and add a folder named Joomla, defined as local external storage, with configuration /var/www/html (no authentication, leave "Available for" blank, so it defaults as "All users").

Make sure you add your domain as a trusted domain on Owncloud before proceeding. You can do this by typing: http://my-ip-address/owncloud/index.php/settings/admin?trustDomain=example.com

Incidentally, there is also an app for Android and iOS which is as good as Dropbox, only it's your own NAS with no storage limits (except what can fit on your drive). You will need to set up port forwarding to the Pi 3 for ports 80 and 443 on your router in order for this to work outside your home network.

Webdav

Webdav also works. The URL is:

http://my-ip-address/owncloud/remote.php/webdav/

Kindly note that for the Webdav to be accessible on a Windows 7-10 PC, you must change the registry setting on your Windows PC. Go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WebClient\Parameters

and change BasicAuthLevel to the value 2. If you install an SSL cert (below), then you can potentially avoid above registry change on your Windows 7/8/10 PC.

Mount an external USB drive for the true NAS experience

Additionally, consider mounting an external USB drive to a newly made directory on your newly made server. With the newest Raspian Pixel, the external drive may automatically mount to /media/pi/..., which you will need to first unmount, using the sudo umount /media/pi/... command before you perform the below.

sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g
sudo apt-get install smbclient
sudo mkdir /media/external
sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /media/external
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /media/external 
sudo chmod -R 777 /media/external
sudo systemctl restart apache2.service

Go into OwnCloud apps, and enable the External Storage plugin, go to Admin, and map the mounted drive to your OwnCloud (External, Local, None, /media/external, All users). You may want to also set up access to your Joomla directory here for configuration purposes (Joomla, Local, None, /var/www/html , All users).

I have had permissions issues with OwnCloud "seeing" the files in the mounted drive, but one thing which worked well for me is sudo -u www-data php console.php files:scan --all which appears to repair this.

Kindly note: whenever you reboot the RPi3, you will have to re-mount the drive, or OwnCloud will not see it.

SSL Encryption Certificate with Let's Encrypt

Also, give Lets Encrypt a go!

sudo apt install python3-certbot-apache
sudo certbot --apache

You will need to answer a few questions, but that's it! To renew the certificate (when you receive a reminder email that your certificate is expiring), I just ran:

sudo certbot renew

Troubleshooting: in some cases, Apache doesn't "see" the certificate that the Let's Encrypt script makes reference to in the newly created xxx-le-ssl.conf file located in the /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/ folder. When this happens, you can run:

sudo a2enmod default-ssl
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/default-ssl.conf

and replace the location of the two certs with the location given by Let's Encrypt. If you're using multiple ports, remember to do the same for the SSL ports as you did earlier (i.e., add Listen commands to port.conf in both places below Listen 443, and add the port numbers to all the *-ssl.conf files, where you specify the virtual host listening ports after *:443). Don't forget to then restart the apache service with:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Enjoy!