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Raspberry Pi as a local server for self hosting applications

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Re: Raspberry Pi as a local server for self hosting applications

#281

Post by apenwarr »

anderspitman wrote: post #199
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I suppose it requires elevated permissions but frankly it doesn't require any more permissions than most software, so this feels like a weird point to pick on. You need elevated permissions to bind 80 and 443, etc., right? You mentioned accessing your own devices from anywhere, and that's what I use Tailscale for. It was a dream to set up, and for my own services, I don't need TLS or custom domains, really. I…

> I mean I suppose it requires elevated permissions but frankly it doesn't require any more permissions than most software, so this feels like a weird point to pick on. You need elevated permissions to bind 80 and 443, etc., right? I think maybe you're misunderstanding what my goal is. If I have a local webserver running on my laptop on port 8080, I want to expose that via HTTPS on a public domain. The server that te…

[Tailscale founder here] If you're using a mac, you can just install Tailscale from the app store, which does not require root (thanks to the "magic" of Apple's extension signing).

Another experiment we're doing is integrating a completely userspace network stack, which could someday be good for this: https://twitter.com/bradfitz/status/1301937179636068352

Re: Raspberry Pi as a local server for self hosting applications

#282

Post by anderspitman »

boredpenguin wrote: post #268
anderspitman wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can the ZeroTier client create a tunnel without root access? That's the biggest weakness of WireGuard IMO. One of the things I like about ngrok is it doesn't require root.

> Can the ZeroTier client create a tunnel without root access? That's the biggest weakness of WireGuard IMO. No idea about ZeroTier, but you should be able to use WireGuard without root access using the userspace implementation in Go[0] (that's the one used in non-rooted Android phones, Windows, and maybe the BSDs) [0]: https://git.zx2c4.com/wireguard-go/about/

I tried wireguard-go and it required root to create a tunnel. I wonder if it would be possible to adapt it to forward to a local port rather than mapping directly to a network interface.

Re: Raspberry Pi as a local server for self hosting applications

#283

Post by cptskippy »

_lacroix wrote: post #275
cptskippy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm torn, I don't think of Pis as traditional servers and have two dedicated servers on my network. AND I have a half dozen Pis that I use for hosting OctoPrint, DNS, SSH, IoT, Pi-Hole, etc... which are traditionally Server functions. I tend to think of Pis in terms of single function appliances. They're obviously capable of more but they're so cheap you can just throw one at a single problem and forget about it.

Yes! They're the computer equivalent of buying a water filter for your kitchen sink or a dimmer switch for your bedroom. No point in redoing the plumbing or rewiring the entire house but you can throw one tiny cheap appliance in there and solve a single discrete problem pretty quickly.

I have a couple at hand near my desk at all times and can just flash a MicroSD card and boot one up in a couple minutes. They're incredibly handy for prototyping things.

I needed to test out an Onvif setup, I was able to flash a Pi Zero W and have a functional Onvif camera in 20 minutes.

We got some windows blinds and I noticed they used Z-Wave remotes so I pulled out a Pi and setup an HA server running them on schedules with-in half an hour.

Re: Raspberry Pi as a local server for self hosting applications

#284

Post by anderspitman »

apenwarr wrote: post #281
anderspitman wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean I suppose it requires elevated permissions but frankly it doesn't require any more permissions than most software, so this feels like a weird point to pick on. You need elevated permissions to bind 80 and 443, etc., right? I think maybe you're misunderstanding what my goal is. If I have a local webserver running on my laptop on port 8080, I want to expose that via HTTPS on a public domain. The server that te…

[Tailscale founder here] If you're using a mac, you can just install Tailscale from the app store, which does not require root (thanks to the "magic" of Apple's extension signing). Another experiment we're doing is integrating a completely userspace network stack, which could someday be good for this: https://twitter.com/bradfitz/status/1301937179636068352

I don't use mac.

I haven't dug into the WireGuard spec yet, so this might be an ignorant question: Do you think it would be possible to create a client that can talk with WG servers normally, but on the local side it forwards to a specific port, rather than a network interface? That would avoid the root requirement. I'm guessing the answer is no since it sounds like you guys are working on integrating a custom non-WG solution.

Re: Raspberry Pi as a local server for self hosting applications

#285

Post by [deleted] »

nonninz wrote: post #253
newbie789 wrote: post #250

This is related because I'm exclusively interested in building a local-network-only media server to serve my firestick and a laptop, but are plex (nice interface, for some reason requires a sign-in to their service, some sort of paid features) or emby (similar) the only options? If I for example wanted to just access my media library through firestick and windows with a kinda neat interface without paying anybody or…

It seems that Kodi[1] would be your perfect choice, and that is indeed what I'm using in a very similar setup. Setup your media (local or remote) library, and the scraper will enrich it with posters, synopsis, actors, etc. [1] https://kodi.tv/

[deleted]

Re: Raspberry Pi as a local server for self hosting applications

#286

Post by Waterfall »

liability wrote: post #51
Waterfall wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What advantage does an NUC have over let's say your old laptop? They seem like they're the same price as laptops with laptop specs but are missing most critical components and are a bit smaller.

My last 'old laptop as a server' dying is actually what prompted me to buy the NUC. It was a chromebook pixel long out of warranty. Until it bit the dust it suited my needs. Being a bit smaller is a nice bonus, it might be silly but I think the NUC is kind of cute.

Seems rather expensive, didn't you have another laptop laying around? I have so many that I don't think I'll ever see the point to them, especially with thinkpads for cheap or free

Re: Raspberry Pi as a local server for self hosting applications

#287

Post by anderspitman »

sdfhbdf wrote: post #225
anderspitman wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware of argo tunnels. Unfortunately: * Argo smart routing is 5 USD/mo + 0.1 USD/GB. The 5/mo is fine, but the data charges could add up quickly for something like Plex. * CloudFlare doesn't sell domains.

> CloudFlare doesn't sell domains They do have a domain registrar intermediary [1] announced two years ago [2]. It's in cooperation with dount.domains and has competetive pricing. It could be counted as they do sell domains. Not affiliated with them in any way. [1]: https://www.cloudflare.com/products/registrar/ [2]: https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-registrar/

Looks like you can only port domains you already have. Announced 2 years ago and still no general availability isn't a great sign.

Re: Raspberry Pi as a local server for self hosting applications

#288

Post by jabroni_salad »

gonehome wrote: post #26

How do people access these servers off of their home network (or do they not?). That seems like most of the value to me, hosting some service you can access from anywhere without having to use Digital Ocean. It seems like most residential ISPs don't provide a static IP and some block port 80? I think forcing ISPs to allow home users to serve traffic via some standard method would go a long way to enabling a more dece…

My domain is hosted on namecheap and it has complimentary dyndns service. On my pi I have a cron dealio that occasionally shoots off to namecheap's API to update my home subdomain.

Re: Raspberry Pi as a local server for self hosting applications

#289

Post by colechristensen »

alexktz wrote: post #269
colechristensen wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a couple of fiber providers I've been lucky enough (it wasn't luck, I chose housing based on ISP availability) to get a business class gigabit with a static ipv4 address and ipv6 for ~$100/mo, solves lots of problems. Plex does the plumbing for you, I think NextCloud might too. Doing DNS just seems like another thing to setup which is just fine. Pay namecheap, then pay a big boy DNS provider (I like dnsmadeeasy)…

This is exactly why containers took off for self-hosters. Installing Plex went from a blog post to `docker run plex` (ok there is a little more nuance than that but you get my point). Docker allowed me to be far more competent on a Linux box than my skill set should have permitted at the time. I no longer needed to know how an application ran, just that it did. Provide some persistent storage and you’ll probably neve…

But if you have a package manager, 'yum install plex', 'apt install plex', etc. should all have the same experience. (actually the correct incantation of docker to get plex running correctly has taken hours of my life away). There are indeed many blog posts about getting plex to run in docker.

The problem is package managers are bad (well, apt is bad, rpm is pretty ok, freebsd ports are pretty good, there are many others) and package maintainers are bad, it always seems like the job they give the intern to figure out instead of making it a cornerstone of usability.

Seriously, spend a day setting up things running on freebsd with the packaging you have and it will be a breath of fresh air. Nearly everything you can think of all put together in packages in one place, and most of them start working in an expected way with zero configuration fiddling, install and start.

If package management were better, docker might not have existed at all, people keep confusing it with decent package management.

Re: Raspberry Pi as a local server for self hosting applications

#290

Post by unhammer »

gonehome wrote: post #26

How do people access these servers off of their home network (or do they not?). That seems like most of the value to me, hosting some service you can access from anywhere without having to use Digital Ocean. It seems like most residential ISPs don't provide a static IP and some block port 80? I think forcing ISPs to allow home users to serve traffic via some standard method would go a long way to enabling a more dece…

I just have a domain with DNS at dreamhost and a dyndns cron-job (in my case running off my openwrt router, which forwards some ports to the pi).

My ISP doesn't seem to block any ports or anything like that, nor have I ever had any such trouble in Norway (been through a few ISP's here)

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