Hello selfhosters! I read here a lot, longing for the day to get back into it. I have a little plan to do so I have access to some thin clients with decent enough hardware to run a small file server. I’d like to set one up for myself and as a gift to my partner
I keep getting lost in the jungle of options and incompatibilities so I was hoping to enlist some help in selecting a stack
I’m looking for open source software in the base, maybe truenas but I prefer debian and my partner uses LMDE already.
- On top of that should be a simple file server for backups/network storage. Some interface for managing storeage would be huge too
- Wireguard with an interface
- Having a simple container interface for future features like homeassistant and jellyfin et al is great too.
Open source and free is a must and I want to avoid risk for future lockins and freemium/ripe for enshitification-software as far as possible. And no or at least responsible llm use if that even exists anymore. Happy to shed featues to acheive that in combination with longevity. Is plain debian or even ubuntu the way to go or are there more optimised distros? Or am i just describing fedora with cockpit? Im not lost in linux itself, just overwhelmed with the endless options hoping someone can help me make a plan!
Would you make someone you love a home server?
Yes, but the gift isn’t the hardware. It’s that it keeps working when you’re not around to fix it. So I’d go boring: plain Debian, Cockpit for storage and containers, and a WireGuard web UI. Before you hand it over, unplug the internet for a day and see what breaks. DNS usually goes first. I’m building an open-source home box around the same idea (GPLv3 once it ships), and your question is the one I keep chewing on: what makes a partner actually use it instead of just tolerating it?
Would you make someone you love a home server?
Hell no. I have one because I like tinkering and don’t mind maintaining it. My loved ones are not those kinds of people. So then it becomes more of a chore for me and less of a fun personal project.
Would you get them a qnas or homey or other pre-made products? Apart from providing occational tech support and making sure they’re actually updating, would you argue thats more or less secure and privacy respecting than a basic diy server? Do you know any options that are both simple/”idiot-proof”, non-proprietary and private?
Just based on my own experience with my wife and kids, it’s the whole “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink” thing. While I have services running for photo & file storage, books, music, and video (plus a Proton family plan and several other services), the only thing my family uses is Jellyfin.
I’ve mostly given up now. I keep everything up because I use it all and love working on it. Maybe one day they’ll express some concern with privacy or ownership, and then I can pounce. But people need to be ready to move.
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I don’t see a problem with the idea as long as you’re aware you’re committing to be the one maintaining it and dealing with any problems that might arise from doing so.
If you’re storing other people’s data (especially photos) you better be extra sure that you have a good backup strategy and a plan to test those backups regularly.
Yea I always provide lifetime support to linux convertees and so far every issue we had in lmde could be solved with the right keyword search. I was hoping the right server distro would have similarity good documentation. The Linux version of TrueNas and open media vault look like promising such distributions.
The idea evolves with all the comments and I think the way is to make two identical servers from thin clients. Identical hardware, different passwords. Two mirrored drives over usb each and the internal nvme for write cache and OS. Perhaps the OS could be immutable on a USB, to further reduce the risk of sudden self immolation. Just need to learn flashing the latest version.
As long as there is a competent webgui I know they are willing and capable of reading documentation and forum answers. Should something ever happen to our relationship my partner can easily take their data even if their server died, but they do say debin goes forever with regular updates. In the meantime, the server gets the same treatment as mine.
- Use whatever Linux Distro you want.
- Install Docker to run containers.
- Install Portainer for Container Management
- I am a big fan of NextExplorer as a file server.
Important: Have fun. I feel like you are overthinking this. It’s very easy to remove a service and install a new one if you don’t like it. 😀
I think Debian Server + Docker compose. Its the easiest way to get started and has the most documentation for. To me, the OS itself is the least concern - just get something maintainable. Then choose services you want from https://selfh.st/apps/ and have a go with them. Most services give you docker compose scripts so that is by far the easiest way.
If there are two of you with accounts, then I would suggest these:
- Reverse proxy (caddy, nginx, etc)
- SSO authentication (authentik, authelia etc)
- VPN for access (wireguard, netbird, tailscale etc)
- Security (fail2ban, crowdsec, etc)
On top of Home assistant and the Jellyfin / arr stack you mention, I would recommend Immich (google photos), Paperless NGX (letter scanning / management), Vaultwarden (password manager), FMD (find my device server for android phones), and SearNGX (private search engine).
Potential alternatives would be NixOS (fully scripted) and Proxmox (better containerisation but still got to decide what you install on each container, such as Debian + docker). You could also use podman instead of docker compose, which is more secure but a bit more effort to adapt to. However, if access is only through the VPN and you have two users, Debian + docker would be fine.
You could do them a solid and set them up with an ad blocker on a cheap SDC, but if you really want a loved one to manage proxmox and learn how to yaml and manage containers, all while learning everything you never wanted to know about networking, IP addresses ports and Linux all at the same time… The best thing you can do is get them interested in figuring it out for themselves. Give them the bug, spread the addiction, don’t give them hardware/responsibility
I put openwrt on their router and an adblock dns already but a dns sink would be cool too
Neither of us want to learn proxmox, but I am still convinced there are simple and feature rich solutions that don’t require that.
Its not clear exactly what you’re asking for?
Maybe I don’t know myself! I suppose it boils down to understanding the whole stack. Too many times I’ve decided ”im gonna do distro A! And Y program. Great. Lets add Z. Oh. Outdated or incompatible without ninja moves. But flawless on distro B” Do i then virtualise, make ninja moves or swap distro? This makes me abandon it again.
For context I’ve gone from being the early linux adopter self hosting game servers on centos but I’m fairly stagnant since 10 years. I deegoogled but never replaced the infra. These days I barely open my laptop except for chores and work. Im back to using gmail for official purposes. But I also desperately want to break out of the phone/surveillance eco system
Now when I’ve been trying to look for solutions theres the added AI jungle. I was reading up on easyNas which seemed to tick all my boxes but it appears new and reliant on claude… so that would require me to look into how they handle that. Which feels insurmountable.
Im looking for the ”simple recommendation for grandparents” but for me, linux knowledgable but information overloaded. Ideally I can support my partner in a gui over the phone, should the need arise.
How did you make your stack and how easy to manage is it? Whats your favourite server distro and do you use any interface for it?
Well for me, my wife had a ton of pictures laying around, and some scattered on google drive etc…
I basically did a huge scanning project in secret, set up an immich server and surprised her with it. That absolutely is one of her favorite gifts of all time.
Now as far as doing that with someone that didn’t stay in the same house, on an OS I wasn’t already managing… no probably wouldn’t imagine doing that unless the person was already showing signs of interest in managing something like that… in which case it should be done as a “lets build this together” project.
If you are after a Debian based system, with an interface for file server/backups/network storage, with a (web) interface, you are pretty much describing https://www.openmediavault.org/ . Decent plugin ecosystem to set up Wireguard, as well as a web interface to set up docker based containers for anything.
I did look at that. Between the giant popup ads and at the time 403 forum I couldn’t tell if it was legit or not. Would you say it is trustworthy and long term?
Popup ads? Where are they? That’s not something I’ve heard of, but then I always use an adblocker…
I used it for years on a raspberry pi, and it was great, very easy to manage storages and different ways of sharing over a network.
Long-term cause it has at this point been around for actual decades.
I don’t know about long term, but it’s running on my pile of virtual servers and does it’s job just fine. The openmediavault itself is a pretty good web-interface on top of Debian and it’s just configuring the underlying operating system so you can get exactly the same setup by writing configurations manually for the services. OMV is just a convenient tool to manage simple fileshares.
I use it only for samba and wireguard, so can’t really say if it’s as solid with other extensions, but for me it’s been a decent tool for the job.
Would you make someone you love a home server?
No. Especially no for a non-technical, remote person.
Troubleshooting my lab in the basement is hard enough without having to try some weird screen share app, or telling the person, “press the blinky light button. NO NOT THAT ONE”.
If you want to share the joys of a home lab, do what I did for my technologically impaired in laws - get a wireguard VPN client on a laptop and walk them through (several times) the process of connecting to the VPN, browsing to your services, logging into the services, doing the thing, then disconnecting from the VPN.
- Show them the process while they take notes on the process.
- Let them follow their own notes with minimal help (except to correct the notes) while they do the process end to end.
- Repeat that last step a few times with zero feedback so they build confidence in the process.
- The next day, have them do it again based exclusively on their notes and memory.
- If you’re still in town, wait a full day and repeat the last step a few days later.
My in-laws are now experts at VPN’ing in and interacting with my services.
No way. MAYBE if they specifically asked me to, but that’s a big maybe. It can be a lot of work to maintain, and they’re probably not going to want to put in the work to do that. It’s like buying them a puppy when they never mentioned let’s before.
