How to install it, step by step: Set up SMART Migration for the app
What a server of your own brings
Section titled “What a server of your own brings”Running the work on a machine you own, inside your network, rather than in Nextcloud or in a vendor's cloud, gives the migration a few advantages that matter more as it grows.
It reaches every source
File shares, local drives and SharePoint on-premises are on your network, out of reach of any cloud service. The server sits next to them, and reaches SharePoint Online, OneDrive and Teams over the internet as well.
Credentials stay with you
The Entra ID app registration and its certificate, the NTLM credentials for SharePoint on-premises and the Windows account that reads the file shares exist only on the server. Nextcloud, this app and the partner hold none of them.
Microsoft's own interfaces
The server talks to SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams through Microsoft's own APIs — most of them only available on Windows — as a Windows program signed in with your tenant's app registration. That is what lets it carry versions, metadata and dates across, and respect Microsoft 365's throttling.
Your files go straight to your Nextcloud
Files travel from the source to your Nextcloud through the server and nowhere else. No third-party cloud service stores or relays them on the way.
Close to the data
Latency matters more than bandwidth when a library holds many small files. A server near the file servers and Nextcloud keeps every call short.
Under your control
You decide where it runs, when it is maintained and which network segment it sits in. It can even run with no internet access, for file shares and SharePoint on-premises.
Every connection goes out from the server
Section titled “Every connection goes out from the server”The server starts every connection itself: it asks this app for work, reads the sources and writes into Nextcloud. Nothing has to reach the server, so no port has to be opened towards it, and the app never contacts it.
| The server connects to | For | Over |
|---|---|---|
| This Nextcloud | Claiming jobs, reporting progress and results, writing files and reports | HTTPS, signed in with a Nextcloud app password |
| SharePoint Online, OneDrive and Teams | Reading the sources | HTTPS over the internet, with the Entra ID app registration and its certificate |
| SharePoint on-premises | Reading the sources | Your network, with NTLM credentials |
| File shares and drives | Reading the sources | Your network, as the Windows account the server runs as |
| The reporting database | The file-level data behind the Power BI report | Your network |
A locked-down network segment
For file shares and SharePoint on-premises, the server needs no internet access: only a route to the sources and to this Nextcloud. Microsoft 365 sources need a route out to Microsoft.
Read more: File shares to Nextcloud
What the server needs
Section titled “What the server needs”The requirements are those of a Windows program that reads your sources and writes into Nextcloud. Arrange them before the installation, with whoever runs the network, the tenant and the file servers.
| Requirement | Why |
|---|---|
| A Windows machine or VM, with 16 GB of RAM as a baseline | The server is a Windows program and runs every job; it stays on while jobs run. More memory helps when four jobs run at once or a library is very large. |
| The prerequisites, .NET 8 among them | A machine without internet access needs them installed by hand before the server. |
| A route to this Nextcloud | Every job is claimed, reported and written over the Nextcloud address. |
| An Entra ID app registration with a certificate | For SharePoint Online, OneDrive and Teams: the certificate as a .pfx file or installed in the Windows certificate store, and the permissions SMART Migration needs. |
| NTLM credentials | For SharePoint on-premises: an account that can read the sites to migrate. |
| Read permission for the Windows account | For file shares: on every folder the jobs read. |
| A dedicated Nextcloud administrator account and its app password | The server signs in to this app with it; revoke the app password to cut the server off at once. To create destination Team Folders, the server's address also needs to skip Nextcloud's password confirmation — see A team folder is not created |
| A repository and a BI database | SQL Server 2025 Express and PostgreSQL, installed with the server by default, or servers of your own. See How SMART Migration installs: the repository and the BI database |
| A licence key from your partner | The free trial key first, the production licence when you go live. |
Sizing, prerequisites and the tenant's app registration, in full:
- Size the servers for a large migration
- System requirements
- How to create and configure the app registration
Why it does not run inside Nextcloud
Section titled “Why it does not run inside Nextcloud”Nextcloud and this app stay exactly as they are: the app holds the plan and the record, and makes no request to Microsoft 365 or to the server. That is a choice, and it keeps Nextcloud out of the migration's risks.
- Microsoft's APIs run on Windows. A large part of the communication a migration needs with SharePoint and Microsoft 365 — reading libraries, versions, metadata and permissions, and SharePoint on-premises above all — goes through Microsoft's own APIs and client libraries, and most of them are only available on Windows. Nextcloud runs on Linux, so the work has to run on a Windows machine beside it.
- No Microsoft 365 credentials in Nextcloud. A Nextcloud that read the tenant would have to hold the app registration's certificate. The server keeps it inside your network instead.
- A migration is not a web request. A run can take hours or days, and a server built for it survives a dropout, throttling and a restart better than a web server would.
- Windows reaches Windows sources. NTLM and the permissions of a Windows account on a file share belong on Windows too.
Your partner sets it up with you
The download link, the trial key and the production licence come from your SMART Migration partner, who can install the server with you and check that it reaches every source.
See also