one thing up front, i don't have much knowledge on hosting/php/admin stuff. i'm just looking for a private cloud where i can sync a couple of files for backup, and have a calender and contacts on the cloud via webdav. and access them with my mobile and laptop. honestly nothing fancy and i am willing to pay for it (actually a lot). for 3 years now, i was running owncloud 5.0 and this was enough for my purposes. since a couple of month i can't sync my files anymore, because the desktop client is too new for owncloud 5.0. so i tried updating my self. but i failed beacuse i don't have enough knowlede for those things. so now i ordered a new package via owncube (which is now more expensive and has less gb space, yay) running owncloud 9.1.2. i have to pay extra to have access to cpanel to install such things as calender and contacts app. which is just about the ONLY thing i really need. since i purchased a new package and tried to install these 2 apps, both of them are not working.
my basic question is this: before i waste anymore time googling php codes / config files / howto's and in general all of that webhosting knowledge that i don't have, is it even possible to just own a private cloud thats not in the hands of google etc. for these basic tasks listed up above? since i am no admin ore anything like that, i was under the assumption that if i pay for that package, i could rely on those basic features. this does not seem to work. am i searching for something that does not exist for the average user that does not know too much about coding? or are there any alternatives? someone who hosts a working owncloud instance with calender and contact feature?
sorry for my bad english, and i don't want to ramble on, i just wan't my own cloud that works. (no pun intended). please tell my know if i am looking for something that does not exist (at least for me).
I installed Owncloud about 3 years ago with no knowledge of php/config/mysql but was somewhat familiar with Ubuntu & Linux Mint. I was given a 10+ year old desktop PC and decided this would be my server. I installed Ubuntu Server v 14.04 and followed a tutorial to install apache, mysql, php. There are plenty of guides out there to accomplish this.
If you can get your hands on a free, or really cheap desktop or Raspberry pi then what harm could you do? Once I got OC running properly via youtube tutorial it was smooth sailing from there after. I have a word document that I save all my commands in for backing up and updating/upgrading that is pretty much copied and pasted from OC Admin manual.
I use thisOC setup for about 70GB of my personal files, and I consider it a backup because I back up my data folder monthly to an external NAS. I use OC calendar & contacts exclusively to manage my contacts & schedule as well as task manager. I'm happy to help with any questions you may run into trying to install yourself.
You have two options, either you get some webspace or server yourself and install and maintain ownCloud. There is no magic, you can learn that but it surely requires some time. But you should take it a bit seriously and keep your system updated especially when you running it on the internet (running OC 5.0 for years is not a good idea).
Yes, it definitely is possible, but you have to take at least some responsibility for it. You don't have to be a skilled sysadmin, but you do need to have some idea what you're doing.
And it's worth it! And when you get stuck, there are plenty of people here to give advice or correct misunderstandings.
If you can afford it, @ctgcwiqc's suggestion of using a Rasberry Pi or similar is good. Dedicated hardware that runs only what you need is ideal. It means you can update and maintain ownCloud without much else going wrong. But @tflidd is also correct, you need to take it seriously. If you're not going to maintain it or pay attention to security, you may as well hand everything over to some third party cloud service.
I'd also recommend you get yourself a TLS security certificate to ensure you can't have personal info or logon/passwords scooped up while in transit. Let's Encrypt provides free TLS certificates and they make it pretty simple to obtain and maintain.
I'm actually doing what you say you want to do. I don't know PHP or any kind of coding, but I did have to learn a little about what I'm doing. The biggest pain is configuring and securing the web server, ownCloud itself is actually really straight forward. It's worth putting in a little effort, the rewards far outweigh any initial learning-curve discomfort.
hey thanks for the replys! turns out the service of owncube ist just the thing that bothered me. i switched hosters and now everything seems to work. so first i will rely on the hosted cloud, and my run my own when i know enough of the subject matter. but i do have one more question which i seemed to just ignore the past several years concerning security.
with the new hoster i have a free "let's encrypt" ssl certificate. is this (in combination with a strong password) enough security to keep sensitive data on the cloud? not in form of pin codes of my bank account but like personally sensitive, pictures, call logs, messages etc. are there any does and dont's, like no logging on public wifi er something similar? or is the certificate enough security? thank you very much in advance for the help!
With a certificate, you can even use your cloud on a public wifi. Make sure the configuration is good (ssllabs.com helps you testing it). Your hoster can get his hands on your data, there is no real way within owncloud to avoid that completely. For such sensitive data, you should use a client side encryption (veracrypt, ...).