Nextcloud is a self-hosted productivity platform which provides private and secure functions for file sharing, collaborative work, and more. Nextcloud includes the Nextcloud server, client applications for desktop computers, and mobile clients. The Nextcloud server provides a well integrated web interface.
This wikipage provides an overview of the current packaging status. It tries to answer the question how come the Nextcloud server is not packaged for Debian already? In addition this page points to installation instructions.
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Status of packaging
The Nextcloud server is currently not officially packaged for Debian and thus not integrated into mainline releases. Historically there are, however, a few approaches. Listed under Debian Request for Packages (RFP) and the Work-Needing and Prospective Packages (WNPP) https://wiki.debian.org/WNPP are:
nextcloud – RFP 835086 – self-hosted cloud services, requested Aug 2016
nextcloud-server – ITP 941708 – Nextcloud folder synchronization tool (server), being packaged Oct 2019
Discussions covers a couple of approaches over the years. Messages in RFP 835086 and ITP 941708 (2019 ITP) are cross-posted.
Coupled to the 2019 ITP is a source repository, nextcloud-server-deb, for the proposed package nextcloud-server. The package uses debhelper and respects the preferred file system structure (FHS). For the webroot under /usr/share/nextcloud-server/webroot it uses a squashfs filesystem.
There is also an external nextcloud-server package available via an external APT repository, explained at https://www.jurisic.org/. The external package is maintained since feb 2017 and currently containing packages for buster and bullseye of Nextcloud 18.0.0. The external package is also using debhelper. The preferred file system structure (FHS) is, however, not respected. The inspected package source seems to only be available in the external repository: nextcloud-server_18.0.0-1~deb10.debian.xz.
Finally, an installation wrapper package was maintained until 2018 and available via external APT repository. This was a wrapper to get the Nextcloud server installed into /var/www. No dependencies and no configuration was provided. A merger of efforts with the external package has been suggested (see thread).
Why is the Nextcloud server not available as a package?
The Nextcloud server being an essential software in many settings would benefit a large number of users as a package in Debian. The Nextcloud server is a complex software and as such it takes a great deal of effort to find out if it can be supported as an official Debian package. In short, the challenges are Nextcloud’s rapid release cycles, updated dependencies, complexity of dependencies, and that the Nextcloud server can not skip versions while upgrading.
Posts and discussions on the Nextcloud side that are of relevance are:
Nextcloud and its planned update improvements (Jun—Jul 2016)
Stable Debian repository (Jul 2016—Nov 2019)
Will Nextcloud be inviting to distribution packages (2016–2017)
Linux packages status (March 2017–Nov 2019)
How do I install the Nextcloud server today?
Nextcloud desktop clients