Set Up A File Syncing Solution in an Instant with ownCloud

Productivity Sauce

File syncing services are a dime a dozen nowadays. But why bother with third-party offerings when you can roll out your own full-blown file syncing solution in a matter of minutes?

There are several ways to set up your own instance of ownCloud. If you already have a machine running the Apache web server, you can deploy ownCloud by following installation instructions on the project's website. The easiest way to set up ownCloud from scratch is to install it through a dedicated software repository, and you can find an appropriate repository for your specific Linux distro at the project's download page. On Ubuntu 12.04 and its derivatives, installing ownCloud and the ownCloud sync client is as easy as running the following commands in the terminal:

sudo echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/isv:ownCloud:ownCloud2012/xUbuntu_12.04/ /' >> /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install owncloud owncloud-client

Point then your browser to http://127.0.0.1/owncloud (replace 127.0.0.1 with the actual IP address or domain name of your server) and finish the installation. Launch the ownCloud sync client on your machine by running the mirall command, and configure the required settings, including the URL of your ownCloud instance and login credentials which you specified during the installation. That's all there is to it. Of course, file syncing is only a subset of ownCloud's capabilities, so you might want to take a closer look at what else this personal cloud solution has to offer.