I’m writing this partly because I think others might be interested, partly because I want to know what others think of my setup, and partly because I’m going to upgrade my hardware and need to review my setup so that I can re-create it on the newer hardware.
I have an old 2009 iMac at home that wasn’t being used anymore, so I installed Ubuntu server 2022.04 LTS. I have two printers, so I installed the CUPS manager, which allows my to print wirelessly from iPad, iPhones and my MacBook Air. For media, I run PlexMediaServer (video) and Navidrome. For content, I run Transmission, which I can manage from a web browser. For e-books, I use calibre which I access via a web browser (on my iPhone or a Kobo). For coding, I’ve installed Nginx, MariaDB and PHP.
My router has a built-in VPN, but I’d like to install WireGuard on the server. I’d also like to be able to collect and manage my family’s photos. For now, I use MacOS Photos, but since we rarely plug our phones into the computer to sync them, they are usually only backed up to iCloud.
What else should I consider?
Re: VPN and Wireguard, I was looking into doing the same on my unifi router, but came across Twingate (through a networkchuck video) and decided to try that instead, being a bit of a networking noob. It’s almost too easy…you can share individual resources or whole networks with user and device control over each. I think you get 5 users and 10 resources in the free plan. I’d recommend looking into it.
I had been pondering Nabucasa for external Home Assistant access but am very happy I found this. Now my wife can have remote access to HA and Plex and I can access the whole network remotely.
It’s great that it works for you! For me every recommendation of networkchuck that starts with ‘and its free! You just have to sign up for…’ is a pointer to search for ‘open source alternative for…’.
That is how I found out about a Raspberry Pi with pihole and piVPN installed on the same device, using this manual. Pihole blocks ads, with piVPN you can log into your home network using the wireguard protocol.
I thought it was easy to set up, but of course it depends heavily on the time you can and want to invest. So Twingate can be the right solution for you, but I am often impressed by the excelent free software solutions that are out there.
I’m planning to start with a self-hosted option, but if I get tripped up, that sounds like a good plan B.