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
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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.
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
one or two services first is the right call, the scope creep is real lol. good luck with the move, and do a full restore of the photos while the box is still at home, that’s the one thing you really don’t want to debug remotely
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.
I have amac mini specifically to be a mac server, so i can run BlueBubbles for compatibility with people who use iMessage
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
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’ll check that out, thanks
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
Good call to install Linux.
Try NetBird instead of Tail/headscale. All in one app.
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
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.
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
<political> 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.
Citation needed.
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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.
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
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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!
You’re sweet Buck, have a nice day, you ray of sunshine!
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.
Well, fuck. Immich has been a solidly good piece of software for me. Any recommendations that aren’t Nextcloud?
I haven’t personally used it but librephotos looks promising
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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
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Ah no worries, we all make mistakes. Good call making a retraction though, I wish more people could admit it when they make mistakes
