this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
348 points (97.5% liked)

Asklemmy

43898 readers
1209 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy πŸ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] pixxelkick@lemmy.world 87 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Building and running my own server for self hosting multiple tools for my home.

  • Bitwarden Password manager, now sharing logins/passwords for stuff my fiance and I both use is easy, and every single website we use has its own unique randomly generated password so when one site gets breached, our logins aren't compromised anywhere else

  • Plex, it's like your own self hosted Netflix. My file copies of any movies/TV shows go on here and it parses em all, keeps it all grouped together, streams in 4k.

  • Shinobi, for my security cameras. Self hosted free CRTV application, works with any open spec cameras. Has movement detection and tonnes of other open source options for plug-ins.

  • Deluge, handy UI for downloading torrents onto my server. Conviently added presets to it that let me download to the very folders Plex scans... cough cough.

  • Kavita, self hosted server for books/pdfs. Some e-readers can even connect to it. A couple popular manga reading apps also work with it. Can also just use its own browser web interface as an e-reader, it has multiple options for styles (infinite scroll, page swiping, left/right click, and even supports right to left mode for manga!)

  • Nextcloud, pictures/document storage. Sort of like a selfhosted filesshare/file backup. Has a mobile app that can automatically backup every picture/video you take on your phone!

  • Gogs, open source super lightweight git repo. Has only the bare minimum of features, basic web hook, authorization, permissions, simple web ui to edit. It does the job I need it to and that's good enough.

  • OpenVPN, self hosted VPN so I can securely access all the above stuff without exposing it to the internet.

  • Also I host my own websites on it, publicly exposed. Blog, a writing project, nothing terribly fancy.

Eventually I plan to add some more stuff to it. Migrate my smart home dependencies over to Z wave and install Home Assistant, so I don't have to rely on sending my info to google/amazon/etc to do basic smart home stuff.

[–] systemguy_64@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Plex

You should check out Jellyfin

Plex is getting shittier by the minute, and this is a good alternative.

[–] pixxelkick@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I havent had any issues with Plex so far, so I continue to use it. Ive definitely looked into jellyfin and it doesnt seem painful to swap over, but at the moment there hasnt been a compelling reason to make the switch.

I put media in my folder, plex scans it by the time I sit on my couch, I click button, show plays. No issues to speak of so far.

[–] hiremenot_recruiter@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I generally have issues with subtitles. Sometimes they don't work out are out of sync, etc.

[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Try different subtitle files, usually if the first one is off, the second or third will sync up properly

[–] pixxelkick@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Ah interesting, I havent had such an issue yet, or at least not to a degree I notice it egregiously.

[–] brygphilomena@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

While Plex has moved towards the "free" content, it still does remarkably well with apps on all devices. It also makes user management extremely easy without having to manage yourself. Password resets aren't your problem if you share with others.

It has its limitations and it's development budget isn't in the self hosting space as much. But for what it is, it's still a good value.

[–] himynameisjonas@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Have been using Plex for years, thought I’d give Jellyfin a shot but my god how ugly it was 😩

[–] ProvokedGamer@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago

I prefer how Jellyfin’s UI, but you can also use a third party client IIRC

[–] evulhotdog@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I personally would never recommend someone to self host a password manager. There’s a lot of things that can go wrong, and any number of them could cause you to lose your passwords or at least access to them when you need them. There’s a lot of value in paying $10/yr for Bitwarden, to have a clear mind, and know that your information is safe, and accessible.

[–] pixxelkick@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The value in self hosting is your passwords aren't exposed to the internet at all, and can only be accessed over VPN from outside the house.

If you care about security and you know how to run a network properly, then it's definitely worth doing.

In terms of things that can "go wrong", the first rule of homelab is "Back your stuff up", and the second rule of homelab is "Back it up again"

[–] blackbrook@mander.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

Seriously, when you have a single small file which is that important, it's really not hard to make sure it's backed up in several places.

[–] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The issue he/she is taking about is reliability of personal infrastructure. Its never run a password manager without HA, and since I'm not going to run servers in HA, I suppose I'm sticking to pen and paper for the important ones

[–] pixxelkick@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Im not sure I would classify "back up your access key" as HA but you do you

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 6 points 1 year ago

I've used Keepass along with dropbox/onedrive/nextcloud (changed over the years) for a decade now and never had a problem. I keep a backup copy of my database on a flash drive in case I somehow lose all my devices. Takes like 5 minutes to set up.

[–] wolf@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would not self host a password manager, simply because I don't want running something like that on a 24/7 online server.

Still, if I needed to run a password manager on a server, I would rather self host it than use a hosted service from someone else.

In my opinion, running such a service commercially is a much harder problem than self hosting it and has a much bigger attack surface.

This is IMHO what many people do not understand about hosting as a service vs. self hosting: The full time DevOps/Admins etc. people who work at the hosting service are hopefully better than me at hosting stuff. At the same time the problem they have to solve is so much harder than self hosting, that even if they are 10x as good as me, running my own little service with a firewall, rate limiting and monitoring should at least not be less secure.

[–] saigot@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

In my opinion the risk of something killing my server and wiping my passwords out is much much scarier than the prospect of a semi competent company hosting them getting hacked. Like several orders of magnitude scarier.

[–] wolf@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 year ago

Fair enough!

As I said, I would not host it myself.

My solution is much simpler and more redundant: A KeepassXC file backed up to different physical locations and 2 different cloud providers.

If I ever forget my password, I am totally screwed. :-P ... but OTOH an event which would lead to the deletion of all of my backups at the same time would be extinction - level. ;-)

[–] hardaysknight@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Shinobi is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the suggestion

[–] zod000@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

You may also want to take a look at zoneminder. I've had great luck with it over the years.

[–] jetsetdorito@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

I was using Shinobi for like a year, but I'm enjoying Frigate so much more now. Shinobi is definitely more feature rich though.

[–] CraigeryTheKid@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Shinobi

If starting from scratch - what camera recommendations would you give to connect to Shinobi?

[–] pixxelkick@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

I honestly am not sure I would recommend shinobi at this point, it seems to be very unstable and has a lot of issues with randomly failing.

Im not sure if its my cameras or shinobi's fault, but Im gonna try out a few other FOSS options.

I use Reolink cameras personally.

That was a fair bit of scrolling to find the homelabber. Thanks

[–] fiddlestix@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Thanks to you I have today discovered Kavita. It's excellent!

[–] Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Excellent choices. Might I hint towards lovely alternatives?

Emby instead of plex (cheaper, and equally capable (use jelllyfin for really free but less reliable))

AgentDVR. Super reliable, mega flexible PVR totally free for private use. Even got options for AI-motion detection and stuff.

And especially: KeepassXC. You'll never regret switching in time.

[–] pixxelkick@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

All the stuff I listed is also free for personal use. But yeah, all those are solid alternatives as options.

[–] snugglesthefalse@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I used emby briefly after ditching Plex then settled on jellyfin. It's been over a year and I've had no issues with reliability.

[–] Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I tried hard with jellyfin after ditching plex. And it was horrible. Then jumped to emby and that was years ago with no single issue.

Jelly might be better now, haven't tried since then.

[–] snugglesthefalse@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe, I messed around with things about a year ago now

[–] Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago

Me 3 yrs ago... So probably it IS better 😊