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CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun

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Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun

#521

Post by hinkley »

chasing0entropy wrote: post #114
hinkley wrote: post #14

What I’d really like is to run the admin interface for an app on a self hosted system behind firewalls, and push read replicas out into the cloud. But I haven’t seen a database where the master pushes data to the replicas instead of the replicas contacting the master. Which creates some pretty substantial tunneling problems that I don’t really want on my home network. Is there a replica implementation that works in t…

Use NAT hole punching if you're advanced, or you could fall back to IP/port filtering

Why do I have to use a tunnel and empower a machine I don’t control to mess with a machine I do? Why has this been made so difficult? Why wouldn’t a master be aware of all of its replicas? Raft does.

Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun

#522

Post by [deleted] »

fhennig wrote: post #513
allarm wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The full picture of what exactly? How that fact is even relevant to this post? Do you expect anyone affiliated with AI to mention that every time they talk about AI? That's just ridiculous.

I expect someone writing a blog about AI agents help you run your home server to disclose that they are "helping companies automate operations with AI" as their job, which they get money for. Why wouldn't you bring it up, or even lead with it? Doesn't it make sense to want to know this? It's not far fetched at all that there is a conflict of interest. How can they be unbiased in the validity of the approach if this i…

[deleted]

Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun

#523

Post by NicoJuicy »

river_otter wrote: post #431
NicoJuicy wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, to a limit. I have an RTX 3090 24gb that enables a lot of use-cases. But for what i'm using Agents right now, claude code is the tool to go.

makes sense. You could look at something like https://github.com/musistudio/claude-code-router if at some point you're interested in going down that path. I've been using gpt-oss-20b which would fit on your GPU and I've found useful for basic tasks like recipe creation and agentic tool usage (I use it with Notion MCP tools)

It's a really good model for its size, but context length is a serious issue to avoid hallucination

Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun

#524

Post by SchemaLoad »

johnisgood wrote: post #277
SchemaLoad wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you understand what you are doing, you are still exposed to every single security bug in all of the services you host. Most of these self hosted tools have not been through 1% of the security testing big tech services have.

Now you are exposed to every security bug in Tailscale's client, DERP relays, and coordination plane, plus you have added a trust dependency on infrastructure you do not control. The attack surface did not shrink, it shifted.

I run the tailscale client in it's own LXC on Proxmox. Which connects to nginx proxy manager also in it's own LXC, which then connects to Nextcloud configured with all the normal features (Passkeys, HTTPS, etc). The Nextcloud VM uses full disk encryption as well.

Any one of those components might be exploitable, but to get my data you'd have to exploit all of them.

Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun

#525

Post by tawman »

I do the same thing on my Hostinger VPS with Claude even though I have been using Linux 30 years. Just removes the friction and time. I version control the DevOps with git, and even had Claude setup automated backups to my Google Drive via cron.

workdir/ ├── README.md ├── CLAUDE.md # Claude Code instructions ├── BACKUP.md # Backup documentation ├── .gitignore ├── traefik/ │ ├── docker-compose.yml │ └── config/ │ └── traefik.yml ├── authentik/ │ ├── docker-compose.yml │ └── .env.example ├── umami/ │ ├── docker-compose.yml │ └── .env.example ├── n8n/ │ ├── docker-compose.yml │ └── .env.example └── backup/ ├── backup.sh # Automated backup script ├── restore.sh # Restore from backup ├── verify.sh # Verify backup integrity ├── list-backups.sh # List available backups └── .env.example

Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun

#526

Post by bisby »

jmb99 wrote: post #248
bisby wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power outages here tend to last an hour or more. A UPS doesn't last forever, and depending on how much home compute you have, might not last long enough for anything more than a brief outage. A UPS doesn't magically solve things. Maybe you need a home generator to handle extended outages... How bottomless of a pit it becomes depends on a lot of things. It CAN become a bottomless pit if you need perfect uptime. I host…

Fairly frequently, 6kVA UPSs come up for sale locally to me, for dirt cheap ( Is it perfect? No, but it's more than enough to cover most brief outages, and also more than enough to allow you to shut down everything you're running gracefully, after you used it for a couple hours. Major caveat, you'll need a 240V supply, and these guys are 6U, so not exactly tiny. If you're willing to spend a bit more money though, a s…

I agree with you. My use case doesn't call for perfect uptime. Sounds like yours doesn't either (though you've got a pretty deep pit yourself, if 240v and generator weren't part of the sump plans and the rack just got to ride along (that's how it worked for me)).

But that doesn't mean its for us to say that someone else's use case is wrong. Some people self host a nextcloud instance and offer access to it to friends and family. What if someone else is hosting something important on there and my power is out? My concerns are elsewhere, but there's might not be.

My point was simply that different people have different use cases and different needs, and it definitely can become a bottomless pit if you let it.

For me, IPMI, PiKVM, TinyPilot, any sort of remote management interface that can power on/off a device and be auto powered on when power is available, so you can reasonably always access it, and having THAT on the UPS means that you can power down the compute remotely, and also power back up remotely. Means you never have to send someone to reboot your rack while youre out of town, you dont shred your UPS battery in minutes by having the server auto boot when power is available. Eliminates reliance on other people while youre not home :tada:

But again, not quite a bottomless pit, but there are constant layers of complexity if you want to get it right.

Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun

#527

Post by johnisgood »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #524
johnisgood wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you are exposed to every security bug in Tailscale's client, DERP relays, and coordination plane, plus you have added a trust dependency on infrastructure you do not control. The attack surface did not shrink, it shifted.

I run the tailscale client in it's own LXC on Proxmox. Which connects to nginx proxy manager also in it's own LXC, which then connects to Nextcloud configured with all the normal features (Passkeys, HTTPS, etc). The Nextcloud VM uses full disk encryption as well. Any one of those components might be exploitable, but to get my data you'd have to exploit all of them.

You do not need to exploit each layer because you traverse them. Tailnet access (compromised device, account, Tailscale itself) gets you to nginx. Then you only need to exploit Nextcloud.

LXC isolation protects Proxmox from container escapes, not services from each other over the network. Full disk encryption protects against physical theft, not network attacks while running.

And if Nextcloud has passkeys, HTTPS, and proper auth, what is Tailscale adding exactly? What is the point of this setup over the alternative? What threat does this stop that "hardened Nextcloud, exposed directly" does not? It is complexity theater. Looks like defense in depth, but the "layers" are network hops, not security boundaries.

Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun

#528

Post by uhfraid »

zrail wrote: post #163
thrownawaysz wrote: post #126

I went down the self host route some years ago but once critical problems hit I realized that beyond a simple NAS it can be a very demanding hobby. I was in another country when there was a power outage at home. My internet went down, the server restart but couldn't reconnect anymore because the optical network router also had some problems after the power outage. I could ask my folks to restart, and turn on off thin…

My spouse and I work at home and after the first couple multi-day power outages we invested in good UPSs and a whole house standby generator. Now when the power goes out it's down for at most 30 seconds. This also makes self-hosting more viable, since our availability is constrained by internet provider rather than power.

> My spouse and I work at home and after the first couple multi-day power outages we invested in good UPSs and a whole house standby generator.

What setup did you go with for whole house backup power?

Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun

#529

Post by notesinthefield »

lucb1e wrote: post #401
devonhk wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish someone would just tell me exactly what to buy. I’ll bite. You can save a lot of money by buying used hardware. I recommend looking for old Dell OptiPlex towers on Facebook Marketplace or from local used computer stores. Lenovo ThinkCentres (e.g., m700 tiny) are also a great option if you prefer something with a smaller form factor. I’d recommend disregarding advice from non-technical folks recommending bran…

What's the power consumption on those? I'm not familiar with Dell product names specifically but 'tower' sounds like it'll sit there burning 200W idle. Old laptops (sliding out the battery) is what I've been opting for, which use barely anything more than the router it sits next to. Especially if you just want to serve static files as GP seems to be looking for, an old smartphone will be enough but there you can't re…

Old optiplex’es sff or not idled between 15w and 30w. Id aim for sff’s specifically. I have run an ftp server for lab iso’s on a very old android phone - not fun.

Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun

#530

Post by zrail »

uhfraid wrote: post #528
zrail wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My spouse and I work at home and after the first couple multi-day power outages we invested in good UPSs and a whole house standby generator. Now when the power goes out it's down for at most 30 seconds. This also makes self-hosting more viable, since our availability is constrained by internet provider rather than power.

> My spouse and I work at home and after the first couple multi-day power outages we invested in good UPSs and a whole house standby generator. What setup did you go with for whole house backup power?

Generac 26kW Guardian, natural gas fueled, connected to a pair of automatic transfer switches. We have two electric meters due to having a ground source heat pump on its own meter.
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