How to Install OwnCloud on IBM cloud

6 min readJan 18, 2021

OwnCloud is a suite of client–server software for creating and using file hosting services. OwnCloud functionally has similarities to the widely used Dropbox. The primary functional difference between OwnCloud and Dropbox is that OwnCloud does not offer data centre capacity to host stored files.This tutorial will show you how to install OwnCloud on IBM Cloud

Before you begin

You MUST have a user ID that is a member or an owner of an IBM Cloud account. To get an IBM Cloud user ID, go to: Please register here.

Step 1:provision Kubernetes Cluster

Click the Catalog button on the top
Select Service from the catalog
Search for Kubernetes Service and click on it

You are now at the Kubernetes deployment page, you need to specify some details about the cluster

Choose a plan; standard or free, the free plan only has one worker node and no subnet, to provision a standard cluster, you will need to upgrade your account to Pay-As-You-Go

To upgrade to a Pay-As-You-Go account, complete the following steps:

In the console,

go to Manage > Account.
Select Account settings, and click Add credit card.
Enter your payment information,
Click Next, and submit your information

Choose classic or VPC, read the docs and choose the most suitable type for yourself

Now choose your location settings, for more information please visit Locations

Choose Geography (continent)

Choose Single or Multizone,

In single zone your data is only kept in on datacenter, on the other hand with Multizone it is distributed to multiple zones, thus safer in an unforeseen zone failure

If you wish to use Multizone please set up your account with VRF or enable Vlan spanning

If at your current location selection, there is no available Virtual LAN, a new Vlan will be created for you

Choose a Worker node setup or use the preselected one, set Worker node amount per zone

Choose Master Service Endpoint, In VRF-enabled accounts,

you can choose private-only to make your master accessible on the private network or via VPN tunnel.

Choose public-only to make your master publicly accessible. When you have a VRF-enabled account, your cluster is set up by default to use both private and public endpoints. For more information visit endpoints.

Give cluster a name

Specify the desired tags for your cluster, for more information visit tags

Click create

Wait for you cluster to be provisioned

Your cluster is ready for usage

Step 2:deploy IBM Cloud Block Storage plug-in

The Block Storage plug-in is a persistent, high-performance iSCSI storage that you can add to your apps by using Kubernetes Persistent Volumes (PVs).

Click the Catalog button on the top
Select Software from the catalog
Search for IBM Cloud Block Storage plug-in and click on it

On the application page

Click in the dot next to the cluster, you wish to use
Click on Enter or Select Namespace and choose the default Namespace or use a custom one

if you get error please wait 30 minutes for the cluster to finalize

Give a name to this workspace
Click install and wait for the deployment

Step 3:deploy OwnCloud

We will deploy OwnCloud on our cluster

Click the Catalog button on the top
Select Software from the catalog
Search for OwnCloud and click on it

Please select IBM Kubernetes Service

On the application page

Click in the dot next to the cluster, you wish to use

Click on Enter or Select Namespace and choose the default Namespace or use a custom one

Give a unique name to workspace, which you can easily recognize

Select which resource group you want to use, it’s for access control and billing purposes. For more information please visit resource groups

Give tags to your OwnCloud, for more information visit tags

Click on Parameters with default values, You can set deployment values or use the default ones

Enter the required Parameters as shown.

Enter the hostname of your server.

After finishing everything, tick the box next to the agreements and click install

The OwnCloud workspace will start installing, wait a couple of minutes
Your OwnCloud workspace has been successfully deployed

Verify OwnCloud installation

Go to Resources in your browser
Click on Clusters
Click on your Cluster

Now you are at you clusters overview, here Click on Actions and Web terminal from the dropdown menu

Click install — wait couple of minutes

Click on Actions
Click Web terminal → a terminal will open up
Type in the terminal, please change NAMESPACE to the namespace you choose at the deployment setup:

$ kubectl get ns

$ kubectl get pod -n NAMESPACE -o wide$ kubectl get service -n NAMESPACE

Open the OwnCloud application web page in browser using hostname or FQDN shown in above command.