Install OnlyOffice on Ubuntu 24.04 and integrate with Nextcloud

I prefer and recommend installing the office tool for Nextcloud on a separate server (fresh) with specifications that cater to your needs. In this article, we will cover how to install OnlyOffice for collaborative document editing on Ubuntu 24.04 and integrate it with Nextcloud.

Before you start, point a domain or subdomain to the server’s IP address.

The minimum requirements for OnlyOffice to ensure better performance, suitable for a small team of 5 to 10 users, are:

2 CPU cores
4 GB of RAM or more
20 GB of free space
4 GB of swap

First, prepare your server by running the following commands:

apt update && apt upgrade

apt install apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl software-properties-common

Install docker

We will set up the Docker repository from docker.com.

First, let’s add the key.

install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings

curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc

chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc

Now, we will add the repository.

echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
  $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME") stable" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

Update the packages and install docker-ce package.

apt update

apt install docker-ce

Apache virtual host and SSL

We will use Apache as a reverse proxy for the OnlyOffice Docker container.

apt install apache2

a2enmod ssl rewrite headers proxy proxy_http deflate cache proxy_wstunnel

systemctl enable apache2
systemctl start apache2

cd /etc/apache2/sites-available/
vim onlyoffice.conf

Change the DOMAIN.COM.

<VirtualHost *:80>
	ServerName DOMAIN.COM

	DocumentRoot /var/www/html

	<Directory "/var/www/html">
		AllowOverride All
		Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks
	</Directory>

	ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/onlyoffice_error.log
</VirtualHost>

Enable this configuration and disable the default one.

a2ensite onlyoffice.conf
a2dissite 000-default.conf

systemctl restart apache2

Install certbot package.

apt install certbot

Now let’s get a certificate for the domain.

certbot certonly --webroot -w /var/www/html -d DOMAIN.COM

OnlyOffice docker container

We are now ready to start our Docker container.

docker run -i -t -d -p 127.0.0.1:9981:80 --restart=always \
    -e JWT_ENABLED=true \
    -e JWT_SECRET=3fhLSe156MUnvjhS4asfd435gys \
    -e JWT_HEADER=Authorization \
    -e JWT_IN_BODY=true \
    -v /app/onlyoffice/DocumentServer/data:/var/www/onlyoffice/Data onlyoffice/documentserver

You can change the JWT_SECRET to one of your choice.

After a few minutes, check if the container has started successfully.

docker ps

Update virtual host for SSL

Our Docker container is running, and we have the SSL certificate. We can now update the virtual host by adding the block for port 443 to proxy to the OnlyOffice container.

<VirtualHost *:443>

	ServerName DOMAIN.COM

	ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/onlyoffice_error.log

	# SSL configuration
	SSLEngine on
	SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/onlyoffice.lssuniversal.com/fullchain.pem
	SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/onlyoffice.lssuniversal.com/privkey.pem

	SSLProtocol all -SSLv2 -SSLv3
	SSLCipherSuite ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!DSS
	SSLHonorCipherOrder on
	SSLCompression off

	SetEnvIf Host "^(.*)$" THE_HOST=$1
	RequestHeader setifempty X-Forwarded-Proto https
	RequestHeader setifempty X-Forwarded-Host %{THE_HOST}e
	ProxyAddHeaders Off

	ProxyPassMatch (.*)(\/websocket)$ "ws://127.0.0.1:9981/$1$2"
	ProxyPass / "http://127.0.0.1:9981/"
	ProxyPassReverse / "http://127.0.0.1:9981/"

</VirtualHost>

Check the configuration and restart Apache.