Anyone else just sick of trying to follow guides that cover 95% of the process, or maybe slightly miss a step and then spend hours troubleshooting setups just to get it to work?
I think I just have too much going in my “lab” the point that when something breaks (and my wife and/or kids complain) it’s more of a hassle to try and remember how to fix or troubleshoot stuff. I lightly document myself cuz I feel like I can remember well enough. But then it’s a style to find the time to fix, or stuff is tested and 80%completed but never fully used because life is busy and I don’t have loads of free time to pour into this stuff anymore. I hate giving all that data to big tech, but I also hate trying to manage 15 different containers or VMs, or other services. Some stuff is fine/easy or requires little effort, but others just don’t seem worth it.
I miss GUIs with stuff where I could fumble through settings to fix it as is easier for me to look through all that vs read a bunch of commands.
Idk, do you get lab burnout? Maybe cuz I do IT for work too it just feels like it’s never ending…
You should take notes about how you set up each app. I have a directory for each self hosted app, and I include a README.md that includes stuff like links to repos and tutorials, lists of nuances of the setup, itemized lists of things that I’d like to do with it in the future, and any shortcomings it has for my purposes. Of course I also include build scripts so I can just “make bounce” and the software starts up without me having to remember all the app-specific commands and configs.
If a tutorial gets you 95% of the way, and you manage to get the other 5% on your own, write down that info. Future you will be thankful. If not, write a section called “up next” that details where you’re running into challenges and need to make improvements.
I started a blog specifically to make me document these things in a digestable manner. I doubt anyone will ever see it, but it’s for me. It’s a historical record of my projects and the steps and problems experienced when setting them up.
I’m using 11ty so I can just write markdown notes and publish static HTML using a very simple 11ty template. That takes all the hassle out of wrangling a website and all I have to do is markdown.
If someone stumbles across it in the slop ridden searchscape, I hope it helps them, but I know it will help me and that’s the goal.
Would love to see the blog
I appreciates that but unfortunately it is under a different identity and I don’t want to cross the two.
Understandable. Stay safe out there, thanks anyways :)
I found a git repo with docker compose and the config files works well enough as long as you are willing to maintain a backup of the volumes and an .env file on KeePass (also backed up) for anything that might not be OK on a repo (even if private) like passwords and keys.
My biggest problem is every docker image thinks they’re a unique snowflake and how would anyone else be using such a unique port number like 80?
I know I can change, believe me I know I have to change it, but I wish guides would acknowledge it and emphasize choosing a unique port.
Why expose any ports at all. Just use reverse proxy and expose that port and all the others just happen internally.
Still gotta configure ports for the reverse proxy to access.
Reverse proxy still goes over a port
Containers are ment to be used with docker networks making it a non-issue, most of the time you want your services to forward 80/443 since thats the default port your reverse proxy is going to call
Most put it on port 80 with the perfectly valid assumption that the user is sticking a reverse proxy in front of it. Container should expose 80 not port forward 80.
There are no valid assumptions for port 80 imo. Unless your software is literally a pure http server, you should assume something else has already bound to port 80.
Why do I have vague memories of Skype wanting to use port 80 for something and me having issues with that some 15 years ago?
Edit: I just realized this might be for containerized applications… I’m still used to running it on bare metal. Still though… 80 seems sacrilege.
Proxmox?
And yes. Its like a full time job to homelab. Or a part time job. Its just hard, and sometimes things just don’t work.
I guess one answer is to pick your battles. You can’t win them all. But things are objectively better than they were in the past.
Yeah that’s part of having a hobby. If you do it for work too I can understand getting sick of it. But, no one is making you do it. If you don’t enjoy it, don’t do it.
While this might be a healthy outlook, these days more and more people do not feel like self hosting is a hobby or an option, but a necessity for a free and fair society.
This. I self host some things because it’s just fun, other things because of censorship, other things because of privacy. I probably wouldn’t have Nextcloud if Google wasn’t collecting so much data. Probably wouldn’t be self-hosting my blog if content weren’t as censored everywhere. I probably would still be self-hosting a Minecraft server with a small website for said server that the members of the server can contribute to when they find/do something cool.
Nextcloud is on my list lol, but I need to run a separate box for it I think vs visualizing. It would be easier/cleaner and more reliable.
Yeah, it’s definitely one of those that’s also just… Useful. I usually don’t go for software that’s trying to do too much, but for some reason I don’t mind having nextcloud as 10 different things xD Sync files, sync podcast listens, sync my RSS feeds… A lot of things all in one
This sooo much. I’m not a tech person but I’m trying to learn because the giant corporations are clearly evil. I just want to have a modicum of privacy in my corner of the world so here I am trying to figure out how to self host some basic services.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters Git Popular version control system, primarily for code RPi Raspberry Pi brand of SBC SBC Single-Board Computer SSO Single Sign-On
[Thread #40 for this comm, first seen 29th Jan 2026, 05:20] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
I don’t run a service unless it has reasonably good documentation. I’ll go through it first and make sure I understand how it’s supposed to run, what port(s) are used, and if I have an actual, practical use case for it.
You’re absolutely correct in that sometimes the documentation glosses over or completely omits important details. One such service is Radicale. The documentation for running a Docker container is severely lacking.
Sounds like you haven’t taken the time to properly design your environment.
Lots of home gamers just throw stuff together and just “hack things till they work”.
You need to step back and organize your shit. Develop a pattern, automate things, use source control, etc. Don’t just file follow the weirdly -opinionated setup instructions. Make it fit your standard.
This. I definitely need to take the time to organize. A few months ago, I setup a new 4U rosewill case w 24 hotswap as bays. Expanded my storage quite a bit, but need to finish moving some services too. I went from a big outdated SMC server to reusing an old gaming mobo since its an i7 but 95w vs 125wx2 lol.
It took a week just to move all my Plex data cuz that Supermicro was only 1GbE.
only 1gbE
What needs more than 1gbe? Are you streaming 8k?
Sounds like you are your own worst enemy. Take a step back and think about how many of these projects are worth completing and which are just for fun and draw a line.
And automate. There are tools to help with this.
What needs more than 1gbe? Are you streaming 8k?
I think they wanted to mean it was a bottleneck while moving to the new hardware
Also on top of that, find time to keep it up to date. If leave it rot things will get harder to maintain.
I sit down once a week and go over all the updates needed, both the docker hosts and all the images they run.
Yes, I get lab burnout. I do not want to be fiddling with stuff after my day job. You should give yourself a break and do something else after hours, my dude.
BUT
I do not miss GUIs. Containers are a massive win in terms because they are declarative, reproducible, and can be version controlled.
Yeah, since Christmas, I more it sounds silly, but I’ve been playing a ton of video games with my kids lol. But not like CoD, more like Grounded 2, Gang Beasts, and Stumble Guys lmao
You’re doing i right. Playing cool games with your kids sounds like a blast and some great memories :)
If you’ll let me self promote for a second, this was part of the inspiration for my Ansible Homelab Orchestration project. After dealing with a lot of those projects that practically force you to read through the code to get a working environment, I wanted a way to reproducably spin up my entire homelab should I need to move computers or if my computer dies (both of which have happened, and having a setup like this helped tremendously). So far the ansible playbook supports 117 applications, most of which can be enabled with a single configuration line:
immich_enabled: true nextcloud_enabled: trueAnd it will orchestrate all the containers, networks, directories, etc for you with reasonable defaults. All of which can be overwritten, for example to enable extra features like hardware acceleration:
immich_hardware_acceleration: "-cuda"Or to automatically get a letsencrypt cert and expose the application on a subdomain to the outside world:
immich_available_externally: trueIt also comes with scripts and tests to help add your own applications and ensure they work properly
I also spent a lot of time writing the documentation so no one else had to suffer through some of the more complicated applications haha (link)
Edit: I am personally running 74 containers through this setup, complete with backups, automatic ssl cert renewal, and monitoring
That’s neat. I never gave ansible playbooks any thought because I thought it would just add a layer of abstraction and that containers couldn’t be easier but reading your post I think I have been wrong.
While it is true that Ansible is a different tool that you need to learn the basics of (if you want to edit/add applications), all of the docker stuff is pretty comparable. For example, this is the equivalent of a docker compose file for SilverBullet (note taking app): https://github.com/Dylancyclone/ansible-homelab-orchestration/blob/main/roles/silverbullet/tasks/main.yml
You can see it’s volumes, environment variables, ports, labels, etc just like a regular docker compose (just in a slightly different format, like environment variables are listed as
envinstead ofenvironment), but the most important thing is that everything is filled in with variables. So for SilverBullet, any of these variables can be overwritten, and you’d never have to look at/tweak the “docker compose.” Then, if any issue is found in the playbook, anyone can pull in the changes and get the fix without any work from themselves, and if manual intervention is needed (like an app updated and now requires a new key or something), the playbook can let you know to avoid breaking something: https://dylancyclone.github.io/ansible-homelab-orchestration/guides/updating/#handling-breaking-changes
Yeah, self promote away lol
I hesitate to bring this up because you’ve clearly already done most of the hard work, but I’m planning on attending the following conference talk this weekend that might be of interest to you: https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/VEQTLH-infrastructure-as-python/
No that’s totally fair! I’m a huge fan of making things reproducible since I’ve ran into too many situations where things need to be rebuilt, and always open to ways to improve it. At home I use ansible to configure everything, and at work we use ansible and declare our entire Jenkins instance as (real) code. I don’t really have the time for (and I’m low-key scared of the rabbit hole that is) Nix, and to me my homelab is something that is configured (idempotently) rather than something I wanted to handle with scripts.
I even wrote some
pytest-like scripts to test the playbooks to give more productive errors than their example errors, since I too know that pain well :DThat said, I’ve never heard of PyInfra, and am definitely interested in learning more and checking out that talk.
Do you know if the talk will be recorded? I’m not sure I can watch it live.Edit: Found a page of all the recordings of that room from last year’s event https://video.fosdem.org/2025/ua2220/ So I’m guessing it will be available. Thank you for sharing this! :DI love the “Warning: This talk may cause uncontrollable urges to refactor all your Ansible playbooks” lol I’m ready
@Dylancyclone @selfhosted This looks very useful. I will study your docs and see if it’s right for me. Thanks for sharing!
I reject a lot of apps that require a docker compose that contains a database and caching infrastructure etc. All I need is the process and they ought to use SQLite by default because my needs are not going to exceed its capabilities. A lot of these self hosted apps are being overbuilt and coming without defaults or poor defaults and causing a lot of extra work to deploy them.
Some apps really go overboard, I tried out a bookmark collection app called Linkwarden some time ago and it needed 3 docker containers and 800MB RAM
Found an alternative solution to recommend?
No, but I’d like to hear it if anyone else finds one
Databases.
I ran PaperlessNGX for a while, everything is fine. Suddenly I realize its version of Postgresql is not supported anymore so the container won’t start.
Following some guides, trying to log into the container by itself, and then use a bunch of commands to attempt to migrate said database have not really worked.
This is one of those things that feels like a HUGE gotcha to somebody that doesn’t work with databases.
So the container’s kinda just sitting there, disabled. I’m considering just starting it all fresh with the same data volume and redoing all that information, or giving this thing another go…
…But yeah I’ve kinda learned to hate things that rely on database containers that can’t update themselves or have automated migration scripts.
I’m glad I didn’t rely on that service TOO much.
Its a big problem. I also dump projects that don’t automatically migrate their own SQLite scehema’s requiring manual intervention. That is a terrible way to treat the customer, just update the file. Separate databases always run into versioning issues at some point and require manual intervention and data migration and its a massive waste of the users time.
I find the overhead of docker crazy, especially for simpler apps. Like, do I really need 150GB of hard drive space, an extensive poorly documented config, and a whole nested computer running just because some project refuses to fix their dependency hell?
Yet it’s so common. It does feel like usability has gone on the back burner, at least in some sectors of software. And it’s such a relief when I read that some project consolidated dependencies down to C++ or Rust, and it will just run and give me feedback without shipping a whole subcomputer.
This is a crazy take. Docker doesn’t involve much overhead. I’m not sure where your 150GB hard drive space commend comes from, as I just dozens of containers on machines with 30-50GB of hard drive space. There’s no nested computer, as docker containers are not virtualization. Containers have nothing to do with a single projects “dependency hell”, they’re for your dependency hell when trying to run a bunch of different services on one machine, or reproducing them quickly and easily across machines.
Docker in and of itself is not the problem here, from my understanding. You can and should trim the container down.
Also it’s not a “whole nested computer”, like a virtual machine. It’s only everything above the kernel, because it shares its kernel with the host. This makes them pretty lightweight.
It’s sometimes even sometimes useful to run Rust or C++ code in a Docker container, for portability, provided you of course do it right. For Rust, it typically requires multiple build steps to bring the container size down.
Basically, the people making these Docker containers suck donkey balls.
Containers are great. They’re a huge win in terms of portability, reproducibility, and security.
Yeah, I’m not against the idea philosophically. Especially for security. I love the idea of containerized isolation.
But in reality, I can see exactly how much disk space and RAM and CPU and bandwidth they take, heh. Maintainers just can’t help themselves.
Want to mention some? I have no containers using that at all.
Perhaps you never clean up as you move forward? It’s easy to forget to prune them.
As someone used to the bad old days, gimmie containers. Yes it kinda sucks but it sucks less than the alternative. Can you imagine trying to get multiple versions of postgres working for different applications you want to host on the same server? I also love being able to just use the host OS stock packages without needing to constantly compile and install custom things to make x or y work.
I deliberately have not used docker at home to avoid complications. Almost every program is in a debian/apt repo, and I only install frontends that run on LAMP. I think I only have 2 or 3 apps that require manual maintenance (apart from running “apt upgrade”). NextCloud is 90% of the butthurt.
I’m starting to turn off services on IPv4 to reduce the network maintenance overhead.
It’s a mess. I’m even moving to a different field in it due to this.
My advice is : just use Nix.
It always works. It does all the steps for you. You will never “forget a step” because either someone has already made a package, or you just make your own that has all the steps, and once that works, it works literally forever.
Oooh new toy to help?! Ok I’ll check that out and Yunohost too
You’re not alone.
The industry itself has become pointlessly layered like some origami hell. As a former OS security guy I can say it’s not in a good state with all the supply-chain risks.
At the same time, many ‘help’ articles are karma-farming ‘splogs’ of low quality and/or just slop that they’re not really useful. When something’s missing, it feels to our imposter syndrome like it’s a skills issue.
Simplify your life. Ditch and avoid anything with containers or bizarre architectures that feels too ontricate. Decide what you need and run those on really reliable options. Auto patching is your friend (but choose a distro and package format where it’s atomic and rolls back easily).
You don’t need to come home only to work. This is supposed to be FUN for some of us. Don’t chase the Joneses, but just do what you want.
Once you’ve simplified, get in the habit of going outside. You’ll feel a lot better about it.
That’s true, I’ve done a lot of stuff as testing that I thought would be useful services but then never really got used by me, so I didn’t maintain.
I didn’t take the time to really dive in and learn Docker outside of a few guides, probably why is a struggle…
