What single item improved the quality of your life over you got it? (Buyed it/got as present/made it)

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Building and running my own server for self hosting multiple tools for my home.
Bitwarden Password manager, now sharing logins/passwords for stuff my fiance and I both use is easy, and every single website we use has its own unique randomly generated password so when one site gets breached, our logins aren't compromised anywhere else
Plex, it's like your own self hosted Netflix. My file copies of any movies/TV shows go on here and it parses em all, keeps it all grouped together, streams in 4k.
Shinobi, for my security cameras. Self hosted free CRTV application, works with any open spec cameras. Has movement detection and tonnes of other open source options for plug-ins.
Deluge, handy UI for downloading torrents onto my server. Conviently added presets to it that let me download to the very folders Plex scans... cough cough.
Kavita, self hosted server for books/pdfs. Some e-readers can even connect to it. A couple popular manga reading apps also work with it. Can also just use its own browser web interface as an e-reader, it has multiple options for styles (infinite scroll, page swiping, left/right click, and even supports right to left mode for manga!)
Nextcloud, pictures/document storage. Sort of like a selfhosted filesshare/file backup. Has a mobile app that can automatically backup every picture/video you take on your phone!
Gogs, open source super lightweight git repo. Has only the bare minimum of features, basic web hook, authorization, permissions, simple web ui to edit. It does the job I need it to and that's good enough.
OpenVPN, self hosted VPN so I can securely access all the above stuff without exposing it to the internet.
Also I host my own websites on it, publicly exposed. Blog, a writing project, nothing terribly fancy.
Eventually I plan to add some more stuff to it. Migrate my smart home dependencies over to Z wave and install Home Assistant, so I don't have to rely on sending my info to google/amazon/etc to do basic smart home stuff.
- Plex
  You should check out Jellyfin
  Plex is getting shittier by the minute, and this is a good alternative.
  
  I havent had any issues with Plex so far, so I continue to use it. Ive definitely looked into jellyfin and it doesnt seem painful to swap over, but at the moment there hasnt been a compelling reason to make the switch.
  I put media in my folder, plex scans it by the time I sit on my couch, I click button, show plays. No issues to speak of so far.
  
  I generally have issues with subtitles. Sometimes they don't work out are out of sync, etc.
  
  Try different subtitle files, usually if the first one is off, the second or third will sync up properly
  
  Ah interesting, I havent had such an issue yet, or at least not to a degree I notice it egregiously.
  
  While Plex has moved towards the "free" content, it still does remarkably well with apps on all devices. It also makes user management extremely easy without having to manage yourself. Password resets aren't your problem if you share with others.
  It has its limitations and it's development budget isn't in the self hosting space as much. But for what it is, it's still a good value.
  
  Have been using Plex for years, thought I’d give Jellyfin a shot but my god how ugly it was 😩
  
  I prefer how Jellyfin’s UI, but you can also use a third party client IIRC
- I personally would never recommend someone to self host a password manager. There’s a lot of things that can go wrong, and any number of them could cause you to lose your passwords or at least access to them when you need them. There’s a lot of value in paying $10/yr for Bitwarden, to have a clear mind, and know that your information is safe, and accessible.
  
  The value in self hosting is your passwords aren't exposed to the internet at all, and can only be accessed over VPN from outside the house.
  If you care about security and you know how to run a network properly, then it's definitely worth doing.
  In terms of things that can "go wrong", the first rule of homelab is "Back your stuff up", and the second rule of homelab is "Back it up again"
  
  Seriously, when you have a single small file which is that important, it's really not hard to make sure it's backed up in several places.
  
  The issue he/she is taking about is reliability of personal infrastructure. Its never run a password manager without HA, and since I'm not going to run servers in HA, I suppose I'm sticking to pen and paper for the important ones
  
  Im not sure I would classify "back up your access key" as HA but you do you
  
  I've used Keepass along with dropbox/onedrive/nextcloud (changed over the years) for a decade now and never had a problem. I keep a backup copy of my database on a flash drive in case I somehow lose all my devices. Takes like 5 minutes to set up.
  
  I would not self host a password manager, simply because I don't want running something like that on a 24/7 online server.
  Still, if I needed to run a password manager on a server, I would rather self host it than use a hosted service from someone else.
  In my opinion, running such a service commercially is a much harder problem than self hosting it and has a much bigger attack surface.
  This is IMHO what many people do not understand about hosting as a service vs. self hosting: The full time DevOps/Admins etc. people who work at the hosting service are hopefully better than me at hosting stuff. At the same time the problem they have to solve is so much harder than self hosting, that even if they are 10x as good as me, running my own little service with a firewall, rate limiting and monitoring should at least not be less secure.
  
  In my opinion the risk of something killing my server and wiping my passwords out is much much scarier than the prospect of a semi competent company hosting them getting hacked. Like several orders of magnitude scarier.
  
  Fair enough!
  As I said, I would not host it myself.
  My solution is much simpler and more redundant: A KeepassXC file backed up to different physical locations and 2 different cloud providers.
  If I ever forget my password, I am totally screwed. :-P ... but OTOH an event which would lead to the deletion of all of my backups at the same time would be extinction - level. ;-)
- Shinobi is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the suggestion
  
  I was using Shinobi for like a year, but I'm enjoying Frigate so much more now. Shinobi is definitely more feature rich though.
  
  You may also want to take a look at zoneminder. I've had great luck with it over the years.
- Shinobi
  If starting from scratch - what camera recommendations would you give to connect to Shinobi?
  
  I honestly am not sure I would recommend shinobi at this point, it seems to be very unstable and has a lot of issues with randomly failing.
  Im not sure if its my cameras or shinobi's fault, but Im gonna try out a few other FOSS options.
  I use Reolink cameras personally.
- That was a fair bit of scrolling to find the homelabber. Thanks
- Excellent choices. Might I hint towards lovely alternatives?
  Emby instead of plex (cheaper, and equally capable (use jelllyfin for really free but less reliable))
  AgentDVR. Super reliable, mega flexible PVR totally free for private use. Even got options for AI-motion detection and stuff.
  And especially: KeepassXC. You'll never regret switching in time.
  
  All the stuff I listed is also free for personal use. But yeah, all those are solid alternatives as options.
  
  I used emby briefly after ditching Plex then settled on jellyfin. It's been over a year and I've had no issues with reliability.
  
  I tried hard with jellyfin after ditching plex. And it was horrible. Then jumped to emby and that was years ago with no single issue.
  Jelly might be better now, haven't tried since then.
  
  Maybe, I messed around with things about a year ago now
  
  Me 3 yrs ago... So probably it IS better 😊
- Thanks to you I have today discovered Kavita. It's excellent!

538 comments