RedHat 6.x/ Centos 6.x: How to install in OwnCloud 4.5.1 (5.x) in less than 10 minutes

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Assumption:
clean fresh minimal installed RedHat or Centos (or any similar linux) registered and updated to the latest revisions:

This is a quick and dirty install for demo purpose. For the minimum of security please refer to http://doc.owncloud.org/server/5.0/admin_manual/installation.html

rhn_register      #with your details
yum -y update     #to get latest updates

make sure either dns is working or your hosts and IP are in the local /etc/hosts file

Time to start the clock:

Install the needed packages.

 yum -y install mysql-server httpd php php-mysql unzip wget php-json php-xml php-mbstring php-zip php-gd curl php-curl php-pdo

chkconfig httpd on; chkconfig mysqld on

#It might be a good idea to reboot the box here.
reboot
/etc/init.d/mysqld start
Initializing MySQL database:  
Installing MySQL system tables.. .  OK
Filling help tables...  OK
To start mysqld at boot time you have to copy  support-files/mysql.server
to the right place for your system
PLEASE REMEMBER TO SET A PASSWORD FOR THE MySQL root USER !
To do so, start the server, then issue the following commands:
/usr/bin/mysqladmin -u root password 'new-password'
/usr/bin/mysqladmin -u root -h wiki.whatever.ie password 'new-password'

Alternatively you can run: /usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation which
will also give you the option of removing the test databases and
anonymous user created by default.  
This is strongly recommended for production servers.
See the manual for more instructions. You can start the MySQL daemon
with: cd /usr ; /usr/bin/mysqld_safe & You can test the MySQL daemon
with mysql-test-run.pl cd /usr/mysql-test ; perl mysql-test-run.pl
Please report any problems with the /usr/bin/mysqlbug script!                      
[  OK  ] starting mysqld:
# /etc/init.d/httpd start

Install the mysql user and database.
I personally recommend using /usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation because its the cleanest way to get rid of all the garbage mysql brings with it.

see below…

# /usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation

  NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MySQL
  SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE! PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY! In order
  to log into MySQL to secure it, we'll need the current password
  for the root user. If you've just installed MySQL, and you haven't set
  the root password yet, the password will be blank,so you should just
  press enter here. Enter current password for root (enter for none):
  OK, successfully used password, moving on... Setting the root password
  ensures that nobody can log into the MySQL root user without the
  proper authorisation. You already have a root password set, so you
  can safely answer 'n'.
  Change the root password? [Y/n] y
  New password:
  Re-enter new password:
  Password updated successfully!
  Reloading privilege tables..

  ... Success!By default, a MySQL installation has an anonymous user, allowing anyone to log into MySQL without having to have a user account created for them. This is intended only for testing, and to make the installation go a bit smoother. You should remove them before moving into a production environment.

Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y
... Success!

Normally, root should only be allowed to connect from 'localhost'. This ensures that someone cannot guess at the root password from the network.
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y

... Success!

By default, MySQL comes with a database named 'test' that anyone can access. This is also intended only for testing, and should be removed before moving into a production environment.

Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y

 - Dropping test database...
 ... Success!
 - Removing privileges on test database...
 ... Success!
Reloading the privilege tables will ensure that all changes made so far will take effect immediately.

Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y
 ... Success!
Cleaning up...
All done! If you've completed all of the above steps, your MySQL installation should now be secure.
Thanks for using MySQL!

Now we create the database for wordpress

chkconfig mysqld on
echo 'CREATE DATABASE owncloud;' | mysql -p
echo "GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON owncloud.* TO 'owncloud'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your_password';" | mysql -p
echo "FLUSH PRIVILEGES;" | mysql -p

Download Owncloud

cd /var/www/html
wget http://mirrors.owncloud.org/releases/owncloud-4.5.1.tar.bz2
#Updated to owncloud 5.0
wget http://download.owncloud.org/community/owncloud-5.0.7.tar.bz2

tar xvf owncloud-5.0.7.tar.bz2
rm -rf owncloud-5.0.7.tar.bz2
# owncloud needs these to be writable by the webserver

chown -R apache:apache owncloud

Go to http://yopur_ip_address/owncloud /

Follow the screen to add you Database details and your admin user and you’re done.

Oh yes … and  STOP THE CLOCK

14 thoughts on “RedHat 6.x/ Centos 6.x: How to install in OwnCloud 4.5.1 (5.x) in less than 10 minutes

    1. I take the point. I’ll go over all my guides and note that they are for CentOS 6.X.
      In fairness .. there is no reason or benefit at all, except of legacy, to use CentOS or Redhat 5.x.

    1. It shouldn’t be different. Assuming you have nginx already installed and running and maybe even mysql already running, then you just need to place the scripts into the appropriate folder and make the permissions changes and off you go.

  1. Hi Andreas,

    Thank you for this guide. Cause other guides couldn’t help me to finish the installation before.

    As you might now, owncloud community edition version is 5.0.7. now , and yum installs PHP 5.3.3.

    With these configuration you get two messages right after your installation. One of them is about “.htaccess” problem. It says “Your data directory and files are probably accessible from the internet because the .htaccess file does not work. For information how to properly configure your server, please see the documentation.”

    I googled it and solved by editing /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf with

    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    ]

    and the other warning is “Your PHP version is vulnerable to the NULL Byte attack (CVE-2006-7243) Please update your PHP installation to use ownCloud securely.”

    I googled it again and found this topic : https://www.openshift.com/forums/openshift/php-version-is-vulnerable-to-the-null-byte-attack-cve-2006-7243

    And I’d like to ask a question. The resolution of .htaccess problem with this method is safe. Or what else can you prefer for making our owncloud safer.

    Thanx in advance

    1. Hi Ersat, I might need to reinstall with the latest versions and document a bit more steps after:

      “Go to http://yopur_ip_address/owncloud /
      Follow the screen to add you Database details and your admin user and you’re done.”

      In there I gave a directory outside of /var/www/html for the ownclouddata and it has only

      deny from all
      IndexIgnore *

      which seems to work fine.

      I’ll put it on my todo-list.

      For the package versions, I usually like the bleeding edge latest and greatest for my dev / demo equipment. Therefor I use the epel and remi repos to serve me with the latest packages. to get them look here

      Again I’ll to reinstall with the latest and will edit this post with changes that might be needed.

  2. when I go to localhost/owncloud it takes me to index.php which is just text shown in the browser

    Am I missing something here? Shouldn’t I arrive at the actual owncloud login?

  3. Error: Package: owncloud-5.0.7-4.1.noarch (isv_ownCloud_community)
    Requires: php-pear-Net-Curl
    Error: Package: owncloud-5.0.7-4.1.noarch (isv_ownCloud_community)
    Requires: php-pear-MDB2-Driver-mysqli

    How can I get around these errors? This is when I try to install as per the instructions on owncloud’s site for CentOS

    1. Hi John,

      forget all the other install guides.
      I just used the above (with the new 5.0.7 update) and installed owncloud in less than 5 minutes.

  4. Forgot to mention opening port 80 / 443

    vi /etc/sysconfig/iptables

    And add =
    -A INPUT -m state –state NEW -m tcp -p tcp –dport 80 -j ACCEPT

    or for https =
    -A INPUT -m state –state NEW -m tcp -p tcp –dport 443 -j ACCEPT

    And obviously forward the port on your router 🙂

    Correct me If I’m wrong AS NEW to Linux

    1. Chris, you are right with the above, but I didn’t cover iptables in this since it would be a total separate topic along with SElinux. I have linked in the top menu under tools a fantastic iptables generator from

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