============
Introduction
============

Welcome to the ownCloud Administrator Guide.  This guide describes
administrator tasks for ownCloud; a flexible, open source, file synchronization
and sharing solution. ownCloud is comprised of a server running on either a
Linux or Microsoft Word platform as well as client applications for Microsoft
Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (Desktop Client) and mobile clients for both the
Android and Apple iOS operating system.

Target Audience
---------------

This guide is targeted towards people who want to install, administer, and
optimize the ownCloud server. If you want to learn more about the ownCloud Web
user interface or how to install clients on the server, refer to the following:

* `User Manual`_
* `Desktop Client Manual`_

.. _`User Manual`: http://doc.owncloud.com/
.. _`Desktop Client Manual`: http://doc.owncloud.com/

Document Structure
------------------

This document is broken out into three major sections -- Installation,
Configuration, and Maintenance.  The following sections provide detailed
information about various tasks associated with each of these sections.


Installation
============
This section provides detailed instructions on how to install ownCloud in
different scenarios.  It contains the following topics:

* :doc:`installation/installation_linux` (recommended)
* :doc:`installation/installation_windows`
* :doc:`installation/installation_source`
* :doc:`installation/installation_others`
* :doc:`installation/installation_ucs`
* :doc:`installation/installation_macos` (not supported)
* :doc:`installation/installation_appliance`

.. note:: If you just want to try out ownCloud in a virtual machine, without
   any configuration, refer to :doc:`installation/installation_appliance`.  For
   your convenience, this topic contains ready-to-use images.

Configuration
=============
This section describes how to configure ownCloud and your web server.  It
contains the following topics:

* :doc:`configuration/configuration_apps`
* :doc:`configuration/configuration_users`
* :doc:`configuration/configuration_database`
* :doc:`configuration/auth_ldap`
* :doc:`configuration/server_to_server_managing`
* :doc:`configuration/custom_mount_config_gui`
* :doc:`configuration/custom_mount_config`
* :doc:`configuration/background_jobs`
* :doc:`configuration/configuration_mail`
* :doc:`configuration/configuration_automation`
* :doc:`configuration/configuration_encryption`
* :doc:`configuration/configuring_big_file_upload`
* :doc:`configuration/configuration_reverseproxy`
* :doc:`configuration/xsendfile`
* :doc:`configuration/configuration_3rdparty`
* :doc:`configuration/custom_user_backend`
* :doc:`configuration/configuration_custom_clients`
* :doc:`configuration/configuration_knowledgebase`
* :doc:`configuration/configuration_logging`
* :doc:`configuration/configuration_language`

Maintenance
===========

This sections describes the maintenance tasks associated with the ownCloud
server (for example, updating or migrating to a new version of ownCloud).  It
contains the following topics:

* :doc:`maintenance/enable_maintenance`
* :doc:`maintenance/migrating`
* :doc:`maintenance/update`


