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

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.

Immich is made by futo, an org who just donated a couple mil to a fash dev to maintain some vibecoded post install scripts. Nextcloud does everything Immich does through some extensions available in their marketplace. Don't support fash soft. Use eurojank instead! <\political>

Y'all Idk what happened I straight up can't find the source for this. I'm gonna actually check in with my mental health provider because I remember reading this clear as day but it doesn't seem to exist. I could be confusing dreams for reality again, which would be disappointing because I thought I was more stable than that.

I've been looking for sources, but I can't find anywhere. I'm certain I read it on THIS SITE, but in my search I can't find anything about futo from the last couple months.

Genuinely, I apologize for spreading misinformation, I'm gonna call my psych tomorrow.

Try NetBird instead of Tail/headscale. All in one app.

Ah ffs, it’s like every time I look away for a bit, another mask comes off! Good shout, I’ll look into it.
I was sort of intending to use Nextcloud later on anyway, so that’s an easy change of direction

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

Thanks for saying that, I have been loving immich on one of my pi 5’s now I am going to need to replace it. I am thinking Ente, just cause it is FOSS with paid tears just like vaultwarden/bitwarden.

I have stopped using Nextcloud because I can never get things tuned right, and I feel it is trying to do more than it should.

Nextcloud certainly can be a cumbersome beast. I'm glad it's the second thing I chose to selfhost instead of something much later on. Gave me a chance to get my feet wet with it. I'm a big fan, but I think if I'd started with smaller services I'd be upset about the breadth of the project. It is absolutely trying to do everything it can, which can be good or bad depending on your use case.

Well, fuck. Immich has been a solidly good piece of software for me. Any recommendations that aren't Nextcloud?

Nextcloud was not my first selfhosted thing, I was paying a service provider for it when I started self hosting everything else I was already frustrated with how nextcloud did not play well with my homelab so I thought why the heck am I paying for it. I have never had good luck with Nextcloud.

FUTO donated to omarchy?

Of all options you choose Nextcloud as alternative? You have so many options;

Ente photos, PhotoPrism, Piwigo, TinyCld

Honest question: is it made by FUTO, or sponsored by FUTO? It does make quite a bit of difference to me. Wikipedia isn’t clear about it.

I'm guessing you are referring to this? https://stopomarchy.org/extended

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.

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.

Immich team joined the organization after the project was already mature and popular. Immich team keeps full autonomy as part of the deal https://immich.app/blog/immich-joins-futo

I have amac mini specifically to be a mac server, so i can run BlueBubbles for compatibility with people who use iMessage

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 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

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

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

Never seen that list, but that's a good resource for keeping track of these orgs.

Made by. They link futo.org as their 'company' on the immich website. It's open source so if you really want to use it there's nothing wrong with forking it.

I was seeing articles on p.d about a month ago saying so. I'm having trouble finding them now. Maybe I misremembered but I'm like 90% certain they did.

I'll check that out, thanks

I haven't personally used it but librephotos looks promising

I think you replied to the wrong person, I never would or never have used Nextcloud for photos.

I am in the process of moving everything into ente.

Good call to install Linux.

Citation needed.

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.

Go search out their github page and a few other places, sorry I wanted this to not be true as well.

I am in the process of moving all my photos to ente, it looks good. They have paid plans than there is the self hosted option.

I personally feel that Nextcloud should have stayed focused on one thing, but it tries to do to much and fails.

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

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Thank you for the notification, I may have been a little biased when I looked up the info but there are some concerns on the github page.

Us humans have horrible memories there is a whole discipline called psychology, that studies the thing.

I don’t care about the original post so much as "YOU ARE A PERSON ON THE INTERNET WHO PUBLICLY SAID THEY MIGHT HAVE MADE A MISTAKE", that makes you one in a million and potentially better than anyone on social media.

Yay you!