Installing on Debian 12

This guide covers installing the Nextcloud Office Document Server on Debian 12 (Bookworm) from the Nextcloud Office package repository.

System requirements

Debian 12 (Bookworm) — amd64 or arm64
4 GB RAM minimum
10 GB disk space minimum

Step 1 — Enable the contrib component

The ttf-mscorefonts-installer package required by the Document Server lives in Debian’s contrib component, which is not enabled by default. Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add contrib to each line:

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main contrib
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian-security/ bookworm-security main contrib

Then update the package index:

sudo apt-get update

Step 2 — Install prerequisites

All prerequisites are available in the default Debian 12 repositories:

sudo apt-get install -y postgresql redis-server rabbitmq-server nginx supervisor

Step 3 — Create the database

The post-install script connects to PostgreSQL during installation. Create the user and database first:

sudo -u postgres psql -c "CREATE USER ds WITH PASSWORD 'ds';"
sudo -u postgres psql -c "CREATE DATABASE ds OWNER ds;"

Step 4 — Pre-seed the installer answers

echo "ds ds/db-type select postgres
ds ds/db-host string localhost
ds ds/db-port string 5432
ds ds/db-user string ds
ds ds/db-pwd password ds
ds ds/db-name string ds
ttf-mscorefonts-installer msttcorefonts/accepted-mscorefonts-eula select true" | sudo debconf-set-selections

The last line accepts the license of the Microsoft core fonts, which the Document Server needs to render documents correctly. Without it, the installer asks for confirmation, and declining leaves the fonts missing.

Step 5 — Add the Nextcloud Office repository

Add the signing key and the package repository so that updates arrive with regular system updates:

sudo apt-get install -y ca-certificates curl
sudo install -d -m 0755 /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo curl -fsSL https://download.nextcloud.com/office/repo/nextcloud-office.asc \
  -o /etc/apt/keyrings/nextcloud-office.asc
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/nextcloud-office.asc] \
https://download.nextcloud.com/office/repo/deb stable main" \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nextcloud-office.list
sudo apt-get update

Step 6 — Install the package

sudo apt-get install -y nextcloud-office-documentserver

Tip

To install a specific version, list the available versions and pass one to apt-get install:

apt-cache madison nextcloud-office-documentserver
sudo apt-get install -y nextcloud-office-documentserver=<version>

The installer generates fonts, WOPI keys, and JS caches. This can take several minutes. A successful install ends with:

Congratulations, the Nextcloud Office DocumentServer has been installed successfully!

Step 7 — Verify

Check that all services are running:

systemctl is-active ds-docservice ds-converter ds-metrics nginx

Expected output:

active
active
active
active

Run the health check:

curl http://localhost/healthcheck

Expected output: true

Updating

Updates are installed with the regular system updates. To update only the Document Server:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install --only-upgrade nextcloud-office-documentserver

Uninstalling

sudo apt-get remove --purge nextcloud-office-documentserver
sudo -u postgres psql -c "DROP DATABASE ds;"
sudo -u postgres psql -c "DROP USER ds;"
sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nextcloud-office.list /etc/apt/keyrings/nextcloud-office.asc