The Cloudron User Repository - CUR

The what?
CUR is deviated from AUR - Arch User Repository

AUR is awesome and makes it very easy for Arch Linux Users to install software from other users.

In similar fashion I would love such a feature in Cloudron.
I packaged:

• Greenlight
• Valheim Dedicated Server
• FiveM GTA V Multiplayer Server

From my 3 packaged apps only Greenlight made it into the app-store. Yet!
Why did Valheim and FiveM did not make it?
Simply put, the lack of users testing the app and reporting back.

Does Cloudron need an CUR?

Arch Linux is loved for the AUR and I am sure that CUR would also have this effect for Cloudron.
I believe many users do not test apps since they are used to the app-store and even the thought of touching the shell to install a community app with the cloudron-cli is very spooky to the targeted end-user of cloudron.
Especially on productive systems doing such thing is a no-go, since you want stable prod which does not fail you.

Now imagine a CUR.
With a simple click in the setting you can enable the CUR and can install a community app to test and give feedback.

This would decrease the barrier for end-users and @appdev(s).

This could also decrease work for maintaining apps if they stay community apps and are not suited for the general Cloudron app-store.
CUR should be excluded from Cloudron Support for obvious reasons.

I would love to get some thoughts on this.

Cheers,
Elias

(ps: I am aware of many side effects of AUR/CUR and stale unmaintained packages, but AUR still rocks )

@uiguy okay lets start

@uiguy said in How to Take Cloudron Even Further:

I appreciate that there is the package maintenance aspect, but from what I have seen about the support structure, there seem to only be 2/3 guys supporting the maintenance... how can this be enough to support an entire app ecosystem

Everyone having the APP DEV to their name is a Cloudron App Developer, so in extend a supporter of the ecosystem.
For example I am the maintenance guy of the Greenlight app.
My job circles around Greenlight and BigBlueButton as well. So its in my own best interest to provide updates which just works without any hustle since I have a lot of Greenlights running for customers and doing something that does NOT work effects my own work

Another example would be Dolibarr from @erics who is a developer of Dolibarr.

@uiguy said in How to Take Cloudron Even Further:

I am battling to see why we would rely on cloudron and the associated app store is quite limited as opposed to something like running docker direct?

Reliability and Repeatable.
I have restored multible Cloudrons from full backups, single app backups and literally never had it fail me.
Having the option to roll back to the previous version with 1-Click. What a dream!
Not to mention the package / backup policy to minimize the backup footprint.
For example my self maintained Valheim Gameserver App where we discuss about what is backup worthy.

Having the option to sync Cloudron to an external LDAP also just adds another cherry on top.
Having multible Cloudrons synced to a central LDAP. Sweet.
User und Customer management from 1 place deployed to X Servers with Groups and Permissions.

@uiguy said in How to Take Cloudron Even Further:

I guess, what I am in need of, is some education as to why I would advise we invest in cloudron when we could simply deploy docker with something like portainer and watchtower for package maintenance?

I don't mean to sound negative at all, but I simply want to understand what the value proposition is, especially if I have to compare the available packages on docker vs cloudron?

That is the best part, you don't have to!
You can make your own app, you are NOT limited.
The so called gilded cage with Cloudron is the knowledge you wish to have about the system.
Gitlab of every app https://git.cloudron.io/cloudron

There is more which I could mention, but these are just some thoughts of mine.
Check out this topic where people tell what are your favourite things features about cloudron

https://store.steampowered.com/app/892970/Valheim/

This game got recently released on steam and hit quite the trend.

https://steamdb.info/app/892970/graphs/

Having this server as an app would be nice.

And the work is already done!

https://git.cloudron.io/BrutalBirdie/valheim-gameserver-app

Needs some fine work with doc, screenshots and all.

But it's live and running at https://valheim.deadsec.net/

https://github.com/ViViDboarder/vaultwarden_ldap

https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden/wiki/Syncing-users-from-LDAP

Since the Vaultwarden app right now has its own user management it would be nice to also have the LDAP functionality here as well.

1. Community behind Cloudron (Devs / Forum / Community)
2. click restore / backups ! reliable backups !
3. LDAP Integration

I can understand the wish for a chat, but I agree with @nebulon and everyone else endorsing the official forum.

Having the conversation in the official forum has many benefits.

Lets just switch into the mindset of a new Cloudron user / developer.

Just as an example:

• I need the lamp app but with php 5.X.
• Why is there no php 5 lamp app?
• How can I create a custom php 5 app?

What do most people do? They will type that question into a search engine.

Chat vs. Forum

If this discussion would take place in the chat, there would be no way for a new user to find public and easy access to that information about this issue/question.
How should they know they need to go threw a chat with X people talking about all different kind of topics.
Also you lock this information behind a software like matrix, rocketchat, slack, matermost yada yada.

New users want answers which are accessible without needing to sign up for anything.

Compared to an open discussion in the forum, which will be scraped by search engines and will be publicly available with no need to sign up or do anything to access this information.

IMHO chat is nice, but when using one there has to be a policy where findings and solutions must be also published in this forum.
And enforcing such a policy or even establish such will be hard.

That's just what I have in mind about a chat.

Cheers

I would like someone to review my greenlight-app.
Just heads up this is my first app for Cloudron so I expect some issues but I will be happy to fix and learn from them.

@loudlemur said in Monkey See, Monkey Do: Cloudron Video Explainers:

It might be a bit much to ask for the person who is knowledgeable about Cloudron to also have a sense of humor

Excuuuuuussseee meeeeeeh?

Are you suggesting that using Cloudron and being knowledgeable about it robs you of all humor since it drains your life essence?

Common we Germans are known worldwide for our humor

@doodlemania2 @micmc

Top notch roles from https://galaxy.ansible.com/geerlingguy
https://www.youtube.com/user/geerlingguy
Consider donating to him

@jlx89 I think this is what you are looking for.

https://docs.cloudron.io/backups/#import-app-backup

Maybe we should add this to the doc?
https://docs.cloudron.io/installation/

Minimum Requirements

Cloudron requires at least 1GB RAM, 20GB Disk space. Make sure the firewall does not block port 80 (http) and 443 (https). Cloudron does not support running on ARM, LXC or OpenVZ.

Maybe adding Docker in there as well to prevent confusion.

@micmc sorry but the variables are so big for errors.
https://docs.bigbluebutton.org/support/troubleshooting.html#webrtc-errors-1001-1002

1007: ICE negotiation failed - The browser and FreeSWITCH try to negotiate ports to use to stream the media and that negotiation failed. Possible Causes:

NAT is blocking the connection
Firewall is blocking the UDP connection/ports

I am never running coturn on the same server as BBB, since I want my coturn to run on port 443 for very restrictive networks.
For example state agencies who only allow outgoing 80,443,25,465,587 and some more.

You can check your turn server here: https://webrtc.github.io/samples/src/content/peerconnection/trickle-ice/
When starting a BBB Session press F12 go to the console and search for turn you will the credentials for this session which you can use for testing with trickle-ice.

Looks something like this

Sun Nov 28 2021 10:46:52 GMT+0100 (Central European Standard Time) | sip.UserAgent | · sessionDescriptionHandlerFactoryOptions: {"peerConnectionConfiguration":{"iceServers":[{"urls":"stun:turn.DOMAIN.TLD"},{"urls":"turns:DOMAIN.TLD:443?transport=tcp","credential":"N0ABNdyp4PaFQLowdq8sekjgGjI=","username":"1638179212:w_mcllm4lvdd4y"}],"sdpSemantics":"unified-plan"}}

Also a good place to look in firefox is about:webrtc to see where the connection between your client and the server the error occurs.

Like I said, many variables

edit:
Also you can force the usage of turn in firefox by going to about:config and setting media.peerconnection.ice.relay_only to true this way turn is forced.

@robi
my official Ansible Role version can be tested here https://meet.bigbluebutton.dev/ deployed with https://github.com/ebbba-org/ansible-role-bigbluebutton

@grienauer
When I did my testing for the Valheim Server App I wrote this script to make testing easier.

Note tho, this only works when not using any addons, but localstorage works with the local mount.

#!/bin/bash

# Function to get the user to input the needed vars
get_vars () {
    read -p "Cloudron E-Mail: " EMAIL
    read -p "Cloudron Username: " USERNAME
    read -s -p "Cloudron Password: " PASSWORD
    read -p "Cloudron URL: " CLOUDRON_URL
    read -p "DOCKER REPOSITORY URL: " DOCKER_REPOSITORY_URL
    read -p "DOCKER USERNAME: " DOCKER_REPOSITORY_USERNAME
    read -p -s "DOCKER PASSWORD: " DOCKER_REPOSITORY_PASSWORD


    printf "EMAIL=$EMAIL\n
            USERNAME=$USERNAME\n
            PASSWORD=$PASSWORD\n
            CLOUDRON_URL=$CLOUDRON_URL\n
            DOCKER_REPOSITORY_URL=$DOCKER_REPOSITORY_URL\n
            DOCKER_REPOSITORY_USERNAME=$DOCKER_REPOSITORY_USERNAME\n
            DOCKER_REPOSITORY_PASSWORD=$DOCKER_REPOSITORY_PASSWORD\n
            " > .env
}

# check if .env file exists and read it or check if vars exsist
if [ -f ".env" ]; then
    export $(egrep -v '^#' .env | xargs) &> /dev/null
else
    echo ".env File missing - asking for required vars"
    get_vars
fi

if [ -z "$EMAIL" ] || [ -z "$USERNAME" ] || [ -z "$PASSWORD" ] || [ -z "$CLOUDRON_URL" ] || [ -z "$DOCKER_REPOSITORY_URL" ] || [ -z "$DOCKER_REPOSITORY_USERNAME" ] || [ -z "$DOCKER_REPOSITORY_PASSWORD" ]; then
    echo "some vars are empty - asking for required vars"
    get_vars
fi

echo "=> Login Docker"
docker login --username $DOCKER_REPOSITORY_USERNAME --password $DOCKER_REPOSITORY_PASSWORD $DOCKER_REPOSITORY_URL
echo "=> Login Cloudron"
cloudron login --username $USERNAME --password $PASSWORD my.$CLOUDRON_URL

set -x

# Get the ID and VERSION from the CloudronManifest.json
ID=$(jq -r ".id" CloudronManifest.json)
VERSION=$(jq -r ".version" CloudronManifest.json)

echo "=> Create Test Data dir"
mkdir -p ./cloudron_test/data ./cloudron_test/tmp ./cloudron_test/run

echo "=> Cleanup Test Data"
rm -rf ./cloudron_test/data/* ./cloudron_test/tmp/* ./cloudron_test/run/*

echo "=> Build test image"
cloudron build --set-repository $DOCKER_REPOSITORY_URL/$ID
# docker build -t $DOCKER_REPOSITORY_URL/$ID:$VERSION .

if [[ RUN_IMG = "" ]]; then
    read -p "Do you want to run the image created image?: (y/N)" RUN_IMG
fi

if [[ "$RUN_IMG" = "y" || "$RUN_IMG" = "Y" ]]; then
echo "=> Run `test` tag of build image"
docker run -ti --read-only \
    --volume $(pwd)/cloudron_test/data:/app/data:rw \
    --volume $(pwd)/cloudron_test/tmp:/tmp:rw \
    --volume $(pwd)/cloudron_test/run:/run:rw \
    $DOCKER_REPOSITORY_URL/$ID:$VERSION \
    bash
fi

echo "=> Running tests"
cd test
echo "=> Running ncu - updating deps"
ncu -u
npm -i
echo "=> Installing package.json"
npm install
if [[ -f ./node_modules/.bin/mocha ]]; then
    ./node_modules/.bin/mocha ./test.js -b
fi

if [[ -f ../node_modules/.bin/mocha ]]; then
    ../node_modules/.bin/mocha ./test.js -b
fi

# remove installed test instance
echo "Cancel now if you wish to keep the app installed"
sleep 10
cloudron uninstall --app test.$CLOUDRON_URL

@cs9103 Well this is a rather disappointing answer.

Please when writing forum posts, questions, answers always keep in mind that the other person reading your text must understand you precisely to prevent misconceptions.
At best there should be no room for speculations since these lead to mistakes understanding you.

Right now I read @micmc answer:

either on your local network, OR on a remote location (i.e on a VPS in the cloud).

You @cs9103 answer with:

it always was

"It always was", what!? local machine or VPS?
Please understand that this kind of communication can get frustrating really fast when it could be done so much easier with a bit more precise wording.

Again.

Please provide a precise explanation of your setup.

@cs9103
This has come cluttered and confusing.

Please provide a precise description of your setup.

The url should be https://<THE IP OF THE DEVICE RUNNING CLOUDRON>/.

If you are this stuck, maybe it would be good to start from step 0.
Reinstall Ubuntu and start from the get-go.

For everyone like myself who still needs to freshen up on IPv6 here a free course by ripe.net

https://academy.ripe.net/enrol/index.php?id=2

@chetbaker
Do you have any preferences location wise?
What are you willing to pay?

Its hard to say what hardware is the perfect fit for you, since I can only guess the real usage.
If two nextcloud apps are used like 24/7 you want some high Network I/O with good Disk Speeds.

For example Netcup 'dedicated' Servers have a 2.5 Gbit NIC and 2TB SSD on the highest Tier.
https://www.netcup.eu/vserver/#root-server-details
44€-46€

If you are looking for high bursts of data going from SSD to NVMe SSD with 1 Gbit would be good as well.
https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/matrix-ax
I am using a AX51-NVMe myself.

And my system is bored when it comes to CPU utilization but I already use 20GB Ram for Minecraft, Valheim etc.

It really depends on the usage.

You could also use a Hetzner Cloud VM like the CX31, which only has 80GB Disk space but can be enhanced by Cloud Volumes - 1 TB 48,74 € which makes a dedicated server cheaper already.

But instead of Cloud Volumes you could use Hetzner Storage boxes, which then are cheaper.
9.40 €/m - 1 TB but then lack some IO and are more used for backups but can be used for storage for nextcloud.

It really depends.

Bandwidth
250 Mbps 

wtf? this is very slow imo.

Storage
1 × 1 TB SATA

Ok but slow.
6Gb/s and has a bandwidth throughput of 600MB/s.

Memory
4 GB DDR3 

Errr....

And all the for €13.99 ex. VAT/month???

In my opinion this hardware is super old and quite slow for that price tag.

The CPU is from Q3'13
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/77977/intel-atom-processor-c2350-1m-cache-1-70-ghz.html

I'd suggest its time for an upgrade.

@loudlemur said in Monkey See, Monkey Do: Cloudron Video Explainers:

It might be a bit much to ask for the person who is knowledgeable about Cloudron to also have a sense of humor

Excuuuuuussseee meeeeeeh?

Are you suggesting that using Cloudron and being knowledgeable about it robs you of all humor since it drains your life essence?

Common we Germans are known worldwide for our humor