48
Basic Homeserver with old Mac Mini (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 day ago by PennyRoyal@sh.itjust.works to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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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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[-] nosuchanon@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Try NetBird instead of Tail/headscale. All in one app.

[-] PennyRoyal@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

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

[-] nosuchanon@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

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.

[-] PennyRoyal@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

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

this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2026
48 points (98.0% liked)

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