Nextcloud Cloud Storage for Greensburg Ghost Society
A self-hosted cloud storage environment built and donated for Greensburg Ghost Society using Nextcloud, Proxmox, Debian Linux, Apache, MariaDB, Redis, Synology NAS-backed storage, and secure external access.
Project Goal
As a member of Greensburg Ghost Society, I donated this hosted cloud storage service to give the group a centralized place for investigation evidence, shared files, and operational documentation.
The goal was to provide members with organized storage they can access from anywhere to upload, review, and preserve evidence from investigations without relying entirely on consumer cloud storage services. The service is hosted from my home lab infrastructure and backed by dedicated NAS storage.
Public documentation is intentionally sanitized. Internal IP addresses, storage paths, access URLs, account names, tunnel identifiers, and private group content are not published.
Environment Summary
Application Platform
Nextcloud running inside a dedicated Debian 12 container in a Proxmox virtualization lab.
Storage Backend
NAS-backed storage connected to a Synology RS2414rp+ used to support centralized file storage for investigation evidence and group files.
Web and Database Stack
Apache web server, MariaDB database, Redis caching, and cron-based background processing.
Resource Design
Lightweight containerized deployment with dedicated CPU, memory, swap, and a large storage-backed filesystem.
Architecture
Technologies Used
What I Built
- Deployed a dedicated Linux container for Nextcloud rather than mixing the service with unrelated lab workloads.
- Configured the application stack using Apache, MariaDB, Redis, and cron background jobs.
- Connected the service to NAS-backed storage for centralized group file storage capacity.
- Published the service externally using secure routing rather than exposing direct inbound services from the home gateway.
- Created a practical cloud storage platform for members to upload and access investigation evidence from anywhere.
- Validated service availability and storage behavior from both internal and external access paths.
- Maintained service separation so the Nextcloud environment remains isolated from other lab services.
Security and Privacy Considerations
- Internal addressing, exact hostnames, storage mount paths, and tunnel identifiers are not published publicly.
- Group files, investigation content, member data, and folder structures are not shown or exposed in screenshots.
- The service is separated into its own container to reduce blast radius and simplify troubleshooting.
- External access is routed through Cloudflare rather than direct router port forwarding.
- Administrative access and storage details are kept out of public documentation.
- Public project documentation describes the architecture and purpose without exposing private operational details.
Operational Value
This project demonstrates the ability to host and maintain a real service for an actual organization, not just a lab-only demo. By donating the server, storage, and administration work, I helped provide Greensburg Ghost Society with a practical cloud storage platform for investigation evidence and member collaboration.
The project combines virtualization, Linux administration, storage planning, web application hosting, database services, caching, secure publishing, and ongoing operational ownership.
What This Demonstrates
The project shows practical infrastructure experience in self-hosting, service isolation, NAS-backed storage, container administration, cloud-style file services, and secure external access. It also provides a real-world environment for practicing monitoring, documentation, backup planning, and lifecycle maintenance.
Project Status
Active and operational. Future improvements may include stronger documentation around backup validation, monitoring, storage lifecycle management, and user access workflows.