So I've seen some posts here and elsewhere about people making a home NAS setup, using it as a media server with jellyfin/plex/.arr to set up media + keep files/passwords/photos, and then managing it remotely. That sounds incredibly cool.

I also did some cursory searching that one way to do things without messing with port-forwarding is to look into Tailscale to network remotely.

I want to try this for my parents and I, especially since I will be training abroad for several years while they will be based in Asia.

The obvious problem is I don't have any experience with the process or even networking in general. I also do not know how to code in any capacity. I am in a decidedly non-tech field of work.

I've been googling but want to know if this a feasible idea at my skill level? Is this work for hobbyists or those in the professional field of computing? Am I going to potentially shoot myself security-wise if i try this? Should experiment with something smaller-scale first?

Preliminary "Research":

1. Watched Practical Networking on youtube to see what I was getting into (understood... lets say 45% of what he was talking about)
2. Plan to get a synology NAS with minimum 4 drive bays (Supposedly this is easiest for beginners?)
3. Connect to network via tailscale
4. Get a vpn
5. Install docker
6. Install apps
7. Connect it to PCs and smart tv at my parent's home in Asia
8. ???
9. Maintain it from Europe?

Any advice on how to start or any guides to recommend? (most of what I've found is 2021 or earlier so I am unsure if a lot's changed since then)

I'm having a "server" (very cheap, very old office pc) in my house I use together with dynamic dns. But it's not really stable, (needs regular restarts and dyndns is not really gold either) and as I want to offer family acces to nextcloud and myabe plex? any other ideas? and all the other nice stuff the free software world has to offer, this is not working well enough to not make them flee back to google + apple and stay there till eternity!

the other thing is, i got used to ssh and stuff over the last years and want to improve my skills and learn.

I know these two dont really go well hand in hand :-(

I actually have a decent up and down speed at my home so an upgrade for my existing system is thinkable but dyndns is just a PITA and i'd like having my own domain. do these work with changing ips? because with the prices they ask here for staric ips I can just rent a server in a center somewhere.

what do you do to self host, how do you do it and what would be your advise for me?

So, I'm currently working up 2 1 gallon apfelweing batches. For a while I was doing many 6 gallon batches, but took a break for a while, and getting back into it.

Any other homebrewers out there? Anything fermented, even kombucha :)

Hello,

I have a few questions. I didn't want to wast money so I wanna use what I have in terms of hardware, only the PSU and storage if needed.

PC:

• CPU AMD 5 1600
• RAM 16G
• SSD 125 GB for OS

Services I think of running:

• Node Tor middle relay
• Node Bitcoin
• Node XMR
• Gitea or Gitlab
• Maybe some service to host files or make a share for lan or a could service
• Maybe a TS Server or Minecraft

Questions:

1. Do I have enough power to run all of this or I am being to greedy? I have raspberry(not pi 4) stopped at home doing nothing I could run some of this services on them if the computer can't handle everything.
2. Should I virtualize? Can you explain me your response on this?
3. I thinking of buying a good PSU since I am running this 24/7, should I invest in gold platinum or something like that?
4. Should I have multiple disks if yes can you explain how much and for what.

This is will be my first server at home so I would like to hear tips if you think I am forgetting something.

Thanks in advance.
Edit: visualize > virtualize

I'm sharing in case some of you are having a similar issue at work or at home, and to hear your opinion and/or similar stories!

I've been using Ubiquiti access points in my home for a few years now, and overall, they've worked very well. 3 APs giving near perfect 5GHz VHT80 coverage on DFS channels. LAN transfers are about 600-650mbit on laptops, which has proven to be plenty for wireless clients in my home. Keep in mind that this is a pretty basic setup... besides the APs, there's just the ISP provided GPON ONT which is also a typical all-in-one ISP solution (router, switch, AP, firewall, DHCP server...) with it's Wi-Fi turned off.

As I said, I was pretty happy with the results, however there was one feature that I could never get to work just right; roaming. You could be walking around the house watching a live stream and the stream would pause for 5-8 seconds until the roaming transition was over. Strangely, with VoIP calls, roaming would be about 3-5 seconds. Even enabling fast roaming features (which I believe is simply 802.11r) on the AP's controller would not give the results I was looking for. After days of tweaking TX power settings, channel selection and trying to implement Minimum RSSI (which I ended up not using), I finally gave up and resigned myself to the 4-6 seconds (oh, the humanity) of roaming time.

Fast forward to about two months ago and I added a new router to the setup (UBNT ER-4) and a switch (UBNT USW-24). Setup went smooth, already had some cat.6 cabling around the house, now it was time to actually use it. Had some fun setting up a guest Wi-Fi network on it's own VLAN, which was always a concern of mine; having "untrusted" devices connect to my network. The access points do client isolation on guest networks by default, but in my mind it wasn't enough as I have some file servers and time machines on the network.

Anyways, a few days after doing the setup I'm walking around the house with a livestream on my mobile and suddenly realize that it's not losing the connection. I try with a VoIP call and it worked flawlessly. I start walking around faster and still, the phone is roaming without an issue. I was very excited!

I'm thinking it must be the router that somehow solved the roaming issue. My first theory was that the DHCP server on the ER-4 was doing it's thing much faster than the ISP's device, allowing the wireless clients to actually roam faster. So I do a web search and I find some very relevant info. It was a thread on a forum and reddit thread with a sysadmin that was about to give up on the APs because of roaming issues. In both threads, there were replies about what switch were they using.

Apparently, some switches (Cisco and HP were mentioned), have a "MAC aging" interval setting which is way too high by default, or they simply have bugged firmware that doesn't allow the switch to "re-learn" the MAC address of a device on a different switch port. I assume that ISP provided "el-cheapo" gear has similar issues.

So, if you're having roaming issues with your wireless clients, check your switches!!!

Anyways, just wanted to share this story. Thank you for reading. :-)

I've got a server running out of my house that I use to create virtual machines for many different facets of what I enjoy (IE: A Plex Server, Discord Bot, PiHole, etc...). The server runs Ubuntu and is utilizing QEMU I believe for the the virtualization.

I've got issues getting the adapter (currently using one of those Xbox adapters to plug into an antenna and back into the computer) to relay into the virtual machine. On top of that, I'd LOVE to ditch hulu and these others (sling, PS Vue, etc..) and utilize local live television with a larger antenna on my roof, but I'll worry about that once I've got these technical aspects worked out.

I guess I'm looking for some advice as well as anyone with a similar setup and how you are running yours?