Hey guys!

I want to convert my now corebooted Thinkpad T430 into a Nextcloud server and possibly more (Syncthing, maybe Tor, maybe more)

1 500GB SSD, 1 1TB SSD

Currently runs Fedora Kinoite, I could rebase to something like secureblue uCore, Fedora IoT, uBlue uCore, …

Not sure if those would have broken configs though.

Maybe I would prefer something with slower pace, but tbh the pace of CentOS bootc becoming a thing is quite frustrating. This would likely be the perfect ‘install and forget’ distro for many, a KDE Image would be there in no time.

I wouldnt want to use a traditional distro, even though a base Debian or AlmaLinux/ Rockylinux (what the hell was that of a hydra? Cut off one head, spawn 2? what are the differences??) could just be fine. I used Debian in the past, it really just works.

I would like

  • Nextcloud AIO docker image, maybe with podman? It is supposedly more secure but the world runs on Docker, and all is fine. Podman is a pain quite often.
  • some nice management like Cockpit
  • dyn DNS, for example with NoIP, best free
  • secure ssh, that should be no issue
  • btrfs? or zfs? with backups to a secondary drive
  • automatic updates with snapshot creation. Atomic system would be easiest here.
  • easy to use and secure reverse proxy, with DynDNS for reliable address on the internet. NGINX, Traefik, Caddy, what is the best here??

Here I am not sure if I should use 1TB + 1TB, or 500GB used and 1TB backup. BTRFS backups can be incremental.

while I made a list of BTRFS tools I still have no idea what the best tool for this job is.

  • @tux7350
    2•3 months ago

    I’m going to suggest something a bit more out there. You can setup this whole thing with NixOS. I have a bunch of docker containers that run as a systemd service, declared with Nix and personally, I like it very much. It’s also got everything else you want but the atomic upgrades are top tier in NixOS.

    For example if you want NoIP and Cockpit just add this bit to your configuration.nix

        environment.SystemPackages =[
        pkgs.noip
        pkgs.cockpit
    ];

    Adding something like docker or podman is just as easy with a one line like

        virtualisation.docker.enable = true;

    There is always a bit of a learning curve when doing anything with Nix but I find the buy in to be worth it. Here’s a blog post about converting docker compose files over to the Nix format. This really isnt necessary as you could just make the systemd service run a oneshot against a docker compose file but this blog has a lot of nice examples.

    https://mrupnikm.github.io/en/posts/nix-docker-containers/

    If you have any questions please let me know :D