I’m having trouble finding a proper starting point for self hosting, so I am curious on any resources you’d recommend, or even some build lists / pre-built devices.

What I want to do:

Important

  1. Host some applications like TinyTinyRSS, Jellyfin, GitLab, and Nextcloud which I’d want to be accessible in my home network
  2. Use the computer as a NAS to back data up and have it easily accessible on my desktop and laptop
  3. Have a piHole

Optional

  1. Access my hosted applications from outside of my network
  2. Use tools like Radarr to automatically download things from torrent lists
  3. Use it as a seedbox

The reason the last three are optional is because for that I’d have to expose the computer to the outside network, which has a whole bunch of benefits, but also a whole bunch of risks I am likely neither capable of nor comfortable with working around, so unless there’s an easy fix (number 3 might be able to be handled via a VPN?) they’re a problem for future me. For anything further I think I can just go from here once those requirements develop

I have already skimmed through some articles, watched some build guides for both NAS and home servers and honestly I just don’t know what I need, both in information, hardware, and software.

  • Should I separate the NAS and Home Server, get a separate device for the piHole, or just have all three in one?
  • What hardware would be suitable for this?
  • Should I buy something off the shelf like a mini PC (for instance an Intel NUC) or one of these fancy prebuilt NAS devices where you just need to plug in some drives or build my own?
  • Would it be smarter to go with a Linux distro as the OS, for instance Debian, or should I use something like Unraid or TrueNAS which from what I can gather make setup more convenient and even handle docker images for you?

I am somewhat comfortable with Linux and the command line and have a budget of about 1000€, but if I can get away with less that would be great, and I can also stretch higher if needed for my requirements. I am also very new to self hosting and my networking knowledge is not non-existent, but limited.

I’m just a bit lost and would love some beginner-oriented resources or direct advice, thank you!

  • @bbuez@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1•6 months ago

    +1 for Proxmox, has been a fun experience as there are plenty of resources and helper scripts to get you off the ground, jellyfin was the first thing I migrated from my PC, hardware encoding may give you a bit of a tussle but nothing unsolveable. Also note Proxmox is Debian under the hood, so you may find it easy to work with. I looked into unraid, it seems great if all you’re doing for the most part is storage, if you want Linux containers and virtual machines, proxmox js your bet.

    I got a small 4 bay 2U server from a friend on the cheap, 1000$ should get you relatively nice new or slightly older used hardware. Even just a PC with a nice amount of drive bays will get you started. And drives are cheap, a raid 1 setup was one of the things I did.

    In the end I’ll likely get a separate NAS rack server just to segregate functions, but as of now I simply have a Proxmox LXC mounted to my NAS drives and runs samba to expose them.

    Tailscale is a nice set and forget solution for VPN access, I ended up going the route of getting an SSL certified domain and beefing up my firewall a bit. The bit I’ve messed with it it certainly has a learning curve greater than openvpn, but is much more hardened and versatile.

    As for pihole, I’ve found AdGuard Home to be just about a suitable replacement, and can be installed along openwrt, though I have a bit of an unconventional router with 512MB of RAM so YMMV