I’m a longtime user of ‘ordinary’ Nitrokey Storage, and today I discover the new Nextbox which definitely suits me.
(1) I’d like to learn more about how it will connect to the ‘outside’ internet, in the following cases :
it is connected in an intranet with an ordinary ISP ‘box’ interface that handles DHCP, on a non-fix external IP (do I have to adjust the ISP box on my own, or for instance do you provide a redirector somewhere on your side which the Netbox will keep informed…)
same but if I have a fix IP
which other possible cases?
(2) Other than that, I read that there will be ‘automatic updates’. I presume these will also update the Nextcloud instance. Will these Nextcloud updates happen through the standard NC update channel, or will you provide a specific updating?
I ask this because for instance the people on the Turris routers do supply some adjusted version of Nextcloud through their own channel, apparently because otherwise the Nextcloud ordinary updates are incompatible with the Turris (linux) OS. (And to be honest that feature is a pain, bringing different versions and actually other bugs…)
(3) On the Nextbox pictures I see a variety of USB connectors. I presume at least one would connect an external storage capacity. Will there be some way of either extending the internal storage, and/or duplicate it for backup purposes?
very nice to see that the upcoming NextBox suits you well. Generally the following answers are to be seen as preliminary and are subject to change. Let’s see if I can lighten things up here:
(1) Networking is initially planned to be DHCP-based ethernet to keep things as simple and robust as possible (e.g., a missconfigured fixed IP could render the device unreachable)
(2) Yes, there are automatic (system and application) updates based on ubuntu-core & snapcraft, but we do not use the official nextcloud snap. Although we do not change integral parts of the nextcloud snap, we just want to make sure we can test internally before updating the Nextcloud snap on the Nextbox devices.
(3) As of now there will be 1x USB3 and 2x USB2 available for additional storage(s). From within a Nextbox App inside Nextcloud there will be the possibility to backup to these storages or to simply use them together with the “External Storage” Nextcloud App.
Thank you Daringer, this info is quite comforting.
My only remaining point maybe is, how do I connect to the Nextcloud instance from ‘outside home’ if, as I understand you, I’m just connecting to my ‘intranet’ in DHCP.
Does this mean I have to somehow declare something within my intranet ‘connecting box’, or does Nitrokey offer an external connection service that would be pinged regularly by my Nextbox?
Thank you again!
Hervé
For the release we’re aiming towards a flexible solution to access the NextBox from the Internet. In detail this means the NextBox App will allow the configuration and control of ddclient, which supports many dynamic DNS services. This flexibility comes accompanied with some additional effort by the user: registering at one of these (partly free) services and opening ports within your internet router.
Other options (e.g., a backwards proxy) are currently investigated and possibly integrated later on…
On a side note: Naturally there will also be the possibility to automatically acquire a TLS certificate to ensure a proper HTTPS encrypted connection to the NextBox.
Thank you Daringer! Very interesting indeed. I’ll follow your announcements carefully.
I’ll probably be in Paris in December, Covid permitting, where I have a new installation that will definitely benefit from this device.
