I’m already hosting pihole, but i know there’s so much great stuff out there! I want to find some useful things that I can get my hands on. Thanks!

Edit: Thanks all! I’ve got a lil homelab setup going now with Pihole, Jellyfin, Paperless ngx, Yacht and YT-DL. Going to be looking into it more tomorrow, this is so much fun!

  • palitu@lemmy.perthchat.orgEnglish
    721·
    2 years ago

    As far as changed your life, there are not too many that i really love, that made a massive difference to how i do things. But there is one:

    Paperless_ngx

    ALL of my paper work, receipts, transcripts, tax, shares, council rates. Everything goes in there. We no longer have paper lieing everywhere (well, my wife is another matter, still keeps grocery shopping reciepts…). when i get soimething in the mail, i used the paperless app to “scan” it, upload it, then bin the paper.

    An actual life change that i didn’t know i needed.

    • haulyard@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      2 years ago

      Is it possible for the scans to be stored as files that are readable should paperless crash and I’m not around to get it up and running, or are files stored as weird non-standard file formats?

      edit: looks like scans are saved as pdf’s. Thanks for the insight!

    • constantokra@lemmy.oneEnglish
      3·
      2 years ago

      Why is this better for you than using a folder structure with a decent naming convention? I’ve tried to get started a couple times, but I just haven’t managed to get what’s better about it. I know i’m missing something, and I feel like if I knew what it is i’d be more likely to out in the work to transition.

      • palitu@lemmy.perthchat.orgEnglish
        9·
        2 years ago

        well, there are a few things:

        1. using the app to take photos (in a scan sort of mode, where it trims it to be at right angles), really quick and easy, no matter where i am.
        2. remote access - i can view all of my documents where ever i am.
        3. easy & sophisticated search. I have my documents assigned to people (me, wife, child, etc). I also assigned them to things like payslips, tax, shares, legal documents, education docs, receipts, etc. it also helps to automatically tag them to some degree of accuracy
        4. Automatic dating, it is quite good at picking out the date of the document, as seperate to the upload date. and it is easily updatable if it is wrong
        5. OCR - the documents content is searchable!
        6. Ease of tax time. I have some financial year views that make it really easy for me to do my tax (Australia), and i dont need to go hunting for paper that has faded in the heat and is no longer legible.
        7. folders - the documents are placed in a folder structure of your choosing. if you change the details in the document meta-data, it will move it to the correct place.

        so, whilst a folder structure would work. this is SOOO much easier, and provides much more functionality as it is not just storage. it also has WAF!

        • constantokra@lemmy.oneEnglish
          2·
          2 years ago

          That was a really clear explanation, thanks. Decent remote scanning would be nice. I guess I just have to wrap my head around tags for some of the niceties to make sense, though I guess i’d be no worse off if I just used folders if that’s an option as well.

          • palitu@lemmy.perthchat.orgEnglish
            2·
            2 years ago

            you’re welcome.

            I tend to use document types more than tags now. note that there are a number of meta-data fields:

            • correspondent
            • docuemnt type
            • tag

            i started with tag, but now mostly use a combination of the doc date, type and correspondent. Then use the search bar for specific documents.

    • MaggiWuerze@feddit.deEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      How is your work flow from scanning to paperless? Does it support some kind of upload folder?

      • AnAnxiousCorgi@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        3·
        2 years ago

        Yeah paperless supports an upload folder. My scanner has an ability to scan to a network drive, so I scan things onto a shared drive on my homelab box, paperless consumes the scanned PDF and places it into the paperless “inbox”.

        • MaggiWuerze@feddit.deEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          Cool, that’s really easy. I’ll have to bring that up with my gf. She’s basically hoarding printouts and stuff (she’s a teacher) and this might help her in getting it a bit more organized

      • hogofwar@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        Yep, supports upload folder, normal upload in the application and also automatically importing from email based on folder/label

    • sylverstream@lemmy.nzEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      That looks really cool. At the moment I scan everything with OneDrive, and sync it with my NAS. However, it doesn’t have e.g. OCR features, it’s pretty basic. Will have a look, thanks!

  • ryncewynd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8823·
    2 years ago

    Self hosting nothing changed my life.

    So much free time and less stress once I abandoned self hosting 😅

    • shinjiikarus@mylem.euEnglish
      223·
      2 years ago

      I always compare self hosting to PC gaming: it has some very specific benefits, but you don’t even comprehend, how many downsides you will encounter you cannot even start to anticipate. If one doesn’t like the pain a little bit theses hobbies aren’t any good and I totally understand everyone giving up on them.

      • itsmikeyd@lemmy.mlEnglish
        16·
        2 years ago

        Self hosting is much closer to gaming on Linux than Windows imo, but it’s a great analogy nevertheless.

      • vaptor@lemmy.worldEnglish
        13·
        2 years ago

        I’ve been pc gaming for dozens of years and last few years I have near zero problems.

        Maybe a combination of popular and newish hardware combination and dozen years of technical experience.

        Linux gaming on the other hand… (except maybe deck)

        • shinjiikarus@mylem.euEnglish
          4·
          2 years ago

          haha, I have the same experience tbh, but I still get the obvious “I don’t want to update my drivers or fiddle with settings and controls, I just want something that works”, responses. I don’t even recognize these topics as “pain” anymore, but this probably just shows how high my tolerance has become in the last decades.

    • eodur@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16·
      2 years ago

      It’s disappointing that this is the highest voted comment on a thread in the selfhosted topic…

      • pachrist@lemmy.worldEnglish
        181·
        2 years ago

        I don’t know. I think it speaks to something that we sometimes forget. Self hosting is great, but there’s a bit of time and commitment that’s needed for almost everything. Most people are used to single click, always works apps. Doing your own building, diagnostics, troubleshooting, and deployment can be a headache that’s too much for some people.

      • ryncewynd@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        2 years ago

        It’s really the phrasing “average joe”. I would genuinely give the average Joe a strong recommendation to not self host.

        A beginner wanting to learn to be more techy and willing to put in hours for troubleshooting etc? Sure go ahead. But thats definitely not the average Joe.

        My biggest advice to a beginner would be to buy a spare budget router, plug it into your ISP router, plug your pc into the new router and do all your messing around in your own network.

        Break the internet because of bad configure? No stress, it’s only your little network, your flatmates/family aren’t yelling at you.

        Can’t figure out what you did wrong and want the internet back to search? Just plug your pc back to the untouched ISP router so you get internet again

    • zuccs@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      2 years ago

      Was it r/cordcutters? So good not self hosting even dumb things especially when friends and family use it. I’d rather just fork out for the bill myself.

    • Broken_Orange_Juice@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      7 months ago

      As others have worded it, it’s a hobby. Self hosting is only necessary for a very small number of people, less than one percent of people on here, but it’s a fun hobby, and I’ve learned a lot about software and networks from messing with self hosting stuff.

  • Acid@startrek.websiteEnglish
    45·
    2 years ago

    Honestly Plex/Emby/Jellyfin whichever you prefer is a gamechanger because if you have a large library of content then it just cuts the cord from the subscription services.

    I’ve always been happy to pay for them until I went on holiday last January and realised that none of my services were working due to going to a country that was out of the way and the only way to access them was to use a VPN.

    So having my own Netflix is a great thing.

    Tailscale while doing the above is also really cool

    • HamSwagwich@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      2 years ago

      Yep. 100% agree. I have a 175TB server. Sure it was expensive to set up initially, but I have all shows and movies I want, always. From all the different services I would have to subscribe to, I imagine I have recovered my initial outlay and I never have to worry about media being removed from the service or it going out of business.

      I have things that aren’t even available if I wanted to subscribe. Best thing you can do for yourself.

      No commercials, always high quality. Available anywhere, at any time.

          • RxBrad@lemmy.worldEnglish
            12·
            2 years ago

            It just takes a really long time to restore from those backups. And weirdly, they’re scattered all over the place…

            • Sabin10@reddthat.comEnglish
              2·
              2 years ago

              Depends on your source and connection but I managed to recover 8tb of movies in a couple weeks.

      • Silviecat44@vlemmy.netEnglish
        01·
        2 years ago

        Is it useful without piracy though? It would still be expensive to buy all that media? And usually you can’t even download movies etc that you buy online. Am I missing something?

    • baked_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      11·
      2 years ago

      Probably an ignorant question but the content you use is pirated right? Should I wonder about legal issues since I would keep it at home and connected to Internet? Protected of course I just don’t see too deep into the issue

      • f1g4@feddit.itEnglish
        2·
        2 years ago

        If you don’t explicitly set a DNS to allow access from outside the local network, all your stuff is private and confined within your local network. As it is with all, let’s say, wifi stuff that goes on in your home.

        Edit. What @notorious said

        • Notorious@lemm.eeEnglish
          0·
          2 years ago

          I think you mean explicitly open the port on your router, but even then that’s not true. Plex by default will proxy your traffic so that even closed off servers can be reached. It is pretty easy to disable remote access in the server settings though.

    • Gecko@lemmy.worldEnglish
      223·
      2 years ago

      While Vaultwarden is great I would not suggest selfhosting your password manager unless you do regular backups. Losing all your password cause your server went down is a great way to ruin your day.

      • Amcro@lemmy.worldEnglish
        12·
        2 years ago

        I don’t think that’s true. Even when Bitwarden server is down you can still access your Bitwarden vault, use and export all passwords. You can’t save new passwords but using existing ones should work perfectly fine. So, when your server is down/broken, export your vault, fix server and get new Vaulwarden instance up and import your vault again. Thats it. I still find it safer to selfhost it than getting my passwords leaked.

        • zeitgeist@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          6·
          2 years ago

          Nevertheless, are backups crucial. But it is relatively easy with vaultwarden-backup and the free object storage of AWS, Oracle and so on.

      • priapus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        2 years ago

        It’s very easy to back up and encrypted vault to the cloud. Also all bitwarden clients save your info locally, so you wouldn’t lose your vault unless everything you had logged into it with was destroyed simultaneously.

        • Gecko@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          It’s been a while since I last checked Vaultwarden (back then it was still called bitwarden-rs). If they added an export feature, then that definitely makes things easier. The export feature in the client isn’t enough IMO. Last time I tried it, it didn’t export attachments. So if you for example have your SSH key saved in Bitwarden, well then good luck if you loose access to the vault :P

      • dustojnikhummer@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        Shame NPM is so easy to use compared to Traefik. I just bash my head against the wall if I try to use Traefik for anything but local docker containers. Point it at an external service? I would rather shoot myself

        • wutanc@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          I actually find traefik rather nice to work with. I have a few Middleware chains set up, expose service using labels and add the chains to make sure I get the appropriate settings.

          • dustojnikhummer@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 years ago

            If you only use it with your local containers than sure, I have a similar setup myself. But if I try to break from that prison…

    • haleywm@startrek.websiteEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Thanks for teaching me about LiveSync, not being able to sync my notes with mobile without an obsidian account has been annoying, but none of the web based interfaces look at nice or as usable as obsidian. Being able to sync everything between desktops and mobile will be really handy.

  • thoughtorgan@lemmy.worldEnglish
    33·
    2 years ago

    WireGuard, helpful for accessing stuff on your internal network that you don’t want to expose while you’re out.

  • sylverstream@lemmy.nzEnglish
    30·
    2 years ago

    Home Assistant. It’s a rabbit hole, but it’s great. I’ve got motion enabled lights, thermostats for “dumb” heaters, and I track device usage (tablet, xbox) of my kids.

    • fuser@quex.ccEnglish
      7·
      2 years ago

      I was going to say that hosting a mail server will help you learn to control anger, but your idea sounds much healthier.

      • Cyanogenmon@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        2 years ago

        Sys admin here.

        Hosting on-prem email at work took years off my life. Going to work on the other and report back

        • fuser@quex.ccEnglish
          3·
          2 years ago

          Ok. I’ll stand by and try restarting spam assassin again. Good luck!

  • agoramachina@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    292·
    2 years ago

    Home Assistant is nice! Have it integrated with some smart lights and smart plugs. Makes it easy to monitor and control everything locally.

    We have it set up in our room so that one widget controls the lights, one controls the fans, one controls the monitors, then there’s a master button that we use to turn off everything that doesn’t need to be always on whenever we leave the room.

    Want to play with some fancier stuff with it too, but that alone is incredibly convenient.

  • Reivax@lemmy.worldEnglish
    22·
    2 years ago

    I have a PiHole, my own EdgeRouter that is behind the Verizon router, a UPS, a wired switch, a SiliconDust HD HomeRun to convert my cable to a stream, my Hue controller, my Camera DVR, and a Pi4 hosting network storage.

    It all fits neatly in a 6U closet rack. I use the EdgeRouter to host a VPN I can connect into to manage things for the house, and also use it to dial out to a VPN, so I can connect the TVs in the house to a VPN abroad.

    I also have a Smart Garden powered by a raspberry pi, connected to a rain barrel, a water pump, some solenoids, and some moisture sensors.

  • priapus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    211·
    2 years ago

    If you spend some time learning how docker/podman works you’ll be able to host practically anything!

  • slackj_87@lemmy.worldEnglish
    171·
    2 years ago

    Vaultwarden is pretty game changing. No more reusing passwords and they aren’t in the cloud.

  • KNova@links.dartboard.socialEnglish
    161·
    2 years ago

    For me it’s 100% Nextcloud. It was a pain to get working at first (and I’m dreading the day it breaks, if that happens). But it is so much more than just a self-hosted Dropbox solution:

    • Maps
    • Calendar
    • Email
    • Markdown editor (I’m using this to try and replace Google Drive for collaborative document editing with my friends; most of what we need can be achieved with Markdown formatting)
    • I haven’t tried it but there is a Talk plugin that allows for video conferencing in browser;
    • a bunch of other stuff I’ve never played with like mind maps, PDF conversion, music player, etc.