Hands-Off Self-Hosting with Docker & Tailscale - an Introduction
cyclicircuit.prose.sh
The first in a series of articles describing an effective self-hosting homelab configuration using docker, Tailscale, and dockge.

Recently, I’ve found myself walking several friends through what is essentially the same basic setup:

  • Install Ubuntu server
  • Install Docker
  • Configure Tailscale
  • Configure Dockge
  • Set up automatic updates on Ubuntu/Apt and Dockge/Docker
  • Self-host a few web apps, some publicly available, some on the Tailnet.

After realizing that this setup is generally pretty good for relative newcomers to self-hosting and is pretty stable (in the sense that it runs for a while and remains up-to-date without much human interference) I decided that I should write a few blog posts about how it works so that other people can set it up for themselves.

As of right now, there’s:

Coming soon:

  • Immich
  • Backups with Syncthing
  • Jellyfin
  • Elementary monitoring with Homepage
  • Cloudflare Tunnels

Constructive feedback is always appreciated.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I am planning a backups article

  • hperrin@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    This is very cool, but also very dangerous. Many projects release versions that need some sort of manual intervention to be updated, and automatically updating to new versions on docker can lead to data loss in those situations.

    Here’s a recent example from Immich:

    https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/tag/v1.133.0

    It is my humble opinion that teaching newbies to do automatic updates will cause them to lose data and break things, which will probably sour them from ever self hosting again.

    Automatic OS updates are fine, and docker update notifications are fine, but automatic docker updates are just too dangerous.

    • cyclicircuit@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      That’s reasonable, however, my personal bias is towards security and I feel like if I don’t push people towards automated updates, they will leave vulnerable, un-updated containers exposed to the web. I think a better approach would be to push for backups with versioning. I forgot to add that I am planning a “backups with Syncthing” article as well, I will take this into consideration, add it to the article, and use it as a way to demonstrate recovery in the event of such an issue.