guides/self_hosting/services/collabora

Collabora Online

Pretty office suite with mobile device support. Based on libreoffice.

Installation (use with nextcloud)

This installation procedure could serve as a reference for other purposes, but it is made with nextcloud integration in mind.

Import signing keys and setup repository

wget -qO /usr/share/keyrings/collaboraonline-release-keyring.gpg https://collaboraoffice.com/downloads/gpg/collaboraonline-release-keyring.gpg
echo 'deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/collaboraonline-release-keyring.gpg arch=amd64] https://www.collaboraoffice.com/repos/CollaboraOnline/CODE-debian11 ./' | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/collabora.list
apt update

Install packages

Firstly, install Microsoft fonts such as Arial, Times, etc. (optional) Collabora's installation will look for system fonts and generate a systemplate, so, this will ensure MS fonts are available in collabora.

apt install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

Install Collabora front and backend packages, plus spell checking

apt install coolwsd code-brand hunspell collaboraoffice*-dict-*

Configure nginx

Add to /etc/nginx/sites-available/collabora.conf (change office.example.org with your domain):

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name office.example.org;

    # static files
    location ^~ /browser {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9980;
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    }

    # WOPI discovery URL
    location ^~ /hosting/discovery {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9980;
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    }

    # Capabilities
    location ^~ /hosting/capabilities {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9980;
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    }

    # main websocket
    location ~ ^/cool/(.*)/ws$ {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9980;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
        proxy_read_timeout 36000s;
    }

    # download, presentation and image upload
    location ~ ^/(c|l)ool {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9980;
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    }

    # Admin Console websocket
    location ^~ /cool/adminws {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9980;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
        proxy_read_timeout 36000s;
    }
}

Enable nginx site.

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/collabora.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Run this and select your domain.

certbot --nginx

Restart nginx to apply

systemctl restart nginx

Edit /etc/coolwsd/coolwsd.xml

Languages

Add or remove languages, for example, here I set only es_ES en_US de_DE fr_FR. This can impact performance, aim for few languages.

...
<allowed_languages desc="List of supported languages of Writing Aids (spell checker, grammar checker, thesaurus, hyphenation) on this instance. Allowing too many has negative effect on startup performance." default="de_DE en_GB en_US es_ES fr_FR it nl pt_BR pt_PT ru">es_ES en_US de_DE fr_FR</allowed_languages>
...

SSL Termination

Configure SSL using reverse proxy, secure and fast.

Here I set SSL to false:

...
<ssl desc="SSL settings">
        <!-- switches from https:// + wss:// to http:// + ws:// -->
        <enable type="bool" desc="Controls whether SSL encryption between coolwsd and the network is enabled (do not disable for production deployment). If default is false, must first be compiled with SSL support to enable." default="true">false</enable> 
...

Here I set termination to true:

...
<!-- SSL off-load can be done in a proxy, if so disable SSL, and enable termination below in production -->
<termination desc="Connection via proxy where coolwsd acts as working via https, but actually uses http." type="bool" default="true">true</termination>
...

Enable coolwsd

systemctl enable --now coolwsd