It is still a logical argument, especially for smaller shops. I mean, you can (as self-hosters know) set up automatic backups, failover systems, and all that, but it takes significant time & resources. Redundant internet connectivity? Redundant power delivery? Spare capacity to handle a 10x demand spike? Those are big expenses for small, even mid-sized business. No one really cares if your dentist’s office is offline for a day, even if they have to cancel appointments because they can’t process payments or records.

Meanwhile, theoretically, reliability is such a core function of cloud providers that they should pay for experts’ experts and platinum standard infrastructure. It makes any problem they do have newsworthy.

I mean,it seems silly for orgs as big and internet-centric as Fortnite, Zoom, or forturne-500 bank to outsource their internet, and maybe this will be a lesson for them.

I’m not a systemd guru, but it turned out pretty easy. https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/using-systemd.html#systemd-multiple-mysql-instances Basically just make [mysqld@copy] sections in my.cnf then systemd start mysqld@copy and systemd is smart enough to pass copy into mysql.

I did it slightly different, using systemctl edit mysql@.service to define different default files for each instance, then [mysqld@copy] sections in each of those files. Seems like the port option for each has to go in a [mysqld] section, but otherwise ok.

Replication because I want to put some live data, read-only, on the VPS, exposed to the world while the ‘real’ database stays safely hidden in my intranet. SSH tunnel so the replica can talk to the real database.

I’m hung up on unrecognized charset #255. Tried rolling everything back to utfmb3; suppose I could go all the way to Latin1. I imagine there’s a lot of depth I could learn, but dropping mariadb for mysql seems like the path of least resistance right now.

eta: got the character set sorted. Had to make a new dump, confirm that everything in the dump was utf8mb3, then re-prime the replica with that data. Wasn’t enough just to change the character sets internally.

I’ve been trying to convince a VPS to run two instances of mariadb - one for local databases, one to replicate the homelab. Got mariadb@server and mariadb@replica sorted out through systemd, but now stuck on replication from mysql to mariadb. Looks like I’ll be ripping out mariadb and putting everything on mysql.

I’ve got all my internet infrastructure on one monitor - 50W for the N100, the cable modem, an ooma VOIP device, and UPS. I’d guess the server, with its WAP, 4x GbE ports, 2x spinning disks, and USB TV tuner, is 35-ish of those watts.

If you have the spare cash, I found the N100 NAS motherboard to be a great source of occasional weekend projects, and now it very definitely looks like I’ve gone overboard.

I started out just wanting a file server to store backups.then…

• DHCP and NAT because my ISP would only allow one user.
• DNS so I could refer to systems by name
• pihole
• mythtv/tvheadend so I could watch OTA tv & archive CDs & DVDs
• hostapd for Wifi
• homeassistant
• immich
• nextcloud
• tandoor recipes
• just added fastenhealth for medical records

It didn’t feel like a lot, because it took years. Among the amazing things has been all the times I’ve been able to upgrade the motherboard by just plugging the HD into the new board. Started out just using old desktop boards; the N100 was the first purpose-bought board, and also the most complicated upgrade, because it added UEFI. There definitely are projects out there that don’t have an arm option, so something x86 is more flexible.

Pi 4 should be plenty to run Jellyfin, homeassistant, pihole and octoprint. Docker setup is pretty straightforward, and I can vouch that HA & pihole containers work great on RPi, if you want to leave the Jellyfin setup as-is and put the others alongside.

If you’re looking for an excuse to expand, my vote is for an N100 type system. I got one with 4 ethernet ports, PCIe for a wifi card, couple of NVME slots, and a half dozen SATA ports for $100-150. That’s a huge step up in potential without much increase in power draw. With the right wifi card, you can even use it to replace your WAP/router.

Are you sure the ISP will delegate a /56? Mine supports prefix delegation, but will only give a /64, and it seems like subdividing that ¿into /72s? would be questionable.

Fetched it. Started it. Did a really nice job fetching my whole health record from insurance co & has a wide array of compatible providers. Decent presentation of repeated test results. It’s got a bunch of areas “not implemented yet,” but it’s a decent way to visualize the records. Probably even better if you have health records from multiple providers.

Safe deposit box is exactly the right size to hold a 3.5" HDD. Or several. I keep a backup Yubikey there too, because I love the physical token 2FA, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to lose it.

You don’t even need to learn HTML to do it. Any word processor will ‘save as HTML,’ but the markup should be straightforward enough for anyone considering selfhosting. CSS can be a real rabbit hole, but browser default styles aren’t awful.

I’ve used a retired desktop for my home server since 1999. It doesn’t have the fancy web-UI management of commercial NAS, but I’m comfortable with command line and config files.

At some point, I realized I could use its wifi card and hostapd to replace my WAP. That was a bit of an adventure initially finding a card that really supports AP mode and setting up hostapd, but has now allowed me to migrate from 802.11g to n to ac much cheaper than buying whole new devices,

Recently converted to an N100 with 4x ethernet ports, which let me unplug my little 5-port switch.

Managing this doesn’t feel like a second job: it’s stable and just works. Automatic updates, with kernel blacklisted; periodically log in, update kernel & reboot. It does give me the opportunity, when I get inspired, for a weekend project, like adding hostapd or a new service, either via docker or bare metal. I like that I have one device doing “NAS,” WAP, and router jobs.

That drive averages 900 hours between power cycles? In Windows?

This is one of my pet peeves with containerized services, like why would I want to run three or four instances of mariadb? I get it, from the perspective of the packagers, who want a ‘just works’ solution to distribute, but if I’m trying to run simple services on a 4 GB RPi or a 2 GB VPS, then replicating dbs makes a difference. It took a while, but I did, eventually, get those dockers configured to use a single db backend, but I feel like that completely negated the ‘easy to set up and maintain’ rationale for containers.

The services you’ve mentioned are all pretty low compute impact, just bandwidth, so I’d expect your MBP to be fine. Transcoding for jellyfin is the only real wildcard, and that depends on your media and client setups. I run pihole, homeassistant, immich, and kodi on a raspberry pi 4 with plenty of overhead for more services. NAS is nice if your library outgrows a single disk and your storage bandwidth gets choked by USB multiplexing.

My suggestion is to consider a cheap VPS and vanity domain for external access. Domains cheap as $5/year; fair VPSs cheap as $30/year. Use SSH to forward localhost ports on the VPS to container ports on the MBP, then nginx on thee VPS to reverse-proxy to those forwarded ports. You get unique names for every service, LetsEncrypt certificates, and an offsite location for critical backups. Make sure you are the one paying for VPS & DNS so they don’t get surprise-cancelled.

Second not using local.com If OP doesn’t want a real domain, use an unresolvable TLD, like “private” (so, pihole.private, audiobookshelf.private), but a real domain will just work better, will let them use real TLS certs, and prevent problems from apps bypassing system DNS. Even if it’s not as pretty or memorable as the hijacked domain name.

My Pi spends all of its time around 55°C in a 20-25°C room. Main server idles at 47°C. Those aren’t worrying temps.

I’ve watched enough Lock Picking Lawyer never to want a consumer ‘smart lock.’ Half of them can be opened with a magnet. Maybe commercial grade is better, but I’ve been locked out of my job after every power failure for the last 10 years, until someone comes along with a physical key.

Re homeassistant on a Pi: homeassistant does a lot of database transactions, so you may want to have db storage on something other than an SD card.

You can only spin drives down if they’re idle. If you have a service that touches it - say, homeassistant logging data, tvheadend updating EPG - then they’re going to keep spinning.

I switched from an I3-530, nominal TDP 73W, to an N-100, nominal TDP 7W, and power from the wall didn’t change at all. Even the i3 ran around 0.1 CPU load, except when transcoding, and I’m left with the impression that most of the power goes into HDDs, RAM, maybe fans, and PS losses. My sense is that the best way to decrease homelab power use is to minimize the number of devices. Start with your seyrver at 60W, add a WAP at 10-15W, maybe a switch at 10-15W… Not because of the CPUs, necessarily, but because every CPU every CPU comes with systems to keep the CPU going, keep the power regulated, etc.