homelab-helper

Homelab Helper

Guidance for self-hosting, home infrastructure, and Raspberry Pi optimization.

Alex's Current Setup

• Synology NAS: Running Plex
• Raspberry Pi 5 (Raspberry Pi OS):
  • Home Assistant
  • Music Assistant
  • Datadog Agent
  • Docker-based services via Portainer

Self-Hosted Service Recommendations

Media & Entertainment

Service	Purpose	Resource Usage
Jellyfin	Media server (Plex alternative)	Medium
Navidrome	Music streaming	Low
Audiobookshelf	Audiobooks/podcasts	Low
Calibre-web	E-book library	Low

Productivity

Service	Purpose	Resource Usage
Paperless-ngx	Document management	Medium
Mealie	Recipe manager	Low
Linkwarden	Bookmark manager	Low
Vikunja	Task management	Low

Home Automation

Service	Purpose	Resource Usage
Home Assistant	Automation hub	Medium
Node-RED	Flow automation	Low
Mosquitto	MQTT broker	Very Low
Zigbee2MQTT	Zigbee devices	Low

Monitoring & Management

Service	Purpose	Resource Usage
Uptime Kuma	Service monitoring	Very Low
Dozzle	Docker log viewer	Very Low
Homepage	Dashboard	Very Low
Netdata	System metrics	Low

Docker Compose Best Practices

Service Template

version: "3.8"

services:
  myservice:
    image: organization/image:tag  # Always pin versions
    container_name: myservice
    restart: unless-stopped

    # Resource limits for Pi
    deploy:
      resources:
        limits:
          memory: 512M
        reservations:
          memory: 128M

    # Health check
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "curl", "-f", "http://localhost:8080/health"]
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 10s
      retries: 3
      start_period: 40s

    environment:
      - TZ=America/New_York
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000

    volumes:
      - ./config:/config           # Config persistence
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro  # Timezone

    networks:
      - proxy  # For reverse proxy

    labels:
      # Traefik labels for reverse proxy
      - "traefik.enable=true"
      - "traefik.http.routers.myservice.rule=Host(`service.local`)"

networks:
  proxy:
    external: true

Organizing Multiple Compose Files

~/docker/
├── core/
│   └── docker-compose.yml    # Traefik, Portainer, Watchtower
├── media/
│   └── docker-compose.yml    # Plex, Jellyfin, *arr stack
├── home/
│   └── docker-compose.yml    # Home Assistant, MQTT
├── monitoring/
│   └── docker-compose.yml    # Uptime Kuma, Dozzle
└── .env                      # Shared environment variables

Reverse Proxy Setup (Traefik)

# core/docker-compose.yml
version: "3.8"

services:
  traefik:
    image: traefik:v2.10
    container_name: traefik
    restart: unless-stopped
    command:
      - "--api.dashboard=true"
      - "--providers.docker=true"
      - "--providers.docker.exposedbydefault=false"
      - "--entrypoints.web.address=:80"
      - "--entrypoints.websecure.address=:443"
      - "--certificatesresolvers.letsencrypt.acme.email=${ACME_EMAIL}"
      - "--certificatesresolvers.letsencrypt.acme.storage=/letsencrypt/acme.json"
      - "--certificatesresolvers.letsencrypt.acme.httpchallenge.entrypoint=web"
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
      - ./letsencrypt:/letsencrypt
    networks:
      - proxy
    labels:
      - "traefik.enable=true"
      - "traefik.http.routers.dashboard.rule=Host(`traefik.${DOMAIN}`)"
      - "traefik.http.routers.dashboard.service=api@internal"
      - "traefik.http.routers.dashboard.middlewares=auth"
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.auth.basicauth.users=${TRAEFIK_AUTH}"

networks:
  proxy:
    name: proxy

Raspberry Pi Optimization

Memory Management

# Check memory usage
free -h

# Reduce GPU memory (headless server)
# In /boot/config.txt
gpu_mem=16

# Enable zram for better memory utilization
sudo apt install zram-tools
# Edit /etc/default/zramswap
ALLOCATION=100  # Percentage of RAM

Storage Optimization

# Use SSD/NVMe instead of SD card for Docker
# Mount external drive
sudo mkdir /mnt/ssd
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/ssd

# Add to /etc/fstab
/dev/sda1 /mnt/ssd ext4 defaults,noatime 0 2

# Move Docker data directory
sudo systemctl stop docker
sudo mv /var/lib/docker /mnt/ssd/docker
sudo ln -s /mnt/ssd/docker /var/lib/docker
sudo systemctl start docker

Temperature Monitoring

# Check CPU temperature
vcgencmd measure_temp

# Monitor continuously
watch -n 1 vcgencmd measure_temp

# In Docker compose for monitoring
environment:
  - HOST_PROC=/host/proc
volumes:
  - /proc:/host/proc:ro

Home Assistant Integration

Docker Compose for HA

services:
  homeassistant:
    image: ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:stable
    container_name: homeassistant
    restart: unless-stopped
    network_mode: host  # Required for device discovery
    privileged: true     # Required for Bluetooth/USB
    volumes:
      - ./config:/config
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
      - /run/dbus:/run/dbus:ro  # For Bluetooth
    environment:
      - TZ=America/New_York

Useful Automations

# Turn off lights when no one home
automation:
  - alias: "Lights off when away"
    trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: group.family
        to: "not_home"
        for: "00:10:00"
    action:
      - service: light.turn_off
        target:
          entity_id: all

Network Configuration

Static IP for Services

# /etc/dhcpcd.conf on Raspberry Pi
interface eth0
static ip_address=192.168.1.100/24
static routers=192.168.1.1
static domain_name_servers=192.168.1.1 1.1.1.1

Local DNS with Pi-hole

services:
  pihole:
    image: pihole/pihole:latest
    container_name: pihole
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "53:53/tcp"
      - "53:53/udp"
      - "8080:80/tcp"
    environment:
      TZ: America/New_York
      WEBPASSWORD: ${PIHOLE_PASSWORD}
    volumes:
      - ./etc-pihole:/etc/pihole
      - ./etc-dnsmasq.d:/etc/dnsmasq.d
    cap_add:
      - NET_ADMIN

Backup Strategy

Automated Backups

#!/bin/bash
# backup-docker.sh
BACKUP_DIR="/mnt/nas/backups/docker"
DATE=$(date +%Y%m%d)

# Stop services
docker-compose -f ~/docker/core/docker-compose.yml down

# Backup volumes
tar -czf "$BACKUP_DIR/docker-volumes-$DATE.tar.gz" ~/docker/

# Restart services
docker-compose -f ~/docker/core/docker-compose.yml up -d

# Keep only last 7 days
find "$BACKUP_DIR" -name "*.tar.gz" -mtime +7 -delete

Cron Schedule

# Run daily at 3 AM
0 3 * * * /home/pi/scripts/backup-docker.sh >> /var/log/backup.log 2>&1

Security Checklist

• Change default SSH port
• Disable password auth, use SSH keys
• Set up fail2ban
• Use reverse proxy with SSL
• Keep containers updated (Watchtower)
• Isolate containers with networks
• Don't expose unnecessary ports
• Use secrets management for credentials