I know about that function. It’s mostly just about if there were any other options. I mean, I can find a folder icon pack probably, but that would make the ones I wanted customized but and also not match. For example, if I did a green folder and it was not flat like the Breeze ones are then it would look out of place until I replaced everyone with the one from the pack.

I can see them doing that, I use a DNS ad-block (Adguardhome) with plenty of filters and last night, I spotted that they were able to inject two ads (standard one to the right of the channels and one at the bottom below the menu for the new Minecraft movie when they changed my background. So, they are finding ways around this stuff. I simply disabled the Sponsored themes. We are on the fence about replacing the TV later this year but not 100% sure just yet. It’s been quite buggy randomly rebooting when switching sources and other things.

Not related to the server, but I was very happily surprised with the latest Roku Jellyfin channel. A complete refresh of everything and it’s great to see it.

I discovered about a few months ago that XCP-NG does not support NFS shares which was a huge dealbreaker for me. Additionally, my notes from my last test indicated that I could not mount existing drives without erasing them. I’m aware that I could have spun up a TrueNAS or other file sharing server to bypass this, but maybe not if the system won’t mount the drives in the first place so it can pass them to the TrueNAS . I also had issues with their xen-orchestra which I will talk about below shortly. They also at the time, used an out of date CentOS build which unless I’m missing something, is no longer supported under that branding.

For the one test I did which was for a KVM setup, was my Home Assistant installation, I have that running in Proxmox and ccomparativelyit did seem to run faster than my Proxmox instance does. But that may be attributed to Home Assistant being the sole KVM on the system and no other services running (Aside from XCP-NG’s).

Their Xen-Orchestra for me was a bit frustrating to install as well, and being locked behind a 14 day trial for some of the services was a drawback for me. They are working on the front end gui to negate the need for this I believe, but the last time I tried to get things to work, it didn’t let me access it.

Sadly, it’s for Haswell and higher, I’m on an older Sandy Lake CPU so could not get it to boot and then I saw in their Wiki about the requirements. Yeah, it’s an old PC. (~14 yrs old and as temperamental as a teenager!) :)

In no particular order, the most essential ones are those I constantly use throughout my day and also weekly.

Proxmox holds all of these in different LXC’s and VM’s

• Home Assistant
• Pocket-ID - https://github.com/stonith404/pocket-id (Exclusive Passkey login system as in -no un/pw just your Passkey which - doubles as an OIDC provider)
• Homepage (By Ben Phelps of gethomepage.dev)
• Vaultwarden
• TechnitiumDNS which handles all of my DHCP and Adblocking in a one system, extremely capable software especially useful for SOHO too.
• Baserow - Airtable alternative. It holds certain items of importance like what MAC address each device in my home network holds and what IP It uses in an intelligent view. I also was using it for a while to log issues with my sleep where I deal with insomnia, so I logged how well I slept, how many times I woke up, how long it took me to fall asleep etc. That was a simple form I created using drag/drop in Baserow and called by a URL.
• OpenVSCode server - makes editing my Homepage (above) yaml and my docker-compose files a breeze! It’s especially nice when you edit it something and it auto saves almost instantly. Makes some of my services change in real-time!
• UptimeKuma - Simply one of the best out there for me
• Gotify - I get alerted to my Tuya based dehumidifer tank being full via Home Assistant, Downtime alerts from UptimeKuma and a variety of other services which I deem higher priority alerts over “fix when you can” ones.

Aside from that, i do have other services I use every so often like Memos, Joplin Server (holds most of my notes), Pingvin and a few others.

Anxiously waiting for ARCH to update their repos, they YANKED it from the unstable repo so I can’t cheat and download it early. :)

I test installed it in Proxmox in a Debian 12 LXC for the sever part, it was fairly easy, just run three commands. The client was as well, but failed to do something with the email during registration. It has a while longer to go I think. But I put it in my bookmarks to visit every so often as well. :)

I use Technitium DNS as both my DHCP and DNS Server on my network. I then have my ISP Router’s DHCP turned off, and point the primary DNS IP To Technitium’s on my network. I have roughly 66-67 network devices at a given time on my network, mostly wireless. (Think wiFi locks, Lights, Outlets etc) then I have my phones and gaming systems an any given thing.

To manage my IP’s I use an Airtable type of database via BaseRow, also self hosted. Through my router’s records, I copied/pasted every single MAC address I found, into a column in my BaseRow table there, and then added the device name or friendly name to another with an assigned IP I want to use. I have a more organized system of ranges 192.168.1.1-10 is mobile devices, 192.168.1.11-30 is IoT etc…

By having my network setup in this fashion, I accomplish a few things, all new devices which power on or connect to the router to get their IP assignment fail to get it since it’s turned off there, and they search the network for an available DHCP Server which lands squarely on the TechnitiumDNS server and are assigned it through there. I also have adblocking enabled through the same server so I have a more home wide adblock which works. (You’d be amazed at how much Telemetry a TV Sends out for every single remote keypress!) I have been able to block those with the adblock enabled. With the DNS server, you can also assign DHCP ranges address, it is really an overly complex server and probably overkill for a home network. I’ve only scratched the surface of what it can do.

If you don’t want to fuss with TechnitiumDNS, there’s AdguardHome, or even PiHole you can use if you want to block Ads (or you can simply disable that function) and those also act as a DHCP Server.

Or, if you are wanting to spend a few hours configuring it, you could run your own DHCP Server in a VM or dedicated device such as a Raspberry Pi.

With all of these settings, it’s important to set your DHCP lease offer long enough that if you have to reboot the DHCP Server for kernel update, or it crashes, you won’t have any devices fail as some do regular polling to check for connectivity (My Linux computer does this a lot). I don’t remember if it’s KDE or Arch. Anyway, running the DNS Server also allows you to custom build your own “domain” system if you will. So could assign maybe your self hosted Calendar for example to http://calendar.local or http://calendar.internal.

By setting up a dedicated DHCP Server, using the manual method or one of the different AdBlock systems, you can also turn off DHCP registration for ‘foreign’ devices or those which aren’t in your DHCP table. This offers a small element of extra security for your WiFi, but it’s not 100% secure if someone knows your IP ranges and Subnet Mask. Also, this will make it easier in the future for you if you upgrade your router or replace it as there’s just two settings to change. (DCHP Server off and the optional self hosted DNS).

Why not use a different DDNS service? There are plenty out there. :) I think this may solve your issue. I’ve been using freemyip.com’'s for a while and have had no problem in the past issusing LetsEncrypt SSL’s. At the moment, I’m on Cloudflare tunnels so it’s automatic with them, which I know is a huge trust issue for a lot of people, but I don’t mind it for my stuff. But I do like to have my DDNS as a backup service from time to time.

I’ve dabbled in it, but not really committed to it. It’s a great lightweight server of course. I am a KDE Plasma user so I did a quick test of that and was able to install it via Alpine, but at the time, the support for javaws was not there which I needed at the time for my job, so that killed my plans on using it. I may venture back to it later on .

I have been using Tailscale, connected it to my domain, I use Authentik for my OIDC/SSO Sign in and tied it that way for the MFA OIDC Login Tailscale let’s you use. All I needed to do is setup a webfinger for it and once it verified my domain, I was able to give them my OIDC settings for them. Tailscale so far for me in the last year or so has been quite simple to use. Plus, being able to log into my admin console and any devices I enroll through Authentik’s front end, has given me peace of mind knowing it’s quite secure. (All of this on a Proxmox server BTW).

One may argue about self hosting Wireguard and I agree, it’s quite easy to do if you use something like wg-easy which makes it simple to add phones to your network. My concern with it though was having to poke a hole into my firewall for the WG traffic to hit the server, once I got into Tailscale, it’s made it easier and I don’t have any open ports on the router now. I think this is primarily why the Jupiter Broadcasting guys push it so much on their podcasts, not to mention one of the hosts on his podcast is an employee for Tailscale as well, so that probably helps a bit.

As for funding for both Nebula, or Tailscale, they do cater to enterprise customers so you have the assurance that they do have to answer to them if they revoke a service or ruin it. :)

For Tailscale, it’s just a matter of them allowing you to add 100 devices for free and it’s simple command to install it on any client via the cli including Apple TV for example. For phones, I have Tailscale on my phone connected 24/7 to my exit node which is my Proxmox server which acts as one, and as a backup, my Raspberry Pi which acts as one as well. So, even if I’m on the road or away from home, I’m always on my home network (unless blocked by overzealous sysadmins on their public WiFi networks). There’s not much to manage via the phone, but I like to think it’s ‘set and forget’ really, once you have it all configured, it just runs in the background and they do not decrypt your traffic much less care what goes through it.

I took a quick read of the comments and I apologize in advance if this has been suggested already.

I use a self hosted DNS server (AdGuardHome) I was using TechnitiumDNS for a long while, but moved over to the other recently so I could do some more blocking as needed (adult special needs house dweller sometimes needs limited internet). It also acts as a DHCP Server so it takes the role of both the DHCP assignments away from the router. As it so happens, this week, I got to experience the benefit of having this setup live when my main router also went down, I was able to switch to a spare router (My ISP provided one) and all I had to do was turn the DHCP off and optionally point the DNS To my AdGuardHome address, set the SSID’s up and I was in business. All of my devices happily reconnected and grabbed their assigned IP’s.

In short, if you have a spare computer, SBC such as a raspberry PI or whatnot, you can easily host something like that and not have to worry about setting those again.

Cyberchef, I’ve looked at but honestly for me, IT Tools works best for my needs so it’s all good on my end.

Dozzle is just log viewing plain and simple. Dockge shows more that’s all I know. I tested Dockge earlier on in development and haven’t been back since, I know it’s grown a lot more since.

I’ve seen a few mentions of PiHole and AdguardHome, I started on PiHole, then moved to AdguardHome for adblocking. Then I heard about and have been using TechnitiumDNS server which is sort of overkill for our needs, but with the right ad-lists, it is fantastic at blocking advertisements on my home network. Super fast install too, even on a Raspberry Pi 2 :) I run that along with Proxmox-VE (Protected behind OIDC Login) and several other containers on my cranky old Dell Desktop server.

Mostly Vaultwarden, and a few other services for home private use such as PairDrop for inter system sharing and a self destructing file sharing server for when we need to send documents to our Attorney’s (rarely but sometimes we need to) office via Pingvin.

I also run:

• Home Assistant
• Transmission Dockerized so I can help contribute to the Linux community and share the ISO’s.
• For some of my externalized sites, I run Authentik It acts sort of like a Reverse Proxy if you configure it to do so. I love that I can simply identify myself with my WebAuthn device skipping any passwords. :)

With Authentik setup, I can login to things like my Fresh Tomato Router TechnitiumDNS (Both use HTTP Auth headers) and Memos which uses OIDC/SSO. It’s meant to replace our Google Keep notes.

• Tailscale is installed and I connect to it from my phone when away from home to always stay on my network. Sometimes, hotspots block it so I generally avoid those as much as possible.
• Wallos to help keep track of our re-occuring subscriptions.
• Grafana and Promethus - both are staged and ready for configuration and one of those I will get around to eventually.
• InfluxDB - I plan on moving Home Assistsant logging soon to that which should tie nicely into Grafana later.
• Ben Phelps’ Homepage - it’s my main server dashboard my wife and I use to access our server. Quite simply one of the best dashboards IMHO.
• Wyze Cam Bridge - One of the better services in which you can log into your Wyze cams and convert their streams to RTSP, RTMP or HLS streams easily. I have that feed to my Home Assistant Security Dashboard.
• Baserow It’s a good Airtable alternative and I use it to keep track of my Static IP assignments, Sleep tracker (I suffer from insomnia), and other data points. It’s pretty amazing. I even created a pain logging for for my wife so she just accesses it and answers basic questions about her pain levels and it pushes it to the database for later retrieval.
• Joplin Server - Sorry, I don’t have the link, but it’s installed via compose. I use Joplin Notes on my phone and computer for keeping my code snippets. I’ve tried Obsidian and it didn’t really meet my needs and Also Anytype, but that’s not self-hosted. Joplin server is for me and that’s become handy a time or two when on the road.
• Bookstack - my grand plan for that is to build a Wiki for my family to use in the event something should happen to me, they can know how to manage the server with nice screenshots and instructional steps. I have that protected behind Authentik’s OIDC logins.
• IT-Tools - hands down one of the coolest self hosted tool sets you can use.
• Webcheck - All-in-one OSINT tool for analyzing any website https://web-check.xyz/ is their demo site. :)
• Stirling PDF - Kind of like a Swiss-army knife for PDF’s. :)
• Dozzle - For those times with you really need to see what your Docker logs and too lazy do run a docker logs -follow command.

I still use Portainer-CE and am happy there, I may try Dockage or the others, but it’s fine for what I need it for (It’s also protected by OIDC)

I’m sure I may have missed a few, but this post has gone on long enough. :)

I left Win8 to go full time on Linux. For several years before this, I used to host web sites professionally and build them so I was used to Centos and Debian servers but not comfortable enough to be able to manage them deeply. In other words, just enough to make them work, but more complex troubleshooting was not my strong suit.

I later landed a job where their primary systems are Linux based and through that training and learning, I became more comfortable in the CLI and have never looked back.

First, confirm if you can access Cockpit by going to the https://localhost:9090, If not, follow the Fedora instructions here: Having some familiarity with Command Line is essential. Your graphical package manager may or may not include Cockpit.

https://cockpit-project.org/running#fedora

Cockpit does sometimes allow you to install “plugins” from the web GUI, but in my experience (both on Debian and Arch), it doesn’t do it to well. If you can’t install plugins for 45 Drives file sharing plugin, you will need to do it manually:

For the 45 Drives plugin to enable sharing: https://github.com/45Drives/cockpit-file-sharing (I believe it’s the “Direct from .rpm” section if you scroll down in the Readme)

From there, once you are logged into Cockpit on the left you will see a link for “File Sharing”

This isn’t as complex as it may seem as long as you follow their steps you should be golden.

I only use a Windows VM For our ancient (in computer terms) Canon LIDE 60 scanner which seems to work best there (linux produces highly grey contrasted scans).

For all of our scanned documents from the scanner, I have it mapped to a network drive via Samba Shares. Since you are using Fedora, I think you may already have Cockpit installed. This makes it a lot easier and is a web gui to manage servers. You can usually access it on your Desktop via https://localhost.9090 Then you would need to install 45 Drives File Sharing plugin and setup a SAMBA share.

From the Windows VM, just map to the same workgroup you set in the SAMBA Share you created and give it a drive ID such as F:

You can always use something like SSHwifty It retains your logins through your browser’s session data and never on your server, but it will allow you to remote into your local system from anywhere on the WWW if you desire to do so. With Tailscale, once you are connected into your Tailnet, you can pretty much SSH into any of your devices as long as the subnet sharing flag is turned on I believe. I’ve never had any issues with mine not allowing any SSH connections.