It sounds like your goal is a headless server for running various services on? If that’s the case, I’d stick with a well supported, mainstem LTS distro. Rocky Linux (RHEL9) or Ubuntu Server is where I’d start.

Typical software stack for me is Cockpit (bare metal management), Nginx Proxy Manager, and Portainer CE.

If your system has a decent amount of memory, >32GB, ZFS in a raidz2 configuration for storage. Keep in mind that if you go the ZFS route that it’s memory hungry by design.

For backup software, I ended up going with Restic but there are plenty of good solutions out there. Just make sure that you have one.

Hopefully this gives you an idea where to start looking. Ultimately it comes down to a lot of research, realizing there are a lot of valid ways to go about this, and then choosing the one that makes the most sense to you.

Is the drive totally dead? Curious what SMART would report.

My gut feeling is that it’s probably cheaper to buy a replacement m.2 than the hours of time to get netboot working but it could be a fun project!

Here’s the link to their GitHub

I’ve been keeping an eye on GameVault as it does exactly what I want from a server perspective. I’m just waiting for a Linux native client or integration the HeroicLauncher or Lutris. The devs are pretty active in this community too!

I having one of those things… Ya’ know a picture with words…

Heroic Games Launcher could be the answer. The GameVault devs wouldn’t need to reinvent the wheel with a Linux client dealing with all the proton sand boxing. Just add to the heroic launcher.

Looks like someone has already had a similar thought too…

https://github.com/Heroic-Games-Launcher/HeroicGamesLauncher/issues/2951

Understandable! I’ll keep an eye on the project for the future!

I might try running it in bottles and see what the experience is like.

Any progress on the plans for a native Linux client or Web Interface? Last I checked there was only a Windows client available (although it could be ran within proton to be fair).

While Windows is no doubt the popular gaming OS ATM, I think you’ll find a much higher population of Linux users amongst the self-hosted crowd.

Your service is exactly what I want for my GOG library, so I’d love to give it a spin!

I’ve been using fedora on a small intel 6th gen or newer mini pc. I then cook up some custom launch scripts that cause JMP to run at login. I use cockpit and a CMK agent for remote monitoring and management.

I got sick of the lack certificate management on Android TV and how much you need to do to make it reasonably private.

If you are on the latest mesa drivers (hence fedora over a more LTS release), and you install Jellfin Media Player via flatpak, everything should just work with hardware decoding.

https://kiwix.org/en/

You can self-host the kiwix server in docker and grab .zim files for whatever wiki you want to host. Wikipedia is one of those files.

I can also vouch that Android Auto works in a work profile.

I would cd into the user folder that you want to add / remove files from and see what the ownership is to begin with and simply replicate ownership to match what’s already there.

Generally, in my experience, modifying the backing storage for a nextcloud instance is more of a PITA than its worth. I would just mount the webDAV in your file manager. This way the nextcloud db stays in sync with the backing storage.

If you are going to be making direct modifications to the backing storage, check this form post on modifying the nextcloud config to have it look for changes on the filesystem.

As for the permission side of things, run ls -lh in the folder that you want to make changes and see what the user:group is for ownership of the existing files and make sure your new files match. Chmod and chown will be your friends here and chmod has a --reference option that let’s you mirror permissions from an existing file, a real time saver.

Hopefully this helps!

For container management I use portainer CE and for the rest I use CheckMK.

It depends on the size of your budget (if it exists at all). Your probably better off doing some e-waste dumpster diving. Shoot for something with a 3rd gen i3 / i5 or newer and at least 4gb of RAM.

That generation is when Intel added MPEG hardware encoder so it opens up a lot of options for self-hosting media servers.

CGNAT = Carrier Grade Network Address Translation. It makes it practically impossible to open ports to the public internet and in some extreme instances make zerotier very unstable. Typically you only have CGNAT if your internet connection is 4G or fixed wireless.

OpenVPN is just a VPN protocol. Roughly comparable to wireguard. It has been the gold standard for VPN technology for the past decade or so. Wireguard by comparison is much newer, and lighter to run. This typically results in faster throughput from a computational standpoint and devices where power is limited (cell phones), uses much less power by leveraging modern CPU encryption methods.

If you have the option to port forward on your home internet connection, its possible to setup a VPN connecting in a straight shot from your home to your roaming device. If you can’t port forward, you will need a main in the middle (the VPS) to establish and route the connections through.

Zerotier works off of a PTP style network and the free plan allows up to 50 devices when last I checked. I’m not sure on the availability of zerotier or wireguard on truenas as the last time I used TrueNAS was Scale 22.

My recommendation would be some kind of VPN. If your looking for something plug and play and free, look into zerotier.

If your home internet connection sits behind CGNAT, like me, just buy a cheap vps and set up your own wireguard network.

Both solutions avoid exposing your services directly to the public internet which reduces attack vectors and adds an extra layer of encryption.

If my understanding of how “force SSL” works for most proxies, it just simply issues a HTTP 300 redirect message for all http traffic coming in on port 80. It then sends everything to port 443 https.

Do you get a 502 when you try to connect with the force SSL turned off? It might me less of an issue with SSL and more that your proxy is not pointing to the right host / port of your nextcloud server.

Very interesting idea for a self hosted service! I will definitely take a stab at hosting it! I have a decent collection of DRM-free games from humblebundle and GOG that I always wanted in one place. Question, I know you dont currently have a native linux client. That being said, do you have a native linux client on the roadmap?

I second restic. Have been using it for a year now and have been generally very happy. Actually had to use it in a couple occasions to restore directory content and even recover a complete workstation drive. I have had relatively easy success in both scenarios.