Cloudron Forum

I guess lots of people use caprover. I thought I'd try it out because I like fiddling with things. So, I installed. It worked fine. At first. Then, one morning, it wouldn't load. Just a mysterious error message on the Dashboard, "Something bad happened". So, a lengthy dive into the incomprehensible world of troubleshooting Docker began. There's no real answer. So many others with slight variations of what might be my problem. No real authoritative source of Help. Just, try this, try that. Many searchers end up reinstalling everything. I considered the same. Then I wondered when my caprover install would suddenly crap out again, and I'd lose my work. Again. So forget it. No more caprover.

You know what hasn't crapped out? Cloudron. I don't know how the Team does it, but keeping everything working is so worth the Subscription.

Cloudron for the win. Cloudron to the moon. Cloudron rules.

So, I'm looking at my Notifications...there are 10 right now. I scan starting at the top...good, they're all "Such-and-such an App has been Updated". BUT, the last one, just as I was going to click "All Read" says the app in question ran out of memory! Yikes. What would happen if I skipped over and didn't notice that? You know what would have made me notice that sooner and clearly? A RED line on the left, rather than a Blue one. Maybe even different colours for Updated-Blue; Update Available-Purple; there's gotta be something for Green.

Anyway, this would be nice, but I have no clue how tough it would be to tie a colour to an notifiable event.

Initially I used my Cloudron to install all the latest and greatest apps which I couldn't install on my own. Thing is, I rarely used these, it was just for the thrill—they are removed now. As I look at my Cloudron tonight I see it's packed with such useful apps – Joplin, for all my notes; a bunch of WP sites, and the backup is what makes this useful; IT Tools App, where I can do things which I previously had to use other ppls' sites; Surfer, which I have put to use as my NIP-05 ID source for Nostr; Stirling-PDF which I use so much filling in gov forms and whatnot; Syncthing which I use to keep my Calibre library synced across my various computers; Vikunja for tracking my projects; Gitea which I use to manage my content... the list could go on and on.

I'm online now mostly because I'm cancelling a bunch of other services which renew in the first week of January, like my 12GB ram Wishosting 1 account which was running Yunohost (mostly for the various federated apps it supplies, like BookWyrm, Firefish and Writefreely); my Wishosting 2 account on which I installed Umbrel (but since there is no way to assign a domain and associated SSL cert, at least, none that I've found, I'm cancelling), which in turn allowed me to try out Nostr; my EthernetServers VPS which I use as both a LAMP server and also a Presearch host; and finally my RackNerd 3.5GB ram server on which I run my Ghost apps, as well as another Presearch host.

Much of the above can be moved to Cloudron, except the federated apps.

Thanks Cloudron! See you next year!

Welcome @james! You are part of something special here!

As I've been looking for WhatsApp replacements I came across Beeper. Now, it doesnt' actually replace WA; it is however a pretty nifty looking unified chat hq, built on Matrix, and it self-hostable. They even provide a great Ansible playbook over at github - https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy.

Just to repeat myself - this doesn't replace any chat services, but it provides a way to use many different chat services in one interface. I've tried things like this back in the day and never really liked it, but for some reason this one looks promising, probably because it's based on Matrix, which is something I'd like to use more anyway, and see wider adoption.

Looks like it is pretty much ready to plug in to Cloudron too, but those with the skillset!

I was perusing the Cloudron App Store, and just admiring the presence of some of these apps:
Weblate, Confluence, The Lounge, Taiga (Taiga! I mean, for real!), SOGo, Phabricator, OpenProject, Moodle, MediaWiki, Invoice Ninja 5, Gogs (or for that matter, Gitlab or Gitea), DokuWiki... I mean, over the years, I was wanting to run various apps that managed hosts like Webfaction (I started with them in 2008) didn't have available. This prompted my slow slog into self-hosting, self-installing, self-managing VPSes, lots of crash and burns, lots of learning about limits and how to work around or with them... some of these apps in the list were major victories for me to get installed and running. Some, I never did get installed and running on my own machines. I just think it's so cool that here they are, on Cloudron, ready for anyone to easily get up and running. I am grateful for all that I learned along the way, but what a treat for new people, of any age, to come across Cloudron and have all these apps at their fingertips!

I just want to say thanks!

For some of them, like Weblate, do you a way to see where traffic is coming from for them? Like, are there analytics indicating"Weblate searches are coming from companies, or universities, or research labs"? Do you have any targeted advertising for any of these apps on Cloudron, or has word-of-mouth in general been enough? Just curious, no need to spend any time looking it up.

A few apps I use on other servers, using other software (tipi, easypanel), but for various reasons I'd love to move them to Cloudron. Obsidian LiveSync is one: https://github.com/vrtmrz/self-hosted-livesync-server.

My main note app is Joplin, and I use the Joplin Server on Cloudron. But I do use Obsidian here and there, and this SyncServer would be useful.

Please?

First leg was early Summer, took 3 weeks and was only 7500km.

Second leg 2 weeks later, for 4 weeks, was 13,000km.

It was alot of driving, but totally worth it. The time spent together with, and visiting, family, lots of talking and bonding, such a blessing. We swam and surfed alot during the first leg. Spent alot of time in awe of the view during the second. The Second leg doesn't show the route of the Skagway-Haines-Haines Junction circle route we did (so we can say we did Alaska). We also tent camped for most of the Second leg.

During most of this time I never once checked on my Cloudron, nor checked in to the Forum. Well, I'm back! Impressive that my Cloudron continued running without input from me.

I won't add daily pics as there are simply too many! But I'm following BrutalBirdie's trip with interest

Some recent posts have dealt with issues due to running out of space. I too had this challenge when I first started , and it was constraining to say the least. I eventually moved up to larger VPSes (my current one has 708GB), which allowed me to try different apps. However, apps like Peertube and Mastodon and Cubby all start taking up lots of space, more than before.

To help with this I started using the free tier of object storage offered by Scaleway, who gives you up to 75GB free! Amazing! But you know what, even with that I started hitting the limit after a few months.

So, now that I was using Object Storage, that got me looking for other ways it might help. My search led me to Minio - self-hosted object storage!? Cool. I also frequent lowendtalk and serverhunter, which eventually led to me snag a KS-1 from OVH/KimSufi. On this I installed Minio, using both the Minio instructions, but also this site was super helpful. I lucked out and discovered that my 1TB VPS was actually a 2TB drive. Double cool.

You may have seen some of my posts on this forum asking for help to get the various apps working with Minio. Thanks to all who helped! And let me tell you... I have set up my various Wordpress sites (using Media Cloud), Mastodons, Peertubes, and now the new XBackBone app, and OBJECT STORAGE IS LIT.

The best thing, for me, is that I can now back up ALL my Cloudron apps and not worry about how much space they are taking up because most of the media is stored in my Minio. I notice this most with Peertube, of course, but also Mastodon. The way I've set mine up, within a few hours it had several GBs of data. Backing all this up took forever, and in some cases, the backups wouldn't work because of either how long it took, or due to some file issue. But, the apps back up nicely, and their media is already on the Minio instance.

The most recent coolness is discovering XBackBone. I had no idea what that was. I had to google what "XShare" was... and holy smokes, what a lifesaver. I take tons of screenshots, and sometimes lose track of where they are. But with XShare uploading to XBackBone which I've set up to use my Minio (meaning the screenshots go straight to its bucket). Amazing!

I'm assuming that the Minio offered by Cloudron will be just as useful. Give it a try! So, grab one of those KS-1s (took me months), install Cloudron in it, and you're set!

@nebulon If I understand the dynamics introduced by an open source licence like AGPL, someone having the access to the source code, and in fact having the source code, does not make them a "user" of Cloudron. They simply have the software and can install it and do whatever. But when they have problems, as they surely will because of Docker, where will they turn to? Most likely the original creators of the software... and when you and @girish can't help because of other time constraints, I can imagine the complaints and badmouthing that would follow. This would potentially have the effect of Cloudron (the subscription service) getting a bad name, losing customers, and eventually going out of business. So it makes sense to me that you've tightened up the licence so that the amazing user experience can remain intact and manageable.

I am not an open source purist, starting from the fact that I have no control over the VPS I rent on which I run Cloudron. It is, as someone in your chats said, a compromise for a purist. For the rest of us who don't want to pay an opaque behemoth company anything, Cloudron is simply the best. And it has the open source spirit, if not the correct licence on every bit of code. And importantly, the software actually works, a theme that I've repeated a few times on different threads. I applaud the Cloudron team for making decisions to enable them to keep the software open AND working.

https://www.medusajs.com/
https://github.com/medusajs/gatsby-starter-medusa

I would definitely use this if was available. Thus far I'm using tweaked WP sites, but this... would be nice!

Last week I was about to ask anyone their recommendations for an audio app. A quick search of the forums didn't turn up anything specific. So, I thought I'd install the 4 above and give them a try, and report back.

I did not try Jellyfin this time as I had previously tried it out on my cloudron and it slowed everything down (about 6 months ago?). Who knows if its better now; I just want something that works.

That is the gist of my requirements: Does it work? Can I install it, and then move my music into it, and play it, with minimal hassle. Features weren't necessarily the most important. Here is what I found.

• Ampache: I was actually looking forward to this being the winner. I've known about it for a long time, and was excited to see what it could do. Alas, despite several tries, and even checking out a few posts on the forums here, I could never just upload my 31 files (30 songs and a playlist file) and get them to play. I couldn't even get them to appear in the library! Sure, more troubleshooting may have solved the problem. But, my criteria was not, "Which app will take up the most time troubleshooting and consequently result in the greatest satisfaction that I persevered and made it work." So I turned off Ampache.

• Emby: This one seemed promising. The First Time Usage clearly showed me where to place my files. Like Ampache, I made sure the files were owned properly. I uploaded my 31 files... but they also never appeared in the Emby dashboard. Give me a break. Why should this be so hard? Sure, there is probably some "trick" to get this to work, but I'm not looking to become a magician just for my music.

• Koel: Cool logo. Cool history. Seems less cluttered than the previous two... maybe this would be the one. Like Emby, I could see where the files are supposed to go. I put them there. Unlike Ampache and Emby, I could actually see my individual songs. BUT, they weren't playable per album! Surely not?! But yes, even though there was a view for Album, I never figured out how to play one entire album. I could have made a playlist, but hello, I'm pretty sure Play by Album is a thing in the music app world. I did not have time for this. So, I turned off Koel. Bye bye slick interface. I just want to install an app, upload my music, and play it (by album). Is this so hard??

• Navidrome: The last contender. For some reason I kept thinking of Mel Gibson and Tina Turner in their seminal Mad Max movie, Beyond the Navidrome. I was expecting yet another battle, in a navidrome, to get my music uploaded, visible, and then playable (by album). I installed it, read the First Time Use, uploaded the music, fixed ownership, started a rescan in the app, and what do you know... there was my music. I could view the 30 songs in various ways. When I wanted to play the entire album I just clicked on the recognized playlist file, then pressed PLAY and all the songs played! Hallelujah! Navidrome was the winner. Everything just worked. I listened to my music for hours. I will be uninstalling the other three and sticking with Navidrome.

NOTE. I did this a few days ago. I have quit my browser, obviously, and just went back to my navidrome install to resume my music heaven... but it was asking me to (re)make an admin account? What? I already did that, it was already working. Fortunately there is a solution in the Cloudron forums, and I had to login with an incognito window, but, it was all there and it was all working.

I should also add, to be as clear as possible, that "Play by Album" actually doesn't seem to be a feature in Navidrome. At least, not the way I arranged my album. My album is a collection of songs downloaded from an auto-generated YouTube playlist using 4K Video Downloader. 4K includes an option to generate a m3u file when downloading a playlist. So it was this m3u file that Navidrome recognized and displayed, and let me play my "album". Since I get most of my music these days in a similar way, the m3u file recognition was the best part of Navidrome.

As I mentioned, this wasn't a feature comparison, so I don't intend to insult or disparage any die-hard users of the other apps here, nor denigrate the creaters. I just simply wanted to install the app, upload the music, and play it. In this respect, on my setup, using minimal troubleshooting, only Navidrome met my expectations. You may have better luck with your installations; your own Navidrome install might not work! But if you too are looking for a music app that just gets installed, and gets playing your music, I suggest Navidrome.

Glad to be part of a community with people like you!
A balmy 18C down here in southern France!

Merry Christmas to you all, too! This forum is a year-round gift!

Most of the apps I install on my Cloudron rarely change from their location, or, their initial domain name. The auto-backup feature is fantastic too (I'm using Scaleway).

From time to time I do turn off apps, partly for space reasons, or to make room in RAM while I try out a few other apps. Before doing so, I like to backup just that one app I'm going to turn off. I've then had situations where, after some time has passed, I'll forget if I did back up this or that app, but I have to admit, trying to look up the long convoluted name (which is thankfully possible in Cloudron) and then finding the same in my Scaleway backups, to verify, is tedious enough that I take a chance and don't back up, or I just back up again and thus use up space that wasn't needed.

What would really speed things up for me is if the backups for each app (both individually backed up and when part of a full backup) could include the location (the domain, or a truncated domain) and the name of the app installed. The backup name is already helpful by including the date 2021-03-08-220003-295/app_4145s2c0-hbs57-2g8n-kiw3-2h89si6d82y9_v0.4.0. But, maybe this is just me, keeping track of which domain+app has which long convoluted name is a bit of a hassle. A backup name like 2021-03-08-220003-295/example-com_vikunja_v0.4.0 would make things sooo much easier for me to quickly visually check, verify, and find backups.

I also tend to prune existing backups in my Scaleway buckets by hand, and a naming convention like this would be super helpful for me to be able to immediately see which app is where and has been backed up how many times and when most recently.

NOTE: I've just discovered that in the Backups pane of an apps Dashboard I can download the most recent backup configuration (Download Backup Configuration), and this configuration json file INCLUDES the location in brackets at the end of the filename, like so - app-backup-config-2021-03-09-08-14-31 (subdomain.example.com).json! -Including that location in the backup file name too would be super helpful.

Bravo @luckow You tried, and succeeded!
EDIT: Your blog post is super, also.

@girish I woke up this morning, as though from a feverish dream, thinking to myself, "Did I really read something about penpot last night on the forum?" I went to work, and now, late, just had time to enter "penpot" in the forum search, and discover that it was not just a dream.
Can't wait!

FWIW, when I looked at cloudron.io, there is no mention of being able to (possibly) package any app I want and run it. There is a specific offer of running production ready apps. So, I pay for and support what Cloudron offers; I've never paid for the Wishlist.

Ever since the Wishlist started, I've watched with keen interest. But I've also viewed it as just that, a wishlist. I found it quite generous of the Cloudron team to even openly offer the chance of user-demanded apps. On the other similar platforms (Caprover, Yunohost, even FLAP, but less so as FLAP has a strict app offering), there is the potential for anyone to package any app they want... but if you've tried those you will know that the chances those apps launching, much less working after an update, are very low! So, the fact the Cloudron has actually listened to User wishes (along with the awesome help of many Users) and packaged apps is incredible.

I think I get the allure of KVM images/VM Containers. I imagine that would be a ton of work to rework every currently functioning app into such a format. I also feel like this would turn Cloudron into more of an actual Enterprise-oriented company, rather than one that caters to users like me. Mostly because Wordpress, Ghost, Nextcloud, most of the chat apps, heck, even Mautic, Odoo and SOGo don't need the techiness of a KVM image to just be used. The sort of apps that would benefit from this are probably apps I don't really need, or would use*. And if those ignore the built-in LDAP and email services... well, that ain't Cloudron anymore (for me!)

@marcusquinn I'm curious which apps you are thinking about that are currently impossible to package for Cloudron. For example, I was checking out https://www.egroupware.org/en/download and they have already gone the Container route. There are a few LMSes too, whose names I don't recall at the moment, who seem to prefer a Container approach rather than just a docker-compose container approach.

I realize there seem to be more and more Support requests here regarding installing Cloudron on various platforms - at home, in a VM, in a VM in a VM, on a virtual USB stick plugged into a Mac running a Windows VM on a remote Redhat VPS (I made that up), on a Pi, etc. These then include troubleshooting DNS, ports, routers... don't get me started on throwing CF into the mix! I mean, that's all cool. I love fiddling too. And Girish's blog post about hosting Cloudron at home more or less encourages ppl to try that. But Caprover and Yunohost, as two related services, make it clear that installations not on a standard VPS are advanced (https://caprover.com/docs/run-locally.html, https://yunohost.org/en/install/hardware:regular). Yes, I realize that these other two DO provide documentation, which is what another post asked about; but if you've ever tried troubleshooting or getting help with issues with those other two on their respective Support Forums... good luck!

Could there be a totally separate Forum category for these types of requests, along with some notice or link on that Installation page (or somewhere) that installations not on the specified platform can go to such-and-such Forum for help? And to be honest, have them be lower priority than Support requests for Cloudon installed according to the documentation. Those who have attempted, and maybe succeeded, can help each other within that Category. Maybe even iron out all the various the wrinkles for all the various platforms until there is a 99.99% functioning set of instructions for non-VPS installations.

The Cloudron Team are super with how much they try to help everyone... but helping those who don't install Cloudron according to the documentation detracts from those who followed the official instructions. Particularly when said Help includes troubleshooting someone's home setup+router+ISP+model of Pi+DNS+voodoo. Kudos to the Team!

*I suppose it makes sense that the Cloudron Team gives Support for those on a non-VPS setup who are paying for Enterprise or Priority (but do those customers actually come to the Forum??).

I didn't see any notice about this. I'm not going crazy, right? How did it change so radically? All I did was refresh my browser tab and TADA! A totally new look!

BEFORE

AFTER (NOW, CURRENT)