this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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I've had a "home lab server" for a while now, it's nothing special but I think I can do more with it, I just don't know what to do with it... I currently use it just for a pihole and (sometimes) a Minecraft server or a web server... I used to also have a nexcloud and a searxng instance (which I will probably bring back)... Any ideas for other things I can run on it?

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

That's a really open-ended question. Depends purely upon your interests and appetite for risk, etc.

Might be worth looking at, from a Docker perspective:

  • AdGuard Home (I think it's better than Pi-Hole)
  • Wireguard or similar. Great for reaching your services when away from home.
  • Audiobookshelf. Audiobooks. There are good apps.
  • Calibre-Web. Ebooks.
  • RSS feed reader, for non-social media websites you visit. Plenty to choose from: FreshRSS, TT-RSS, Sismics, etc.
  • Gitlab CE. If you're a developer or can otherwise make use of version control.
  • Gotify. Alerting on your containers. Has a good mobile app.
  • Heimdall. A dashboard for everything you're running.
  • Komga. If you're into manga. The best iOS app is meh, but the best Android app is awesome.
  • Mealie. Recipe database.
  • Paperless-ngx. Excellent for storing your PDFs and other digital life.
  • PhotoPrism. Basically Google Photos.
  • Portainer. Great for managing Docker containers/stacks.
  • qBitTorrent. Guess what that's for.
  • SWAG with Authelia. SWAG does reverse proxying with a Let's Encrypt certificate, and automatically renews it for you. Authelia provides MFA (Authy, Google Authenticator, etc) on top of it.
  • Vikunja. Todoist or Toodledoo without having to pay for features.
  • Wallabag. Basically Pocket.
  • Watchtower. Automatically updates containers for you. Can exclude the ones you don't want to update, etc.
  • Webtrees. Family tree research, if that's your thing.
  • YouTransfer. Useful for sharing files without having to use Dropbox, etc.

I have in the past run a Valheim server and a VRising server, too. FWIW.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Why do you think AdGuard is better than Pihole? I'm not upset with the job Pihole is doing but always looking for improvements.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Did you need steam to run the Valheim Server? We have it on xbox game pass and don't want to buy it again

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I don't remember Valheim specifically, but most standalone servers don't require you to own the game in the account you use to host it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, the container I used requires your Steam ID as an environment variable.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'll echo AGH being better. And there's a sync if you run two instances like I do. Wallabag is solid and its even better with Minflux as your RSS reader. Super tight integration to save from RSS to Wallabag. Love it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm a huge fan of Immich (Google Photos clone). I disabled the ML features which kneecaps it a little, but it runs totally fine on an rpi 4 (4GB).

There are other self hosted image solutions, e.g. PhotoPrism, so check out the options first. I used PhotoPrism for a while, but I like the Immich mobile apps (Android and iOS!), so am sticking with it.

I'm also running pihole, Wireguard, and Home Assistant (and fail2ban). Simple nginx web server handles the proxy business for Immich, and I also use that for sharing stuff with friends and family (e.g., a link to a PDF or something). I finally got around to installing SSL certs, and it was almost disappointingly simple! certbot just worked for me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Plus Photoprsim put some stuff behind a paywall which is a bit lame. Immich is fantastic!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Immich is so good. I love it

[–] ButWhatDoesItAllMean 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Bitwarden for hosting your own password manager.

Not sure if you have any smart home devices, homeassistant is another great self host program

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I use KeepassXC for my password manager and I'm happy with it, though I'd be happy if I can figure out a way to setup password fole sync within my LAN without having to setup nexcloud. As for smart devices, got none, I'm not lazy enough to spend 100s of dollars on automatic lamps and stuff... Not yet anyways

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I switched from keepass to vaultwarden (self hosted bitwarden) and am glad I tried it out as am finding it so much better on all my devices. I definitely recommend giving it a try if you're just looking to tinker with things

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I swore by Keepass for years... recently switched to Bitwarden last month and so glad I did.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Vaultwarden? Sounds interesting! Does it support the .kbdx format or will I have to re-make my whole database?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Here is a list of all the supported apps and formats: https://bitwarden.com/help/import-faqs/#q-what-file-formats-does-bitwarden-support-for-import

I see KeePass 2 and KeePassX being listed, and assume that the KPXC app will have some sort of option for an unencrypted export of all data. That can then easily be imported into the Bitwarden vault.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I imported my keepass database into vaultwarden with no issues

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

a quick search on the net did not answer my question...

therefore:

do you use it also outside your lan? (with port forwarding, ssl cert etc.)

if no, are you able to use the passwords nonetheless on your phone even when youre not in our lan?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

The clients cache the vault locally whenever they are connected to the server (at least I think they do. The mobile apps for sure, the desktop app probably too, the browser extension im not sure). Adding entries without server connection simply won't work though, so if you can you should somehow make the server accessible from outside your LAN.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are only a few services I host that are publicly accesible, and I put those on a 12 dollar per year virmach vps. One of those is vaultwarden. Some others are gotify, wallabag, hauk, and remotely. I don't think it's a problem to run vaultwarden on your lan only because it will sync changes when you connect and resolve any conflicts. I have it accessible from the internet to encourage friends and family to use a password manager with as few hurdles as possible. I've found it to be easy to administrate and secure. In fact, I just moved it from my cancelled dedipath vps to my virmach vps yesterday with zero issues and about 5 minutes of downtime.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

yeah, I thought about that option however I would like to have my hardware of the server accessible. until I am not upgrading power consumption wise it does not make sense for me to buy a vps.

(neglecting the point about data owning etc)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, I have it under a subdomain I own on cloudflare. Then it's behind nginx proxy manager on my server which takes care of the ssl too. I have fail2ban too so consider it enough security for if the user passwords are long enough. You can set minimum lengths if letting others use it, or in my case I helped family set it up and made them have strong passwords.

Like others have said, the apps cache everything locally. I have used it without issues with no mobile Internet (e.g. for my cc pin numbers I store on there when i was out in the country with crap reception). I guess you're more likely to create accounts at home anyway but if you have to when out, it would sync whenever you have it back on the lan.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

but if you have to when out, it would sync whenever you have it back on the lan.

thanks. this was the information I was hoping for. I am stuck with a mobile internet router where I am not able (or at least Im not smart enough) to forward a port. therefore my RPi would sit behind the firewall in my LAN.

nevertheless vaultwarden would be an upgrade from my current keepass/syncthing system. (also because the UI and autofill works better)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I use syncthing for this. Keepass and photos sync instantly

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you want to keep using Keepass within your LAN. I highly suggest picking up Syncthing. I use it to sync my files between all my devices.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I use mine for FreshRSS, Komga, Nextcloud and Syncthing.

[–] Anafroj 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Take back the control on your data, that's the whole point.. :) Where are you regularly saving data? Those are the prime candidates. Look at self-hosted alternatives for those services. I know big webapps hosted in docker containers managed by kubernetes is all the rage around here, but you can often find Unix style equivalent for such services, the main advantage of putting it on a server being to be able to access it from multiple devices. But you do you, if you prefer hosting big webapps, that's fine too. :)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thing is, I already have control over my data, now I'm wondering what else I can do with it. I mostly save data locally, the only things I'm really missing are a sync for my password manager and for my Firefox stuff (I don't use ff sync), but I'm also planning to upgrade my "server" and am wondering what to upgrade it with, that's why I'm asking for ideas, because idk what to upgrade it with... It's got a fairly decent CPU (some AMD FX 8core), 16GB ram, but no GPU ( fully headless rn) and only 128GB storage... So yeah, that's why I'm asking for ideas...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Jellyfin, nextcloud, gitea if your a Dev, matrix and maybe even lemmy

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What public services do you use that you think you'd want to self host? I'm trying to reduce the data i give to big companies so i starred running an instance of Audiobook-shelf and use it to auto grab my podcasts from an rss feed and keep a copy on my server plus it serves up all my audio books too. Or you could set up a vpn back to your network via wireguard and get the benefits of pihole when you're not home. If you feel like really digging into things you could host your own lemmy instance, or matrix chat and bridge in other serviced but that requires a bit more advanced knowledge.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I already have wireguard setup to pass my pihole through a VPN. As for my own Lemmy instance, I've thought about it, but I don't have the storage nor bandwidth for it...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If i remember correct the vm i'm running lemmy on has less than 300gigs of storage and i've used less than half of that with running lemmy for a couple of months with a hand full of users. I can't speak to the bandwidth aspect but i'd imagine self hosting lemmy would almost be better suited for low bandwidth so it can pull down the posts over time and hold them locally for you when you're ready, but thats just a guess.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

My whole server has 128GB of storage... Hand me downs, it is what it is

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web
RPi Raspberry Pi brand of SBC
SBC Single-Board Computer
SSL Secure Sockets Layer, for transparent encryption
VPN Virtual Private Network
nginx Popular HTTP server

4 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 10 acronyms.

[Thread #101 for this sub, first seen 1st Sep 2023, 17:55] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I already know, but thanks for being considerate :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It's a good bot ;-)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Matrix with bridges to all your chat apps