Can I install ubuntu server on qubes

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I want to install nextcloud server on ubuntu server on qubes .

Is it possible??

And what is the alternative choices

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Yes, It’s possible

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How ?

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Install Ubuntu server separately as an HVM on qubes or as Template VM. After ubuntu installation begin with nextcould installation.

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I am beginner in qubes any documentation for that

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Thanks for helping

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Welcome @dfasdas3432!

I’m glad you’re looking into using Nextcloud, it’s great open software. It would be helpful if you shared some more information about what you’re hoping to achieve.

  1. Are you looking to set up a Nextcloud server which you can use as a personal cloud? If so, will it be public-facing (connected to and accessible via the internet), or is it meant to be used on your home network (or perhaps even an intra-qube network— between VMs?)

  2. Where are you hosting your Nextcloud instance? If you installed Qubes on a VPS, I don’t think Qubes could provide any level of protection from intrustion by the hosting provider, making QubesOS unnecessary. I assume if you’re not using a VPS that you’re running Qubes from a home computer (with an x86 processor— so no Raspberry Pis).

  3. What is your threat model and convenience line? Servers require some attention (I have a home server), not to mention networking in Qubes (harder for beginners).

Regarding Ubuntu, there’s no meaningful difference between Ubuntu Server and Ubuntu Desktop (AFAIK), insofar as you can basically make Ubuntu Desktop into Ubuntu Server (and vica versa) by adding and removing some packages.

My biggest concerns with using QubesOS to host a server in a VM would be stability and debugging. QubesOS is not built to run servers and it’s not built with the focus on stability that goes into Debian releases, for example. Operating systems like Debian, *BSD, and CentOS have been tried and tested for server-side use and stability, and, as expected, they work well on servers.

Debugging is also easier with more “normal” (read: insecure) operating systems. If a Debian server fails, there will be dozens of forum posts about what to do. While QubesOS has good documentation, there’s just not as much total information and/or tutorials out there, much less about using a qube as a server. Furthermore, QubesOS doesn’t use a more common hypervisor/virtualization service like VirtualBox or KVM to host its VMs, so debugging a VM that won’t open will also be harder. I also don’t know what options there would be for “rescuing” a server qube if you needed to rescue it or just move it to another server.

This being said, this is the basic setup I would imagine for a server qube, nextcloud-vm:

  1. nextcloud-vm would be a StandaloneVM based on an Ubuntu Template or it would be a Hardware-assisted VM based on an Ubuntu Server (no reason to complicate with Ubuntu Desktop) .iso

  2. Follow the Nextcloud install process. I know it’s available as a snap package, but I prefer to do it myself so I know exactly what I’ve installed and what could be going wrong

  3. If you’ll access Nextcloud from the internet, you’d want to use TLS and you’d need a domain name to do that. Then point the domain at your server’s IP and hope your ISP doesn’t block port 80 and port 443 (happened to me) else you’ll need to run your server on another port

  4. Once you installed Nextcloud and other things like Apache, MariaDB, PHP, then I’d start the server and access it from a browser in your nextcloud-vm to make sure it works

  5. Then figure out what networking you need to sort out to make nextcloud-vm accessible from beyond QubesOS. I don’t know much about this, but I imagine you could create a networking qube sys-net-nextcloud just for your server, and also a sys-firewall-nextcloud which only allows the right traffic through. Or just modify sys-net and sys-firewall to suit Nextcloud’s needs. Then I’d check if the Nextcloud VM itself has a firewall. If you can’t use port 80 and 443 at home, I’d still keep everything on the server set to those ports; just forward new ports (i.e. 8080 and 8081) on your router to port 80 and 443 on your QubesOS computer.

I hope this outline helps. If you’re experienced with GNU/Linux and are comfortable with the possible risks of servers on QubesOS then this would be reasonable to set up.

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just an idea but maybe a standalone debian template and run the Umbrel script from github? After it’s installed just go to the app store and install Nextcloud.

Only thing is nextcloud wiill only be accessible as a tor hidden service.