I want to get into self-hosting. I’ve done a bit of self-hosting before using a Raspberry Pi (pi-hole and Discord bots) but I really want to start self-hosting almost everything I can like I’ve seen many people here doing.
However, I’m not sure what kind of machine I should build which would be suitable for these purposes. I’ve never even built a PC before though my fiancee has and he will be able to help me…
Here are some services I’m thinking of self-hosting to start with:
- AdGuard
- OpenMediaVault
- Bitwarden
- Mastodon
- Matrix
Eventually I would also like to host PeerTube, Kbin, Plex, and many other things…
What are the most important things I’ll need to consider with a self-hosting machine, and what I will need to upgrade over time as I self-host more services? Ideally I’d like a machine which is as energy efficient as possible too.
Also, is it a good idea to host so many services, both publically-accessible websites as well as services only available on my home network, from the same machine? What are the security considerations when self-hosting?
Any links/articles for me to read would be appreciated too!
Others have commented on things aside from hardware, so I’ll throw my hat in on that matter.
I have a machine at home running an i5-4670, and 16gb of ram.
This is enough to host up to about 3 or 4 video game servers for the titanfall northstar client.
The actual self-hosted services I run barely even register in comparison, the only thing that significantly hits the CPU to any real extent, is when Jellyfin in transcoding something for one of my users.
You mention energy efficiency, and for this using desktop CPUs like me is not ideal, I did invest in a high quality PSU, which helps. You can also look into T variant intel chips, which are less powerful but FAR mor efficient variants of their normal chips.
Used availability on older gen parts is fantastic however. I had my previous CPU, an i3, fail. I was able to track down a seller with the used i5 I have now, going for 10 bucks, the same day.
Then there are options like all-in-one motherboards, that come with really efficient, but quite weak, CPUs soldered onto the board. These are often the same chips you’ll see in off the shelf NAS boxes, and are in many cases enough to host a good few things, if you don’t mind things potentially running a tad slow sometimes.
None of the services you mention are particularly resource heavy, nor memory intensive.
I’ll note you’d benefit from SSD storage for UI responsiveness, for mastodon and matrix.