I had a Raspberry Pi once and wanted to move file from the current folder to some other folder. I typed mv /* /path/to/folder/ and move everything in the root directory and down to this other folder.

EDIT: Meant to say that snapshots are cheap backups. I ended up reinstalled the OS.

Correct would have been dot slash: mv ./* /path/to/folder/

Which software do you use for backups?

Install Virtualbox (or some software to handle virtual machines).
Install Debian (or some other OS of your choice, I won’t judge if you prefer Windows).
Update your OS (apt update && apt upgrade -y on Debian).
Take a snapshot of your VM’s current state after updating. Saves a lot of time if you mess up or want a clean slate.

Now you decide on what you want. Do you want to install n8n or Node-RED for automation? Do you want to use Immich for pictures? Paperless to save papers in a digital format? Audiobookshelf to listen on your books or podcasts? Jellyfin to stream your media? Set up a Minecraft or Factorio server?

Once you have decided on what you want to do, try to do it in your virtual machine.
Once you understand how to set it up and configure it to your liking, decide on how you want to host it. I took an office computer, added a few HDDs and replaced the case with a bigger one and it’s now my home server, but any old laptop will do. Just make sure to take backups.

I used to have a Dell R710 and a virtual machine for each service I hosted, but I have moved to docker because it as simple as taking the often provided compose file, tweaking it a bit (where to store data etc) and running it with docker compose up -d.

Same here. I remember playing minecraft and wanted to install some mod on my server. There were instructions and I followed them. Problems? Search the web.

I also tried to run TeamSpeak on an RPI at some point, and that was when I learned about ARM.

You are welcome.

I used to support a few companies hosting their own email servers (I supported the mail server software). I will never host my own email, not unless I have a gateway between me and world, someone to configure the DNS and all that.

1. Figure out what you want to host.
2. Read up on what is required to host that.
3. Understand what is required to host that.
4. Skip step 3, wing it and search the internet as you go.

I second Debian because of the amount of information out there.

Since multiple people will be using the same IP when using a VPN. If one person is a bad actor and causes the IP to be blacklisted, it will affect you too.

The room looks like legs in the thumbnail.

From their README. Have you looked at their forum?

We cannot provide direct technical support. Get help running this software in your own environment in our unofficial community forum.

This thread has a link to someone’s Dockerfile for their development.

Here is two enteries from my Caddyfile:

ip.domain.tld:80 {
        respond "{client_ip}" 200
}


git.domain.tld {
        reverse_proxy forgejo:3000
}

This is all I need and Caddy will handle the rest. I have created a network with podman/docker that I add to any container that I need to reverse proxy to.

I meant more figuratively. Finally managed to move my compose files to nix files thanks to compose2nix. One thing that throw me for a loop was that podman (or perhaps nix) creates a service named <backend>-<service>. Compose2nix handles this accordingly but I had a few hours of head scratching until I figured that out.

I mean keep using port 22 on the server and redirect whatever port you want in your firewall (your router unless you have a dedicted fw) to port 22. Don’t change the ssh port on the server at all.

Why change the SSH port of a home server, which most likely is not reachable from the outside anyway?

And if it is, why change it on the server and not in the fw?

I installed a new server at home and went with NixOS. It looks super cool but it takes so much time to learn everything. The only thing keeping me from going back to Debian is how easy it was to permanently mount drives (and save a configuration for any future install or mishaps).

(I.e. mount, nixos-generate-config, nixos-rebuild switch and done!)

From the readme:

RomM (ROM Manager) allows you to scan, enrich, browse and play your game collection with a clean and responsive interface. With support for multiple platforms, various naming schemes, and custom tags, RomM is a must-have for anyone who plays on emulators.

I can’t say I agree or disagree because I don’t have any data to prove your right nor wrong. I can say that I understand some shit people give Java but your argument was a first for me. I was intrigued.

That’s the first time I ever hear someone call Java a legacy language.

Is it considered best practice to run a bunch of different compose files, and update them all separately?

tl;dr I do one compose file per application/folder because I found that to suite me best.

I knew about docker and what is was for a long time, but just recently started to use it (past year or so) so I’m no expert . Before docker, I had one VM for each application I wanted and if I messed something up (installed something and it broke or something), I just removed the entier VM and made a new one. This also comes with the problem that every VM needs to be stopped before the host can be shutdown, and startup took more work to ensure that it worked correctly.

Here is a sample of my layout:

.
├──audiobookshelf
│  ├──config
├──diun
│  └───data
├──jellyfin
├──kuma
├──mealie
│  ├──data
│  └──pgdata
├──n8n
│  ├──n8n_data
│  └──n8n_files
├──paperless
│  ├──consume
│  └──export
├──syncthing
│  └──data
└───tasksmd
    └──config

I considered using one compose file and put everything in it by opted to instead use one file for each project. Using one compose file for everything would make it difficult to stop just one application. And by having it split into separate folders, I can just remove everything in it if I mess up and start a new container.

As for updating, I made script that pulls everything:

#!/bin/bash

function docker_update {
    cd $1
    docker compose down && docker compose pull && docker compose up -d
}
docker_update "/path/to/app1"
docker_update "/path/to/app2"
docker_update "/path/to/app3"

Here is a small sample from my n8n compose file (not complete file):

services:
  db:
    container_name: n8n-db
    image: postgres
    ...
    networks:
      - n8n-network

  adminer:
    container_name: n8n-db-adminer
    image: adminer
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 8372:8080
    networks:
      - shared-network
      - n8n-network

  n8n:
    container_name: n8n
    networks:
      - n8n-network
      - shared-network
    depends_on:
      db:
        condition: service_healthy

volumes:
  db_data:

networks:
  n8n-network:
  shared-network:
    external: true

shared-network is shared between Caddy and any containter I need to access to externally (reverse proxy) and then one network that is shared between the applications.