Homeserver

Welcome to my home server guide! Here, you'll find easy-to-follow steps to set up your own server at home using Linux, Docker, and all without the need for port-forwarding, as many ISPs don't allow it. Please note, some parts of this guide are based on my personal preferences (e.g., the Linux distro), and your setup for certain things may slightly differ. Let's begin, shall we?

Goals & Features

After following this tutorial you will have:

• Secure access to your locally hosted services using tunnels.
• Remote access to your server by VNC and SSH from any device you want.
• Shared folders using Samba.
• Preconfigured, isolated & selfhosted cloud, media server, dashboard and "service managment center" using Docker and Portainer and as many more as you want.
• Minecraft server with mc.your-domain.com

0. Things to consider & Requirements

Remember that your server is likely going to run 24/7, so keep in mind the energy consumption of your workstation and its noise. You can use your old PC, Raspberry Pi 4, or some mini PC (I recommend some older, used HP, Dell, Lenovo, or Intel NUC models). In this guide, I will be using an Intel NUC11TNHI5 with 32GB RAM and a 2TB SSD, as it only consumes 28W of energy. It's not necessary to buy exactly the same hardware as mine to follow this tutorial.

In terms of hardware, here are my recommendations:

• CPU: at least 9th generation Intel Core i3 or i5 or AMD equivalent; 4+ cores.
• GPU: don't run the server with a gpu (unless you want your own gaming cloud) as you won't need it and it will greatly increase power consumption.
• RAM: I recommend a minimum of 8GB. If you're going to run lots of services, then 16GB or even 32GB may be necessary, especially if you want to run game servers. In 90% of cases, 64GB is overkill, but if you can afford it and want it, then go ahead.
• STORAGE: I recommend either going full SSD (at least 512GB) or using an SSD for the OS (128GB or 256GB) and an HDD (min. 512GB) for data. SSDs are more energy-efficient but also more expensive.

All Requirements

To fully follow this tutorial you need:

• Your own domain.
• A Cloudflare account.
• A workstation where the server will be running.

1. Update BIOS and Install Your Preferred Linux Distribution

This step will be different depending on your hardware. Just google "bios download" and your motherboard name or name of your machine (PC, laptop).

For the Linux distro, I will use EndeavourOS, but you can use any Arch-based distro (e.g., Manjaro, Garuda, or plain Arch) to essentially copy-paste commands. I chose EndeavourOS, because it comes with some useful stuff (that I will eventually need) installed and already configured and it has ISOs with many DE (KDE Plasma, Gnome, Xfce4 and more). If you opt for a non-Arch-based distro, you will need to find equivalent instructions for your chosen distribution.

• 1a. Update your system

  If you are using EndeavourOS just run yay in your terminal and type sudo password. For other distros find equivalent instructions.

• 1b. Turn off auto-sleep

  This depends of your distribution and your graphical enviroment. Just google how to do that. It shouldn't be complicated.

• 1c. Change shell (optional)

  This is just my preferance. You can completely ignore that step.

  Change your default shell to zsh and enable plugins wiht oh-my-zsh

2. Remote connection

Setup VNC and SSH to remote access your soon-to-be headless server.

• 2a. VNC

  • 1. Install RealVNC Viewer on your client (in my case Windows 11 Home).
  • 2. Install RealVNC Server on your server:

   yay -S realvnc-vnc-server

   sudo systemctl enable vncserver-x11-serviced

   sudo systemctl start vncserver-x11-serviced

  After you do this, login to your RealVNC account on RealVNC Server. Make sure you check SHA-256 encryption. Reboot and boom! You have encrypted VNC connection!

• 2b. SSH

  Install SSH and connect to it.

   sudo systemctl enable sshd

   sudo systemctl enable sshd

  then you can connect from any device within your LAN to your server by command:

  ssh <username>@<hostname/ip-address>

  for example:

  ssh [email protected]

  type password for your user nad congrats! You are connected via SSH!

3. Docker & Docker Compose

Setup Docker with Docker Compose and add your user to "docker" group.

• 3.1. Install Docker and add user to "docker" group

   yay -S docker

   sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

   newgrp docker

   sudo systemctl enable docker

   sudo systemctl start docker

• 3.2 Install compose plugin

  Visit offical docker website for instructions for your distribution

   DOCKER_CONFIG=${DOCKER_CONFIG:-$HOME/.docker}

   mkdir -p $DOCKER_CONFIG/cli-plugins

   curl -SL https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/v2.19.1/docker-compose-linux-x86_64 -o $DOCKER_CONFIG/cli-plugins/docker-compose

   chmod +x $DOCKER_CONFIG/cli-plugins/docker-compose

4. Network & Firewall

Install and enable firewall to prevent common attacks:

yay -S firewalld

sudo systemctl enable firewalld.service

sudo systemctl start firewalld.service

5. Shared folders

Install Samba package:

yay -S samba

As Samba doesn't come with config file, we need to create one. I will use official config file from Samba repository. Paste this config here:

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

In the section [global] change workgroup to following:

workgroup = WORKGROUP

so it will match Windows's default one.

• 5.1 Configure firewall

  In order to access your samba share from other computers, you must change your firewall's setting:

   firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=samba

   firewall-cmd --reload

   systemctl enable --now smb.service

   systemctl enable --now nmb.service

• 5.2 Samba group

  Create sambausers group and add yourself to it:

   sudo groupadd -r sambausers

   sudo usermod -aG sambausers YOURUSERNAME

  Create samba password for your shares:

   sudo smbpasswd -a YOURUSERNAME

• 5.3 Example share

  I will use my Jellyfin library as example yet practical share.

  Scroll to the bottom and add:

   [Jellyfin]
   comment = Jellyfin's media
   path = /home/docker/jellyfin/media
   writable = yes
   browsable = yes
   create mask = 0700
   directory mask = 0700
   read only = no
   guest ok = no

  At this point make sure that directory you specified in share's path actually exists! If not run Jellyfin service or create it: sudo mkdir /home/docker/jellyfin/media

  Change directory ownership and permissions:

   sudo chown -R :sambausers /home/docker/jellyfin/media

   sudo chmod 1770 /home/docker/jellyfin/media

5. Tunnels & Services

Setup Portainer with Cloudflare Tunnels to allow access to your services outside your home network, then add as many services as you want.

• 5a. Services

  Here are details for setting some services. You can find all configs in services folder. Paste all of them in Portainer.
  • Jellyfin - The Free Software Media System
  • Jellyseerr - Application For Managing Requests For Your Media Library
  • NextCloud - A Safe Home For All Your Data
  • Homarr - customizable browser's home page for your homeserver
  • Dashy - A Self-Hostable Personal Dashboard
  • Mealie - Recipe Management For The Modern Household
  • Linkding - Self-hosted bookmark manager
  • Uptime Kuma - A Fancy Self-Hosted Monitoring Tool
  • Minecraft - Minecraft server with your own IP
  • dash. - a modern server dashboard
  • Watchtower - update your Docker containers automatically
  • qBittorrent - qBittorrent BitTorrent client
  • Starr Apps - collection managers apps with similar functionalities for anime, tv shows, movies, music and ebooks
  • Home Assistant - open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first
  • Custom service