Useful apps to self-host
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I am setting up my NAS right now, and I need some suggestions for apps that I can run on my NAS or self-host.

  • I have seen some online articles, but they are too confusing because they list too many apps for each category.

  • I want backup apps for iOS, Android, Mac and Windows. (It would be great if they could back up automatically).

  • I want to sync my calendars and contacts.

  • I want to download media like TV shows and movies. (And music, too). “Of course, only legal obtained from the internet cough.”

  • I want apps that let me access my data from anywhere.

  • I saw this cool thing where you could use a Raspberry Pi to access your NAS bios from your PC.

Os - Unraid

PlantObserver
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For the downloading media part:

The *arr stack is what you’re looking for + Jellyfin for streaming (Opensource, 100% free, and much better than Plex).

Prowlarr: manage your indexers

Radarr: find/automatically download movies

Sonarr: find/automatically download tv shows

Jellyfin: streaming your media

Look up trashguides for setting up all this stuff, very detailed guides. They are compatible with torrents and Usenet. I like using docker with portainer for easy management and if you use a VPN container you can selectively route these containers through the VPN so your other services that dont require the VPN dont need to route through it.

Encrypt-Keeper
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61Y

Jellyfin for streaming (Opensource, 100% free, and much better than Plex).

*Better for your wallet and the privacy, not better in any functional way.

𝙚𝙧𝙧𝙚
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21Y

I think it depends on your clients. If you’re using Roku, you can skip Jellyfin…sadly.

deleted by creator

𝙚𝙧𝙧𝙚
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11Y

Still gotta pay for guide data iirc. Has that changed?

An update for the Roku app was released 5 days ago which massively improves it (finally an OSD!). It’s getting there.

I use zap2xml or whatever it is. Simple script and crontab job and it’s worked without issue for near two years now I guess (since I initially configured it.) All free. I’m in the States so not sure if it’s location dependent or not.

Encrypt-Keeper
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-31Y

Well not better, just cheaper.

Chewy
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51Y

Never used Plex, but if being open source is a feature Jellyfin is better than Plex.

Not requiring an external authentication server is the biggest drawback of Plex. I don’t want Plex to have my watch history and info about my media library.

With Findroid supporting the intro skip plugin I’m fine since I don’t need many platforms.

I have them both running. The only thing Plex does better for me is remote access. Everything else like UI features, collections, series identication, and CPU usage has been simpler and better looking on Jellyfin.

And Android TV, it’s gotten better, but generally still sucks.

I use Jellyfin because it’s FOSS, private, and it’s also written in a tech stack I’m very familiar with.not because it’s better than flex, because it really isn’t.

Plex gotten around to av1 transcoding yet?

PlantObserver
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01Y

I’ve used both extensively and stand by my statement, from a functional standpoint as well.

Encrypt-Keeper
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11Y

That’s a bold opinion given its barebones UI, widespread playback issues, and lack of basic functionality like a proper intro skip. Like even Emby is miles ahead of Jellyfin. Which isn’t surprising given JF is free but let’s be real lol

PlantObserver
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Clearly just upset you got conned into paying hundreds for an inferior product

Encrypt-Keeper
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11Y

No I would love to switch to Jellyfin. I ditched Plex after some of their more recent shenanigans but Jellyfin is just so vastly inferior on almost every front that it’s difficult to even compare the two. For now I’m using Emby which is another fork of the same project Jellyfin is and it’s a lot closer to feature parity with Plex. And I’ll gladly pay money for a quality product over settling for a free product that doesn’t really get the job done.

I just hope that one day Jellyfin reaches a maturity that it’s actually worth switching to.

I would avoid self-hosting backups at the same location where your devices are currently kept. There is a reason off-site backups are a thing. So many failure causes are shared with devices in the same home, from electrical issues (lightning and technical defects among other things) over water and fire damage to theft.

@a4ng3l@lemmy.world
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11Y

I’d say it’s about designing a good strategy. I have local backups on my NAS and a nightly incremental backup to cloud locations from there. That way the capture from my local equipment to the NAS is lightning fast and it’s not a big deal to have it take a few hours to reach the cloud. Also having a NAS on a power backup is a must-have.

Fahad
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21Y

Will need to research it as I’m not aware of it. Thanks for the heads up.

rentar42
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That being said: backing up to a single, central, local location and then syncing those backups to some offsite location can actually be very efficient (and avoids having to spread the credentials for whatever off-site storage you use to multiple devices).

I should have written “your only backup”, obviously it can’t hurt to have both.

@Gooey0210@sh.itjust.works
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There are some different way you can achieve many of these. There are like the cloud collaboration suits, and syncthing way

I want to sync my calendars and contacts

For this you can have something like nextcloud or it’s alternatives, or syncthing with decsync, or a separate caldav service

I want to download media like TV shows and movies. (And music, too). “Of course, only legal obtained from the internet cough.”

I personally use jellyfin + transmission. I’m still trying to set up *arr suite, but it’s not working, then I could use something like jellyseer. But transmission is working well anyway

Ugh, Nextcloud. It is always touted but it is such a pain to set up properly, and then it is slow as molasses.

I’ve tried, and I’ve tried the similar suite from Synology, but in the end always come back to the Google system - much as I hate to admit it, Google “just works”.

pgetsos
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Nextcloud is literally “Jack of all trades, master of none”. It tries to do EVERYTHING, and it fails to be even decent in most of these things…

I actually like it, i’m using deck, cospend, share folders, manage some projects, send other people shares

For me it feels perfect, I don’t need to manage different services and know them in depth

Other people just need to create one account and we can do all the stuff by using our names, you know

For me nextcloud “just works”

I’m also loving Nextcloud for a simple way to do a bunch of simple things. Installing with AIO wasn’t so hard (though I plan to migrate to NixOS someday), and it introduces me to a bunch of things I can do (such as making links for shared folders with random people, no login required for them) without my having to learn a ton different specialised things.

Most of what I want to do I feel in principle there should be a better way (e.g. syncthing plus a web-frontend file server) but there’s always a weak point somewhere.

Especially that Nextcloud had decent apps for both Android and iPhone.

True, it’s a bit slow, takes most of my low-budget VPS’s memory, and doesn’t always work the way I’d like etc. but it’s great for me for now.

@Gooey0210@sh.itjust.works
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I’m already on nixos, so nextcloud is not a pain anymore

I’m fully agree on all the points you mentioned

I run nextcloud on a es i9 with so much ram I don’t remember how much exactly, 32 or 64

P.s. I believe the future of selfhosted cloud is based on syncthing, has some e2e encryption, and vpn integrated

@milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee
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I believe the future of selfhosted cloud is based on syncthing

We need some more volunteers to run relays :-)

Ed: or maybe ipv6 will solve everything one day

aard
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Ugh, Nextcloud. It is always touted but it is such a pain to set up properly,

The problem is mainly maintenance - they do YOLO style database handling, so you can’t miss any release or you have fun upgrading. Plus you need to kick it after installing to upgrade the databases.

Other services (like SoGO) have proper upgrade scripts, and automatically adjust the database schema from pretty much any version on first start after upgrading.

Nixos + automatic upgrades = if my system breaks, then everyone’s system breaks

For me google isn’t “just works”. Very few functions in the ui, pretty slow

I use nixos, so configuration for me is not that painful. And every version it becomes faster and faster, and right now it’s pretty fast

Google oppice apps are not fast, that’s true, but they are blazingly fast compared against Nextcloud or Synology. Only Office 365 can keep up (and is functionally better) - but eh, you know.

@Fisch@lemmy.ml
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31Y

I have a working setup with Jellyfin, Sonarr, Radarr and Jellyseer that downloads from torrents and usenet. Works quite well.

Do you use vpn?

@Fisch@lemmy.ml
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21Y

Yes

@tdc@discuss.tchncs.de
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141Y

I want apps that let me access my data from anywhere

This may sound exaggerated, but paperless-ngx combined with a good network scanner will change your life. All paper mail accessible anywhere and also searchable. Plus, it is much easier to just scan something and drop it in an archive box instead of trying to figure out which folder (banking or taxes or maybe bills?) to file it in AND still remember that decision years later when you need to find it.

@PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.world
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Brother ADS-1700W (edit: now that’s the exact model)

Tiny,fast, scans double-sided straight to a network share. It’s the most amazing thing I’ve bought in years, literally.

Since I have this exact problem and need… I went looking. By any chance did you mean the Brother ADS 1700W? If I’m going to take recommendations from strangers on the internet, I want to be sure I get it right. =)

Yes! Sorry for giving wrong details. That was from memory, and I am a goldfish…

The printer has a web interface where you set up destinations, and I set up a file path there. Separately, on the printer itself, you can set it up to do one action automatically when it detects material in the auto sheet feeder, and I used that so it auto-scans to PDF/A and saves it on that network share.

Then I have Paperless check that path once a minute. So my workflow is literally, drop the paper in the scanner, and 5 seconds later put it in a box, then a minute later I see it in Paperless. It’s bliss.

I have just ordered a Brother ADS 1700W. You’ve convinced me!

Congratulations! I think you’ll love it. There are some things to set up. Let me know if you have questions :-)

@lemming741@lemmy.world
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21Y

My printer/scanner doesn’t scan to FTP. Anyone out there shopping for a Brother Laser, step up to the MFC series that doesn’t require USB to scan, and also hardwired Ethernet. It’s only another $50 and will also include a document feeder.

Fahad
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Also, privacy-wise, what do you guys use to keep your home server anonymous/hidden and protected? Is VPN enough? If yes, what VPN do you recommend?

Mr. Forager
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41Y

Totally go with Tailscale, can’t stress how nice it is.

Cows Look Like Maps
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21Y

How does it compare with a VPN?

@BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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01Y

It’s a mesh network, so there’s no open ports on your router. In that way it’s more secure than a VPN in my opinion. You do have to trust Tailscale themselves, but they’ve documented why that’s not a concern.

Mesh network clients on your home network make an outbound connection to their respective discovery servers (or whatever theyre calling them). Companies like Tailscale host these servers so your mesh clients can find each other.

https://tailscale.com/kb/1151/what-is-tailscale

Mr. Forager
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11Y

This article explains it better than I could

https://tailscale.com/learn/replacing-legacy-vpn

@shiftymccool@lemm.ee
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71Y

I’m using wireguard but I hear a lot of good things about tailscale.

Tailscale is a mesh VPN. Its a level of abstraction passed a regular VPN, lime wireguard or OpenVPN. Tailscale uses wireguard under the hood.

Rikudou_Sage
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101Y

My recommendation: host OpenVPN, change the default port and only access your NAS from the internet using your VPN. Also only allow the VPN port on your router firewall.

Mr. Forager
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51Y

If this, then I would highly recommend Tailscale or Headscale. Just simplifies this process so much. Tailscale is so darn good, my number one tool of choice.

@Discover5164@lemm.ee
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11Y

this is a great idea but it will only work if they have a public ip

Rikudou_Sage
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11Y

True. But pretty much the same applies for dynamic DNS services, except you have to trust your dynamic DNS provider.

Encrypt-Keeper
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21Y

DDNS won’t help you if your IP isn’t a public IP

Rikudou_Sage
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11Y

It makes a tunnel through to you and links to that.

Encrypt-Keeper
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DDNS doesn’t do tunneling. DDNS is a solution to a changing public IP, not something like CGNAT. You’d need a separate service with a relay server to do something like what you’re suggesting, like how Zerotier or Tailscale work.

Rikudou_Sage
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11Y

Ah, I’ve only ever seen it in combination with a tunnel, so I assumed it’s part of that.

@shiftymccool@lemm.ee
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21Y

Depends on your router. I have an Asus and it has a free ddns option through their domain. I point my Wireguard client at this address and never think of it again. That way, the only port that’s open on your router is a Wireguard port and they don’t respond to sniffing.

If that’s not a possibility, I had a ddns service before that for like $2/month

@Discover5164@lemm.ee
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21Y

maybe is specific to my country, but here the majority of network plans have a CGNAT down the line. So we have a private ip at the router and there is no way to reach it, unless you reley the traffic to a third point.

if you want a public ip (even dynamic) you need to pay up

You can grab a static public IP on a VPS for free. That’s what I do — works well, though the VPS speed is capped pretty low.

Encrypt-Keeper
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11Y

No he doesn’t mean a static IP, he means a publicly routable IP. That’s not something DDNS will help you with.

Turun
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21Y

I have a vps for 2€/month. It’s not a powerful machine, but easily enough to host wireguard and caddy.

@a4ng3l@lemmy.world
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31Y

Yeah definitely a good idea. Routing your mobile traffic through it so your carrier cannot access your traffic and the services you don’t want to share location with can’t snoop as much on you.

Rikudou_Sage
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31Y

I meant more because people generally don’t have as much time to spend on IT security as companies, but yeah, it works for privacy as well.

Lemmy Tagginator
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11Y

deleted by creator

ElTacoEsMiPastor
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21Y

thanks, bot. i wouldn’t know otherwise that this post on c/selfhosted is about #selfhosted

Among my must-have selfhosting items, in no particular order, I can recommend:

  • Portainer, to keep track of what’s going on.
  • Nginx Proxy Manager, to ensure https with valid certificate to those services I want to have available from the outside.
  • Pihole, of course.
  • Gitea, to store my coding stuff.
  • Paperless-ngx, to store every paper in my life.
  • Immich, an amazingly good replacement for Google Photos.
@Grunt4019@lemm.ee
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71Y

What do you use for scanning for paperless?

I’ve commented elsewhere on this page:

Brother ADS-1700W
Tiny,fast, scans double-sided straight to a network share. It’s the most amazing thing I’ve bought in years, literally.

The printer has a web interface where you set up destinations, and I set up a file path there. Separately, on the printer itself, you can set it up to do one action automatically when it detects material in the auto sheet feeder, and I used that so it auto-scans to PDF/A and saves it on that network share.

Then I have Paperless check that path once a minute. So my workflow is literally, drop the paper in the scanner, and 5 seconds later put it in a box, then a minute later I see it in Paperless. It’s bliss.

lemmyvore
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01Y

Why do people recommend Gitea for self projects? What do you do with it that git+ssh can’t?

Neshura
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171Y

Due to some concerns about Gitea’s future I would recommend Forgejo instead. It’s a drop-in replacement with less concerning contribution policies and management structure.

𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬
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-31Y

Due to some concerns about Gitea’s future I would recommend Forgejo instead. It’s a drop-in replacement with less concerning contribution policies and management structure.

Quoted for emphasis and affirmation.

buffaloseven
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61Y

I’ve been using Forgejo for about 6 months now and I’m really impressed with it. Covers all my needs!

What are those concerns? Why is it relevant to self-hosting?

Is it like the rumor that the Lemmy devs are pro-Russia or whatever it was about?

Honestly asking, here. Not trying to start a flame war, just want to know whether to bother to care about this.

Neshura
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141Y

Gitea is managed by a for profit which is now offering a hosting service. That alone is already a conflict of interest because one of Giteas core features is the easy self hosting.

Then the contribution guidelines have been made stricter, anyone contributing now has to give up their copyright to the gitea management, meaning they could change the opensource license to a stricter one down the line without requiring community consent.

The concern is that as time passes features will be locked behind a premium tier for self-hosters or the self-hosting itself will be made more difficult in an effort to push their cloud service.

@krash@lemmy.ml
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21Y

100% agree on you list. I’d also throw in some file management solution, such as filebrowser, NFS/samba or syncthing.

jelloeater - Ops Mgr
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31Y

You should try PhotoPrism, it’s amazing. All great picks BTW. Gittea had GH Actions compatible runners now!

I have tried Photoprism but was not as impressed by it as Immich.

@danielo515@lemmy.world
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01Y

We aware that Immich breaks one week and then the other week too

Sorry but that’s not true. I have been running Immich for a long time now, and it is solid and stable.

A recent update had a change in the Docker configuration, and if you didn’t know that and just blindly upgraded, it would still run and show a helpful explanation. That’s amazing service.

@danielo515@lemmy.world
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21Y

What is a long time? I’ve been running it more than a year, and the number of times it broke and the amount of time I had to invest into its quite high. You may be lucky, or I may be unlucky, but I’m just explaining my experience

Ha e you looked at dockge? I like it way more than portainer, atleast for single instance. It works with normal compose files so it keeps your stuff a lot more compatible to change and its by the guy who makes uotime kuma.

If you don’t mind, could you please check your typing? You had some obvious typos so I am not so sure of the exact name of the tool you are suggesting.

Sorry about that, my reply was from my phone and therefore terrible. Here’s the app: https://github.com/louislam/dockge

@Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz
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Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
CGNAT Carrier-Grade NAT
DNS Domain Name Service/System
Git Popular version control system, primarily for code
IP Internet Protocol
NAS Network-Attached Storage
NAT Network Address Translation
Plex Brand of media server package
VPN Virtual Private Network
VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)
ZFS Solaris/Linux filesystem focusing on data integrity

9 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 4 acronyms.

[Thread #351 for this sub, first seen 14th Dec 2023, 10:45] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

@Tolstoy@lemmy.world
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21Y

Is it custom build NAS or something like Synology?

As already mentioned for proper backups you should locate the NAS somewhere else.

I’m not an expert by any means so don’t take my word for it. I’ve tinkerd with some pies befor but this was my proper first project: a NAS for my family (multiple households).

If it’s for personal use, you can use a VPN to your local network. It’s by far the safest option and easier to setup.

I went with OMV (openmediavault) for local sharing as OS + Docker + portainer. For the backups and access I went with Docker Nextcloud and Docker Swag (letsencrypt) and a reserve proxy with duckdns since I don’t have a fixed IP. Nextcloud setup was the easiest part and not really a hassle. With a VPN you won’t need to tinker with the “access from net” stuff.

For syncing files on Android I would recommend Autosync since it’s the most reliable one IMO. No other OS tested so far.

Nextcloud can handle a lot on its own and for something special you will find a proper plugin. For the download needs you may find some docker containers.

Fahad
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11Y

Custom build NAS

Fahad
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11Y

deleted by creator

3-2-1 means 3 copies total on 2 different media with 1 copy off-site. An easy way to implement would be make a local copy outside of your NAS/RAID(different NAS or external HDD) and create a copy of that somewhere in the cloud or hosting(backblaze for example)

You should probably not look at your whole storage when thinking about Backup, but create different logical pools. For example I have 3 pools: media files, personal files&photos, app config files for my docker.

I don’t backup the media files because I can reacquire them, I have a very strict backup policy for my personal files and a more relaxed policy for my config files.

I use duplicacy to manage a local copy and a cloud copy and do restore tests sometimes. Duplicacy can also manage retention of its snapshots so I can keep years old versions of my personal files but only a few weeks worth of config

Fahad
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11Y

Thank you for the info. I thought I was going to have a lot of data, but I don’t; that including media, which, as you said, can be reacquired with no need to backup, saves a lot of storage space. I have approximately What do you use for local backup? I’m also looking at cloud storage for offsite backup.

I use backblaze as a target with duplicacy, pretty cheap and allows free downloads of up to 3x your data per month. I use about 500gb there.

Hyperreality
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61Y

You should host the internet.

@PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks
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21Y

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

the internet.

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.

@Bdaman@sh.itjust.works
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41Y

My personal lists:

Adguard Home Channels WireGuard for remote access (this is the only open firewall port) Firefly-iii (for personal accounting) Nextcloud for files,calendar,and contacts

I have only a few services. I could probably downscale my server.

  • AdGuard DNS

  • Tailscale and Zerotier

  • Open Media Vault

  • Jellyfin

  • Uptime Kuma

  • Graphana / Prometheus

  • Torrent/seed box

All on Proxmox and mirrored ZFS 2 x 20TB

For backups I use FolderSync and the default backup for windows. Super lazy, but I don’t want to be the IT support of the family.

Is there some quick start templates for graphana / Prometheus? I started setting it up and it’s extremely configurable, but I feel like I have to hand craft everything.

That’s my issue with Prometheus… I want to have solid monitoring and metrics, but there’s so much setup and I feel like I’m just hosing it all up.

I just discovered this and it’s awesome, if you’re into gaming at all. It’s a containerized console emulator suite, and I think it is very well done. https://github.com/linuxserver/docker-emulatorjs

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