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
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
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.)
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.
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.
It’s definitely a balancing act.
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.
CentOS still works great for servers. The problem with classic CentOS and other RHEL clones is that they can’t fix bugs or accept contributions that change the OS. CentOS finally fixed these problems by moving upstream of RHEL (but still downstream of Fedora). It is now the major version that RHEL minor versions branch off from, so it’s still very stable and highly compatible. I’ve got a thread with diagrams that may help.
https://fosstodon.org/@carlwgeorge/109985597904896856
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).
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.
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.
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.
Thanks, i will definitely do that
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
Some other things you can try: