Every single time I talk to my friends, whom also want an *arr/Plex/VPN/Home Assistant setup like I’ve got, I can see the fear in their eyes when I mention Debian, Docker, and the terminal. It could be a case of “git gud”, but I want to help them out with a setup like this, but with as low friction as possible. Ideally something completely GUI based, and very low maintenance.
I know of unRAID, and Portainer, but does anyone have any experience in setting up something like this for people whose knowledge of self hosting and networking aren’t as good as yours?
My recommendation would be help them learn, ask them if they really want to do it, and then teach them the basics and help them with what to search for, and teach them how to google properly, because though most people use google, most people don’t know how to really find something on google because they don’t understand the basics of how it works
I have a couple friends like this over the past few years that I just built their server and taught them how to install updates on the terminal (or write a maintenance script for them to run) and how to open a port if I need to fix something remotely and it has been great.
Also, Depending on the user once it’s set up I usually recommend either Portainer or Cockpit are more than enough with watchtower to keep things up to date. If that is too much I usually just suggest a Synology/qnap or TrueNAS/unRAID for roll your own.
ETA: Cockpit also has a web based terminal and can execute package manager updates as well.
It’s technically possible with yunohost or unraid but i pretend that doesn’t exist: the apps will eventually break after an automatic update. The fix is usually easy with basic terminal skills but if everything is under a GUI…
Also, if the admin has no idea how it works, it means it has no idea where the data is saved, that means it has no idea how to make backups. No backups = all data is on time bomb
Not that I don’t agree with encouraging learning and welcoming more people to self hosting, but at some point there’s just a differentiating factor between paying for access to services for convenience and simplicity sake versus the higher friction process of learning to self host.
Even finding tools that can do this in more convenient or UI friendly ways shouldn’t be spoon fed. I can’t foresee a self hosted setup that at no point would ever need basic terminal knowledge. What happens when they want to migrate to a new server?
But to be honest, these are only to make the entry easier and convenient for maintenance. Sooner or later something will likely break and then you will have to be at least a tiny bit comfortable with the terminal. If you are unwilling to learn that, then self-hosting is probably not the right thing for you.
I know this is not the answer you are looking for, but if they happen to have a spare Windoze license laying around (or willing to shell out) then all that stuff can be done on an OS they are probably comfortable with.
Yes, it still means learning some stuff, but there is no overwhelming need to learn an entire OS to do it.
Another option is to use a Synology NAS. All those things you are talking about are packages, point and click install and setup from the NAS browser. Again pricey, but far more intuitive for non-techos. This also has an advantage of being able to upgrade as their media store gets larger.
(I don’t do either of these things, but I know we support a lot of people radarr/sonarr/lidarr/nzbget/plex/emby/HA/openHAB etc in a win environ.)
But I would teach them how to git gud, and learn FOSS and read HOWTO’s to install all that stuff (without the need for Docker, so they actually learn). Honestly after the first 5 installs on a VM (which can be deleted and recreated if fscked up) running sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade and git clone … etc. with you looking over their shoulder while reading the HOWTO with them. That would be quite rewarding for them, probably make you feel good too.
Make them an unraid usb and then they can just stick in a spare pc and they should be good to go. Then they can use the gui to download and install docker images. Would be the path of least resistance IMO.
then you can show them how to depmod their nvidia card for passthrough and configure their raid array and enable docker and know which repositories are good and which magic numbers to put in the docker file then how to configure the first run of the servers and hope it all doesn’t blow up. It’s not that easy for people with no technical experience.
Well I mean if they want a home server they will have to learn something.
Personally I just set my friends and family up with a stremio/torrentio/real-debrid setup. Nothing to host, I just pre-configure Stremio for them. Then they can just login on any device and it’s good to go.
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My recommendation would be help them learn, ask them if they really want to do it, and then teach them the basics and help them with what to search for, and teach them how to google properly, because though most people use google, most people don’t know how to really find something on google because they don’t understand the basics of how it works
The moment you help them set it up you also agree to being their IT Support when anything goes wrong. Do you really want to deal with that?
It’s also part of what I want to avoid with something GUI-based/low maintenance.
If you want to host on a vps use linode it was auto install scripts from community so you won’t have to use the term
I have a couple friends like this over the past few years that I just built their server and taught them how to install updates on the terminal (or write a maintenance script for them to run) and how to open a port if I need to fix something remotely and it has been great.
Also, Depending on the user once it’s set up I usually recommend either Portainer or Cockpit are more than enough with watchtower to keep things up to date. If that is too much I usually just suggest a Synology/qnap or TrueNAS/unRAID for roll your own.
ETA: Cockpit also has a web based terminal and can execute package manager updates as well.
Yunohost or Snap. Snap catalogue of server apps is small but it offfers Home Assistant, Adguard home and Plex.
It’s technically possible with yunohost or unraid but i pretend that doesn’t exist: the apps will eventually break after an automatic update. The fix is usually easy with basic terminal skills but if everything is under a GUI…
Also, if the admin has no idea how it works, it means it has no idea where the data is saved, that means it has no idea how to make backups. No backups = all data is on time bomb
Not that I don’t agree with encouraging learning and welcoming more people to self hosting, but at some point there’s just a differentiating factor between paying for access to services for convenience and simplicity sake versus the higher friction process of learning to self host.
Even finding tools that can do this in more convenient or UI friendly ways shouldn’t be spoon fed. I can’t foresee a self hosted setup that at no point would ever need basic terminal knowledge. What happens when they want to migrate to a new server?
Simple answer: yunohost or true nas
Other answer: webmin, and prayer.
It’s only 1 command but here they have all they ever wanted with a nice web interface: https://yunohost.org
Check out https://casaos.io/
Oh my god, what is that website?
“just execute this oneliner as root, so easy”
Modern Web trash
You should continue to wear your wizard’s hat with pride. 🧙♂️
https://www.openmediavault.org/ or https://yunohost.org have a nice web-gui that allows you to control most things.
But to be honest, these are only to make the entry easier and convenient for maintenance. Sooner or later something will likely break and then you will have to be at least a tiny bit comfortable with the terminal. If you are unwilling to learn that, then self-hosting is probably not the right thing for you.
+1 for yunohost. You have to spend a minute on the command line to bootstrap the installer then it’s nice GUI all the way.
I know this is not the answer you are looking for, but if they happen to have a spare Windoze license laying around (or willing to shell out) then all that stuff can be done on an OS they are probably comfortable with. Yes, it still means learning some stuff, but there is no overwhelming need to learn an entire OS to do it.
Another option is to use a Synology NAS. All those things you are talking about are packages, point and click install and setup from the NAS browser. Again pricey, but far more intuitive for non-techos. This also has an advantage of being able to upgrade as their media store gets larger.
(I don’t do either of these things, but I know we support a lot of people radarr/sonarr/lidarr/nzbget/plex/emby/HA/openHAB etc in a win environ.)
But I would teach them how to git gud, and learn FOSS and read HOWTO’s to install all that stuff (without the need for Docker, so they actually learn). Honestly after the first 5 installs on a VM (which can be deleted and recreated if fscked up) running
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgradeand git clone … etc. with you looking over their shoulder while reading the HOWTO with them. That would be quite rewarding for them, probably make you feel good too.Make them an unraid usb and then they can just stick in a spare pc and they should be good to go. Then they can use the gui to download and install docker images. Would be the path of least resistance IMO.
then you can show them how to depmod their nvidia card for passthrough and configure their raid array and enable docker and know which repositories are good and which magic numbers to put in the docker file then how to configure the first run of the servers and hope it all doesn’t blow up. It’s not that easy for people with no technical experience.
Well I mean if they want a home server they will have to learn something.
Personally I just set my friends and family up with a stremio/torrentio/real-debrid setup. Nothing to host, I just pre-configure Stremio for them. Then they can just login on any device and it’s good to go.