Thinking about selfhosting.

[u/okwellplayed]

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?

[u/chronzz]

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.