dotfiles_arch/ansible/START_HERE.md

👋 Welcome to Nextcloud Stack Ansible Deployment!

🚀 Quick Start (Choose Your Path)

🏃 I Want to Deploy NOW

1. Read → DEPLOYMENT_GUIDE.md (10 min read)
2. Run → ./setup.sh (5-10 min)
3. Deploy → make deploy (30-45 min)

📚 I Want to Learn More First

1. Read → README.md - Complete project overview
2. Read → PROJECT_SUMMARY.md - Design & architecture
3. Then → Follow Quick Start above

🔧 I'm Having Issues

1. Check → TROUBLESHOOTING.md
2. Check logs → make logs
3. Review → BACKUP_RESTORE.md if you need to restore

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📖 Documentation Index

Document	Purpose	Read Time
DEPLOYMENT_GUIDE.md	Step-by-step deployment instructions	10 min
README.md	Complete project overview & features	15 min
PROJECT_SUMMARY.md	Technical details & design	10 min
TROUBLESHOOTING.md	Common issues & solutions	Reference
BACKUP_RESTORE.md	Backup & restore procedures	Reference
AGENTS.md	Docker & Ansible development guidelines	Reference

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✅ Pre-Deployment Checklist

Before you begin, ensure you have:

• Ubuntu 20.04+ server (LXC or VPS)
• Root or sudo access to server
• Minimum 100GB disk space on server
• Ansible 2.14+ installed on your laptop/control machine
• Domain name with DNS control
• SSH access configured to server

Critical: DNS A records must point to your server BEFORE deployment!

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🎯 What You'll Get

After deployment, you'll have:

Public Services (HTTPS)

• Nextcloud - File sync & collaboration
• OnlyOffice - Document editor (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
• Excalidraw - Whiteboard & diagrams
• Obsidian - Note-taking & knowledge management

Management Tools (Tailscale-only, secure)

• Homarr - Beautiful dashboard for all services
• Dockhand - Container management interface
• Uptime Kuma - Monitoring & alerts

Infrastructure (automatic, invisible)

• Caddy - Reverse proxy with automatic SSL
• PostgreSQL - Database
• Redis - Cache for better performance
• Watchtower - Automatic updates (safe services only)

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💡 Key Features

• ✅ One-command deployment - make deploy does everything
• ✅ Automatic SSL - Let's Encrypt certificates via Caddy
• ✅ Secure by default - Firewall, fail2ban, Vault encryption
• ✅ Auto backups - Daily DB, weekly volumes (30-day retention)
• ✅ Multi-server - Deploy to multiple VPS with unique domains
• ✅ Production-ready - Monitoring, backups, documentation

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🏗️ Project Structure

/home/liph/programming/ansible/
├── setup.sh ⭐                    # Start here! Interactive setup
├── Makefile                       # Convenient commands (make deploy)
├── playbooks/                     # 10 Ansible playbooks
│   ├── site.yml                  # Main orchestrator
│   ├── 01-preflight-checks.yml   # Validates environment
│   ├── 02-system-setup.yml       # Packages & security
│   ├── 03-docker-setup.yml       # Docker installation
│   ├── 04-tailscale-setup.yml    # VPN setup
│   ├── 05-deploy-stack.yml       # Main deployment
│   ├── 06-configure-caddy.yml    # SSL & reverse proxy
│   ├── 07-setup-backups.yml      # Backup automation
│   ├── 08-post-deployment.yml    # Verification
│   └── 99-rollback.yml           # Emergency rollback
├── roles/                         # Templates & configs
│   ├── nextcloud_stack/
│   │   └── templates/
│   │       ├── docker-compose.yml.j2  # 12-service stack
│   │       └── env.j2                 # Environment vars
│   └── caddy/
│       └── templates/
│           └── Caddyfile.j2           # Reverse proxy config
└── docs/                          # You are here!

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🎓 Common Commands

After setup, you'll use these frequently:

make deploy        # Deploy everything
make status        # Check container status
make logs          # View all logs
make backup        # Run manual backup
make restart       # Restart all containers
make edit-vault    # Edit encrypted secrets

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📞 Need Help?

1. Common Issues: TROUBLESHOOTING.md
2. Backup/Restore: BACKUP_RESTORE.md
3. Full Documentation: README.md

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⚡ 30-Second Overview

This project automates deploying a complete self-hosted productivity stack:

1. Configure once: ./setup.sh collects all info
2. Deploy anywhere: make deploy to any Ubuntu server
3. Use immediately: Access via https://cloud.yourdomain.com

Time to deploy: 30-45 minutes (mostly automatic)

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🎯 Recommended First Steps

For Complete Beginners

1. Read DEPLOYMENT_GUIDE.md
2. Configure DNS for your domain
3. Run ./setup.sh on your laptop
4. Run make deploy and wait
5. Access your new Nextcloud!

For Experienced Users

1. Skim README.md to understand the stack
2. Review PROJECT_SUMMARY.md for architecture
3. Run ./setup.sh and make deploy
4. Review generated configs in /opt/nextcloud-stack/

For Developers

1. Read AGENTS.md for development guidelines
2. Review playbooks in playbooks/ directory
3. Check templates in roles/*/templates/
4. Customize as needed for your use case

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🌟 What Makes This Special?

• User-friendly: Interactive setup, no manual config editing
• Secure: Ansible Vault, firewalls, Tailscale, automatic updates
• Complete: Monitoring, backups, SSL, documentation included
• Production-ready: Tested deployment procedures, rollback capability
• Maintainable: Clean code, comprehensive docs, modular design

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🚦 Ready to Begin?

New users: Start with DEPLOYMENT_GUIDE.md

Quick reference: See README.md

Technical details: Check PROJECT_SUMMARY.md

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Let's build your self-hosted cloud! 🚀