Hi all
I’m going to set up a little server on a pretty old Mac Mini, with an external RAID 1 enclosure. It’s initially got two main purposes - to run an Immich server to backup my photos when I’m away travelling, and to give me something to learn about Linux and self-hosting on. I used Linux a bit back in the day, but I’ve been living the lazy Mac life for years. I’d really like to transition out of the Mac ecosystem eventually, so this is an initial toe in the water towards that aim.
I’m planning on running Debian, for stability and compatibility, and backing up to a separate NAS that already exists, so that I’m not completely screwed if (definitely when) I mess something up. It’ll all be set up in my power/internet access point shed, so I’d prefer it to be fully remote access, no screen/DE.
It seems like I’ll be running Immich in Docker, and that I’ll need Tailscale/Wireguard for my remote connection. Does this seem like a decent initial plan? Are there any decent resources for learning this that you’d recommend? I already own the hardware, and all my photos are safe on SD card, SSD, and local backup, so there’s no real consequence to me messing about with this. Any advice/thoughts would be welcome
Ta
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Plan sounds fine to me, debian + immich in docker + tailscale is pretty much the boring setup and boring is good for a box in a shed. one thing I’d do before carrying it out there, install tailscale and ssh, reboot it a couple of times and make sure it comes back on its own without a screen, because walking to the shed with a monitor gets old fast. also something like uptime kuma on another machine (or your NAS) pinging it, so you know it’s down before you’re on holiday and the photos stop uploading. I run a box at home I only reach over tailscale and that’s the part that saved me most.
Boring is what I’m aiming at, so I’m hoping that scope-creep doesn’t get its little pernicious claws into the plan. I’ve got a couple of months before I leave, so I’ll get the thing set up in here, all my current photos backed up etc, and hopefully all my troubles shot before it goes out to its final resting place. I’m planning to get all of my notes etc to live on it eventually as part of my move away from Apple’s walled garden, but I’ve met myself, so taking it all one step at a time is better than bowling in and trying to get 42 docker apps running all in one go. Start with one or two services, and work my way out from there. Uptime Kuma is a good shout, I’ll look into that, thanks
one or two services first is the right call, the scope creep is real lol. good luck with the move, and do a full restore of the photos while the box is still at home, that’s the one thing you really don’t want to debug remotely
Boring plan is the right plan. One shed-specific thing: Intel Mac minis on Linux won’t power back on after an outage by default, and there’s no BIOS toggle. Look up the setpci trick for your model and test it before it goes outside.
Ah ok, that’s a pain. Good spot, you’ve played this game before! It was set to restart on the Mac OS, but I guess that that’s os-dependant.
I have a 2014 mac mini running Debian (just the CLI although I did use the GUI to set it up just removed the GUI later) and it hosts my Jellyfin and *arr stack. I just installed rEFInd on it and booted it to a USB drive with Debian on it, knowing it worked enough to do that much I ran some tests, every thing excluding the HDD said it was working ok. So I stuck an external drive to it and installed Debian on it. In a few weeks I am hoping to inherate a 2018 Mac mini but as I understand it it will be a little more difficult because of a T2 chip or something, not impossible just not as easy.
I did similar task recently, but used my old MacBook Pro 2011 (15 inch, with a faulty GPU). I chose DietPi, which I can recommend as a start distro for a newcomer. I chose it since I have some experience with it from my Raspberry Pi and I plan to give the laptop to a friend, who isn’t familiar with Linux. (For him to run Immich.)
I have a similar MacBook Pro for myself, with Arch Linux installed (my old laptop with a few keys now broken). It’s on WiFi, not Ethernet, and where the signal isn’t very good. Yet, I’m mostly happy with the result.
So far, being somewhat experienced with Linux, I think I’d choose DietPi for most server setups. I really love it, a good work done by maintainers. I can recommend going with it for your first self-hosted adventures.
I’ll check that out, thanks
I like dietpi. It makes a bunch of stuff way easier to manage and deal with.
Even once you know cli commands, it’s faster and easier to manage some things like services from their cli-gui.
It’s Debian underneath isn’t it, so I’d hope that that makes it stable and well supported. Easier is definitely better - I know that this whole self hosting game comes with admin, but anything I can do to make things easier and less time consuming in the regular is a good move
I have amac mini specifically to be a mac server, so i can run BlueBubbles for compatibility with people who use iMessage
That’s a touch, and solves one of the sticking points that means I’ve still got an iPhone. I can run it on my (slightly) newer Mini in my house
Try NetBird instead of Tail/headscale. All in one app.
That looks pretty good, and is apparently easy to set up, thanks. This is probably a stupid question, but there’s no problem with running a VPN like NetBird via a VPN like Mullvad? I have a travel router running Mullvad that all my devices are pre-configured to, so NetBird would be connecting from my laptop through that when away from home
Not sure for the laptop. My phone can only connect to one VPN at a time.
I use NordVPN because they’re built-in mesh feature is essentially VPN tunnel and that can run while you’re connected to their VPN.
I think that I’ll be ok, as I can run the NetBird VPN on both my laptop and phone, behind the Mullvad VPN on the travel router. One way to find out I guess, luckily I’ve got a few months before I leave to get this all working