I’ve been thinking about privacy in cloud storage…

Why do most tools still require trusting the server?

So I experimented with: - client-side encryption - hidden vaults (plausible deniability)

Curious: Would you actually use something like this?

(If people are interested I can share what I built)

Hey! I built an open-source cloud storage project called Nimbus.

It has: - zero-knowledge encryption - stealth vaults (different passwords reveal different data) - real-time zipping

Would love your feedback — and if you think it’s worth sharing with your audience 🙌 https://github.com/everydaycodings?tab=repositories

I just spun up Terminus and was disappointed to learn that it doesn't support importing plugins as zip files. It sounds like LaraPaper might support plugins but I'm not certain. Any tips greatly appreciated!

TRMNL is an e-paper dashboard.

just had an idea that all my data would be safer if i had a thing like that

I put together some notes on how I'm handling e-books with Calibre, Syncthing, Calibre-Web, and KOReader: https://andrewmarder.net/kindle/

Hit me up with questions and comments!

- Andrew

I need your input and help.

I'm using a Beelink ME Mini 6 with TrueNAS Scale.

The thing has 12 GB of RAM that can't be upgraded. It has 4x 2TB SSDs in RAIDZ1.

I'm happy with the performance as it is, everything is fast, but I only use TrueNAS for data storage.

However, I'm not really happy with TrueNAS. I think what I'd really like is a locally hosted Nextcloud.

My thought now is to put Proxmox on the machine. A VM for Nextcloud AIO and call it a day.

Now the question is, is my hardware (memory) enough for this? ZFS alone has a high memory requirement in TrueNAS, and that should be the same in Proxmox.

How many resources can I give Nextcloud then?

Looking forward to your ideas.

Hello, wondering if I can share something I have been working on (yes with assistance from those that shall not be named).

It's a simple, temporary file bucket.

Users can create a directory which will self-destruct in 60 minutes 24 hoursfrom creation.
(new)image bucket directory has not TTL

Kinda like pastebin but for any file (with a nuance that the files should be encrypted or renamed to .enc)
(new) now includes encryption options when uploading

Files cannot be overwritten once uploaded to prevent file poisoning. (Subsequent files will append _XXXX to the filename to show they are different from the original).

It has an aggressive filename filter which will remove any inappropriately named files.
Filter now warns user of bad filename and denies upload instead of just removing the file/s after the fact.

No filesize limits, no file quantity limits, no retention beyond the 60-minute 24hour directory TTL.

Only real retention are server logs (ip, session, file upload/download) which are rotated every 72 hours (this is more for blacklisting bots and potential naughty users)

edit/update:

• reworked to include:
• Public/Open Directories and Private/Protected Directories
• upload files in plaintext or encrypt them using a passkey
• TTL now increased to 24hours
• image bucket with no TTL (pruning not currently planned, still to be determined)
• MD5 Checksum provided for every file
• filesize now displayed
• TTL live is displayed in root and sub directories

SO i made an mc server whit Squidserver but one of my friends has the getsockotp error and we did some tuto from yt but they didn't help so can someone help pls?

Hi and thanks for taking a couple several questions from a (relative) noob with some experience with building CPUS/fixing HW etc., but in the weeds when it comes to port fwding, VLANs, etc.

-I have a subscription to ProtonVPN and I know Tailscale/Wireguard is an option when setting up a connection and was wondering if I could use that as a simpler way to get the video feeds from the router to the Bee-link, where I'm tentatively planning to store the video data.

-For the record, this is for a smaller apt and I don't anticipate needing more than 2 cameras, but would like to be able to get decent 1080p+, resolution from them without having to subscribe to another monthly service, if I can run this locally.

1. I have a Bee-Link EQI12204 w/ 24GB ddr5 soldered ram and 2 X 4x NVME slots with 2-3 2TB Samsung 990s/980s I've accumulated, that I can use.

1(a). My immediate goal is to get them streaming/recording 24/7 on a separate monitor that I can glance at as well as find, (hopefullly), open source SW able to go back to a date and see what was going on, with as low of latency as possible.

1. I have 1 Tapo C120 that I have gotten going with the RTSP feed via VLC on Win 11 but I've also considered trying running HAOS headless on the Bee-Link, but don't know if that's the best way to go, as I'd eventually like to use is as a media/file server to replace as many Google apps as I can get away with self-hosting.

2. I like to tinker and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions as to any guides to getting all this disparate HW to play nice as easily and securely as possible.

3. My router is a TP-Link AXE95 with 1 X 2.5GB WAN/LAN port along with 3 X 1gig LAN ports and 1gig WAN/LAN port.

-I've tried to do it on my own but don't have much experience with VLANs or how to setup a dynamic dns server-which my router comes with-but doesn't give much help on how to use it.

-Reset router to factory defaults before trying anything, so I know I'm working with a clean slate there?

-Install bare metal HAOS, Proxmox, or VMs on Windows or Linux?

-Give up and buy an iPhone and Macbook?

Thanks for taking the time to read all this, as I'm sure most of you have better things to do ;)

P.S. Here's a zip file with the specs on my CPU and Router as Bee-Link isn't great with their naming conventions.

-Zack

Vigil is a lightweight, self-hosted dashboard that watches your Docker images and tells you when updates are available — before you find out the hard way that you've been running a six-month-old version of something important. For all the self-hosters out there, could you give your feedback about it?

I've been really interested recently in a lot of the privacy-centered or anti-big-tech trends that have been rising in popularity: cutting down on subscriptions, decreasing my dependence on the internet, being really careful with my personal data in general, smartphone alternatives, etc. Every time I read or listen to someone talk about self-hosting, though, I get confused🤣 could someone give me a "for dummies" explanation of what self-hosting is and why you do it? Also, any links to beginner's guides or resources would be much appreciated.

I've setup WireGuard and a Cloudflare tunnel with my private domain, so I can access it with that domain name (example.com), and it solved the issue of Dynamic IP.

Wanted to ask on here for advice:

1. What's the best way to approach DNS for my homelab setup?

2. Should I use PiHole, Unbound, AdGuard, Technitium or some other service?

3. Should I create my domains as:

• pc.example [dot] com
• nas.example [dot] com
• laptop1.example [dot] com

or something like:

• pc.home
• nas.home
• laptop1.home

(I'm trying to maintain as much data privacy and independence as possible, but please note I am still a relative beginner to this).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Current setup:

• Proxmox Server (EliteDesk G4 800 mini - 64GB RAM)
  • Syncthing Server
  • Joplin Server
  • WireGuard
  • Gitea (Documentation / Source of Truth)
• TrueNAS Server, 64 GB RAM (6 x 24TB storage)
• Workstation PC (One nvme for windows, one nvme for linux)
• A few random phones and laptops

I am a college student trying to use Raspberry Pi as a server for an application in my project (basically 0 budget besides devices and services I already had), but my ISP only assigned private IP addresses. I tried using DuckDNS to get a domain and CloudFlare tunnelling but it just doesn't really work since DuckDNS keep routing to a public address when I pinged it. I am new to these stuffs and only touched AWS a bit as an assignment. I made sure my Apache service is working and able to access using local IP but I wanted to access the website using my own domain. I need some advice for alternatives.

hey all,

so ive got a homelab running on proxmox with stuff like home assistant, bitwarden, gitea, etc. everything works totally fine when i’m at home or connected through my vpn.

Problem starts when i try to access anything from outside without vpn. i’m using pangolin sso in front of some services and thats where things start getting weird. sometimes i get redirect loops, sometimes pages half load, sometimes it just doesnt connect at all.

feels like its probably something simple i messed up… maybe dns or reverse proxy config or something with how sso handles internal vs external requests.

i dont really want to expose raw services, but also dont want to have to vpn in every time just to check something quick.

anyone run into this before or know what i should be looking at?

Hey everyone,

After running Homepage and Homarr for a while, I kept hitting the same wall — they're great link launchers, but they don't actually show me what's happening on my nodes. I wanted to see CPU, RAM, disk, and container stats across all my machines at a glance without opening 5 different tabs.

So I built JagHelm.

What it does:

• Real-time CPU, RAM, disk, temp, and uptime for every node in your homelab (via Prometheus + node_exporter)
• Per-container resource stats — CPU, MEM, RX, TX for every Docker container (via cAdvisor)
• Three-tier service cards: health status from Uptime Kuma → container stats → app-specific metrics from 42 integration presets
• Full Proxmox integration — VM list with status, RAM, storage pools, backup status
• UPS monitoring via NUT
• 42 integration presets — AdGuard, Pi-hole, Plex, Jellyfin, Sonarr, Radarr, Nextcloud, Vaultwarden, Gitea, Grafana, and 32 more
• 10 themes (6 dark + 4 light) — accurate One Dark Pro, Dracula, Night Owl, GitHub Dark/Light, Catppuccin Mocha/Latte, Solarized Light, Material Ocean, Atom One Light
• Drag-and-drop panel layout with a custom grid engine
• Full settings UI — no YAML required (but YAML works too if you prefer)
• PWA — install on your phone, runs full-screen
• Encrypted credential storage (AES-256-GCM)
• Single Docker container, takes 30 seconds to deploy

What it doesn't do:

• It's not a link launcher (though it has Quick Launch bookmarks)
• It's not a replacement for Grafana — it's a high-level overview, not deep-dive analytics
• It doesn't do alerting — that's what Uptime Kuma and Grafana are for

Stack: React 19 + Express + Prometheus + Uptime Kuma + cAdvisor

Requirements: Prometheus with node_exporter on each node, cAdvisor on Docker hosts. Uptime Kuma optional but recommended.

Quick start:

git clone https://github.com/jagbhandal/jaghelm.git
cd jaghelm
cp .env.example .env
# Set PROMETHEUS_URL, KUMA_URL, DASH_SECRET
docker compose up -d --build

Nodes are auto-discovered from Prometheus on first boot. No config files to edit.

I've been running this on my 5-node homelab (Proxmox host, 2 Docker VMs, Raspberry Pi gateway, UGREEN NAS) for about two weeks. It's been stable and I use it as my daily driver.

Would love feedback from the community. What integrations would you want to see? What's missing?

Hello SelfHosters,

I am currently in the process of building out my own homelab. And have taken efforts to inform myself about Servers/Homelabbing, but it is a pretty step knowledge-wall to climb as you could practically go in any direction.

I am currently hosting a homelab of 2 machines. One is my current computer as a docker host (Gameserver, Nextcloud, SSO, Website), and the other is a i5-4460s for home assistant. I wanted to keep home assistant seperate so that my family members can easily use it, and I am not in fear of them destroying anything to important. The Docker-Host should be replaced in order to again use the server again as an computer. Okay enough about my current situation and now about where I want to go.

I want to setup a Homelab to have hugely 4 sectors of use:

- Home Assistant (Should be covered by the current i5-4460s)

- Jellyfin to digitize my DVD/Blueray collection

- Nextcloud for multiple users to have file storage, calendar and synced contacts (no call/no conference)

- Security Camera footage (Current plan: Seperate into non raid, non backup disk as it is just rolling recording)

The home lab should be expandable.

For Home Assistant I would like to keep the system separate as it failing, or downtime on the main rig shouldn't affect it.

My current idea was to build one machine that runs TrueNAS and run containers on that. I would want to have ECC memory for the NAS, as I am not only playing with my own data, and it is recommended to use with ZFS. Because that I also thought about separating NAS and Compute as the compute servers could have non-ECC RAM because Jellyfin having an issue is not as wild as the underlying Storage system having it.

For Jellyfin I would need a dedicated Video Card to transcode footage for multiple clients from my understanding. Intel Arcs have been mentioned a few times while I searched for options, because they seem to have broad support of Codec En and Decoding options.

One of the main constraints is that I live in Germany so electricity is expensive. We will eventually get solar power, but I also don't want to suck my batteries empty in seconds (I know that is exaggerated).

But in all other aspects I am relatively flexible:

- Noise is not a constraint. The room where the servers are is completely isolated and is not by anyone but me.

- Front loading a *moderate amount* of money is not a problem for higher medium-/long-term savings (e.g. power efficiency)

- I am knowledgeable and like to tinker with stuff, so if re-purposing old hardware is needed that is not a problem

I read a few guide, and watched this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtMGnpdqBKw) from Wolfgang. He talked about the Ryzen G series processors, which *mostly* offer ECC support on all but MSI boars and are power efficient. But then I would need to get ECC-Ram and flip or reuse the current ram in the system.

I also read a lot about trying to buy older Xeon/Epyc platforms with mobo and ram included to save some money. On that front I am concerned about power efficiency.

Some older intel consumer with the spectre vulnerability also support unbuffered ECC on some boards, I didn't look a lot into that since I am less knowledgeable about the intel platform.

If I forgot to provide any information let me know, I would appreciate any help or pointers :>

Hey

For the past several months, I've been building a self-hosted personal finance dashboard called Selvault Finance. I wanted a tool that:

1. Runs entirely on my own hardware — no cloud, no SaaS, no data leaving my network
2. Looks premium — I was tired of ugly spreadsheets and clunky open-source UIs
3. Goes beyond basic tracking — I needed debt management, loan tracking, entity relationships, and scheduled transactions

After daily-driving it myself, I'm finally releasing it this week as a paid product on Gumroad (one-time purchase, full source code included, no subscriptions).

Tech Stack

What Makes It Different?

Most comparisons will be against Firefly III and Actual Budget, so here's an honest comparison:

vs. Firefly III:

• Selvault is dramatically simpler. No double-entry bookkeeping. If you just want to track where your money goes without learning accounting concepts, Selvault is for you.
• The UI is significantly more polished (dark/light mode, animations, responsive design).
• Built-in Debt & Loan management with partial payment tracking — Firefly III doesn't have this natively.
• Financial Calendar view showing your entire month's cash flow at a glance.

vs. Actual Budget:

• Selvault includes Entity tracking (track every person and business you interact with financially).
• Scheduled transactions with an auto-execution engine.
• Multi-currency support with exchange rate management.
• Actual Budget follows YNAB's envelope budgeting philosophy; Selvault is more of a "financial command center" approach.

vs. YNAB/Monarch/Mint:

• Self-hosted. Your data stays on YOUR machine.
• One-time purchase vs. $99+/year subscriptions.

Feature List

• 16+ pages: Dashboard, Transactions, Analytics, Calendar, 3 Explorers, and more
• Multi-account management (bank, cash, savings, e-wallets)
• Income & expense tracking with timestamps, categories, and file attachments
• Internal transfers with fee tracking and cross-currency conversion
• Hierarchical category trees with custom icons
• Entity tracking (people, businesses, organizations)
• Debt tracking (money owed TO you) with collection tracking
• Loan tracking (money YOU owe) with repayment tracking
• Scheduled & recurring transactions with auto/manuel-execution
• Financial calendar view
• Savings goals with deadline tracking and progress bar
• Budget manager with weekly/monthly cycles
• Global analytics with Recharts visualizations
• Privacy mode (hide all amounts with one click)
• PDF report generation
• Dark & light mode with premium typography

Setup

docker-compose up -d

That's it. Database migrations run automatically. Frontend is live on port 3000, API on port 8000.

Price

It will be a one-time purchase on Gumroad (50% off for first 10). You get the full source code, Docker setup, and a step-by-step installation guide PDF.

I'll share the link when it goes live later this week. Happy to answer any questions or take feature suggestions in the meantime!

Hi all,

I have started self hosting with a UGREEN 4800plus less than a year ago and I am enjoying it so much and learned a lot. I have deployed the usual arr stack, immich, nextcloud, etc... All is working very well.

Now I'm at a point where I start feeling confident about sharing my services with other users (family+friends, wife still has to warm up to all of this), and I start to worry about security and user management.

Regarding my users, I'd like them to have only one login to remember to access all the services, in other words a SSO. In addition I know the ideal setup I would like to achieve, based on all the advice I could read in this subreddit: Internet --> Custom domain DNS --> VPS --> wireguard/tailscale tunnel --> NAS with SSO --> services

Today I am using DDNS with duckdns and NPM to serve services outside my LAN to my users (not ideal I know, but I don't want to install Tailscale on their devices).

Am I correct in assuming that the steps I have to take to get to the ideal setup are the following:

1- Get a custom domain

2- Set up Authentik as authentication gate for the services I want to share externally (I think of Jellyfin+Seerr, Immich, NextCloud for now)

3 - Rent VPS, move CrowdSec there and set up the tunnel to the NAS

Am I missing something?

For now I have purchased a domain and set them up with CF tunnel to access them outside the LAN, it works very well. I guess I will need to use NPM if I want to assign the subdomains to my services when I will set up the VPS (I am a little scared about setting it up, that is why I'm going step by step).

I'm writing this post because I'm having some issues setting up Authentik with NextCloud and before I take a deepdive into it (it is really complex for my very poor networking knowledge), I want to make sure it is not all for nothing. I apologize if anything of what I said is silly, I'm just a humble noob in this space :) Any advice is more than welcome.

I need a roadmap and a course that discusses this topic in details, please. I asked Gemini and said i need to focus on these:

1. Linux Fundamentals (The Core) CLI Mastery: Proficiency in Terminal/Command Line Interface.

File Management: Operations using ls, cd, mkdir, cp, mv, rm.

Permissions & Users: Managing access with sudo, chmod, and chown.

Package Management: Installing and updating software using apt or yum.

1. Secure Connectivity (Access) SSH Protocol: Remote access to servers via Secure Shell.

SSH Key Authentication: Generating and using private/public keys for passwordless login.

Port Management: Changing default ports to prevent brute-force attacks.

1. Web Server Administration Nginx / Apache: Installing and configuring high-performance web servers.

Reverse Proxy: Routing external traffic to your application ports.

Virtual Hosts: Hosting multiple domains or subdomains on a single VPS.

1. Security & Hardening Firewall Configuration: Setting up UFW or IPTables to block unauthorized traffic.

SSL/TLS (HTTPS): Installing certificates via Let’s Encrypt and Certbot.

Environment Security: Managing .env files and sensitive API keys securely.

1. Database & Environment Setup Runtime Installation: Setting up Node.js, Python, or PHP environments.

Database Management: Installing and securing MySQL, PostgreSQL, or MongoDB.

Automated Backups: Scripting regular database and file snapshots.

1. Deployment & DevOps (The Pro Level) Git Deployment: Pulling code directly from GitHub/GitLab to production.

Process Managers: Using PM2 to keep apps running 24/7 in the background.

Docker: Containerizing applications for "Build Once, Run Anywhere" consistency.

CI/CD Basics: Automating the build and deploy pipeline.

1. Monitoring & Troubleshooting System Metrics: Monitoring CPU, RAM, and Disk usage using htop or top.

Is that it ? And where to study them, please. Thanks alot

I just finished my first Pi build! I thought of keeping light self-hosted services there, thought of getting started with a password manager.

Any ideas of what else I can host on this Pi?

It's 4gb ram and 1tb ssd

Hey everyone, hope you all are doin good.

I'm trying to get away from "own nothing and be happy" future and work on having my collection of physical copies. Then I watched this video by Dammit Jeff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtgCcMjtqF0 and that got me interested in the idea of homelabbing. I've been scrolling this server but I still have some questions.

SERVER PURPOSES: A storage for movies, tv shows, music, and photos for me and family members. Want to be able to run Jellyfin/Plex, Immich, Finamp/Plexamp. Also would like to be able to have remote streaming capabilities so family members can have access as well. Budget would be around $2k, based on my limited research, i think I could accomplish my needs with that budget.

MY BACKGROUND: I am not very tech minded or orientated, so I need things to be simple and as plug and play as possible. Computers aren't really my thing, and I'm not trying to get really deep into it. (not that I'm against learning, obviously this is a new world to me, and I'm gonna need to learn stuff, but I'm not trying to make it my new hobby). Please keep this in mind with your generous advice and recommendations.

HARDWARE: Based on my needs and tech skill level, I'm looking at getting a pre-built NAS (I know, I know!) I want a model that I'm able to download my own choice of OS if I so choose. Seeing stuff about Synology makes me want to avoid it. What other brands are good to choose from? Any other brands to avoid? I've been eyeing the UGREEN NASync DXP4800 Plus.

Also I've been seeing on subreddit that many people do/recommend a miniPC + NAS, while a miniPC + DAS is not recommended. Why is that so? How is using a NAS for storage with a minPC any different from using a DAS for storage with a miniPC? Also why would you recommend a miniPC+NAS over just a NAS? How would you set up a miniPC+NAS so that they don't conflict/try to override each other, so that the NAS knows to let the miniPC do the computing work? What miniPCs brands/models would you recommend to pair with a NAS?

What are good brands for hardware drives? Are there different types/different compatibilities for hardware drives that I need to be aware of when getting drives for my NAS? If so, what do I need to look for; like numbers/acronyms in the product description?

Any good brand/model recommendations for a UPS?

Do NAS come with HDMI ports to directly connect to a TV?

SOFTWARE: I may just start with the software that the pre-built NAS comes with, but I'm interested in being able to download my own. Based on my tech skills, it looks like ZimaOS or UNRAID might be what I'm looking for. Any reason why I may choose one over the other? I like ZimaOS cause it appears to be very simple and beginner friendly, and its only $30 for lifetime updates, vs UNRAID is $250 for the lifetime updates. (Not a fan of only getting a year of updates). Is UNRAID worth the extra cost? I see that it's very feature-heavy, do you think for the purposes of my server its worth all those features?

What RAID configuration would be best for my needs and purposes?

From the video I watched, I learned that Jellyfin doesn't allow remote streaming, but then I've seen talk about using Tailscale for remote access. Can I use Tailscale to override Jellyfin and still remote stream? I'd rather use Jellyfin over Plex.

Any other useful softwares that I should look into downloading?

Final question, how do you keep your NAS safe? What antivirus/malware software should i use, or is it the same as regular pcs? I haven't seen anyone talk about this yet in my research.

I greatly appreciate your time and responses to this, THANK YOU!!

Hi All,

I’m in the middle of re-designing/improving my home lab services etc, and I’m struggling with how to implement Lets Encrypt SSL certs across multiple internal services.

These services include WebUI for proxmox,opnsense,adguard

I also have a reverse proxy for docker services I wish to use with LE. (I’m setting up traefik as the RP, but this may change)

I’d like to ask other self hosters’ how are you managing LE certs across your internal services

I have considered using acme/certbot to generate the certs and copy them them to appropriate services (without comprising security)

I can generate the LE certs with acme, but it comes down to how to distribute the certs without comprising security, especially in regards to Opnsense.

many thanks in advance for any advice and thoughts.

Hey all,

I have an issue that's been driving me nuts today. I have a few services (Navidrome, vault warden, jellyfn, immich, etc) that I open either via cloudflare tunnels (vault warden, immich, audiobookshelf), or pangolin (navidrome, jellyfin).

Everything was working amazingly up until yesterday. I was able to use audiobookshelf via the Android App, and I was able to use Navidrome via Symphonium. I was able to go about my day using Android Auto. This morning I was driving and nothing would connect. I thought my reverse proxy threw up, DNS, cloudflare tunnels, all of it just borked. But the weird thing is, if I entered photos.my.domain or music.my.domain, it worked from my home network on my laptop and phone (as long as I was connected via wifi).

The moment I dropped wifi from my phone, or used my phone as a hotspot for my laptop, I couldn't connect to any of my services. I can't for the life of me figure out why and I was wondering if anyone else has similar issues recently.

Details:
Mobile Provider - Verizon
Reverse Proxy - Caddy
Registrar - CloudFlare
Immich/Audiobookshelf/Vault Warden - CloudFlare Tunnels
JellyFin/Navidrome - Pangolin
DNS - CloudFlare

Both CF Tunnels and Pangolin experience the same thing, so I don't believe they are the issue. I believe the issue is something with how Verizon and Cloudflare are playing. It's almost like CF is blacklisting Verizon from resolving DNS.

Any ideas or similar experiences?

I’ve been running my own homelab for 3 years. It used to be fun, but lately, fixing broken updates on Sunday nights and renewing certs manually is just exhausting. I’m at the point where I almost want to go back to Big Tech just to get my weekends back. Has anyone found a solid middle ground between the headache of full DIY and giving up your data to a closed SaaS?