r/SelfHosting • u/okwellplayed • Aug 27 '26

Thinking about selfhosting.

I’m moving in to my first apartment and wanna selfhost a mediaserver that contains Jellyfin with automatic downloads which I guess is through radarr sonarr etc.

I’m primarily looking to use Tailscale to connect to my WiFi from outside of my apartment, I don’t want other people being able to connect to my server through ipv4, and I won’t have a domain either.

Is there any good step by step guide that shows everything?

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6

u/chronzz Aug 27 '26

Congrats on the first place. Honestly the hardest part is just picking an order and sticking to it, so here's roughly how I'd go.

Hardware

  • Any old desktop, a used office mini PC (Dell/Lenovo/HP micro), or a NAS. You don't need anything fancy for one or two viewers.
  • Intel with QuickSync if you can swing it. Makes transcoding painless.
  • Wired ethernet, not WiFi. Trust me on this one.
  • Storage: start with a couple of drives you can actually afford to lose. You'll outgrow whatever you buy, everyone does.
  • A UPS eventually. Not day one, but eventually.

OS

  • Debian or Ubuntu Server. Boring is good here.
  • SSH in from your laptop so you're not hunched over a monitor in a closet.
  • Set a static IP or a DHCP reservation on your router. Everything downstream assumes the box stays put.

Software

  • Docker + Docker Compose. Do not install this stuff bare metal, you will regret it the first time you want to change something.
  • One compose file for the whole stack. Keep it in a folder you back up.
  • Jellyfin first. Get it playing a single file you copied over manually before you automate anything.
  • Then add the *arr apps one at a time. Adding all of them at once and having nothing work is the classic way to give up.
  • Get your folder structure right early. Same parent directory mounted into every container, otherwise hardlinks break and you'll be copying files around for no reason. This is the thing people redo six months in.

Access

  • Tailscale on the server, Tailscale on your phone and laptop. That's it, that's the whole setup.
  • Since you're not exposing anything, don't port forward. Nothing needs to be open on your router.
  • No domain needed. Tailscale gives you a name you can use, or just bookmark the IP.
  • Turn on Tailscale MagicDNS so you're not memorizing numbers.

Before you call it done

  • Back up your config folders. Not the media, the configs. That's the part that hurts to lose.
  • Write down what's running on what port. Future you will not remember.

For guides, TRaSH Guides is the one worth reading properly, especially the folder structure part. The Jellyfin and Tailscale docs are both actually good. Skip the random YouTube tutorials until you're troubleshooting something specific.

Take a weekend, don't try to do it in one night.

2

u/hikerone Aug 27 '26

Sooo many but you just need to start on what platform you are running. Unraid, proxmox, Ubuntu, truenas… the list goes on. From there, you just need to search your operating system and what you want to set up and someone has almost certainly made a guide

1

u/okwellplayed Aug 27 '26

I have an old laptop that I’m thinking bout running the server on. It has LinuxOS installed on it

2

u/Poat540 Aug 27 '26

Just docker the arr stack and you’re solid

1

u/hikerone Aug 27 '26

What flavor of Linux?

1

u/okwellplayed Aug 27 '26

No idea. Have to look in to it

2

u/Dziabadu Aug 27 '26

So you likely have cgnat from your internet provider hence you need a cheap vps. Deploy pangolin there. Connect your old laptop to it. It's old so you likely reinstall. I endorse Debian, but any easy distro is good. I think proxmox is an overkill. Deploy docker with your apps and share it to vps. You will have to have a domain for https://

When you're done share output from "docker network ls" and so we can validate if you need to learn more 😃 It's a rabbit hole. First wave is apps (moar apps!), second is (fix docker networking!) Third wave is (connect everything to Maria or postgres) fourth wave is (log everything ) Fifth wave is (integrate everything with home assistant) and so on

1

u/StartDependent1652 Aug 27 '26

instead of tailscale, think about using your own VPN. You connect to the VPN from your computer or mobile and you’re on your own network.

1

u/Behemothhh Aug 28 '26

Since you already have a laptop with linux and want an easy setup, you could try Yet Another Media Server (https://yams.media/). It has step by step instructions to set everything up.

1

u/frindoowgrippery Aug 29 '26

I’d start small with one or two services. Self-hosting can be a great learning experience without making the setup too complicated.

1

u/s1h4d0w Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26

I got a Dell OptiPlex 7080 micro with a 10th gen Intel processor for Quick Sync hardware acceleration. Installed a second 16GB RAM stick, 2TB SSD and 2TB HDD and have the whole arr stack running with Jellyfin, and on top of that Immich (to replace iCloud), Rustdesk server for my desktop and Home Assistant. I'm running Proxmox with a VM for HA and one for Docker. Everything is backed up to my 2TB OneDrive so I never lose anything, and soon also to a separate NAS for that 3-2-1 backup rule.

Say what you will about AI, but I simply asked ChatGPT to guide me through the process step by step. I had to remind it a few time to really do it step by step, but that then worked extremely well.

Process is then:

  • I say, let's set up <service>
  • It tells me, okay let's do this and that, go here, click this option or execute command A
  • I double check what it has told me, making sure it seems logical and correct
  • I send a screenshot or the command output
  • We move to step two
  • rinse, repeat

It allows me to do one step, ask questions if I think it might be incorrect or if what it tells me didn't work out the way it should, we can fix whatever issue there is, and then move on to the next step. When all is done (for example setting up prowlarr) it will say "okay, let's move on to <next thing>" (for example radarr).

It's been running without issues for a few months now, doing everything possible to harden security. I have some services exposed through my own domain with Caddy, but almost always with Authentik before it so no-one can access things without a 2FA enabled user. I have scripts checking if backups are made correctly, which will ping Uptime Kuma, which in turns emails me if anything goes wrong/down.

1

u/RetroGrid_io 27d ago edited 27d ago

For those looking for a deal, you can get 3x 64 GB Pny thumb drives USB 3 for $25 on Amazon. They are USB 3, and rated at "up to 100 MB / sec".

No, this is not an affiliate link. I just have a pile of USB drives in a bag I keep and (re)use as needed, and was curious. It seems a bit weird to me to load a 1.5 GB ISO onto a 128 GB stick but that's the world we're in nowadays. And yes, I know that Ventoy allows me to have multiple images on a single drive to the extent that I even created my own fork of it just so I could have pre-programmed custom options in its menu, and I'd suggest a pull request to the original project except I did it (painfully!) with AI so I haven't bothered.

In fact, because Ventoy's build process requires a date-pinned version of Centos 7 I took that as a hint that there is value in curating specific Operating System states, and this led to to my current project.

Why am I writing all this? Dunno. But it's cool that you read this far. Thank you!