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Self-hosted home server

An old laptop turned into a headless server for media, file sync and automation, using Docker so it can be easily rebuilt from scratch.

When

2024 – present

Hardware

ThinkPad T470, 7 GB RAM, Ubuntu Server

Stack

Docker Compose, Caddy, Tailscale, WireGuard, ufw, systemd, Python, Bash

Code

github.com/fellobello/homeserver (addresses and names replaced)

Docs

Architecture, networking and wiring diagram

What it runs

Several Docker containers: media streaming, file sync, a reverse proxy, a VPN and automation. Each service was added one at a time with a pinned version, and the whole setup lives in git, so a clean install plus one checkout brings it back.

A network with two doors

No ports are open on the router. Housemates can reach only the media server on the local network. Admin tools are reachable only over Tailscale, with real HTTPS certificates through Caddy.

Problems I ran into

Docker bypasses the firewall

Docker writes its own firewall rules, so ports it publishes skip ufw entirely. Instead of relying on ufw, I bound each container's port to a specific network interface and then checked every port by connecting from both the local network and the tailnet.

Keeping the download service on the VPN

The download service runs inside the VPN container's network namespace, so its only route out is the tunnel.

Living in 7 GB of RAM

Every container has a memory cap, so nothing can starve media playback.

Automation

• A Python script that renames new media and files it into the library from qbittorrent.
• A health-check script and nightly backups, both on systemd timers.