There are so many options to get started with self hosting that I feel myself stuck in the “paralysis of choice”. For a novice, does anyone have a good resource for the equivalent of good/better/best paths that cover the “basics” (In my mind this is hosting images, music, video, connected home controls, search and email)?
Thinking something like first try path A, if you feel comfortable and your HW can handle A, then try path B, etc. I guess a it of a tutorial mode feeling where you get exposed to key boxing blocks initially and then you are released into the large open world on your own.
I know the advantage of this movement is the choice and the well distributed variety, but just feels hard to start.
I have an old laptop, an SFF workstation and a NAS to play with.
Any suggestions?
Edit: Thank you all for a very generous response. I knew this was a tough ask from the start because, by design, this area is vast and constantly evolving. A lot of great starting points here that I’m now considering.
Don’t be afraid to try one thing, it may lead to another, and another, to having your LAN changed forever.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters AP WiFi Access Point DNS Domain Name Service/System ISP Internet Service Provider IoT Internet of Things for device controllers NAS Network-Attached Storage NFS Network File System, a Unix-based file-sharing protocol known for performance and efficiency PiHole Network-wide ad-blocker (DNS sinkhole)
6 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 10 acronyms.
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A reply to all first and then will follow-up with individuals with any specific thanks/questions after work today:
Thank you all for a very generous response. I knew this was a tough ask from the start because, by design, this area is vast and constantly evolving. That said, I think I do have many of the pieces of what I need here to explore - I’m most grateful that this is all advice from humans, unfortunately more rare these days (If you aren’t a human though, please reply here with the word “beep” and I’ll disregard your past advice).
I’ll try to stitch this all into one set, maybe share back here for confirmation that I’m getting it and then try to start this weekend or next. I have my own completionist hangups that I need to get over and ultimately just try something to get my hands dirty. Thanks again, all.
OP, I failed to mention one of the most important things you can do as a novice or even as a seasoned vet: take prolific notes. Write down everything. All the commands, all the steps, you’ve used in conjunction with setting up whatever service you choose, everything. What I do is while I’m in the middle of deploying something, I write everything down. Upon a successful deployment, take those notes, clean them up, and include them in my 3,2,1 back up scheme. Don’t be lulled into the notion that you’ll be able to remember everything 6 months down the road. You wont! That’s the devil talking Bobby Boucher. Take notes. They’ll save your ass in the future.
I STRONGLY agree with this. My notes have saved my ass many times! Even document the little commands you feel dumb for forgetting over and over. Just get over yourself and write them down; it’s not any worse than googling for and opening that same stackoveflow answer for the nth time lol
I simply kept my notes in markdown files for a while and eventually turned those into a self-hosted wiki using Material for MkDocs. It’s really convenient being able to access the notes from a webpage on any device on my network.
Even document the little commands you feel dumb for forgetting over and over
Yup! On my dashboard, I have a small notepad where I keep all those ‘commands you feel dumb for forgetting .’ It does go on for a bit, and yes they are basic commands, but my memory is shit, so poke fun if you must. It works for me.
Ah, neat idea!
Also, good to run into you again! I didn’t realize you were the person who’d posted the JSON question until I saw multiple replies from you in my notifications, haha.
I never take notes and it’s only been a problem most of the time.
👆 Love this sentence, no notes.
Aye on the notepad. Everything but passwords, every change gets a journal entry.
Get a cheap pcie 1Gbit Intel NIC from ebay, cheap switch, Ethernet cables.
Throw the NIC and proxmox into the SFF, make a VM for OPNsense, use the switch downstream from the SFF. Get the NAS and laptop onto a separate LAN firewalled from the ISP.
Set up another VM in proxmox for a workspace, connect it to the NAS file shares, do the same with the laptop. Set up syncthing on laptop, workspace VM, and the NAS if it supports it. Make a keepass database, start organizing all logins to keepass, keep everything synchronized with syncthing.
Set up tailscale, add it into OPNsense to allow easy and secure(?) remote access into your subnet. (I use tailscale, but don’t trust them much and want to switch away.)
Its very daunting at first, but this is the path I took, not really a guide. All this will take a few days of constant effort to get right, but you absolutely don’t need to do everything at all once, just a slow migration. I’ve been slowly building mine up for about 5 years now, and there is no one “right” answer to anything.
Only move forward when you get comfortable with each step. I personally run everything from a stack of thin clients I got from some kid off Craigslist. Think they came out of a bar and grill, filled with grease and cigarette tar, but they cleaned up nice. A full Arr stack with jellyfin runs great on an Intel 6500t with 16gb DDR3 ram.
Slowly get comfortable with the CLI and general security updates, next thing you know you’ll have 3x smart switches, better/faster NICs for the proxmox box, a WIFI6 AP for better throughput. Its endless. I try to focus on minimal wattage, my full stack pulls a steady 80 to 100 watts 24/7. You’ll get a “gut” felling for what runs best on what hardware. I spent too much on Raspberry Pi’s in the past, should’ve tried thin clients sooner.
A lot of good information here so I’ll add something a little different:
Do Not open any services to the internet, such as for remote access, until you are sure about what you are doing. Doing something like opening a port so you can watch Jellyfin anywhere sounds great, but doing it wrong pokes a huge security hole in your infrastructure.
Keep everything in your local network until you have a secure remote access setup. Even your home network may be untrustworthy if you’ve got things like IoT devices or compromised operating systems.
Start with a problem. What you trying to solve. Hosting music is different from backing up your computer. That is different from a home dashboard.
In clearest terms, I want to completely erase Google from my life first, among other wants. Not expecting you or others to flee with detailed solutions/recommendations, but just to illustrate. My priority is likely:
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Photos, all photos, app accessible locally for my family (and ideally remotely, eventually)
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Notes, no more keep, but the basic flow of that app works for me, so similar UX hopefully without overcomplicating.
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Music, local library accessible to stream throughout my home on capable devices and app accessible. Remotely accessible by app, if possible.
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TV / Movies, as above with music, but ability to control with harmony remote on a TV and not keyboard/mouse ideally (but I do have decent workarounds here currently)
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Optionally run all above through a self hosted, local voice assistant or mounted HW buttons.
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Corresponding hue light control for media events, presence detection (maybe motion detection by room) and sun schedule. All without data going back to any 3p servers.
Nice to haves:
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Calendar away from google, that allows simple external appointment scheduling, shared calendars and great colorful, visual organization of a coming week. Ideally a safe, private way for calendar to connect to and create events from emails.
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Email, my own data and ability to use aliases that route back to main with corresponding tags ideally
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Owning my online bookmarks, browser/device agnostic, with usable recall help, auto tags and read it later structure so saved articles don’t just fall into the abyss. IIRC there was something called something like “Shinobi” that felt exciting for this need?
looking at your list, make sure you have a good understanding of whatever tool you are going to use and a place to back up your photos before you remove them from Google or where ever you have your photos stored.
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Decide on one thing to do/replace. Google/Apple Photos (immich), Netflix (plex/jellyfin), home automation (home assistant)… I mean the list is extensive, but only you will know what you want to run.
Then choose an OS you think will work for you. CasaOS if you’re really a beginner. TrueNAS or Unraid in the middle. Proxmox for more advanced stuff.
Then don’t shy away from docker compose files. 1 click solutions are good, but at this stage what you need more than anything is to understand how things work. This will be very important when you’re hosting 10-20-50 things instead of 1 or 2. Using compose, install your service.
Finally when it doesn’t work or you see you’ve made a mistake, don’t be afraid to tear it down. Just assume that your first 3 setups are wrong for you. I started with an old laptop using truenas, and I’m up to 3 SFF pcs doing HA with proxmox and ceph. Do I suggest that my setup is the best? Hell no. But I’ve learned and grown into it.
Don’t be afraid to do something because it won’t be perfect. It won’t be. But it will be a learning experience.
Oh and keep a backup of anything you don’t want to lose. Don’t feed your photos to immich and then nuke the server and lose all of them.
Install docker.
Choose something you want to replace. Docs, image, chat, etc.
Research replacements for $Service
Bring up the docker Container and get it working.
Use it for a day/week as the replacement. If you don’t like it try a different replacement from the list above. Continue until happy.
Research a replacement for $OtherService
Bring it up on docker…
Check resources as you go. Maybe use Linux + docker on laptop and NFS from nas for storage. When the laptop isn’t powerful enough anymore look at adding another docker host. Just keep building from there.
Also backups. Maybe a wiki to document your journey.
Step 1 (gateway drug): Jellyfin
Well if you want the real basics of self-hosting then depending on your level of knowledge you may want to follow a Linux tutorial like this one: https://labex.io/linuxjourney
This will teach a lot of basic knowledge and terminology you may need when setting up or maintaining containers and VMs. Admittedly, this is somewhat tangential knowledge to your immediate goals, but if you want to actually use your self-hosted stuff remotely later this will become critical to doing so safely.
As for the map, for me it was something like:
Local LXC/QEMU → Remote LXD over SSH on a RPi → Proxmox on a dedicated box through the webinterface
In hindsight I would have started with Proxmox directly though I guess. One big downside is it doesn’t integrate well with Docker containers, you have to set up a full VM as your Docker host. On the upside though you can install LXC containers from https://www.turnkeylinux.org/ in a few clicks, so it’s very good for just testing stuff out and playing around.
Similar to others here, but slightly different: start with what you’re most excited about. There’ll be some shitty parts where you’re confused and frustrated, and if you feel like you’re just doing something you’re “supposed to do”, it can feel like a job for no pay. Pick something you have an inner thrill for, and maybe that fire can carry you through the dark.
Install a PiHole and route your whole traffic through it. Its easy to setup, you learn a bit about networking and the impact is massive. Would always recommend to start with a PiHole.
I was going to suggest this as well
Solve one problem, get it stable, move on to the next.
I’m the map, I’m the map, I’m the map /s
(In my mind this is hosting images, music, video, connected home controls, search and email)?
- Hosting Images: Immich seems to be a hit
- Music: Navidrome which I use daily
- Video: Jellyfin seems popular these days. Part of the 'arr stack
- Home Controls: Home Assistant gets rave reviews
- Search: Searxng which I use daily
- Email: MailCow gets some good reviews
What are the specs on that SFF? Of the 6 I listed, Immich and Jellyfin might need a few more resources, especially transcoding video. I am not familiar with running either. The rest should run within a nominal spec of something post 2015. I’m running that and another 30+ containers on a little Dell Optiplex 7020 SFF with the i7-4790 chip and 32 GB RAM (which is a bit overkill), and it barely breaks a sweat. Load averages usually run .20 .15 .35, essentially sleeping. The only time it’s under a real load is on boot up starting about 40 containers total, and that usually takes less than 2 minutes.
I mean, you could start lower on the totem pole and work your way up to those 6, but if your equipment is, like I said, within the last 10 or so years, you should be fine to march right on up to the top. That is, unless this is a learning mission for you and you wanted to just ‘try out’ other similar containers. If I were to give you a map, I’d say start with one container. See how it runs. Learn it. Take note of load averages, temps, resources. Then slowly add to the list. Worst case you might have to split the load between a laptop server and the SFF or NAS if it has capabilities to do so.
There are some security measures to keep in mind with Jellyfin, and with all containers you run really. But Jellyfin seems to need some extra attention, or so I’ve read.
I’m not sure how far along you are as a ‘novice’, but Linux Upskill Challenge is always a good bookmark.
