this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
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Hey yall, I want to get into self-hosting. I want to start from hosting on a raspberry pi, and I am just wondering if yall have any recommendations (I've never hosted anything before, but have experience in linux and programming). Sorry if it's bit of a stupid question.

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[–] cyanide 20 points 2 years ago (13 children)

Pihole is easy and light enough. I used to host Transmission (transmission-daemon) on a 3B+ and it worked alright for seeding around 300-500 torrents. FreshRSS also worked alongside.

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[–] Krafting 17 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Pihole is the best starting point in my opinion, helped a lot of my friend to get started !

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Change DNS on hosts, not on router.

[–] DunkinCoder 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

Goes against the spirit of self-hosting but for some stuff(Email, DNS, Passwords), I just SaaS it out. As much as I love my lab, nothing self-hosted in my prod environment is critical.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Exactly, I can barely maintain a media server I really don't want to be responsible for my passwords and photos. There are secure alternatives that are private and open enough for my needs...

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I just started with HA as well and it's a massive rabbit hole haha. So far set up thermostats for rooms, motion sensors with smart lights and integration with Frigate for my security cams. Also set up a tablet with HA which displays all our photos from the NAS as screensaver.

[–] tburkhol 2 points 2 years ago

Add outside environmental conditions from your national provider and purpleair, and you can figure whether it's better to run HVAC or open a window. I have an aspirational project to motorize some windows.

[–] cupricreki 12 points 2 years ago (2 children)

For the cost of a rpi, just get actually capable hardware. Once you actually get anything running you'll wish you had real hardware.

[–] achensherd 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I've been leaning this way lately. From a cost/capability standpoint, RPis were easy to justify when they were ~$30, but not as much at their current inflated prices unless you have specific power consumption and form factor requirements. Used/refurbished Dell thin clients and MFF PCs can be had for $40-100, ranging from fanless systems with low-power Atoms and Celerons to full-fledged desktops with Core i-series CPUs, all with memory and storage included more often than not. I personally just picked up a Dell OptiPlex MFF with an i5-9500T, 8GB RAM, and 256GB SSD for $100.

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[–] pi11 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

What kind of hardware, with a similar price point to the rpi, do you think of?

[–] Heastes 3 points 2 years ago

Refurbished thinclients can be had for about €35. I got a few Fujitsu S920 with 4GB RAM and 8GB MSATA for around that price per piece.

Datasheet: https://content.etilize.com/Manufacturer-Brochure/1036232289.pdf

[–] stankmut 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This reminds me of the old "build a gaming pc for less than a console" thing was popular for a while.

So let's assume a $90 raspberry pi (someone really splurged here)

  • $90: case
  • $0: cpu, get used from a friend
  • $0: motherboard, get used from a friend
  • $0: ram, get used from a friend
  • $0: power supply, steal from work

You can drop the case and just use a cardboard box, which would allow you to afford storage. I'm just going to assume you boot from a usb and keep everything in memory.

[–] pi11 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What do you think about refurbished micro-pc's? Like this Lenovo ThinkCentre M910q Tiny (i5-6500t; 8GB RAM) for 130 euro's?

[–] stankmut 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I have a refurbished dell that I got for ~$150-$200, the cpu is an i5-8500t. I think those are great deals, would absolutely recommend them for a home server. As your needs grow, you can even replace the RAM inside later.

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[–] umbrella_dev 11 points 2 years ago (4 children)

One suggestion might be to load a Debian build on it and use it for docker containers. With docker containers you can do so many different things. I have a PI 4 and it does all of the following:
PiHole - For blocking ads. (Everyone should have one of these)
OpenMediaVault - For NAS
Portainers - For loading docker containers
Radarr - Downloading Movies
Sonarr - Downloading TV Shows
Tautulli - Monitors my plex server
Overseer - Allows members of my plex share to request content.
NZBGET and Real-Debrid Torrent Downloader Clients - For downloading content from usenet or real-debrid.

I have one Pi4 running all of these as docker containers. Have fun!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Seconding - you can actually squeeze a surprising amount of use out of a Pi4 running Docker.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (9 children)

honestly it is good to start with and for controlling machines like an array of 3d printers but a dumpster dive laptop will be faster. RPI4 is quite old now.

with that done:

  • jellyfin
  • smb server
  • syncthing
  • tftp with wake on lan / clonezilla to backup your other machines
[–] Fudgeknuckles98 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think you’re underselling the RPi a little there. I have an 3B+ which is running a few services well and it’s being undervolted so I could squeeze some more performance out of it with a better power supply. My Pi is currently running:

-Pi-Hole -FreshRSS -WireGuard -Gluetun -Libreddit -Deluge

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

PiVPN is a simple home VPN solution that's worth exploring.

Is you are interested in smart home/home automation Home Assistant is an open source home automation platform and makes a great Pi project.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

Pi Hole is a good start. If you're into movies and TV shows, sonarr /radarr/bazarr is an option

Would highly recommend to use docker images from https://www.linuxserver.io Except pi hole, I've dockerized everything. So much easier than installing stuff as every application does that differently.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If you have a 3d printer also check out Klipper, Octopi etc. I run mine off a pi zero 2 and it is a leap in performance over the stock board on the Ender 5.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Some things that haven't been proposed here might be to use it as a nas. If you want to access your films and shows from outside it's easier to set up Plex instead of jellyfin for now. You can use it also as a steam machine streaming from the pc to the tv, or as Kodi/Libreelec mediacenter to make your tv smart

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

@zpoex Nextcloud is always a handy one

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

I have two Raspberry Pi (4 / 2) and I use them to selfhost:

  • AdguardHome (two instances)
  • HomeAssistant
  • NextCloud
  • Forgejo
  • VaultWarden
  • NTP server

Those are all as Docker services so I can easily switch to new devices in case I need to. All of them work like a charm.

[–] wheelcountry 4 points 2 years ago

Pihole is a good start, though I personally use my Pi 3B+ for printer server over WiFi since I have a dumb Epson printer.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

My list for my raspberry pi 4 (4 GB):

  • Nextcloud (synced cloud storage, like Dropbox; it can do more with plugins but this is all I use it for)
  • FreshRSS (RSS reader)
  • Wallabag (read it later, like Pocket or Instapaper)
  • Gitea (git project hosting like Github; admittedly I don't really use this one much)
[–] jetsetdorito 2 points 2 years ago

I've been enjoying Plex (media server) and Shinobi (NVR)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

If it's a Pi3b+ - you can actually host a vanilla Minecraft server on it, with some heavy optimization to reduce memory usage and no more than 4 players online. It's a fun experiment, however impractical.

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