Learning to set up a server help
I'm looking to start my own server, and was going to dive into YouTube tutorials. Do you have any recommendations to offer?
Service wise, I wanted to start with a pi hole, and maybe a music server or something to store pictures from my phone. Maybe host my own ss14 server too!
Hardware wise, i was going to start with a raspberry pi (of some sort?)
Any tips, references, or suggestions are greatly appreciated ❤️
5 replies
My recommendations is check out the Linux upskil challenge yo get your Linux skills to a OK point then start learning docker.
You can run a lot on a pi and starting with pihole is good. Check out [email protected] for what others are running.
With docker you can run other things on the same pi like a todo list using DoneTick, or retro games in the browser with RomM, need a PDF messed with? Fix it up with BentoPDF.
After a while you will need a portal like homepage so you can keep track of what is running.
I agree with your first half, but regarding the second half I'd argue that docker isn't a necessity, especially early on. You can host multiple things fine without docker.
Docker is nice and all (or so I've been told), but I'd put that a lot further down on the list of things to learn. Understanding the basic services individually is more important than containerization.
It's been a long while since I set up a server other than jellyfin and that was super simple.
Long ago i set up LAMP(linux, apache, mysql and php) for my web testing environment. You could probably do the same. Put your files on the server and use services like mpv for video, mpd for audio files. Or just set up jellyfin or kodi.
For picture and file sharing you could look into nextcloud.
As far as hardware i did have my razPi B+ running kodi and it wasn't bad. Great place to start.
Other more experienced users might have some better suggestions.
Running a few services from a raspberry is as good a starting point as any.
Reading official documentation is always a good idea, instead of getting second hand knowledge from youtube:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/os.html
https://docs.pi-hole.net/main/
https://github.com/pi-hole/web/
https://docs.berryaudio.org/getting-started/introduction.html
Regarding storing pictures from your phone, read up on the 3-2-1 backup. Personally I go for NAS + USB Backup + Remote backup at my parents house.
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/the-3-2-1-backup-strategy/
Immich is immensely popular for photo gallery server use nowadays but it might be too heavy for a raspberry pi, might be better off testing something like https://github.com/bpatrik/pigallery2
Welcome to the endless rabbit hole that is self hosting!
I think the best advice I could give is keep it simple, just add one piece at a time, and take notes.
Personally I would stay away from youtube. Get used to reading installation instructions from the source and documentation, it is a valuable skill. Then come here and ask questions if you run into problems. Pihole is a great place to start, it looks pretty begginer friendly (I have not run it personally, but I just read through some docs)
I also started with pi way back when, and honestly it adds one more thing you have to learn about while you're trying to learn about hosting. It's not too bad, especially if you dont mind the command line, but you could get your hands on an old laptop or desktop for cheaper. In fact everything I use runs on a $30 desktop from 2015 (I did upgrade it a bit lol) and my rpi4 is sitting in the corner collecting dust. A more familiar interface will make troubleshooting less frustrating. I find the desktop runs a lot better than the pi too.
There's so much to learn and you will probably feel overwhelmed at times, it will pass though, just stick with it.