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How low maintenance can a small home setup be? (alien.top)
submitted 1 year ago by CantaloupeForty@alien.top to c/main@selfhosted.forum
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I have my own home-server and it's not really a problem maintaining it as I've been through a steep learning curve. Now I have a friend who has an ancient Synology and it is always causing terrible problems for him.

If I were to set up a little server for him with docker services running things like immich and syncthing etc, would this be set and forget enough to not cause problems for him? Ideally he wants his own cloud so relatives can store and share files, photos, and possibly movies too. He isn't the most tech savvy, but he knows his way around Windows and PC's generally. He doesn't live that close so I can't be at his if anything went a little pear-shaped. I could however ssh into it at least.

Is this feasible or practicable? Or would he have to learn Linux and Docker et al.?

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[-] j0hnp0s@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

If I were to set up a little server for him with docker services running things like immich and syncthing etc, would this be set and forget enough to not cause problems for him? Ideally he wants his own cloud so relatives can store and share files, photos, and possibly movies too. He isn't the most tech savvy, but he knows his way around Windows and PC's generally

Maintain his own cloud without effort or knowledge? And provide it as a service to his relatives? Over the Internet I suppose?

That sounds like a recipe for disaster. In so many levels...

[-] KyroPaul@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Yup not going to end well. Best case you'll learn in a year that it broke after a couple months. Almost better to charge them for some of your internet and host yourself. My current ISP modem has 2 eth lines with independent IP something like that would allow you to have a completely segregated network with different external IP.

[-] CantaloupeForty@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

That's an idea, I could perhaps host it myself, I do have a good ISP package. I'm unsure if he'd want to be dependant on my hosting though, worth exploring, thanks.

[-] jared252016@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I would do the ethical thing and explain the privacy implications of you hosting it but him hosting it too. Honestly I'd turn on end to end encryption.

You having their data and him having his family's data is a big responsibility. You need adequate security both online and physically.

There's also the fact that he has access to it if he's an admin. Not everyone can handle that responsibility.

As to your original question, Nextcloud breaks often, relative to how often the server will have problems. You'd def need SSH access.

It would probably be better for you to get an ASUSTOR NAS in terms of hardware. It Supports apps and Nextcloud is one of them.

It also has support other than you, which depending on a few factors (magic 8 ball), might be more time consuming than you'd think. They may not want to deal with hardware either if something did occur.

this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
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