Looking for some advice on what to do with my selfhosting setup. I currently have 2 Vostro 430’s (salvaged from work), and have retrieved 5(!) newer computers from work:
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1 ThinkStation P330 (1x16gb ram),
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2 ThinkCentre M720 SFF’s (4x4gb ram each), and
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2 ThinkCentre M73’s (mixed ram amounts/brands, may salvage from the Vostro’s depending)
The Vostro’s are currently setup with 1 of them being baremetal Debian with a Pihole, and a Debian VM with a Headscale server, and the other being baremetal Debian with… just a few containers, and baremetal tailscale as an exit node (I don’t like this, need to do better). Using Authelia with a password to block incoming connections, and Traefik as my reverse proxy. It also has 2x10TB and 1x7TB HDD’s in Raid1.
My current plan is to see if the M73’s are good enough for light emulation (PS1 for sure, PS2 maybe) and Jellyfin, hook 1 up to my TV (to replace the 25’ HDMI that is slowly killing itself under it’s own weight), and 1 for a relative, connected to my server via Headscale/Tailscale.
I currently have 1 of the M720’s hosting a small webserver to learn HTML so I can replace my workplace’s website (I did do a temporary replacement already, but it’s not great). Trying to decide if it is staying completely separate, or if I am utilizing it in the overall setup.
Now, what I am looking for advice on, is how best to utilize what I have, and any recommendations on better software to use.
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Do I dedicate each computer to different tasks, or learn how to do a docker swarm/kubernetes cluster/something else?
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Should I set up one device as a dedicated NAS, using a NAS focused OS, or continue to use SSHFS mounts?
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Should the file storage be on the best hardware I have available, mid ranged, or should I save one of the Vostros specifically for being a NAS with nothing else running on it?
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Should I learn how to do SSO with Authelia, or is there a better program for SSO (I want to do better with security, and SSO feels like the best place to start)
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What do you recommend as a reverse proxy? I have my Traefik configs working great for automatic service discovery, but the way it stores the certs feels impossible to extract for other services that ask for them, and I have no idea what I am doing wrong with that - hasn’t been a problem, but I feel like I should be doing better with this.
I had other thoughts, but they swam away while writing this. If you ask a question/make a comment and I don’t answer right away, it means I fell asleep and will answer tomorrow. I am open to any and all suggestions, and am happy to answer any clarifying questions!
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Having several older PCs running 24/7 will cost you a lot of electricity. I would probably try to consolidate all of the things which really need to run 24/7 on one machine and put then the other stuff on machines which I can do wake on LAN on them when necessary.
Jellyfin for example does not need to run 27/7 you can wake it up when you or other users want to watch something. The webserver on the other hand needs to run 24/7 but is fairly lightweight.
I have a NAS but I don’t really use it for much just small things like grafana and a second picture backup from the phones, because the old synology is not powerful enough for things like paperless, Immich, etc. So those things I run on my PC which I can WOL.I am trying to decide how to balance services, but running all 3 slightly less old computers will be less costly than the 2 very old computers I am currently running, due to them being on newer processor architecture.
I was definitely planning to have at least 2 running 24/7 though, specifically for having 2 pihole instances running, as well as having headscale and my tailscale exit node on separate devices (so that devices like my phone are still covered by the pihole).
Keep power in mind. For most home-use services, you don’t really need much computing power, and you might be able to do all you want with a single box. Even 30W, 24/7 is $25 (@10¢/kWh)-125(@50¢)/year of electricity. That said, it’s a small price to learn how to do clustering or swarms.
I’d guess that your biggest load would be transcoding in Jellyfin, for which Intel Gen 6 added h265 to quicksync. The Gen 3/4 CPUs in M73 would be extra slow with most modern codecs.
Actually, this (and a few other comments) made me double check my rates, and wow, I don’t think I would ever want to live somewhere with a $0.50/kwh rate - mine is between $0.12 and $0.14 depending on if I am over the 133 kWh threshold or not.
I added homeassistant and some power monitors to my stack, and the IT rack comes in around 1.5 kWh/day - one of the biggest power budgets in the house, even with a low-power CPU, after adding in a few HDDs, a couple switches, and the cable modem. I’m also in a cheap power state, so it’s not a financial pressure, just surprising how quickly 10W here, 10W there…add up. At $0.50/kWh, I’d think solar would be a no-brainer.
At $0.50/kwh, I probably wouldn’t bother charging my car, because gas would be cheaper!
And yeah, I am not surprised how fast it adds up, though charging my Escape PHEV is still visibly my biggest power cost, at least when it isn’t -10C for weeks on end (my pellet stove doesn’t like staying lit above -15C, not that pellets are any cheaper than space heaters…).
I mean, the Vostros are way more power hungry than the new equipment, and I have been running those for almost 2 years now. Electricity cost is a fair though.
So definitely put jellyfin on the P330 if i am transcoding (I am currently not doing so i believe, as the vostros really can’t handle it).
if i were in your shoes, i would put jellyfin on the machine with the fastest cpu for media transcoding. Your nas doesnt need to be the best machine, but i would make it a dedicated as a nas. Everything else can go on one machine with a good amount of ram. I would separate your homelab with your “production” server, so youre not goofing around on hardware that is hosting services you rely on. You have enough machines to setup high availability and mirror your production server it goes down.
That is a fair point on jellyfin needing the best CPU.
Was mostly asking about doing a swarm/cluster because i am unsure if there is a benefit, but i have the hardware, so if there is a benefit i wouldn’t mind setting it up.
On that note, what is recommended for a NAS OS?
Authelia has worked well for me for SSO
If your goal is learning, a k8s cluster will teach you a lot! It’s really neat and useful once set up properly, but has a steep learning curve. If you’re going for working functionality in your home, keep it simple. I use simple docker compose and nginx proxy for home stuff.
What are the benefits of k8s over docker compose files?
K8s is definitely more focused on production quality and high availability. It has more concepts like ReplicaSets and disruption budgets during deployments. It also frequently manages relationships with tags, for instance: create an Ingress load balancer that watches for certain tags, then create service containers that advertise those tags. K8s wires them together dynamically and automatically.
Only commenting on the SSO part, but try Kanidm, it’s really well done and the community is lovely.
