Introduction
As we wrap up 2024, I want to reflect on my self-hosting journey this year. Looking back at my 2023 homelab journey, itβs amazing to see how much has evolved - from hardware upgrades to better infrastructure practices, and the addition of many new services.
This year has been particularly exciting as Iβve not only expanded my homelab but also improved its reliability and maintainability. Letβs dive into the major milestones and learnings from this year.
Hardware Upgrade: Orange Pi 5 Plus
One of the most significant changes this year was upgrading from a Raspberry Pi 5 to an Orange Pi 5 Plus. While the Raspberry Pi 5 served me well, I needed more power for running services like Jellyfin and Immich with its hardware acceleration capabilities.
The Orange Pi 5 Plus, with its RK3588 processor, has been a game-changer:
- 8 cores
- Up to 32GB RAM support (Mineβs 16GB though)
- More powerful GPU
- PCIe support
This upgrade has allowed me to run more resource-intensive services smoothly as well as being able to connect external storage devices directly via the PCIe slot to the server giving me a lot more flexibility in terms of storage.
Infrastructure Configuration as Code with Ansible
Perhaps the most impactful change in my homelab management has been adopting Ansible for Infrastructure Configuration as Code. This transition has made my setup more reproducible and easier to maintain.
Key benefits Iβve experienced:
- Documented infrastructure setup.
- Easy server migrations.
- Consistent configurations across servers.
- Version-controlled configurations.
- Easy upgrades and rollbacks.
Hereβs a glimpse of how my Ansible structure looks:
This structure has made it incredibly easy to:
- Set up new servers.
- Update existing configurations.
- Maintain consistency across services.
- Track changes over time since Iβm using git for version control.
- Easy upgrades and rollbacks with versions tracked in
versions.yml
file.
Overall, this was the best decision I made this year for my homelab.
From Nginx to Caddy
One of the major changes this year was migrating from Nginx with self-signed certificates to Caddy with automatic SSL certificates. This move has simplified my reverse proxy setup while improving security.
Benefits of switching to Caddy:
- Automatic SSL certificate management
- Simpler configuration syntax
- Built-in HTTPS by default (no more self-signed certificates)
- Automatic HTTP to HTTPS redirection
- Better integration with modern web standards
Git-Sync: A Developerβs Solution
As a developer, I wanted a reliable way to backup my Git repositories from various platforms. This led me to create git-sync βοΈ, a tool written in Go that:
- Periodically backs up Git repositories
- Supports multiple Git platforms
- Maintains repository structure
- Handles rate limiting gracefully
- Provides detailed logging
This project not only solved my backup needs but also helped me learn Go programming, which Iβve found particularly useful for system tools.
New Services and Improvements
Throughout the year, Iβve explored and implemented various new services:
Document Storage and Management
- Paperless-ngx βοΈ for organizing documents.
- Automated document processing workflows with n8n βοΈ.
- Minio βοΈ for object storage.
Media Management
- Immich βοΈ for photo backup and organization.
- Jellyfin for media streaming.
- MeTube for media downloads.
Security and Authentication
- Authelia βοΈ for Single Sign-On.
- Improved off-site backup strategy by encrypting with GPG.
Monitoring and Notifications
- Speedtest Tracker βοΈ for internet monitoring.
- Ntfy for push notifications.
Documentation and Knowledge Base
- Outline βοΈ for documentation.
- Memos βοΈ for one-off notes.
Password Management
- Vaultwarden for password management. I have officially moved out from Bitwarden cloud to self-hosting my own vault with Vaultwarden.
Active Participation in Community
I have been active on Redditβs r/selfhosted βοΈ subreddit. By far this has been the best way for me to learn about new services and experiences of other self-hosters around the world.
I also had a great opportunity to connect with some of the folks digitally as well as met some folks in real life from India who are into self-hosting.
Occasionally, I try to contribute to the community by sharing my experiences and learnings through blog posts.
Whatβs Next for 2025?
Looking ahead, I have several exciting plans that I wish (and hope) to achieve in 2025:
Hardware Expansion
I want to setup a dedicated NAS server with a lot more storage than I currently have. The goal would be to able to move files that I am currently storing on Cloud to my own NAS (with backups of course still being stored on some cloud storage).
Service Improvements
Currently, my backup strategy is specific only to backing up application data via specific backup scripts which encrypts them with GPG and move them to off-site storage.
I want to improve my backup strategy to be able to backup all my data (documents, photos, videos, etc.) and be able to restore them if needed. This again ties into my goal of moving all my files to my own NAS.
Apart from backups, I also want to improve my monitoring setup and make it more robust and reliable as well as aim for higher availability of my services.
Learning Goals
I am learning few other things as a developer that I want to leverage to build some tools for my homelab, so that would be one thing that I want to focus on in 2025. I will be sharing more about this in my blog posts in future.
Along with this, I plan to learn more about containerization and how I can leverage it for higher availability of some of my core services that I am running on my homelab.
I am using Ansible for configuration as code, but I want to explore other tools like Terraform βοΈ or Pulumi βοΈ for managing my homelab infrastructure. I hope I get a chance to explore this in 2025.
Conclusion
2024 has been a transformative year for my homelab. The journey from basic self-hosting to a more sophisticated setup has been both challenging and rewarding. The improvements in hardware, infrastructure management, and services that I am self-hosting have made my homelab more reliable and useful than ever.
Iβm looking forward to what 2025 brings and continuing to share my experiences with the self-hosting community. If youβre interested in any specific aspects of my setup or have questions, feel free to reach out on Twitter βοΈ / Reddit βοΈ.
Happy homelabbing, and hereβs to another year of self-hosting adventures! π