Hardware:

• hp EliteDesk 800 G4 SFF
• i5-8500
• 32 GB RAM
• 250 ssd boot disk
• 1TB nvme
• 2 x 4 TB SSD

I run most of my services via Docker but also in their own LXCs on Proxmox:

• adguard
• borg-backup
• caddy
• forgejo
• filebrowser-quantum
• rackpeek
• opencloud, Baikal, obsidian-live sync
• immich
• paperless
• vikunja
• navidrome, octo-fiesta
• karakeep
• proxmox-backup-server

Next thing I want to set up would be arcane and maybe ansible, audio-bookshelf, and someday some monitoring.

I access my services only via NetBird when I am out and about.

The biggest flaw in my setup as for now is that I only have one device that’s a single point of failure. Since I have remote backups that’s okayish atm. In the future I would try to get ahold of more hardware and separate things out. For someone who just wanted to try things out a little I got my self kind of deep into it haha Performance vice its enough for me as a single user

Also: If anyone has any suggestions what I could do with my Oracle free tier VPS, besides running a Minecraft server, I would be happy to hear ideas :)

My Self-Hosting Journey

I began my self-hosting journey in 2021 with the goal of hosting a game server for friends so they would not need to pay for external hosting. Through onsite IT work, I acquired several 6th and 8th generation i7 systems from companies that were downsizing or upgrading. After adding inexpensive NVMe storage and APC battery backups, the environment grew quickly.

What started as a single server eventually expanded to three dedicated game servers running 27/4, supporting up to 270 concurrent players at peak. These servers have been up for almost 4 years now.

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Internet Connection

• ISP: Optimum Fiber (1 Gbps / 1 Gbps symmetrical) – $65/month
• ISP router configured in bridge mode if I return it they take away a discount.

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Network Infrastructure

• Router: UDM Pro
• Switch: USW 16-Port PoE
• Access Point: AC Pro

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Infrastructure Services

DNS Server

• Raspberry Pi 4 (4 GB RAM)
• DietPi OS
• Running Pi-hole for DNS filtering

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Game Server Infrastructure

All game servers are connected to APC battery backups and maintain approximately 99% uptime, with downtime only occurring during scheduled maintenance. A custom watchdog script automatically restarts servers if a crash occurs.

• Game Server 1

  • i7 6th Gen
  • 24 GB RAM
  • 500 GB NVMe storage
  • Windows Server 2019

• Game Server 2

  • i7 8th Gen
  • 32 GB RAM
  • 500 GB NVMe storage
  • Windows Server 2019

• Game Server 3

  • i7 8th Gen
  • 28 GB RAM
  • 500 GB NVMe storage
  • Windows Server 2019

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Virtualization / Homelab

Proxmox Server

• i7 12th Gen
• 40 GB RAM
• 1 TB NVMe storage
• External USB Media Drive – 22 TB (with backup)

Current Services

• Jellyfin – Replacing all commercial streaming services (currently LAN only, working on secure remote access)

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Planned Additions

• NGINX – Reverse proxy for secure external access
• Apache Guacamole – Replace RemotePC for remote access
• Tailscale – Replace Surfshark for private networking
• Vaultwarden – Replace RoboForm for password management

If you think there are better options please let me know so I can do my research!

Hey all, I’ve been slowly building services on my server over many many years, starting with running a minecraft ftb server, to where I am now, which is 1 primary system(providing the network filesystem) and 2 auxiliary minipc systems my brother in law recently donated. I moved from Docker to Docker Swarm after getting those MiniPC’s and enjoying the added compute. Currently my swarm is running:

• PiHole x2 - AdBlocking and Local DNS Management
• Wg-easy - for Wireguard VPN Management
• nginx - for reverse proxy servicing
• authentik - for Authentication and SSO
• Duplicati - for cloud backups(pointing at backblaze buckets)
• Guacamole - for RDP services
• Grafana+Prometheus+Node-Exporter+Cadvisor+AlertManager - for aggregation and system monitoring
• Gatus - single pane of glass monitoring of services(might remove it now that I’ve started using Grafana)
• diun - monitoring docker image versions and notification
• Bookstack - Personal Knowledge Base system
• Linkwarden - Collaborative Link Sharing and archiving
• Fasten Health - Local Health Records Storage
• SnipeIT - personal asset management
• Affine - self hosted cloud notebook
• Actual - Budgeting Software
• it-tools - for swiss army knife utilities
• kitchenowl - recipes and grocery lists
• Reactive resume - for resume building with AI empowered editing
• Onetimesecret - for burn after reading secret sharing(using it for distributing credentials to my family)
• Searxng - Local Search Aggregation
• Homarr - Personal Dashboarding
• Home Assistant - Smart Home Management
• N8n - Automating codeless workflows
• Ollama and Open-WebUI - personal Agentic AI
• AudioBookshelf - Audiobook streaming and Management
• OwnCloud - local file sharing and storage
• Plex - Video Streaming
• BitMagnet - DHT network sniffer
• syncthing - for transporting data between local and remote systems
• the *Arrs - for acquiring content
• Docspell - for digitizing and storing important documents
• picsur - for local meme storage
• Calibre+Calibre-web - for Ebook management
• Crafty Controller - for Minecraft Server Management
• RomM - For Emulation and ROM Management.

As I go about my day I’m always looking for new and interesting containers to run, and then scrutinizing if they fill a need, replace an existing service with a better version of the same service, or if it’s better off not implementing, then I pull them down. this has been a great experience in devops learning and the longer I work on the server the more best practices I put in place and the more I understand why corporate clouds have some of the practices they have. I look forward to poking around in this community looking to help and to find new containers to accrete into my platform.

I joined to learn, still not self-hosting anything, but I intend to use an 11yo Compaq laptop (i5, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD) as a server while I’m still practicing. I intend to self-host a lemmy instance and a nextcloud server.

Thanks for everything you guys have been sharing I’ve already got some good leads, gonna try out YunoHost for starters

I have vaultwarden, navidrome, uptime kuma (on a vps, because it doesn’t make sense to host it on my pi, because if it goes down, I’m not gonna know), pihole (though it’s not currently working with Mullvad), dokuwiki, freshrss, searxng, ntfy, and tugtainer (replacement for watchtower since that’s now abandoned).

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters	More Letters
DNS	Domain Name Service/System
HTTP	Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web
LXC	Linux Containers
MECO	Main Engine Cut-Off
~	MainEngineCutOff podcast
NVMe	Non-Volatile Memory Express interface for mass storage
PoE	Power over Ethernet
ROC	Range Operations Coordinator
~	Radius of Curvature
RP-1	Rocket Propellant 1 (enhanced kerosene)
SAR	Synthetic Aperture Radar (increasing resolution with parallax)
SECO	Second-stage Engine Cut-Off
SES	Formerly Société Européenne des Satellites, comsat operator
~	Second-stage Engine Start
SSD	Solid State Drive mass storage
VPN	Virtual Private Network
VPS	Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)
XMPP	Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (‘Jabber’) for open instant messaging

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15 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 19 acronyms.

[Thread #11 for this comm, first seen 11th Jan 2026, 14:55] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

Host all the things!

Wordpress, SMTP/IMAP, tor, bittorrent, Nextcloud, Plex, NTP, photo galleries, DoT…

I even started hosting the website for my local Italian restaurant and they haven’t even realised it yet.