I just recently started playing around with an old pc as my homeserver and am curious of any recommendations for lesser known self hostable foss software that you would recommend
These are the ones I use most actively, on my FreedomBox:
- bepasty for moving around or sharing temporary files
- Quassel for staying connected to IRC servers
- Radicale for synchronizing my calendar and tasks.
- Syncthing for files I want to have available between my laptop, desktop, phone.
- Tiny Tiny RSS for following blogs.
You may be way ahead of me on this, but I highly recommend using docker for this endeavor(or podman), as it really allows you to try a lot out without making a mess of your system.
I run pihole, syncthing, and gitea locally(among less interesting things.)
I just started using podman yesterday, and only used docker for about a week before that, im excited for the learning to be had in this area. A couple days ago i tried pihole, for some reason it didnt serve the web interface, but i will definitely kepp on trying.
Yacht is a great UI for starting a container, especially for self hosting, there are a good amount of tutorial online.
I personally also host
- syncthings that will sync my app settings on the phone, and push it to my cloud drive,
- pi-hole to block trackers. I generally let ad through, but not trackers.
- jellyfin for media library
- transmission for (cough, cough) seeding fedora, mint and other free and open source, and 100% legal stuff.
- home assistant for automations.
Some other things you can try:
- a home Minecraft server, not exactly FOSS, but if you are into it, you should do it.
- Nextcloud for syncing photo and documents, but remember to keep a offsite backup.
So PiHole is a little special if I recall correctly, you have to give it a dedicated virtual interface. Or at least I did. I’d highly recommend using docker compose(or the podman equivalent) for setting up your various containers. It makes it very easy to bring them up and down and modify them quickly and easily.
Thanks for the directions i was quite stuck!
Not to overload you here, but if you do get PiHole going, I recommend setting up a docker to act as a proxy so you can setup an internal domain. PiHole can manage the internal DNS entries, then the proxy will translate them into the various docker services. So you could have, say, DNS entries that say miniflux.beerd.local to make it very easy to remember.
Thanks, i will definitely do that
You can do that without pihole by making DNS entries with your registrar pointing to internal IPS.
True, but not everyone has a public domain. And some of those that do, like myself, prefer a split DNS situation to keep the internals of my network hidden.
Can you share with me what OS you are running? At the moment I am using MX Linux because it is familiar to me, but is likely suboptimal for running a server.
I think docker is really cool, but felt like a lot of work compared to using flatpaks or a package manager, but I am really limiting myself and it is probably not that hard to learn.
Strange, Lemmy didn’t tell me you replied. Well, I run mostly Ubuntu Server OSs for Linux for work, but at home I am cheating and using a Synology NAS as my home server with docker installed on it. CentOS used to be a good go-to for servers, but I think Redhat made some changes to the way it releases and I think a lot of the CentOS users moved to other distros.
Interesting. I never used CentOS, but I think it makes sense to run an OS designed to be used in servers. That would probably make my life a hell of a lot easier than setting up everything on my own.
Good call.
Honestly, with Linux, the biggest difference between server distros and desktop distros is if a GUI is installed by default. But one advantage of using a well known server distro like Ubuntu Server is that most articles on the Internet assume you are running it.
True. I think the software I would download anyways is installes by default, which makes it easier.
I don’t need a server to have a gui since most of the interfaces for services are browser based anyways.
I am in no rush! It would do me well to explore and become more familiar with the networking side of linux.
No doubt, there is an endless amount to learn with Linux. I’ve been using it for servers since the early '00s, and have been using it as my main OS on my personal devices since probably 2016, and I still regularly learn new things. If you are trying server stuff out on PC hardware, I suggest looking into virtualization. Proxmox is a great OS to start with for a virtual host. Then you can try out as many OSs as you want as virtual machines. You may be way ahead of me on that, but back when I was first learning what it meant to run a server it was of great help to me. That was before the days of docker and most containers(although I did use BSD Jails a little).
Oh, as for os, i’d recommend dietpi on a SBC that uses a memory card, because it logs to RAM so you don’t wear the card as much, and Debian for everything else. You don’t run Into problems with Debian. Unless you like snaps, then go with Ubuntu. As much as I hate snaps, they are good for some services that tend to break on upgrades, like has been my experience with nextcloud.
Ooh. I have a RPI 3 that I never use. Maybe I am overcomplicating this. I tried to use it for managing my 3D printers but it was just a hassle. I think it is actually cheaper to get one of those Creality boxes at this point instead of rolling my own.
Plus SBCs are quiet. Okay, I will try it.
Octoprint on a pi is great for 3d printers. You can even use a pi zero of you disable Bluetooth (it uses the better serial chip otherwise). I’ve never seen the creality boxes. I’ll have to look into it.
Yeah, I was using octoprint. I think I just do not understand networking enough to get over random problems I have.
Actually, I got it working. It was fine for one printer, the set the z offset into the bed so that was a no go. Never got the webcam to work, which is most of the reason I wanted it in the first place.
The webcam is… not easy. Or anyway, it worked when I used a raspberry pI with a raspberry pi camera. Now I use some orange pi zeros with USB cameras, and the setup was tricky. Even worse, it seems to change the camera device every few reboots, so it’s basically useless. My printer is by my desk though, so it’s not a priority for me. If I really wanted a camera i’d probably set up a cheap WiFi camera that exposed a stream and just set octoprint to point to that stream instead of serving a local one itself. I also use a relay to power my printer on and off, and I think if I was going to set it up again i’d just use a smart plug and one of the plugins to turn it on and off.
Oh, I am glad it is not just me. That is so anmoying.
IP cam seems like a good option, but I already have a bunch of webcams so… meh.
The thing about docker is, you can set it up with all your data mounted into a folder in your home directory. So, for instance, ~/docker/jellyfin/data, and your docker compose file for jellyfin is in the jellyfin folder. So if you want to move it to a different system, you just rsync the folder over and run docker-compose up and it’s done. Also, backups are super simple, because you just stop the container, rsync (or Borg or duplicati, restic… whatever) your container’s folder over. Of your server gets completely trashed, you just restore your backup to another computer and you’re good. Usually the better maintained projects are even architecture aware, so you can move from Intel to arm or whatever. It’s totally worth learning.
Okay. Awesome. I was seriously thinking about getting NAS or a specialized media box like an NVIDIA Shield or Dune HD, but I have plenty of older computers that can do the job, so it seems like a waste. I have Rokus that handle video playback, so I just need to set up streaming.
I do need to get better at backing up! My computer has like, 250 GB SSD and a TB HDD I never mount, but definitely need to use for offloading all my data. Just downloading a few games really eats up my disk space. Need to get that sorted out too.
Damn I am so lazy with computers.
I used a really old laptop with a bunch of USB disks for quite a while. Then I made a naskiller 4, and it was super easy to migrate because I used docker for everything. I’d recommend searching up the nasskiller builds whenever you do want a NAS. They price everything out and tell you exactly what you need and what options you have, and it emphasizes getting used hardware off eBay for cheap.
Backing up is always a challenge. I’d suggest looking into duplicati, because it’s super easy for servers and desktops.
Nice! Thanks for the tip. They get so expensive.
I believe in used hardware. Most of my computers I inherited or got at flea markets, yard sales, and thrift stores. Ebay is no different, and probably significantly better if refurbished.
Oh yeah. I love old hardware. I’m hesitant to use desktops as servers anymore because of the power they use, but laptops in particular are great. You can get an old Dell for next to nothing and replacing their batteries is super cheap. It has its own battery backup. I even got a USB 3 card for mine. Used it for several years and when I went to migrate to my nas I found out the LCD had gone dead. Hadn’t noticed or cared.
That is actually a good point. I was considering getting a couple of UPS for my main computer and server, but a laptop would do the job. I should pick one up anyways.
Yeah, power consumption sucks. I do not want to contribute to the waste culture, but I also don’t want to overspend on resources.
Miniflux as an RSS reader
I actually was looking around for rss readers, but havent found one that can save entire articles and serves them offline. Does this support that?
I suppose so, but I’m not sure since it’s a web app
This will create rss feeds with the full article. It can then be used in your aggregator/reader of choice to allow offline reading. I use it in combination with FreshRSS and Feeder on android.
The piece of string is very long!
https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted
You may need to work backwards, identify a service as a need and then figure out which software to run.
This is an awesome resource! I already have what i need (file, torrent, gitea server), but im looking for software to try out just for fun.
Yeah, I get ya but when you scroll that list you can see why it’s a hard topic to reply to. There is a lot of fun to be had!
Home Assistant! You can host it inside a VM.
I attempted to use different home assistant softwares, but i always ended up deciding that i will wait till offline voice recognition is a bit more usable (not being a native englis speaker its a rougher experience). I will pobably try it again soon though.
Home Assistant, despite the name, isn’t an Assistant like Alexa or Google Home, it is actually a home automation integrator. It connects to practically everything, and then workflows can be triggered off the states of your IOT stuff. In my house, I use it to, among other things, turn down/off the light when grid power goes down and I’m running on battery power, as well as send me a notification that I’ve lost grid power.
Personally, as well as NextCloud, I’d host instances of LibreX, CloudTube, PiHole, Gitea, XMPP, and CryptPad.
If it’s fun you’re after, though, why not try hosting a Minecraft server? And how about XMPP or Matrix, to keep in touch with friends?
What’s your xmpp server of choice?
I haven’t really looked into it much, as I don’t currently have enough time or money to self-host anything, but I’d probably go with Prosody to start with.
Jellyfin is a great FOSS alternative to Plex for TV/Movie playback.
- Portainer server and agent for monitoring all docker hosts in one place
- Traefik as reverse proxy
- Dashy (complex) and Homarr (simpler) as dashboards
- Gluetun for VPN access for containers and proxy for everyone on the network
- Radarr/Sonarr for managing Movies and TV shows
- Navidrome for music
- Audiobookshelf for audiobooks
- Transmission/qbittorrent/rtorrent/deluge as torrent clients
- Pinhole for DNS
- Technitium for more advanced DNS and DHCP (might replace all piholes with this or blocky in the future)
- Plex/Jellyfin for media streaming
- JellyfinVue - awesome frontend to jellyfin
- Bazarr - for subtitles
Caddy is simpler for the reverse proxy. Just sharing for people that get scared when they try to set up Traefik.
Ngnix-proxy-manager is even simpler :) But along with the automatic router creation using labels, I’ve found traefik to be the most robust of all three.
The traefik syntax and configuration using yaml is really initutive. I can link a good guide here if someone wants it. The official documentation isn’t that good.
One of my favourite guides explaining the configuration files for traefik.
Please do! I have been trying to set up remote access to a server I have, and there seems to be so many solutions and all seem very complex.
Have linked one :) For remote access, I wouldn’t necessarily use traefik at the edge. The safest solution would probably installing zerotier/tailscale on the remote server and accessing traefik through that. That way you don’t have to expose unnecessary parts or worry about robustness of authentication etc.
Ooh. I signed up for tailscale, but havent gotten the configuration right I think. Also signed up for NextDNS. Got some work to do but no longer have the time.
What I actually want to do is make it so I can give out accounts to services to my family and girlfriend so they can watch movies and whatever.
Tailscale is one step to many. I think I will need to purchase a domain name or set up a VPN, which seems a little scary to me.
I think you might have confused it with something else. I will explain how to what you want :)
- Make an account with tailscale. You can login with your Google account.
- Install tailscale on the computer that has plex.
- Go to the terminal and run
sudo tailscaled upor just run the tailscale executable in windows/mac. - It will ask you to go to a url and Authorize it, login here with your tailscale account.
- Install tailscale in your gf’s computer.
- Ask her to send you the url, login and Authorize that.
- Now if you go to tailscale website you should be able to see both computers. Look up the IP of the Plex comuter.
- http://plexip:32400/web from your gf’s computer will let her access Plex.
That’s it :)
Hell yes. I can do that. Thank you for the write up!
Nginx proxy manager is simple, but I can’t manage to make it work with https on porkbun. Nginx-proxy works just fine and it’s probably the simplest i’ve seen.
That is pretty cool :) I have a domain on porbunk too but even up putting DNS on cloudflare because porkbum uses cloudflare anyway but doesn’t expose most of the features. Kind of a loss loss. Cloudflare works with pretty much everything.
I’ll check out nginx-proxy. Have heard good things about swag too. How is the setup on nginx-proxy compared to other options?
I didn’t know that about porkbun.
Basically you run the container and then put a couple environment variables in the containers you want to proxy and it handles all of it for you, including certs. Just works.
Thanks. Seems pretty much identical to traefik which makes sense because I think most of reverse proxies just use LetsEncrypt underneath.
Honestly I started using traefik first and I agree, the learning curve is steep. I’m only just now starting to understand what my labels are doing. But now, I’ve tried caddy and literally cannot get it to work, or find how to port what I have on traefik over to caddy lol.
Here are all the steps after installing Caddy to create a reverse proxy with SSL:
- Open the
/etc/caddy/Caddyfilefile - Add the following, replacing the domain and port with those that you want to use.
reverse_proxy localhost:8080}
- Restart Caddy with
systemctl restart caddy
Super interesting. I’ll have to experiment with this, the guides I found were not this straight forward. Thanks!
- Open the
I have two instances of BookStack. A public-facing one for bird stuff, and one for home stuff. I also self-host an instance of Plausible Analytics as a privacy-respecting alternative to Google Analytics.
Syncthing to replace Google drive and Photoprism for Photos. Both have a great functionality and run well on my 12yrs old home server with 2gb of ram.
I’m really happy with Photoprism as well, it’s great to have facial recognition without relying on Google Photos
Yeah, and syncing is so easy, I just press a button and don’t care about it.
On my 2 raspberry pi’s I am running Pihole, Pivpn, Syncthing, Photoprism, Unify controller, Heimdall (webpage that has all my servers…locally accessible, or non local via wireguard connection via pivpn) Might be more can’t remember! Prob more from other suggestions on here over next few days 😂
Might I suggest Dashy/Homarr? Heimdall has been abandoned I think. I went from Heimdall to Organizarr to Dashy/Homarr.
Heimdall still being maintained via linixserver, but just looked up dashy/homarr…and looks pretty nifty! Think I might spin this up and run both until I figure which one I like best 😊 thanks!
No worries :) I didn’t know that. Last time I checked the GitHub looked kind of dead. It is a great project so I’m glad it’s alive.
Homarr is kind of good for a very simple page and is very robust but dashy is really powerful. It has become an essential part of my homelab.
I’ve got a pretty booring setup compared to most 🤣. Ubuntu Server running the following in docker,
- Plex
- Audiobookshelf
- Komga
Audiobookshelf has come a really long way. The version out now is heaps and bounds better than what it was 1 year ago.
I’m using the following:
Plex for music/anime/tv/movies, calibre webserver for ebooks/manga, qbittorrent web+Prowlarr to search for and download content, SyncThing to keep things in sync between my server and desktop, and I’m also file sharing with nicotine++
Here are some I find really useful:
- Jellyfin (media interface)
- paperless-ng (document store with OCR, tagging, search, etc.)
- Miniflux (RSS reader)
First time hearing of Paperless. That’s super cool!
Thanks, paperless will be really useful at uni
I use all of these and can confirm they’re really good! I can’t believe I used to just search through multiple email accounts instead of using Paperless.
What benefit does Paperless provide over searching your email? If you’re searching your email, then you can search by message metadata associated with the document (e.g. when it was sent, who sent it, keywords in the email). How does Paperless improve upon this experience? It seems inelegant to just duplicate all that in Paperless.
Granted, that said, I like my email searching tools and email client, so maybe that’s part of it?
One of the main things is that Paperless applies OCR to each uploaded document, so you’re not just searching for the message content and metadata, but also the whole content of the document. Maybe some email clients will do this too. It also has a tagging system which can automatically add tags based on document content. Mostly I just like having everything that’s relevant in one place, and only what what is relevant. So if I’m looking for concert tickets I don’t find the “order confirmed” and other related emails that do not actually contain the tickets.
This is enough to make me curious, at least :) I will give it a look after I’m finished my current fiddling (may include “ugh I’m sick of computers” timeout if it’s unsuccessful).
!selfhost@lemmy.ml
https://lemmy.ml/c/selfhost(still don’t know how to link communitys here)
