Homelab

If you came here scared of mail servers: good. That means you’re paying attention. This post is for you. I assume you can SSH into a Linux box and copy-paste carefully. I do not assume you already know what an MX record is, why port 587 exists, or why Cloudflare’s orange cloud and SMTP should never meet at a party. I wanted real email on my own machine — mail.alipourimjourneys.ir — without buying a “smart” appliance and without installing one of those giant all-in-one stacks. Mailcow is excellent. Stalwart is excellent. I still said no. Sometimes the point is to feel each moving part with your own hands, even if that means spending an evening arguing with nginx about whether a certificate belongs to mail or to Matrix. (Spoiler: when in doubt on this box, it was Matrix.) ...

I didn’t “move Nextcloud to the cloud”. I moved the front door to a VPS… and kept the house on my Raspberry Pi. 😄 This post documents the setup I ended up with: A public VPS (host: funbox) running Nginx + Let’s Encrypt A private Raspberry Pi (host: iot-hub) running Docker services (Nextcloud, Jellyfin, …) A private backhaul using Tailscale (the 100.x.y.z network) A correct Nextcloud reverse-proxy configuration (trusted_domains, trusted_proxies, and overwrite values) A pragmatic security layer for media: Basic Auth at Nginx for Jellyfin (in addition to Jellyfin’s own login) I’m writing this as a “future me” note and a “copy-paste friendly” guide. ...

Ok. Let me tell you the why first. So…. I was turning from one side to the other on my bed, going through YouTube. The thing that I used to silence my pain, to let the time pass, and to forget. But it didn’t hit the same anymore. I was bored. Eternal boredom. Then the loneliness came back. It’s funny how you can be in the middle of dozens of people, i.e., not alone, but still feel lonely. Anyway. I though to myself “let’t message one of my two best friends”, We eventually went into a google meet, talked and talked, and decided to watch a movie together at the same time. I told him I still have my Raspberry Pi lying around, let me put it to good use. Few hours passed, and I was ready. Here is what happened in those few hours. ...