Joel Always one syllable

Weeknotes for the week ending Jul.29

29 Jul 2022

An empty cardboard box on the sidewalk with 'free' hastily written on the side
You know the saying - "Nothing in life is free"

A year or so ago I bought a Synology NAS and started to consolidate some of the disparate cloud storage services into one single physical box that I knew I could (theoretically) control myself. It worked out well. I liked it! I could install some packages, I could run Plex, I could back up docs, photos, mp3’s, movies, etc.

Then I started branching out a little bit and messing around with using docker to host some services that didn’t already have Synology-related package installers. With docker-compose, this was all pretty straightforward and didn’t give me too much headache.

Over time this has grown into a full-on “homelab” situation where I’ve migrated most services onto a small Dell server that sits in the corner of my office plugged into a UPS. Ultimately this has turned into the sweet spot and I am thrilled with the workflow. It looks a little something like this:

  1. Does this service I pay for (Dropbox) have a decent alternative? Is there a docker image? Give it a shot.
  2. Does this service which I DON’T pay for but serve as data points for a machine-learning algorithm (Google Anything) have a decent alternative? Is there a docker image? Give it a shot.
  3. Does something look cool on /r/selfhosted that I want to try? Is there a docker image (almost 100% of the time: “Yes”)? Give it a shot.

Pretty easy.

So what has been good for me?

  1. Dashy - A dashboard that serves as my homepage. Links to all of my self-hosted services, in their logical groups, go here.
  2. Nginx Proxy Manager - An nginx configuration front-end. Makes setting up services and LestEncrypt certs a cynch.
  3. Linkding - Bookmarking app a la “Pinboard” and “Del.icio.us”
  4. Whoogle - “A self-hosted, ad-free, privacy-respecting metasearch engine “, AKA “Google front-end”. No google ads. No tracking.
  5. Umami - A privacy-focused website analytics package. No more Google Analytics for me.
  6. AdGuard & Pi-Hole - Both! DNS servers for local, in-house, ad blocking.

This is the tip of the iceberg. There are more, but these are good starts.

If you’re in the “tech” business you can imagine this is a potentially dangerous hole to drop down into. I recognize this, but there’s not a chance in hell I end up like the people in /r/homelab.

Knock on wood.