Activity - Introduction to ownCloud

Login and Explore ownCloud

First we simply access ownCloud and quickly browse through it.

1. From the Community and School Portal in Tools → For All Users → Share and Store Files on Server → Enter

2. You'll be presented with ownCloud login screen. Try login in with user student and password uap123.

3. Browse through the files already there. Try viewing a PDF online

4. Go see how much data the student user is using and how much he has left. In top right corner click on the user name (e.g. Site Student in this case) and Personal from the drop down box. You will see a page with user information. At the top of the page it says how much was used and how much is left. For example, “You have used 39.7 MB of the available 50 MB”.

5. Click on the top left cloud when ever you want to return to the owncloud user home location

Upload a file in ownCloud

1. Look at the top of the page where you see all the files. There you will find two buttons: one that say New and the other with a little arrow pointing up. The one with a little arrow pointing up is to upload a file. Click that one and try uploading any file from your computer to the ownCloud.

2. Observe the results

Creating New Users

Currently you are using the Student user, and so is everybody else. You will soon want your own user. Creating new users can only be done by an admin user.

1. Logout of student user through the top menu Site Student → Log out.

2. Login as user admin with password uap123 (this will be change to a more secure password when you use the system in your school)

3. Create yourself a new user. Use the same as you use for the Community of Practice (for example, Ghislain Hachey would be ghachey) and choose easy password you will remember such as uap123. Do do this you can click on the top right link admin → users. You will see a list of existing users. Creating a user is as simple as entering the username and password (and optionally assigning the new users to group(s)) and clicking on Create.

4. Logout of admin and log back into with your new user (e.g. ghachey). These are your own personal files.

Sharing files with another user

Now we will learn how to share files. We will share the file we uploaded in the second step above with our user we just created.

1. Logout and login as user student

2. Locate the file you previously uploaded yourself (or any other file will do).

3. Hover your mouse over it without clicking. You should see some links appearing next to the file (Download Versions Share). Click on Share. Start typing the username you previously created (e.g. ghachey). After the first two letter ownCloud should find the user and provide you with one or more users. Click your user. You will see the user added in the list. This means the file you uploaded as user student previously is also shared with the new user.

4. Logout and login the user you created for yourself, the one you just shared the file with. You should see the file shared with you with a little sharing icon next to it.

5. From the left panel click on Shared with you to see a list of all the files shared with you.

Sharing files with a group of users

Sometimes you might want to share files with a group of users for example all the teachers only. There is already a group called OCTeachers with the user teacher inside it. We will use that one but more could be created if needed by user admin in a similar as creating users (this is left as exercise for participants in their own time).

1. Logout and login again as student.

2. Locate the file you uploaded above hover you mouse over it without clicking. You should again see the share link. Click it and start typing OCTeachers. OwnCloud should find the group after only typing OC if all goes well. Click the group when you find it.

3. Logout and login as a member of the OCTeachers group. Use teacher in this case but real teacher accounts could be created.

4. Observe the file that was shared.