Want to run your own document server? Need to keep ownership of your own data? Look no further as Collabora Online offers you all that and so much more, and best of all it’s easier than you think!
Here’s how you can be up and running with Collabora Online (COOL) office in mere minutes! We’ve guides for quickly trying out Collabora Online running on the low-cost Raspberry Pi – an ideal home self-hosting option – or how you can use a virtual machine running on your current system (Linux, Windows or Mac OS) to test out COOL’s cloud office capabilities with minimal hassle. Both options work alongside Nextcloud to provide a fully featured browser-based office and document environment.
Watch our how-to video on setting up a Raspberry Pi or jump to installing Collabora Online on a virtual machine, so you can try it on any PC or Mac.
Full Raspberry Pi Tutorial
The minimum specification is a Raspberry Pi 4 with 2GB of memory and a 64-bit OS. The Raspberry Pi 3 can run COOL, but the 1GB memory is a bottleneck. With Raspberry Pi OS installed and running, open a terminal and follow this guide.
1. Install Docker
sudo apt update
sudo apt install docker.io
sudo systemctl enable docker
2. Allow user to edit docker without sudo:
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
3. Log out and back in
4. Install the Collabora Online Development Edition (CODE) and Nextcloud Docker containers:
docker pull collabora/code
docker pull nextcloud:latest
6. Run the Nextcloud container:
sudo docker run -d --name nextcloud \
-v nextcloud_data:/var/www/html -p 8080:80 \
--restart always nextcloud:latest
6. Run the CODE container:
docker run -t -d -p 9980:9980 \
-e "extra_params=--o:ssl.enable=false --o:user_interface.use_integration_theme=false" \
--name collabora_online --restart always collabora/code
Note: To find the IP address of the distro, in a terminal type: hostname -I
7. Login to Nextcloud using a browser in the address bar type: http://[Pi_IP_Address]:8080
8. Create a username and password
9. Install “Nextcloud Office”
10. Configure Nextcloud Office
Administration Settings > Office
Select: Use your own server
Set the URL to: http://[Pi_IP_Address]:9980
Click Save
Close the browser and log back in
11. Upload or create a document to edit in Collabora Online!
Try Collabora Online in a Virtual Machine Running Linux
For ease of use we’re going to cover the steps needed to test Collabora Online CODE in a virtual machine, this will need to have a Linux distro installed and running. These instructions will work with most Debian-based options such as Ubuntu. We’ll suggest Oracle VirtualBox as the virtual machine, for its broad cross-platform support, but you can use any virtual machine software you feel comfortable with:
- Download and install your virtual machine of choice.
- Download the ISO image of a suitable Linux distro, such as Ubuntu.
- Create a new virtual machine, ensure its network mode is set to Bridged and it has a suitable level of memory (1GB min) and enough hard drive space (20GB).
- Attach your Linux distro ISO file to this virtual machine and install your chosen Linux distro.
Use the install guide below to set up and configure Nextcloud and Collabora Online.
1. Install Docker
sudo apt update
sudo apt install docker.io
sudo systemctl enable docker
2. Allow the logged in user to edit docker without sudo:
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
3. Log out and back in
4. Install the Docker containers for Collabora Online Development Edition (CODE) and Nextcloud:
docker pull collabora/code
docker pull nextcloud:latest
6. Run Nextcloud
sudo docker run -d --name nextcloud \
-v nextcloud_data:/var/www/html -p 8080:80 \
--restart always nextcloud:latest
6. Run CODE
docker run -t -d -p 9980:9980 \
-e "extra_params=--o:ssl.enable=false" \
--name collabora_online --restart always collabora/code
Note: To find the IP address of the distro, in a terminal type: hostname -I
7. Login to Nextcloud using a browser on your host system, in the address bar type: http://<IP_Address>:8080
8. Create a username and password
9. Install “Nextcloud Office”
10. Configure Nextcloud Office
Click top-right profile button and select Administration Settings > (Nextcloud) Office
Even though it’s already active, select: Use the built-in CODE
11. Select Files form the top menu > Documents and open the Welcome document to get started
Note 1: Of course, this is only good for a quick look at the features, it is not for production by any means.
Note 2: Do not use localhost or 127.0.0.1 instead of IP address of your computer, because these addresses do not resolve from the containers. This means not only not using it for the address of Collabora Online configured in Nextcloud, but also for the URL you connect to in the browser to test.
Generalised Setup Instructions:
You can try CODE in 5 minutes with Nextcloud following these basic steps:
- Find out the IP address of your computer, e.g. 192.168.100.20
- Run Nextcloud from docker:
docker run -d -p 80:80 nextcloud - In your browser go to http://192.168.100.20 and set up your Nextcloud.
- In Nextcloud go to Apps – Office and Text, and install Nextcloud Office (Collabora Online) app.
- Run CODE from docker:
docker run -t -d -p 9980:9980 -e "extra_params=--o:ssl.enable=false" collabora/code - Set up the Collabora Online server in Nextcloud Settings – Collabora Online to http://192.168.100.20:9980
Note 1: Of course, this is only good for a quick look at the features, it is not for production by any means.
Note 2: Do not use localhost or 127.0.0.1 instead of IP address of your computer, because these addresses do not resolve from the containers. This means not only not using it for the address of Collabora Online configured in Nextcloud, but also for the URL you connect to in the browser to test.