5 ms·

Can someone explain to me the use case of a home server? I've always enjoyed tinkering with RPis, but have never found a good enough reason to keep one running

Can someone explain to me the use case of a home server? I've always enjoyed tinkering with RPis, but have never found a good enough reason to keep one running 24/7 as a server. PiHole seems to be the best use case for it, but uBlock Origin or Wipr handles ad blocking for me.

DoktorDelta 6y ago
I have an old desktop running Plex, so I can stream my personal movie and TV library to any of the Roku devices in my house.
- 600frogs 6y ago
  I've never heard of or used Roku before, from a quick search it seems to be a chromecast style stick to plug in to a TV to watch stuff, is there any reason you couldn't plug an RPi or your desktop straight into the TV to watch from?
  - DoktorDelta 6y ago
    Rokus are streaming boxes/sticks that connect directly to streaming services (like Android TV). Next to the Amazon Fire TV devices, they're the smoothest way to get YouTube and other services on a TV. My desktop is two floors away from either TV in my house, so being able to stream my personal media library to them over LAN is more convenient than lugging around a desktop to either TV. It's buttery smooth streaming too, and the interface is really customizable
  - sliken 6y ago
    Well roku's are popular, have nice software, and are easy to stream to. They are also newbie friendly, hand someone a remote and they'll likely have netflix, amazon prime video, youtube, and related streaming services going in no time. Even a 5 year old can manage to get things going. It's the best I've seen, way better than I've seen built in TV's. It's also the Switzerland of streaming services. No problems with Apple devices disliking google services, or vice versa. So you get the best selection of streaming channels I've seen. It's also popular enough that clients written for roku tend to be better than less popular devices, like say some random brand TV. Not to mention TVs are often useful for 10+ years, and it's way cheaper to upgrade a Roku than replace a TV. Oh and there's a Plex client.
vinay_ys 6y ago
For a household with 2+ people – each with personal phone and personal laptop plus a bunch of common devices like TVs, streaming speakers etc you would need a bunch of useful local LAN services: 1. Local Backup storage server – always have a local+cloud back – neither one is good enough just by itself. 2. Local streaming service – photos, music, home videos etc. 3. Internet gateway – a. filtering firewall, b. privacy enhancing dns server, c. optionally wireguard based tunneling with custom routing. d. You can also log and catch suspicious traffic in your network (best way to catch an infected device on your home network). e. If you have two Internet connections, you can configure them for high-availability and load-balance your outbound traffic. 4. Local software updates caching proxy. 5. Mail server (transport/relay).
- 600frogs 6y ago
  I suppose the only thing here that really interests me is the backup server, and even then I've got enough (potentially misplaced) faith in iCloud/Dropbox/Google photos to not spontaneously combust at the same time as I lose/break my devices. Out of interest, what software do you use for the backups? Is it something like Borg/rsync and a cron job, or is there a nice batteries included solution?
  - vinay_ys 6y ago
    Freenas works great once it is setup correctly.
- brugeman 6y ago
  How about photos etc, can you please share what you're using and why? Thanks!
callesgg 6y ago
I have one that i use for various things firewall, router, file sharing, prototyping web systems, torrenting. Backup of images. A 1000 different small things. I guess I could do without it but it is very convenient to have somewhere where I can run small scripts test various things and make the result publicly accessible over the web.
npteljes 6y ago
I was annoyed that my media is only available on my main machine, if I wanted to watch something on my phone or show a photo to someone, I needed to boot it up. So a home server to host files for me and my household seemed logical. Since then I went on a degoogling trip and as part of that, I installed Nextcloud, also very useful. I also do my backups to the homeserver (and then back up the homeserver too).
- brugeman 6y ago
  Can I ask what you're using to view video/photo from your home server on your/family phones? Thanks!
  - npteljes 6y ago
    Unfortunately it's not a solved problem. I envy Google Photos features, wanted something that nicely present the photos but I end up just using Nextcloud's phone app or web interface. Both can generate nice sharing links with expire dates, which is quite useful because it cleans up after itself. I eyed Piwigo for a time, but it's overkill for my use case.
    - mceachen 6y ago
      You're welcome to try PhotoStructure. It's still a young product, but it's already got some unique features and new releases come out regularly: https://photostructure.com/faq/why-photostructure/ https://photostructure.com/faq/why-photostructure/
toast0 6y ago
My home servers do the following things: a) raise my power bill and heat my home :p b) run a PPPoE client (ugh) and firewall/nat, and handoff the PPPoE session (custom client, available on github, email me) and firewall state (pfsync) if the primary goes down (which is usually for reboots); redundant dhcp, recusrive DNS, and automatic failover to LTE as well. c) host a samba share for household documents and media. With automated backup to the secondary server (but if the main server is offline, you can't use the share). The samba share also accepts backups from the windows hosts (veeam free edition), which means I actually have backups that are easy to restore from. d) publish selected data from the share (on change) to my DO droplet, because my connection isn't reliable enough to host from home (I used to serve my lame webpages, and my DNS from my home servers, but when I moved, it became a non-option due to the DSL going offline when the DSLAM loses utility power) e) record over the air TV with MythTV and HDHomerun network tuners f) host local development because my frontend systems are Windows and I'm not developing there (not interested in a windows hosted Linux environment thanks, putty works well for me) g) PXEBoot server, which is mildly useful, at times. Are there other ways to do that stuff? Probably, but this is what worked for me. I used to have all these things running on a single server, but having multiple means I can reboot them for kernel updates without losing my internet, so that's pretty nice.
rhn_mk1 6y ago
Servers with lots of storage cost plenty of money to rent. It's cheaper to have your own if you plan to store/serve lerge amounts of data. In addition, if you are the only one with access to it, you don't have to worry about the implications of storing sensitive data on someone else's computer.
jpeeler 6y ago
Personally while I do run AdGuard Home on my Pi, the most important software is my password manager service. Keeping all my passwords both synchronized among devices and local without worrying about the power draw from the Pi staying on has worked very well.
- 600frogs 6y ago
  Out of interest, why would you not use a hosted service such as bitwarden? I've been appreciating everyone commenting on this thread with their use cases but I haven't seen a single one where is hasn't been easier to do the same thing better with a service. Is it a privacy thing, or just the peace of mind knowing the services you use aren't going to shut down and stop working because you're hosting it?
  - jpeeler 6y ago
    Specifically it's more of a peace of mind thing with regard to security. I actually do use Bitwarden though (bitwarden_rs container) and although the critical info in the database is encrypted, I worry less about my network getting hacked than a high value target such as a hosted password manager. It is for this same reason that I don't save passwords in the browser and defer to my locally running password manager. Note that for non-technical people, using a hosted password manager is far preferable in most cases than not. And for technical people who don't want to go through the effort of standing up their own service, paying for somebody else to do it for you is no doubt easier. It is nice that when you self-host you also don't have to worry about a third party service shutting down. But for security oriented software I think it'd be too risky to continue running indefinitely without maintenance, so unless people stepped up to maintain the code you'd only be buying yourself your own migration timeline really.

DoktorDelta 6y ago

I have an old desktop running Plex, so I can stream my personal movie and TV library to any of the Roku devices in my house.

600frogs 6y ago
I've never heard of or used Roku before, from a quick search it seems to be a chromecast style stick to plug in to a TV to watch stuff, is there any reason you couldn't plug an RPi or your desktop straight into the TV to watch from?
- DoktorDelta 6y ago
  Rokus are streaming boxes/sticks that connect directly to streaming services (like Android TV). Next to the Amazon Fire TV devices, they're the smoothest way to get YouTube and other services on a TV. My desktop is two floors away from either TV in my house, so being able to stream my personal media library to them over LAN is more convenient than lugging around a desktop to either TV. It's buttery smooth streaming too, and the interface is really customizable
- sliken 6y ago
  Well roku's are popular, have nice software, and are easy to stream to. They are also newbie friendly, hand someone a remote and they'll likely have netflix, amazon prime video, youtube, and related streaming services going in no time. Even a 5 year old can manage to get things going. It's the best I've seen, way better than I've seen built in TV's. It's also the Switzerland of streaming services. No problems with Apple devices disliking google services, or vice versa. So you get the best selection of streaming channels I've seen. It's also popular enough that clients written for roku tend to be better than less popular devices, like say some random brand TV. Not to mention TVs are often useful for 10+ years, and it's way cheaper to upgrade a Roku than replace a TV. Oh and there's a Plex client.

vinay_ys 6y ago

For a household with 2+ people – each with personal phone and personal laptop plus a bunch of common devices like TVs, streaming speakers etc you would need a bunch of useful local LAN services: 1. Local Backup storage server – always have a local+cloud back – neither one is good enough just by itself. 2. Local streaming service – photos, music, home videos etc. 3. Internet gateway – a. filtering firewall, b. privacy enhancing dns server, c. optionally wireguard based tunneling with custom routing. d. You can also log and catch suspicious traffic in your network (best way to catch an infected device on your home network). e. If you have two Internet connections, you can configure them for high-availability and load-balance your outbound traffic. 4. Local software updates caching proxy. 5. Mail server (transport/relay).

600frogs 6y ago
I suppose the only thing here that really interests me is the backup server, and even then I've got enough (potentially misplaced) faith in iCloud/Dropbox/Google photos to not spontaneously combust at the same time as I lose/break my devices. Out of interest, what software do you use for the backups? Is it something like Borg/rsync and a cron job, or is there a nice batteries included solution?
- vinay_ys 6y ago
  Freenas works great once it is setup correctly.
brugeman 6y ago
How about photos etc, can you please share what you're using and why? Thanks!

callesgg 6y ago

I have one that i use for various things firewall, router, file sharing, prototyping web systems, torrenting. Backup of images. A 1000 different small things. I guess I could do without it but it is very convenient to have somewhere where I can run small scripts test various things and make the result publicly accessible over the web.

npteljes 6y ago

I was annoyed that my media is only available on my main machine, if I wanted to watch something on my phone or show a photo to someone, I needed to boot it up. So a home server to host files for me and my household seemed logical. Since then I went on a degoogling trip and as part of that, I installed Nextcloud, also very useful. I also do my backups to the homeserver (and then back up the homeserver too).

brugeman 6y ago
Can I ask what you're using to view video/photo from your home server on your/family phones? Thanks!
- npteljes 6y ago
  Unfortunately it's not a solved problem. I envy Google Photos features, wanted something that nicely present the photos but I end up just using Nextcloud's phone app or web interface. Both can generate nice sharing links with expire dates, which is quite useful because it cleans up after itself. I eyed Piwigo for a time, but it's overkill for my use case.
  - mceachen 6y ago
    You're welcome to try PhotoStructure. It's still a young product, but it's already got some unique features and new releases come out regularly: https://photostructure.com/faq/why-photostructure/ https://photostructure.com/faq/why-photostructure/

toast0 6y ago

My home servers do the following things: a) raise my power bill and heat my home :p b) run a PPPoE client (ugh) and firewall/nat, and handoff the PPPoE session (custom client, available on github, email me) and firewall state (pfsync) if the primary goes down (which is usually for reboots); redundant dhcp, recusrive DNS, and automatic failover to LTE as well. c) host a samba share for household documents and media. With automated backup to the secondary server (but if the main server is offline, you can't use the share). The samba share also accepts backups from the windows hosts (veeam free edition), which means I actually have backups that are easy to restore from. d) publish selected data from the share (on change) to my DO droplet, because my connection isn't reliable enough to host from home (I used to serve my lame webpages, and my DNS from my home servers, but when I moved, it became a non-option due to the DSL going offline when the DSLAM loses utility power) e) record over the air TV with MythTV and HDHomerun network tuners f) host local development because my frontend systems are Windows and I'm not developing there (not interested in a windows hosted Linux environment thanks, putty works well for me) g) PXEBoot server, which is mildly useful, at times. Are there other ways to do that stuff? Probably, but this is what worked for me. I used to have all these things running on a single server, but having multiple means I can reboot them for kernel updates without losing my internet, so that's pretty nice.

rhn_mk1 6y ago

Servers with lots of storage cost plenty of money to rent. It's cheaper to have your own if you plan to store/serve lerge amounts of data. In addition, if you are the only one with access to it, you don't have to worry about the implications of storing sensitive data on someone else's computer.

jpeeler 6y ago

Personally while I do run AdGuard Home on my Pi, the most important software is my password manager service. Keeping all my passwords both synchronized among devices and local without worrying about the power draw from the Pi staying on has worked very well.

600frogs 6y ago
Out of interest, why would you not use a hosted service such as bitwarden? I've been appreciating everyone commenting on this thread with their use cases but I haven't seen a single one where is hasn't been easier to do the same thing better with a service. Is it a privacy thing, or just the peace of mind knowing the services you use aren't going to shut down and stop working because you're hosting it?
- jpeeler 6y ago
  Specifically it's more of a peace of mind thing with regard to security. I actually do use Bitwarden though (bitwarden_rs container) and although the critical info in the database is encrypted, I worry less about my network getting hacked than a high value target such as a hosted password manager. It is for this same reason that I don't save passwords in the browser and defer to my locally running password manager. Note that for non-technical people, using a hosted password manager is far preferable in most cases than not. And for technical people who don't want to go through the effort of standing up their own service, paying for somebody else to do it for you is no doubt easier. It is nice that when you self-host you also don't have to worry about a third party service shutting down. But for security oriented software I think it'd be too risky to continue running indefinitely without maintenance, so unless people stepped up to maintain the code you'd only be buying yourself your own migration timeline really.