node815

I have an Rpi4 4gb model and run Uptime-Kuma who's sole purpose is to monitor my server and alert me if it should go down. I also have it acting as a Tailscale exit node.

I'm about 99% sure it does, I don't use it that way but It does allow DNS zones. For example:

It's a lot more technical then Adguard Home for sure. Both work just fine though, I came from Adguard Home as I use a PXE server to provision some of my devices and Technitium is super easy to configure that.

I had to create an account as per the usual process for these types of apps, but it was all local. I never had to do one to connect to their servers. I know it generates a unique instance ID which I believe phones home to their servers but I don't mind personally.

As for my experience, a lot of it is locked behind their paid plans, so I just keep it limited to what I use which is fine. I do like it as it does better than NocoDB for my needs (the input forms is what I needed) and it does better there. I don't recall the other reasons for not using NocoDB otherwise, but it's a long while.

Their pricing is here: https://baserow.io/pricing

So, that's mostly what is locked behind. My sleep form I built which feeds the database:

Overall, it does meet my needs so that's all I ask. :)

In no particular order, the most essential ones are those I constantly use throughout my day and also weekly.

Proxmox holds all of these in different LXC's and VM's

• Home Assistant
• Pocket-ID - https://github.com/stonith404/pocket-id (Exclusive Passkey login system as in -no un/pw just your Passkey which - doubles as an OIDC provider)
• Homepage (By Ben Phelps of gethomepage.dev)
• Vaultwarden
• TechnitiumDNS which handles all of my DHCP and Adblocking in a one system, extremely capable software especially useful for SOHO too.
• Baserow - Airtable alternative. It holds certain items of importance like what MAC address each device in my home network holds and what IP It uses in an intelligent view. I also was using it for a while to log issues with my sleep where I deal with insomnia, so I logged how well I slept, how many times I woke up, how long it took me to fall asleep etc. That was a simple form I created using drag/drop in Baserow and called by a URL.
• OpenVSCode server - makes editing my Homepage (above) yaml and my docker-compose files a breeze! It's especially nice when you edit it something and it auto saves almost instantly. Makes some of my services change in real-time!
• UptimeKuma - Simply one of the best out there for me
• Gotify - I get alerted to my Tuya based dehumidifer tank being full via Home Assistant, Downtime alerts from UptimeKuma and a variety of other services which I deem higher priority alerts over "fix when you can" ones.

Aside from that, i do have other services I use every so often like Memos, Joplin Server (holds most of my notes), Pingvin and a few others.

Instability you ask? This is like a slow creep to instability and freeze your system. It's called the Bash Fork Bomb (look it up if you want), but it's a copy/paste you put in and it slows your system down by consuming all the system resources and cause it to lock up HARD. It goes away after a system reboot, though.

I was going to post the code here, but decided to play nice. But if you are curious:

https://itsfoss.com/fork-bomb/

(edit: Made 'slow' 'slows')

As a Gen X member who is 50 yrs old, a grandparent of two Grand kids, I never touched a computer until I was 12 years old (1986), this, I think gave me a head start into the computer world with an old Radio Shack Color Computer II (hooked up to my TV) with a Tape Drive to load programs with. With some of the older Gen X group starting to reach retirement age, I think we will probably have a larger portion of the population more adapted to computer than the Boomers before us. That's not to say that during the 80's and 90's everyone was into computers though. The important thing was that schools had Timex Sinclair computers and mostly Apple II computers which were the workhorses even into my high school years in the early 90's, so exposure to computer basics such as copy/paste and Word processing were certainly well know then!

I say all of this to mention that while right now, some of the older generation generally knows how to copy/paste, isn't scared of breaking the computer and pretty much get a long fine with them. I'm more skilled than my peers in a lot of areas but that's because I've used them non stop for so long and the others used them only in school but never saw the value until around Windows 98 or Windows 2000.

I believe there will be a shift of more computer literacy as the Millennials and Gen Z's reach my age and older. The writers then may say that compared to the previous generation (ours), that they are miles ahead in their skills and literacy. Even my Grand kids are growing up with exposure to tablets and phones (VERY SPARINGLY), but also live out in the rural country so are getting great life exposure to great outdoors. :) (Ages 2 and 6). One can only dare to imagine what technology we may have 40-50 years from now when they reach my age range.

Anxiously waiting for ARCH to update their repos, they YANKED it from the unstable repo so I can't cheat and download it early. :)

I test installed it in Proxmox in a Debian 12 LXC for the sever part, it was fairly easy, just run three commands. The client was as well, but failed to do something with the email during registration. It has a while longer to go I think. But I put it in my bookmarks to visit every so often as well. :)

I use Technitium DNS as both my DHCP and DNS Server on my network. I then have my ISP Router's DHCP turned off, and point the primary DNS IP To Technitium's on my network. I have roughly 66-67 network devices at a given time on my network, mostly wireless. (Think wiFi locks, Lights, Outlets etc) then I have my phones and gaming systems an any given thing.

To manage my IP's I use an Airtable type of database via BaseRow, also self hosted. Through my router's records, I copied/pasted every single MAC address I found, into a column in my BaseRow table there, and then added the device name or friendly name to another with an assigned IP I want to use. I have a more organized system of ranges 192.168.1.1-10 is mobile devices, 192.168.1.11-30 is IoT etc..

By having my network setup in this fashion, I accomplish a few things, all new devices which power on or connect to the router to get their IP assignment fail to get it since it's turned off there, and they search the network for an available DHCP Server which lands squarely on the TechnitiumDNS server and are assigned it through there. I also have adblocking enabled through the same server so I have a more home wide adblock which works. (You'd be amazed at how much Telemetry a TV Sends out for every single remote keypress!) I have been able to block those with the adblock enabled. With the DNS server, you can also assign DHCP ranges address, it is really an overly complex server and probably overkill for a home network. I've only scratched the surface of what it can do.

If you don't want to fuss with TechnitiumDNS, there's AdguardHome, or even PiHole you can use if you want to block Ads (or you can simply disable that function) and those also act as a DHCP Server.

Or, if you are wanting to spend a few hours configuring it, you could run your own DHCP Server in a VM or dedicated device such as a Raspberry Pi.

With all of these settings, it's important to set your DHCP lease offer long enough that if you have to reboot the DHCP Server for kernel update, or it crashes, you won't have any devices fail as some do regular polling to check for connectivity (My Linux computer does this a lot). I don't remember if it's KDE or Arch. Anyway, running the DNS Server also allows you to custom build your own "domain" system if you will. So could assign maybe your self hosted Calendar for example to http://calendar.local or http://calendar.internal.

By setting up a dedicated DHCP Server, using the manual method or one of the different AdBlock systems, you can also turn off DHCP registration for 'foreign' devices or those which aren't in your DHCP table. This offers a small element of extra security for your WiFi, but it's not 100% secure if someone knows your IP ranges and Subnet Mask. Also, this will make it easier in the future for you if you upgrade your router or replace it as there's just two settings to change. (DCHP Server off and the optional self hosted DNS).

Why not use a different DDNS service? There are plenty out there. :) I think this may solve your issue. I've been using freemyip.com''s for a while and have had no problem in the past issusing LetsEncrypt SSL's. At the moment, I'm on Cloudflare tunnels so it's automatic with them, which I know is a huge trust issue for a lot of people, but I don't mind it for my stuff. But I do like to have my DDNS as a backup service from time to time.

I've dabbled in it, but not really committed to it. It's a great lightweight server of course. I am a KDE Plasma user so I did a quick test of that and was able to install it via Alpine, but at the time, the support for javaws was not there which I needed at the time for my job, so that killed my plans on using it. I may venture back to it later on .

I have been using Tailscale, connected it to my domain, I use Authentik for my OIDC/SSO Sign in and tied it that way for the MFA OIDC Login Tailscale let's you use. All I needed to do is setup a webfinger for it and once it verified my domain, I was able to give them my OIDC settings for them. Tailscale so far for me in the last year or so has been quite simple to use. Plus, being able to log into my admin console and any devices I enroll through Authentik's front end, has given me peace of mind knowing it's quite secure. (All of this on a Proxmox server BTW).

One may argue about self hosting Wireguard and I agree, it's quite easy to do if you use something like wg-easy which makes it simple to add phones to your network. My concern with it though was having to poke a hole into my firewall for the WG traffic to hit the server, once I got into Tailscale, it's made it easier and I don't have any open ports on the router now. I think this is primarily why the Jupiter Broadcasting guys push it so much on their podcasts, not to mention one of the hosts on his podcast is an employee for Tailscale as well, so that probably helps a bit.

As for funding for both Nebula, or Tailscale, they do cater to enterprise customers so you have the assurance that they do have to answer to them if they revoke a service or ruin it. :)

For Tailscale, it's just a matter of them allowing you to add 100 devices for free and it's simple command to install it on any client via the cli including Apple TV for example. For phones, I have Tailscale on my phone connected 24/7 to my exit node which is my Proxmox server which acts as one, and as a backup, my Raspberry Pi which acts as one as well. So, even if I'm on the road or away from home, I'm always on my home network (unless blocked by overzealous sysadmins on their public WiFi networks). There's not much to manage via the phone, but I like to think it's 'set and forget' really, once you have it all configured, it just runs in the background and they do not decrypt your traffic much less care what goes through it.