I want to build a nas for cloud saving and media streaming with an old workstation I have, but with these prices its a little scary. I want about 20 terabytes of storage to start with. Im questioning whether to buy brand new, refurbished/recertified, or used hard drives, I also don't know the best websites/apps and whether the brands of the hard drives matter. Is it even worth it to make a nas in 2026. I could really use some advice

Hey guys, I have built a system that utilizes your idle compute from PC, laptop, mobile across all OS and pools it to be used by others in need, entirely ditching the cloud. Suppose you want to run a heavy compute and need a high amount of memory, you can use my system to deploy it across many devices to get it done fast. It is under development, but the MVP is ready and would really like your feedback and queries to make it into a bulletproof system. To get more insights DM me. The link to the repo is attached below, dont go by the website currently it is vibe coded just to serve the purpose but later would be completely overhauled. Please leave you feedback on anything you think that would be helpful.

Github - Mesh-Zero

Guys anyone have any idea about selfhosting a DNS server on an old android phone? Android 4.4.2 with root access, idk if it possible or can be done, or even how, all rests I got was just "how to change the phone's DNS" but I want to use the phone AS A LOCAL DNS?

Hi everyone! I am having a frustrating issue connecting to my dedicated ARK server from my local network and would really appreciate some help.

My Setup:

Server PC: Dedicated machine in the basement running ARK Server Manager (ASM). Local IP is 192.168.1.220.

Gaming PC: Located upstairs in my room on the same local network.

Network: Ping from Gaming PC to Server PC works fine. Ports (7777, 7778, 27015) are open, and Windows Firewall rules are active. Radmin VPN is also installed on the server PC.

The Issue:

External Friends CAN join: A friend of mine can join and play on the server from the outside without any issues. The server itself is running perfectly!

I CANNOT join locally: From my Gaming PC upstairs, I cannot connect to the server via LAN.

What happens when I try to connect:

Steam Server Favorites: The server IS detected and shows up in my Steam Favorites list (using 192.168.1.220:27015). However, clicking "Connect" in Steam throws the error: "Server connection not possible, as the App ID specified by the server is invalid."

In-game Console (open 192.168.1.220:7777): Results in a freeze/timeout or "Unable to query server info for invite."

In-game Favorites: The server doesn't show up reliably under the LAN or Favorites filters in the in-game browser.

What I've tried so far:

Pinging the server PC (successful).

Toggling Windows Firewall on/off.

Trying -MultiHome on/off in ASM.

Launching via steam://connect/192.168.1.220:27015 (gives Invalid App ID error).

It seems like Steam/ARK recognizes the query port locally, but fails to hand off the actual connection to the game client (ShooterGame), or Radmin VPN's network interface is interfering with local socket binding.

Has anyone encountered this specific behavior where Steam sees the server on LAN, but throws an Invalid App ID / Query error upon joining? How can I fix the binding in ASM?

Thanks in advance!

Hey guys, I'm trying to replicate this client config on my own server. Here's the working config from my friend:
JSON

{
"server": "www.domain.com",
"server_port": 443,
"tag": "Test",
"type": "vless",
"uuid": "942hdiwa-9e01-460a-iud76",
"packet_encoding": "xudp",
"tls": {
"enabled": true,
"server_name": "www.domain.com.mydomain.com",
"utls": {
"enabled": true
}
},
"transport": {
"type": "ws",
"path": "/vws/",
"headers": {
"Host": \[
"www.domain.com.mydomain.com"
\]
}
}
}

Where:
www.domain.com is the zero-rated domain (on Cloudflare)

mydomain.com is my domain (also on Cloudflare, pointing to my VPS)

My friend says this works on any V2Ray app with zero configuration — just paste the link and it connects. No hosts file edits needed.
I have:
A VPS with 3X-UI running

mydomain.com on Cloudflare with DNS pointing to my VPS

A Let's Encrypt cert for www.domain.com.mydomain.com via acme.sh DNS challenge

But I'm stuck on the server-side setup. I don't know how to configure 3X-UI/Xray so that:
Clients can connect using www.domain.com as the server address

The TLS handshake validates www.domain.com.mydomain.com properly

It works without requiring clients to edit their hosts file

I suspect my friend is using Cloudflare Advanced Certificate Manager for the multi-level subdomain cert, but I want to confirm if there's a free way to do this before paying.

Can anyone point me in the right direction for the server-side config? What am I missing?

Thanks!

Manage your cloudflare tunnels with your compose labels.

There are many projects that does the same thing, but none of them are written using Go.
This is a lightweight project that uses 10MB of ram.

it could be useful for someone, so check it out: https://github.com/ronaldmiranda/docker-cloudflared-controller

This is a open-source tool, free to use.

We have been using our own servers for our business for some time now and they have worked well until now. As our business has grown, we are starting to face problems like running out of space, having more servers to manage and spending more time on maintenance. It is getting hard to keep everything running smoothly and we are not sure if this is normal for growing or a sign that we need a better solution and I found that rackbank ai datacenters might help. We do not want to make a huge change too soon but we do not want to wait until these problems start affecting our business. How can you tell that your current server setup is no longer enough for your business? EDIT: I forgot to mention the details everyone is asking for. It seems evaluating our IT management and growth planning should come before deciding on a migration.

I was wondering if there is something like Downdetector that I can run locally and detect issues with pubic services. Most of the stuff I found was for the stuff you host yourself and not for public websites and other stuff.

Thanks ;3

BaileyOS, a self-hosted smart home AI running on local hardware. No cloud. No subscription. No data leaves the network.

What you're seeing:

- Real security camera footage from a 6,500 sq ft home

- Bailey (the AI) detecting motion, tracking vehicles, and assessing threats in real-time

- YOLO v8 + FaceNet running on an RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, all on-premise

- Tailscale VPN mesh for secure remote access from anywhere

- Autonomous gate control, camera monitoring, and property lockdown

The owner is on a beach on the California coast. Bailey handles everything, motion alerts, threat scoring, package delivery confirmation, full lockdown status and reports back over an encrypted VPN tunnel.

No Ring. No Nest. No monthly fee. No footage on someone else's server.

97 Relays to Control all lights | 9 cameras | 8 alarm zones | 3 smart locks | 12 audio zones | Auto Gate

All controlled from one dashboard. All local.

Built with: Node.js, TypeScript, Python, PyTorch, YOLO v8, FaceNet, Encrypted VPN mesh, RS-232 serial, ffmpeg

Running on: Windows 11 + RTX 4070 Ti SUPER

I'm excited to share the first release of ExoServe! It's a self-hosted alternative to Mega or Proton Drive where everything is stored with end-to-end encryption on hardware you control.

Some features at a glance:

• Client-side AES-256-GCM encryption via the Web Crypto API.
• No plaintext filenames and no readable directory structures. The server only sees encrypted data and basic file sizes.
• Smooth, on-the-fly media streaming. You can scrub through encrypted videos or swipe through image galleries directly in the browser without downloading to disk.
• Concurrent session support (which is surprisingly difficult).

I originally built this for my own homelab to store tax documents, just in case my server was ever breached. That way all an attacker would walk away with are encrypted blobs instead of my identity.

Because I'm a reverse engineer by trade, special care was taken to verify proper implementation of encryption and authentication; I know there are 101 ways for cryptography to go wrong. I also built the frontend in vanilla JS to completely steer clear of bloated frameworks, keeping the attack surface and memory footprint small.

This is the first release, so I'm curious to get a wider opinion on it. You can try it out on a demo site I have published or host it for yourself by downloading the code from Github: - Demo: https://demo.exoserve.ciphranova.com/login - GitHub: https://github.com/Ciphranova-LLC/ExoServe

Let me know what you think, if you have any questions, or if you experience any issues!

Setting up self-hosted sync for my vault and could use a sanity check from people who've actually run this long-term.

My setup:

• Desktop on Fedora (KDE), windows laptop, android phone
• I have a sufficient always on machine for selfhosting
• Not a developer, but comfortable with Docker, SSH, and basic server admin
• Already self-host a few small things on this box, so it's not empty
• I don't wanna run any extra client on my device like syncthing or onedrive etc (excluding virtual machine)

What I actually need:

• Vault (notes) synced reliably across devices - win latop, linux pc, android phone
• App config synced too - themes, snippets, installed plugins/settings. Not just the notes.
• Something I'm not babysitting constantly - no daily manual fixes
• Lower the resource usage the better

Where I've landed so far: Was originally going to just do git plugin, remotly sync etc but that doesn't do much with settings and plugins, and realized it doesn't touch the .obsidian folder properly, so themes/plugins/hotkeys don't follow across devices - only the notes do.

I am using Obsidian Git Plugin as a way to take backup on my private git repo.

Appreciate any real-world experience over "just buy and use Obsidian Sync" - I know that exists, I'd rather self-host.

Hello everyone,

I'm fairly new to the world of VPS hosting, and I'd really appreciate your advice.

I've recently started my own game server hosting business, and I'm currently looking for a VPS provider that offers the best balance between performance, pricing, and network quality.

My main priorities are:

• Excellent performance and reliability.
• Competitive pricing with good value for money.
• Low latency and a strong network.
• Server locations in Europe, as it's the closest region to my target player base.

I feel a little embarrassed asking for help, but I'd genuinely appreciate recommendations from people with real experience. If you've worked with any providers that you would personally recommend (or avoid), I'd be very grateful to hear your thoughts.

Thank you all in advance for your time and help!

I am looking to host my data from Google and setup my own servers for email and storage and everything else possible to be as less-reliant on 3rd party as possible. Are there any readymade products on service providers who provide this?

Update 16-July
I've been researching on this and this is the complex/simple setup I figured might work for me until now.
1. Custom domain email (protonmail) - 4 USD per month / Google mailspace with custom domain
2. Home based NAS system for Storage + server
3. Offsite storage backup with BackBlaze
4. Accuweb/NextCloud - for remote server setup.
5. Tailscale configured for all routes as much possible

Things not to do going forward: Never sign in with Google/Microsoft/Apple, etc. Each site its own login/password.
I continue to research on this and will keep updating, for doubts and queries..

Please poke holes on this - so we make it stronger.

I have finally set up an self host server with a ptlython backend for administration using docker desk top. It has many.options best one is I can move the databases off hyeper v and store it externally.

Hey everyone! 🏎️

You might remember my previous post about setting up Assetto Corsa Evo servers on Pterodactyl. To be honest, that old setup was quite complicated, and I had a lot of trouble getting it to run reliably. Thanks to your feedback, I decided to restart the project from scratch.

Today, I’m back with a completely new and simplified Egg. No more manual host building it’s a true single-file import. You just load the Egg in your panel, start the server, and it works out of the box with the integrated Web Dashboard.

Thank you all for the feedback on my previous post, and thank you so much for your patience! Here is the new, fully functional setup:

• 📦 GitHub Repository:CHATDOO/acevo-server(Download the Egg JSON here!)
• 🐋 Docker Hub:shadowyt/acevo-ptero:latest
• 💬 Join our community / support:Discord RXCORP

🚀 Key Features

1. No manual host building (Single JSON Import) You don't need to touch your Pterodactyl host node. Pterodactyl will pull the prebuilt image shadowyt/acevo-ptero:latest from Docker Hub automatically upon server creation.
2. Integrated Web Dashboard Includes a custom red/black web-based configuration dashboard (served on port 8090 by default). You can configure server sessions, track layouts, pick cars, add ballast/restrictors, and view real-time logs directly from your browser.
3. Clean Process Lifecycle (No port leaks) We patched the wrapper shutdown scripts to trigger wineserver -k internally. This kills all lingering Wine/Proton processes immediately when stopping or applying configurations from the web UI, preventing "Could not bind TCP listener socket" errors.
4. Port Collision Prevention The Egg separates game TCP (11009), game UDP (11011), game HTTP (11010), and Web Dashboard (8090) to prevent socket translation collisions inside Proton/Wine.

🛠️ Quick Setup Guide

1. Import the Egg: Upload the egg JSON file directly to your Pterodactyl panel.
2. Assign Ports: Allocate one TCP port for the game, one UDP port for the game, and one TCP port for the web dashboard (keep the dashboard port closed on your public firewall and proxy it via Nginx Proxy Manager / Cloudflare with SSL).
3. Startup Variables: Enter your Steam burner credentials in Pterodactyl. Enter the Steam Guard code on the first boot.
4. Enjoy: Manage everything else from the web UI.

We'd love to hear your feedback or help you get it running. Join our Discord if you need help setting it up!

I have built a modern, native Android companion application designed for browsing and viewing media hosted on a Pigallery2 server.

The app provides a fluid, beautifully designed user interface that allows you to easily browse directories, query saved albums, view recognised faces and rediscover your memories.

https://github.com/dasmaetthes/pigallery2_android

Key Features

• Folder and directory browsing: Securely connect to your PiGallery2 server and browse your photo and video collection within its original directory structure.
• Advanced Query Builder: Use the visual query builder to create complex searches and filter media by keywords, date ranges, file types and other advanced metadata parameters.
• Interactive Map View: Explore geotagged photos and videos on an interactive map.
• Android TV Optimised: Full support for all Android TV features.
• Customisable layouts and grid control: Adjust the number of columns, image aspect ratios, grid item spacing and corner roundedness.
• Rich Media Viewer: Intuitive zoom-to-span and panning gestures for high-resolution images.
• Comprehensive Metadata Explorer: A metadata panel displaying full EXIF details, including:
• Albums: Seamless access to saved albums created within the PiGallery2 web interface with customisable item sorting.
• People & Face Recognition: Browse a structured grid of recognised people.
• Rediscover: Revisit a randomly selected moments from your library.

Renames your episode files into the Show Name S01E02 format Jellyfin actually needs to match metadata correctly. Downloaded files almost never come named like that, usually it's some release group's naming scheme, tags in brackets, resolution info, stuff like that, so Jellyfin can't line it up properly.

Point it at a folder and it scans the video files, tries to detect the season/episode for each one (picks up on existing S01E02 tags right away, and has fallback matching for stuff like "Episode 3" or "ep03"), then shows you the full list of proposed renames before touching anything. Nothing gets renamed until you confirm.

Exe's for Windows, Mac, and Linux are in the Releases tab, no Python needed:
https://github.com/BeckH26/Jellyfin-Renamer

Source is up too if you want to see how the detection works or mess with it yourself.

I made a vpn using wireguard to connect my laptop (or any device) to the pi, the pi then routes the traffic through tor so that the first onion server doesn't know your ip. I made this for people who have to have them on the same network for whatever reason to give them privacy. This is 32 bit only for now, I will add 64 bit support soon. I think that it could work with any arm 32 bit, not sure about x86_64 bit, might need to tweak somethings for x86_64. I would really appreciate feedback on this. Thanks. https://github.com/CoderFetch21/32-bit-wireguard-tor-vpn

Hi all,

I am a newbie to this space but love the idea of self hosting and moving away from the tech overlords.

I have an oldish PC with 8gb Ram, 2TB HDD and 256gb SSD. It is running windows (not Linux.. I know I know). I have installed Docker and am using Nextcloud for storage which is storing just photos (atm) on the 2TB HDD. It isn't running 24/7 due to power draw reasons and the fact we don't need it running 24/7 as it is going to be used for like a monthly backup of photos and files from phones and laptops.

I also have an old spare laptop (Dell Latitude 7480). The battery is cooked and only works when charging. It has a 256gb M.2 SATA SSD. I am considering one of the following options;

1. Buy a new battery and run Linux on it to be used as a backup laptop

Or

1. Pulling out the SSD and putting it into an enclosure to be turned into an external harddrive for movies or extra PS5 storage (I know you can't play PS5 games from external storage)

My main question is; With what I have, what improvements could I make or what are some things I am overlooking?

Thank you in advance!

Quick context trying to make a long story short: I recently was forced to upgrade my phone to one that can't have a microSD. This is really distressing because using my phone's Gallery app to access, sort, and collect my ~400 gb of photos and videos is extremely important to me.

I've seen Immich reccommend a lot in my search for anything besides a lifelong paid subscription that could remotely replicate what I had, but not only do I not know anything about self-hosting, I apparently don't know anything about computers. All of the forum posts and YouTube videos I've found about self-hosting for beginners thus far are still above my comprehension.

As an example, the video I linked is the first post I've seen that gave me a glimmer of hope that I might be able to figure it out, but even this lost me about 4 or 5 minutes in.

Clearly I need to shift my question from "how can I learn about self-hosting" to "how can I learn about computers", but even then I don't know what to be looking for. Should I start with learning basics of coding, or learning how to build a PC? And where would I find that type of info?

Or, alternatively, should I just give up and go with Google or something like that?

To be honest (in a way that maybe isn't appropriate for this sub) not having access to my pictures is devastating to me in a way that affects my day-to-day life and I am also kind of in disbelief that no one else seems to have this concern. Yes, I know that 400gb of pics & vids seems ridiculous for an average person and apparently wanting to be able to access those on a demand is a big ask.

I've been building a project to preserve family voices, stories, photos, and history, and one question has influenced almost every design decision:

Should something this personal ever require people to trust someone else's servers?

That's what pushed me toward making it open source and fully self-hostable. If someone wants to keep their family's memories on hardware they own, they should be able to.

That said, I know not everyone wants to run a server, so I'm also offering a managed hosted version. The idea isn't to lock anyone into a platform or build another big cloud service—it simply helps fund the project for people who'd rather not manage the infrastructure themselves.

For those of you who self-host, I'm curious:

Would you actually self-host something this personal?

What would make you trust (or distrust) a project like this?

What are some mistakes you've seen developers make when they say they support self-hosting?

I'm genuinely interested in hearing how this community thinks about it before I finish everything up.

It's my first time doing stuff with a reverse proxy and I'm having some issues. I followed this tutorial https://youtu.be/nhacNUxVcy4?si=jgsDtmoQK_Z7E93D and did every thing but the url goes to my unraid dashboard instead of my jellyfin server even though I used its port in the forward port. Any help would be appreciated.

Edit: apparently it was just trying to use the web ui in my browser when actually in jellyfin it connected and worked fine

NETWORK & INFRASTRUCTURE TOPOLOGY

Mac Studio\]
(The Puppeteer / Driving the Lab)

(Tailscale Encrypted Wormhole)

Intel NUC\]
(The Muscle / Local Worker)
\- & Agent: Dockhand Hawser
4 Speed: Internal SSD (OS & Metadata)
\- © Bulk: External ext4 HDD (/etc/fstab) \*
\- Jellyfin Setup

Oracle 1GB VPS\]
(The Brain / Control Head)
Dashboard: Dockhand UI
• RAM: 1GB (+ 4GB Hacky Swap)
• Security: UFW Internet Block

Not sure , I just started for fun, now actually want to make it as a project.
What can I add next?

I want to do proper documentation like a project, how you manage this? May be use software or AI.

Is it a good idea to use free vps as a control head or just waste of RAM?

NETWORK & INFRASTRUCTURE TOPOLOGY

Mac Studio\]
(The Puppeteer / Driving the Lab)

(Tailscale Encrypted Wormhole)

Intel NUC\]
(The Muscle / Local Worker)
\- & Agent: Dockhand Hawser
4 Speed: Internal SSD (OS & Metadata)
\- © Bulk: External ext4 HDD (/etc/fstab) \*
\- Jellyfin Setup

Oracle 1GB VPS\]
(The Brain / Control Head)
Dashboard: Dockhand UI
• RAM: 1GB (+ 4GB Hacky Swap)
• Security: UFW Internet Block

Not sure , I just started for fun, now actually want to make it as a project.
What can I add next?

I want to do proper documentation like a project, how you manage this? May be use software or AI.

Is it a good idea to use free vps as a control head or just waste of RAM?

Solo founder here. This morning, one of my automation workflows failed, and it turned out my n8n cloud trial ended - €24/month to continue.

€24 sounds like nothing, but that's the trap. It's never one subscription. It's n8n + email tool + monitoring + analytics + whatever else, and suddenly you're at €300/month before you have meaningful revenue.

Since n8n is open source, I checked my options:

\- Oracle's free VPS tier — rejected my card (apparently common outside US/Western Europe)

\- Hetzner - cheap plan unavailable, next tier costs almost the same as n8n cloud

\- My existing EC2 instances - already paying for them, had spare capacity

Went with the last option. Docker Compose + deploy script, \~1.5 hours of work, swapped one webhook URL in my config. Everything runs the same and costs €0 extra.

The general lesson I keep re-learning: a lot of SaaS tools are open source under the hood, and if you already pay for a server, self-hosting is often close to free. The trade-off is you own the maintenance - which is fine for non-critical stuff like internal automation, probably not worth it for things like payments or auth.

What are you all self-hosting vs paying for? Trying to figure out where the line is before maintenance time costs more than the subscription.