How to configure self signed SSL certificate in owncloud Ubuntu

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How to configure self signed SSL certificate in owncloud Ubuntu

Before directly jumping into this tutorial you must have running owncloud server in your system.
I have written it in my previous post,you can learn how to from this link https://sharadchhetri.com/2013/05/15/installing-owncloud-in-ubuntu-13-04/

In this tutorial we will learn how to configure self signed ssl certificate in owncloud.
The method is applied to apache2 no matter it is Debian or Ubuntu.If still you have any doubt leave the comment.

To configure the Self Signed Certificate follow the given below steps.

Step(1) Install openssl in server as we have already running owncloud hence installing of apache2 is not required.

$ sudo apt-get install openssl

Step(2) Enable the ssl and rewrite module in apache2

$sudo su -
#a2enmod ssl
#a2enmod rewrite

Step(3): Create a ssl directory inside /etc/apache2

# mkdir -p /etc/apache2/ssl

Step(4): Create self signed ssl certificate. And fill information which it will ask.

openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -nodes -out /etc/apache2/ssl/owncloud.pem -keyout /etc/apache2/ssl/owncloud.key

Now we will configure the owncloud.conf file.

Step (5): Edit the owncloud.conf file
In owncloud.conf file I redirect port 80 request to port 443.
Configured the SSL engine and its key path. And the DocumentRoot parameter is also used.

Note: In the below given configuration I am using IP based Virtual Hosting in apache. If you have DNS configured you can set it as name based configuration also.

Replace 192.168.1.34 with you server IP address

vi /etc/apache2/conf.d/owncloud.conf

RewriteEngine on
ReWriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443$
RewriteRule ^/(.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [NC,R,L]

 

SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/owncloud.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/owncloud.key
DocumentRoot /var/www/owncloud/
 

AllowOverride All
order allow,deny
Allow from all

Step (6) Restart the apache2.

service apache2 restart

Step(7) Open the webbrowser and type the url of owncloud you will see it by defualt goes to https.
If you want both http and https then remove the redirection at para of “VirtualHost *:80 …. </VirtualHost> “

 

 

owncloud1

owncloud2

owncloud3

Related posts:

  1. Setup Owncloud 6 with self signed SSL certificate on Ubuntu 13.10
  2. Setup self signed ssl certificate on Owncloud 6 in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Server
  3. Setup self signed SSL certificate for ghost blog on Nginx
  4. Find date of expiry and issue of SSL certificate with command
  5. Create DV SSL Certificate and approve from CA authority
  6. Nagios Plugin : check ssl certificate expiry date
  7. How to install owncloud in Ubuntu 12.10
  8. Installing owncloud in Ubuntu 13.04
  9. How to install Owncloud 6 in Ubuntu 13.10 Server
  10. htaccess file does not work : Owncloud 6 in Ubuntu 13.10 Server

86 thoughts on “How to configure self signed SSL certificate in owncloud Ubuntu”

  1. I’m using Debian 7.10 and when I browse to /etc/apache2/conf.d/, i don’t see owncloud.conf file. Is it stored somewhere else on Debian or named something else? Or do I have to create that file with the information above if I don’t have it?

    Reply

    • In Debian owncloud installation, I found a file that has “” in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default

      Is file the same as the owncloud.conf in Ubuntu?

      Reply

      • Hi,

        This actually a apache configuration. You can create a owncloud.conf file in conf.d directory if you have not found. 000-default is the symlink and it is default apache configuration. do ls -la 000-default you can see its actual source path.
        Better to go with creating owncloud.conf file with same content. Check the DocumentRoot path as well.
        Today I will install debian 7.10 and will check it. Give me some time to create a tutorial. In between this time you can try yourself.

        Reply

  3. Hey man,

    I’m getting an error when restarting the apache2 service

    SSLCertificatekeyfile: file ‘/etc/apache2/ssl/owncloud.key’ does not exist or is empty

    Having looked it is quite right, the file doesn’t exist, I’ve gone over each step to see what I’ve missed but can’t find it.

    Running Ubuntu

    Reply

      • openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -nodes -out /etc/apache2/ssl/owncloud.pem -keyout /etc/apache2/ssl/owncloud.key

        Above is cert creating command. Are you opening the site with mobile device or Desktop and let me know also which web browser you are using.

        Reply

    • openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -nodes -out /etc/apache2/ssl/owncloud.pem -keyout /etc/apache2/ssl/owncloud.key

      Above line is command of creating SSL certs. Check all the steps once again. I rechecked step by step, it is working for me

      Reply

  5. i have this error, what i can do?

    sudo service apache2 restart
    apache2: Syntax error on line 260 of /etc/apache2/apache2.conf: Syntax error on line 6 of /etc/apache2/conf.d/owncloud.conf: without matching section
    Action ‘configtest’ failed.
    The Apache error log may have more information.
    …fail!

    Reply

  6. Hello
    Ik have a problem when i use your instructions
    to start, i have my site in another dir then the default /var/www but in /home/myusername/www
    owncloud resides inside /home/myusername/owncloud

    When I use your conf settings everything gets messed up beyond my point of understanding it, for now. I do feel it has something to do with the directories.
    I want my regular site wich resides in /home/myusername/www to stay as is, and to be reached without appending https:// but the default http://, the owncloud dir however, I do want to have secure https://

    Can you send me in the right direction please?
    (that’s if you could understand my description offcourse)

    so in short, i want my regular site to be available as a insecure http:// site and the owncloud directory to be secured by ssl

    thank you!

    Reply

    • ok,
      I assume you are using Ubuntu.

      open the file /etc/apache2/conf.d/owncloud.conf

      And in

      Replace with

      Now check if www-data user exist. Hit the command
      “id username ” or ” grep username /etc/passwd”

      Change the ownership and group of /home/myusername/www/owncloud/

      chown -R www-data:www-data /home/myusername/www/owncloud/

      Do these steps, if still have issue. let me know then we will do next step

      Reply

      • WOW! thanks for your quick response!

        Yes I’m using ubuntu server 12.04.1, sorry for not mentioning
        In your reply you tell me to replace something in /etc/apache2/conf.d/owncloud.conf, perhaps you forgot to tell me what to replace it with?
        When it comes to the ownership of the owncloud folder/files, that was already owned by www-data
        Something else you should know, the owncloud data folder sits on another drive and is symlinked, under the normal circumstances that was a non-issue, but perhaps now it is?

        Thanks again.

        Reply

        • Solved!
          Needless to say I am in the infant-noob stages of running a proper server 🙂 but I figured it out all by myself.
          it was only a matter of leaving out :

          RewriteEngine on
          ReWriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443$
          RewriteRule ^/(.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [NC,R,L]

          and let owncloud force ssl on users, so you can forget I ever asked. Thanks for your instructions!

          Reply

          • Nice, it is very good thing when you troubleshoot yourself and after solving the issue get the feeling of winning the battle 🙂

  7. Hi all,

    Well, this is the best howto about how to ssl in owncloud, so congratulations. Just one question, when ending the steps and trying to acces though https, it gives me the error: Cloud not found.

    I search in official forums and none of the solutions applyes for me. It seems like the http works fine pointing the correct path, but not https. Do you know which file I should edit. Probably the error is in the apache files, but I couldnt find a solution.

    Hope you can help. Thanks in advance

    Reply

    • Daniel,

      Thanks for appreciation.
      Kindly send me the below given info –

      (1) Apache configuration file
      (2) The Web Directory means where the owncloud files exist. for eg. /var/www/html or /var/www or /var/usr/share/owncloud
      ls -ld /path/of/web/directory
      ls -la /path/of/web/directory

      (3) the owncloud.conf file output.
      (4) Which operating system you are using.

      If possible I will try to solve the issue remotely also. Let me know.
      Send me all the details via my Contact page.

      Reply

      • Hello,
        thanks for your tutorial

        I have the same problem:
        With the original configuration (http only, no https) I had owncloud working.
        I followed your instructions (I think). Now http is redirected to https, but Owncloud tells me:
        Cloud not found.

        here my Config:

        /etc/apache2/conf.d# cat owncloud.conf
#
#  AllowOverride All
#

RewriteEngine on
ReWriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443$
RewriteRule ^/(.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [NC,R,L]




SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/owncloud.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/owncloud.key
DocumentRoot /var/www/owncloud/

AllowOverride All
order allow,deny
Allow from all

        the apache2.conf:

        LockFile ${APACHE_LOCK_DIR}/accept.lock
PidFile ${APACHE_PID_FILE}
Timeout 300
KeepAlive On
MaxKeepAliveRequests 100
KeepAliveTimeout 5

    StartServers          5
    MinSpareServers       5
    MaxSpareServers      10
    MaxClients          150
    MaxRequestsPerChild   0


    StartServers          2
    MinSpareThreads      25
    MaxSpareThreads      75
    ThreadLimit          64
    ThreadsPerChild      25
    MaxClients          150
    MaxRequestsPerChild   0


    StartServers          2
    MinSpareThreads      25
    MaxSpareThreads      75
    ThreadLimit          64
    ThreadsPerChild      25
    MaxClients          150
    MaxRequestsPerChild   0

User ${APACHE_RUN_USER}
Group ${APACHE_RUN_GROUP}
AccessFileName .htaccess

    Order allow,deny
    Deny from all
    Satisfy all

DefaultType None
HostnameLookups Off
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
LogLevel warn
Include mods-enabled/*.load
Include mods-enabled/*.conf
Include httpd.conf
Include ports.conf
LogFormat "%v:%p %h %l %u %t "%r" %>s %O "%{Referer}i" "%{User-Agent}i"" vhost_combined
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t "%r" %>s %O "%{Referer}i" "%{User-Agent}i"" combined
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t "%r" %>s %O" common
LogFormat "%{Referer}i -> %U" referer
LogFormat "%{User-agent}i" agent
Include conf.d/
Include sites-enabled/

        root@homeserver:/etc/apache2/conf.d# ls -ld /var/www/owncloud/
drwxr-xr-x 14 root root 4096 Sep 19 21:36 /var/www/owncloud/
root@homeserver:/etc/apache2/conf.d# ls -la /var/www/owncloud/
insgesamt 120
drwxr-xr-x 14 root     root      4096 Sep 19 21:36 .
drwxr-xr-x 12 root     root      4096 Sep 19 21:52 ..
drwxr-xr-x 26 root     root      4096 Sep 19 21:36 3rdparty
drwxr-xr-x 32 www-data www-data  4096 Sep 19 21:36 apps
drwxrwxr-x  2 www-data www-data  4096 Sep 19 21:38 config
-rw-r--r--  1 root     root       832 Sep  6 20:38 console.php
drwxr-xr-x 10 root     root      4096 Sep 19 21:36 core
-rw-r--r--  1 root     root      3156 Sep  6 20:38 cron.php
drwxrwx---  2 www-data www-data  4096 Jul 27 22:49 data
-rw-r--r--  1 root     root     17669 Sep  6 20:38 db_structure.xml
drwxr-xr-x  2 root     root      4096 Sep 19 21:36 files
-rw-r--r--  1 root     root      1353 Sep 10 14:05 .htaccess
-rw-r--r--  1 root     root       179 Sep  6 20:38 index.html
-rw-r--r--  1 root     root       853 Sep  6 20:38 index.php
drwxr-xr-x 81 root     root      4096 Sep 19 21:36 l10n
drwxr-xr-x 20 root     root      4096 Sep 19 21:36 lib
-rw-r--r--  1 root     root       279 Sep  6 20:38 occ
drwxr-xr-x  2 root     root      4096 Sep 19 21:36 ocs
-rw-r--r--  1 root     root       443 Sep  6 20:38 public.php
-rw-r--r--  1 root     root       960 Sep  6 20:38 remote.php
-rw-r--r--  1 root     root        26 Sep  6 20:38 robots.txt
drwxr-xr-x  6 root     root      4096 Sep 19 21:36 search
drwxr-xr-x  8 root     root      4096 Sep 19 21:36 settings
-rw-r--r--  1 root     root      1216 Sep  6 20:38 status.php
drwxr-xr-x  2 root     root      4096 Sep 19 21:36 themes
-rw-r--r--  1 root     root      2460 Sep  6 20:38 upgrade.php


        cat owncloud.conf
#
#  AllowOverride All
#

RewriteEngine on
ReWriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443$
RewriteRule ^/(.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [NC,R,L]




SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/owncloud.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/owncloud.key
DocumentRoot /var/www/owncloud/

AllowOverride All
order allow,deny
Allow from all

        It is all on Ubuntu 12.04.

        I appreciate your help!

        Greetings,
        Hendrik

        Reply

        • OK I got the issue and it can be fixed by using Name base or using IP based Virtual Host in apache configuration.
          the post has been updated with IP based virtual host example.In video I have shown Name based and IP based both apache configuration.
          Let me know if still facing the issue

          Reply

          • Hello again,

            in fact it does not work.., sorry for the confusion.
            The https connection did not work, only the http one
            I got an SSL Error in chrome and
            Invalid method in request x16x03x01 on the server.

            So I did a bit of searching and found this:http://idolinux.blogspot.de/2007/11/invalid-method-in-request-x16x03x01.html. Consequently I modified the Configration like this:
            [code]grep ^[^#] ports.conf
            NameVirtualHost 192.168.177.3:80
            Listen 80

            # If you add NameVirtualHost *:443 here, you will also have to change
            # the VirtualHost statement in /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl
            # to
            # Server Name Indication for SSL named virtual hosts is currently not
            # supported by MSIE on Windows XP.
            Listen 443

            Listen 443

            grep ^[^#] sites-enabled/*

            ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
            DocumentRoot /var/www

            Options FollowSymLinks
            AllowOverride All

            Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
            AllowOverride All
            Order allow,deny
            allow from all

            ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/

            AllowOverride All
            Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
            Order allow,deny
            Allow from all

            ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
            # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
            # alert, emerg.
            LogLevel warn
            CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
            Alias /doc/ “/usr/share/doc/”

            Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
            AllowOverride None
            Order deny,allow
            Deny from all
            Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128

            grep ^[^#] conf.d/owncloud.conf

            RewriteEngine on
            ReWriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443$
            RewriteRule ^/(.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [NC,R,L]

            SSLEngine on
            SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/owncloud.pem
            SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/owncloud.key
            DocumentRoot /var/www/owncloud/

            AllowOverride All
            order allow,deny
            Allow from all

            [/code]

            Do you see the error?
            By the way: I think there is a typo in your post (two dots in the IP)

            Greetings,
            Hendrik

            The result is the original error. In the log:
            [code][Mon Sep 23 21:17:24 2013] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
            [Mon Sep 23 21:17:25 2013] [warn] RSA server certificate is a CA certificate (BasicConstraints: CA == TRUE !?)
            [Mon Sep 23 21:17:25 2013] [warn] RSA server certificate CommonName (CN) `xy.selfhost.eu’ does NOT match server name!?
            [Mon Sep 23 21:17:25 2013] [warn] RSA server certificate is a CA certificate (BasicConstraints: CA == TRUE !?)
            [Mon Sep 23 21:17:25 2013] [warn] RSA server certificate CommonName (CN) `xy.selfhost.eu’ does NOT match server name!?
            [Mon Sep 23 21:17:25 2013] [notice] Apache/2.2.22 (Ubuntu) PHP/5.3.10-1ubuntu3.8 with Suhosin-Patch mod_ssl/2.2.22 OpenSSL/1.0.1 mod_perl/2.0.5 Perl/v5.14.2 configured — resuming normal operations
            [Mon Sep 23 21:17:29 2013] [error] [client 192.168.177.20] File does not exist: /var/www/owncloud/owncloud
            [Mon Sep 23 21:18:15 2013] [error] [client 192.168.177.20] File does not exist: /var/www/owncloud/owncloud
            [Mon Sep 23 21:18:21 2013] [error] [client 192.168.177.20] File does not exist: /var/www/owncloud/owncloud
            [/code]

  8. Thanks for the tutorial. Great work.

    This is a much more simple method than I have seen before. Only two complaints:

    1. Redirect from port 80 is not strictly necessary as it can be enabled from owncloud admin. (But it was good to include for learning purposes ;-P )

    2. DocumentRoot /var/www/owncloud/ didn’t work for me when accessing remotely. I had to change to /var/www/

    Thanks again!

    Reply

  9. Hi,

    thanks for your post.

    I did in this way, but I can’t connect to owncloud, i only get the next message :”The requested URL /owncloud/index.php/ was not found on this server” [Error 404].

    Could you give a little help, please?

    Reply

    • 404 page means page not found.
      Check the owncloud web directory path. I think you did some typo in apache conf file or given wrong path of web directory.
      if still have issue , send me the email with all details.
      You can write message from “Contact” page

      Reply

  10. This worked great, thanks. However in creating the certificate you’re using path ‘/etc/apache2/s/ssl/’ but in the configuration file it’s ‘/etc/apache2/ssl/owncloud.pem’, missing the ‘/s’ between apache2 and ssl. Adding /s worked for me.

    In addition I got an error when I restarted Apache that /var/www/owncloud didn’t exist. Once I created the directory everything was good.

    Thanks for the great write-up, I appreciate it!

    Reply

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