Quick default installation, Static IP and External Storage

[Hamsterman]

I have been trying out the VM a few times now and succeeded on the 3rd try. I have a few "issues" which are more like enhancements.

1. Quick default installation
   One thing that comes to mind is that there are too many obvious questions like selecting the if you want other mirrors or the keyboard selection.
   If you want the installation to be very smooth then put a list of selections in the beginning and then an option for selecting each one of them. I think it would work for many of the question (but probably not all).

2. Static IP
   I actually had some issues here. When you give the possibillity to set the IP as a static IP you do not give the possibillity to change it. I had to run the installation a few times in order to guess the MAC-adresse for my server so I could let my router assign the correct IP. Yes I know you can change it afterwards, but for a non-linux guy like me I think the other way was easier.

3. External Storage
   The VM here on Github got about 20GB space which is probably not enough for most installations. Expanding the VM to a bigger size is really not a good idea since having the files on a External Storage is more flexible and better for backup. I would love to have the option to specify another storage location than the VM for the home directory of all the users at the time of the installation.

[enoch85]

1. If you have Swedish keyboard you don't want to change. If you are in the correct timezone, you don't want to change, etc. etc. Won't fix Maybe some day

2. We had that before, but it gave us more problems as users didn't know what to change and ended up in making issues like "my network isn't working". As you said you can always change it afterwards.
   Also, this is kind of what you were asking for in you first question. We made it default, and if you want to change we give you instructions how to. Won't fix

Really not a good idea

Why? You can have your whole VM on another storage, and there is no difference in backing up your external storage or backing up your VM storage. Tech and Me have the whole hypervisor storage on a FreeNAS which means that the VMs itself are hosted in a "External Storage" with no disks on the serrver itself. Backups are made with both Veeam and Rsync - just as an example.

For people that want larger space, we have both a guide how to expand your disk, and we have pre-configured larger VMs. If you want external storage over NFS we have guides for that as well on https://www.techandme.se/

Feel free to make a PR to solve the issue and I'll have a look and implement it.

[thejohnha]

I actually agree with @Hamsterman on point #1. It would be very nice to be able to answer all of the script's questions in the beginning instead of having to wait for the script and continuously check in on it like a pot of risotto.

[enoch85]

@thejohnha Thanks for your input.

Things happen in a special order because it's needed. E.g SSL must be installed and running to be able to use Collabora or OnlyOffice, the while loop with all the extra apps is a section in itself, also the change of MariaDB PW must take place where it does.

I'm thinking it may be possible to have a menu in the beginning maybe and make all the different sections in the script a function instead. Though it would require quite much effort and time which I don't have right now. This is a "nice to have" improvement and nothing critical.

Feel free to make a PR and contribute back to the project. :)

[thejohnha]

By the way, thanks for all your hard work on this project, Daniel.
I was thinking it would be nice to have all of the constants in a configuration file, similar to like an httpd.conf file, with all of the answers to the script's questions. Even putting in the MariaDB PW there while the script runs. Then just delete the script afterwards.

I think it would be far more efficient if you edited the script because I'm not a programmer. But if you need sponsorship, perhaps I can buy some support credits from your website for the work.

[enoch85]

@thejohnha Thanks for the offer. The thing is I have a full time job, plus all the support I give to already paying customers.

So time is very limited right now.

[enoch85]

If someone wants to work with this, @PietsHost has a nice script here: https://github.com/PietsHost/Nextcloud-Installation-Script/blob/master/nc_install.sh that you can get inspiration from.

[thejohnha]

Thanks @enoch85.
I'm not a software engineer, but I forked your repo (at https://github.com/thejohnha/vm/) and tried the following as a simple test:

1. put a new variable near the top of nextcloud_install_production.sh like this: CREATE_NEW_USER="no"
2. nest the if statement in adduser.sh with:
   if [ $CREATE_NEW_USER != "no" ] then if [[ "no" == $(ask_yes_or_no "Do you want to create a new user?") ]]]

But that didn't seem to work. Perhaps the variable isn't getting passed correctly to adduser.sh ?

Also, I think the script will always pull lib.sh from the official repo. Is there a better way to use my fork for testing than just git clone my_fork and then running sudo bash on the script?

If you think you can give me some tips to get started I would be happy to buy a 30 or 60 support package from your website. Let me know, thanks.

[enoch85]

@thejohnha The reason why it pulls the lib.sh from master is that yo have to change this line in every script so that it pulls from your master instead. You also have to put every variable in the lib.sh that you want to use in the code.

I don't get what you want to achive with your code, do you want to skip the question if you want to create a new user? Bad idea as if the user is root or something else like empty, or just a dot the script will fail. So if you really want to skip that question and go with the default "ncadmin" then I would test all possible scenarios (there are many) and skip only if one of those scenarios doesn't match the pattern.

But, then we have users that do want to use their own users because they have that specific user in all their other systems, so leaving out that question would remove that "feature".

What I thought you all meant from start was the setup script. My thought from start was some kind of "menu" where you could set options and passwords and stuff, then just let the script run by itsself. That would be the nicest solution but far more complex than what you guys are talking about. I would guess it will take about 12 hours or more to finish.

[thejohnha]

Daniel, thank you for explaining the adduser "feature" to me. I simply chose that because it was the script's first question, I thought I would start there and try to eliminate that question as a test for myself (sorry I'm not a software engineer, I only manage software teams so I am not as good with the finer details of actual scripting when I'm by myself!).

Your idea of having a menu system in the beginning is perfect. But I won't be able to do that myself, so I am looking for a minimally viable product I can hack together. :-)

Perhaps there is a better way to add my desired variables so I can try to fully automate the script according to my use cases. Could you suggest another file where I could put my variables? Or should I change that line you mentioned in all of the scripts.

[enoch85]

@thejohnha What you will need:

1. Plenty of spare time
2. Good Googling skills
3. A passion for making the world a better place (Nextcloud makes the world a better place)

So with that said. I can help you sure. But as I said, my time is very limited and I almost get no sleep right now. I don't count myself as a software engineer either, I'm just passionate about the thought that people can host their own data in an easy way (as in downloading a file, mount it and then you're set).

So, I can give you pointers. For example, what would do is to look at this and make a menu out of that with variables as you already tried to. Whiptail has a lot to offer in different boxes and settings, so check it out.

Ask if you need anything.

[enoch85]

the function msg_box has been implemented for a while now, maybe that makes stuff easier for someone who wants to take a look at this...

[thejohnha]

Is msg_box the full screen pink menu? Perhaps an addition of a default number of seconds before it continues automatically using the default (if possible, of course. certain questions won't be possible to auto-continue like letsencrypt stuff or non-critical questions). Taking inspiration from GRUB where it automatically selects an option and continues after a few seconds. For this script, perhaps if the user doesn't select the closest mirror within 90 seconds, it will just continue with the default mirror.

[enoch85]

Take a look for your self: https://github.com/nextcloud/vm/blob/master/lib.sh#L177-L180

You could adapt the whiptail to do different stuff, and preferably make it a new function.