I’m running domoticz with an rflink interface for my rf433 devices. No clue if they support ESPHome, but you can check. It runs confined to my network.
+1 for Nomad. Ive used k8s a lot and still use it, but i prefer Nomad for home purposes. You dont even need a consul cluster to run it anymore so it’s pretty simple to start.
I dont know if this qualifies as a “toaster” but Ive used this docking bay in the past for a NAS and it served my purposes decently well. One thing to keep in mind is that random IO will be lacking with a usb interface. Also, this particular chipset does powercycle all the drives when one is removed so drive swaps end up requiring you to power the entire system off to perform. Also no integrated cooling may be a deal breaker as you illuded to.
If I was basing a nas build off of a PI, I would look to use the PCIe 1x2.0 interface on the pi 5 as a HBA.
Crazy idea, but if you can’t get the bandwidth to support a media server like Jellyfin or Emby where you live, what about placing a server at a trusted relatives or friends house that does have access to high bandwidth? You might need/want to help offset a better internet plan for them though. You could then setup a VPN connection to be able to manage the server remotely and sync files and media to it. You could even use it for off site backup.
I did it with blob storage, ended up being much cleaner and cheaper. You’ll need to toy with it a bit, but from scratch will be a lot easier than the migration I had to do. You’ll easily eat up 100+GB in pictures, which on the cloud on a VM’s drive that’s a fair chunk of money. Object storage is pennies.
Yup Yup! I’ve got it uploading objects. It seems to be an issue with fetching them. The hash is either mismatched or it’s not correctly trying to grab from the sled repo. So, I get a 500 error in store response. Not really sure how to fix it.
Configurator if you have a MacOS device already and want the OG. Plus it does allow for device supervision. Although you may have to register as an enterprise system for that. That’s really going to be the key thing here as last time I recall signing my org up for MDM we had to provide tax documents.
Apple uses JAMF, and their prices are so low and it’s so easy that for strictly Apple devices I’d go that route. I do believe there is an on prem version of Jamf as well, but you still pay yearly for it.
There’s also Hexcloud, whatever VMware is calling there’s now, and technically sccm can do device MDM.
Main benefits come from supervised mode. On iPads you can enable multi user support with sign in. You can remove access to messaging or other apps, but beyond that the differences between MDM and parental locks aren’t as wide.
Ah, I didn’t realise it might be difficult on the apple side registering as a company etc. Maybe it’s not worth the effort, but I’m gonna look into the options you mentioned
Supervised mode gives you basically all the cool options post IOS 12. That said, it’s been about 4 years since I’ve done any of that registration stuff and I know it changed a lot during the pandemic. So it could be easier now.
I’m not sure how it will work, but if you’re worried, just move the download folder before you remove it from within the application. Better yet, if you have the space, just copy the folder somewhere else.
Hopefully someone else has a better answer for you.
This is one of the reasons docker is so great. If you were running the application in docker, you would have mounted that folder as a volume, so if you wanted to move it you’d just stop the container, move the folder, edit your compose file to point to the new location, restart, and from the application’s point of view nothing will have changed.
If z2m, zwavejs,… Are installed from the adon store of HA, all you have to do is create a full backup of HA, and all your automations will be saved and restored automatically.
I am running HA in a container, so that’s not an option, unfortunately. If I’m being honest, though, it’s probably not a bad idea to start fresh with HA and re-import individual automations one-by-one, because HA has a lot of “slop” leftover from when I was first learning it and playing around with it.
Not sure why you need a new router for PiHole. If your machines all point to the Pihole for DNS, it works. Router has almost nothing to do with what provides DNS, other than maybe having it’s DHCP config include the Pihole for DNS.
Even then, you can setup the Pihole to be both DHCP and DNS (which helps for local name resolution anyway), and then just turn off DHCP in your router.
As I understand it, Tailscale and Nginx fulfill the same requirements. I lean toward TS myself, I like how administration works, and how it’s a virtual network instead of an in-bound VPN. This means devices just see each other on this network, regardless of the physical network to which they’re connected. This makes it easy to use the same local-network tools you normally use. For example, you can use just one sync tool, rather than one inside the LAN, and one that can span the internet. You can map shares right across a virtual network as if it were a LAN. TS also enables you to access devices that can’t run TS, such as printers, routers, access points, etc, by enabling its Subnet Router.
Tailscale also has a couple features (Funnel and Share) which enable you to (respectively), provide internet access to specific resources for anyone, or enable foreign Tailscale networks to access specific resources.
I see Proxmox and TrueNAS as essentially the same kind of thing - they’re both Hypervisors (virtualizatiin hosts) with True adding NAS capability. So I can’t think of a use-case for running one on the other (TrueNAS has some docs around virtualizing it, I assume the use-case is for a test lab, I wouldn’t think running TN, or any NAS, virtualized is an optimal choice, but hey, what do I know? ).
While I haven’t explored both deeply, I lean toward TrueNAS, but that’s because I need a NAS solution and a hypervisor, and I’ve seen similar solutions spec’d many times for businesses - I’ve seen it work well. Plus TrueNAS as a company seems to know what they’re doing, they have a strong commercial arm with an array of hardware options. This tells me they are very invested in making True work well, and they do a lot of testing to ensure it works, at least on their hardware. Having multiple hardware products requires both an extensive test group and support organization.
Proxmox seems equivalent, except they do just the software part, as far as I’ve seen.
Two similar products for different, but similar/overlapping use-cases.
Best advice I have is to make a list of Functional Requirements, abstract/high-level needs, such as “need external access to network for management”. Don’t think about specific solutions, just make the list of requirements. Then map those Functional requirements to System requirements. This is often a one-to-many mapping, as it often takes multiple System requirements to address a single functional requirement.
For example, that “external access” requirement could map out to a VPN system requirement, but also to an access control requirement like SSO, and then also to user management definitions.
You don’t have to be that detailed, but it’s good to at least have the Functional-to-System mapping so you always know why you did something.
You make a very good argument for Tailscale, and I think I’ll definitely be looking deeper into that.
I like your suggestion to map out functional requirements, and then go from there. I think I’ll go ahead and start working on a decent map for that.
As far as the new router for pi-hole… my super-great, wonderful, most awesome ISP (I hope the sarcasm is evident, haha; the provider is AT&T) dictates that I use their specific modem/router (not optional), and they also do not allow me to change DHCP on that mandated hardware. So my best option, so far as I’ve seen, is to use the ISP’s box in pass-through with a better router behind it that I can actually set up to use pi-hole.
Thank you for your thoughts and suggestions! I’m going to take a deeper look at Tailscale and get started properly mapping high-level needs/wants out, with options for each.
Ya don’t need ATT’s modem. Some copy pasta I’ve put together:
If it’s fiber, you don’t need the modem. You’ll still need it once every few months.
Things you’ll need:
your own router
cheap 4 port switch (1gig pref)
Setup: Connect gpon (the little fiber converter box they installed on the wall near modem) wan to any port on 4port switch. Then from switch to gpon port of modem (usually red or green port). Make sure modem fully syncs. Once this happens, you can move the cable from the modem to your own routers wan port. Done! Allow router a few moments to sync as well.
Now, every once in a while they’ll send a line refresh signal that will break this, or if a power outage occurs. In such case, you’ll just plug back in their modem, move cable back to gpon port of modem, wait for sync. Move cable back to router.
Bonus: Hook up all this to a battery backup and you’ll have Internet even during power outages, at least for a while.
Huh, this is interesting, I’ll have to take another look into this. Thanks for the lead!
And I do have a UPS, and it is, indeed, pretty glorious that my internet, security cameras, and server all stay online for a good bit of time after an outage, and don’t even flinch when the power is only out briefly. Convenience and peace of mind. Well worth a UPS.
Since their modem is handing out DHCP addresses, is there any reason why you couldn’t just connect that cable to your router’s internet port, and configure it for DHCP on that interface? Then the provider would always see their modem, and you’d still have functional routing that you control.
Since consumer routers have a dedicated interface for this, you don’t have to make routing tables to tell it which way to the internet, it already knows it’s all out that interface.
Just make sure your router uses a different private address range for your network than the one handed out by the modem.
So your router should get a DHCP and DNS settings from the modem, and will know it’s the first hop to the internet.
I do this to create test networks at home (my cable modem has multiple ethernet ports), using cheap consumer wifi routers. By using the internet port to connect, I can do some minimal isolation just by using different address ranges, not configuring DNS on those boxes, and disabling DNS on my router.
Their modem is my router; it’s both. That’s why I need a new one, to do exactly as you’re describing (is my understanding, although another post here suggests otherwise).
Yea, they all suck that way. I still use my own router for wifi. It’s just routing, and your own router will know which way to the internet, unless there’s something I don’t understand about your internet connection. See my other comment below.
Yea, requirements mapping like this is standard stuff in the business world, usually handled by people like Technical Business/Systems Analysts. Typically they start with Business/Functional Requirements, hammered out in conversations with the organization that needs those functions. Those are mapped into System Requirements. This is the stage where you can start looking at solutions, vendor systems, etc, for systems that meet those requirements.
System Requirements get mapped into Technical Requirements - these are very specific: cpu, memory, networking, access control, monitor size, every nitpicky detail you can imagine, including every firewall rule, IP address, interface config. The System and Technical docs tend to be 100+/several hundred lines in excel respectively, as the Tech Requirements turn into your change management submissions. They’re the actual changes required to make a system functional.
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