OnlyOffice docker installation with Apache

In this article we will go through OnlyOffice docker installation with Apache as reverse proxy for Nextcloud document editing. If you haven’t installed Nextcloud yet, click the button below to install Nextcloud 24.

To get started with the installation 1st thing we will do is point a domain or sub domain to the server IP. OS used in this setup is Ubuntu 20.04.

Minimum server requirements:

• Single-core 2 GHz CPU
• 2 GB of RAM or more
• 40 GB of free space
• 4 GB of swap

Install some basic required packages.

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

Add docker repository for Ubuntu 20.04. Command below is one line.

curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo apt-key add -

add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu focal stable"

Update the system and install docker and other packages.

apt update
apt install apache2 vim docker-ce

SSL certificate is required, you can follow this article to install certbot and get a certificate.

After installation of packages, we will enable some Apache modules.

a2enmod ssl rewrite headers proxy proxy_http deflate cache proxy_wstunnel

systemctl enable apache2
systemctl start apache2

Create virtual host

Create an OnlyOffice virtual host file for Apache .

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

If you have installed certbot and already retrieved certificate from Let’s encrypt. You can just paste the following in oo.conf file. If you haven’t yet, it’s time to get one. Because OnlyOffice does not work with http.

<VirtualHost *:80>

	ServerName DOMAIN_NAME.COM

	ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/DOMAIN_NAME.COM.error.log
	CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/DOMAIN_NAME.COM.access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>

    ServerName DOMAIN_NAME.COM

	ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/DOMAIN_NAME.COM.error.log
	CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/DOMAIN_NAME.COM.access.log combined

	# SSL configuration
	SSLEngine on
	SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/DOMAIN_NAME.COM/fullchain.pem
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/DOMAIN_NAME.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>

Change DOMAIN_NAME.COM to your actual domain.

Enable this new virtual host and restart Apache.

a2ensite oo.conf
a2dissite 000-default.conf
systemctl restart apache2

Start documentserver

We will start OnlyOffice docker container in the background now. Take note of the JWT_SECRET it will be used in Nextcloud app later. You can change this to a secret of your choice.

docker run -i -t -d -p 127.0.0.1:9981:80 --restart=always \
    -e JWT_ENABLED=true \
    -e JWT_SECRET=ni87bSds623nk932ds32342 \
    -e JWT_HEADER=Authorization \
    -e JWT_IN_BODY=true \
    -v /app/onlyoffice/DocumentServer/data:/var/www/onlyoffice/Data onlyoffice/documentserver

Wait for the process to finish as it will download documentserver docker container. If you go to the document server URL(with https) you may see this. If not check the docker logs for what went wrong.

You can list docker containers, stop and start them.

docker ps

docker stop CONTAINER_ID
docker start CONTAINER_ID

To enter a docker container and modify or check things inside the container.

docker exec -it CONTAINER_ID bash

Go to your Nextcloud instance and install OnlyOffice documentserver app. Just make sure to not install the integrated app from Nextcloud. After installation, go to the app settings and enter the required details like URL, token etc.

If everything worked out as it should, happy editing.