NPM is awesome until you have a weird error that the web GUI does not give a hint about the problem. Used it for years at this point and wouldn’t consider anything else at this point. It just works and is super simple.

Two users and a handful of service accounts. I use it so I have a centralized user authentication system instead of managing multiple individual user accounts.

I tried a couple of LDAP solutions out there; Windows Server AD, Open LDAP, Samba4 in Debian, TurnKey Solutions LDAP before finally settling on Zentyal. It has a nice to use web GUI and can work in conjunction with AD RSAT tools that I have installed in a throwaway Windows VM for when I need more granular controls the web GUI can’t do.

All my Debian VM’s and laptops connect to Zentyal AD via SSSD.

I just cannot find a use case for Nextcloud. I have gone as far as installing it and sync’ing it with my LDAP for user auth and sync pictures from my phone to my NAS. All the other features are just a big ole m’eh for me.

This has just been my experience, so maybe I’m missing something that would just make it all click and make me not live without it. So far though, I’ve spun up and spun down an instance 3 times and never missed it afterwards.

Zabbix for agent / snmp based statistics.

Uptime Kuma for up/down states with a webhook notification into Discord so I get instant alerts on my phone when one goes down.