Setting up ownCloud

Ok, today we are going to free ourselves from DropBox and Google Contacts&Calendar syncing on Android. We are going to have our little cloud storage: ownCloud. This is somewhat a follow post of setting your own full-of-FOSS Android phone post I did.

1. Setting up your ownCloud

Just for our first time, we are going to set up an ownCloud instance on openshift. Make yourself an account on openshift, and follow the steps here and you will have it in a breeze: https://github.com/openshift/owncloud-openshift-quickstart/

Once it is installed, enforce connecting by https on settings. There you have it!

2. Exporting Contacts and Calendar from Google

Export your google contacts in vcard format from Google (log into Gmail, and go to the contacs tab, and then click on the cog).

3. Android app

OwnCloud has an official app published on Google Play (1mobile) but it is just for syncing files into your cloud ala DropBox.

We need an app that provides contact/calendar synchronization to Android by CalDAV/CardDAV synchronisation. There are many (privative and FOSS) apps that support that. One point worth taking into account is to chose a contact syncing app that supports as much contact fields as possible. I’m using DAVdroid for calendar and contacts, available at F-droid.

https://owncloud-<your username>.rhcloud.com/remote.php/carddav https://owncloud-<your username>.rhcloud.com/remote.php/caldav

If you are using CyanogenMod app privacity settings, don’t forget to disable them to allow the new apps to see your contacts!

4. Desktop client

You can use the web client, or download a platform specific client of ownCloud from here If you are on debian, just sudo apt-get install owncloud-client.