Any homelab, be it big or small, mature or starting out, will have quote a few Docker containers running. Today we will look at keeping these containers up to date via Portainer by using Watchtower.

Any growing homelab will surely start to notice updates for the services they are running. Let’s see how easy it is to update services that were installed with the help of helper-scripts.com.

Now that we have a successfully installed a VM with Turnkey Linux’s Nextcloud, we can get it set up. While the helper scripts simplified the process, the installation itself presented a workflow notably different from the stock-standard VM (or LXC) deployments we typically handle in our Proxmox environment. However, Nextcloud is a fantastic solution to…

Installing Nextcloud in our Proxmox environment is a bit more hands-on that our normal installs we are going to be using multiple sources to make our lives easier.

Now that Immich is running in a separate LXC with a load of space, let’s start using it by setting up a reserve proxy and access rules.

Let’s start saving come money with a service that the majority of smartphone users have: a service that backs up their photos and videos to the cloud. This is something that is very each to self-host with the help of Immich.

Let’s add a reverse proxy so that we can access Plant-it when we are not connected to our home network and secure it with SSL

After installing a new Plant-it server, there is still quite a few things we need to get done before our Plant-it service will be secure and useful. Let’s take a look at the configuration of Plant-it.

Using Portainer, it is very easy to install Plant-it in our Docker environment. If you prefer to rather have it in an existing environment in stead of creating another LXC, the install is very straightforward and easy.

For all the green fingered users out there, but probably more so those that don’t quote have that magic touch with plants – let’s install the magic wand called Plant-it in our homelab

The last part of our Headscale installation – getting exit nodes set up and routes activated to be able to access network resources

We have a Headscale aup and running and configurated, so now we can connect to Headscale from a different device, let’s get our Android phone connected.

Once Headscale is installed, there is quite a bit of intricate setup and config to complete before we will be able to connect to our VPN. Let’s get it sorted and set up so we can start using our VPN.

Now that we know we can access our locally hosted services from outside our home network with the help of a VPN, let’s get our own local VPN installed and set up via Headscale

Having a domain name for our homelab will enable us to give a unique subdomain address for each of our services that we want to expose to the world wide web. We can also secure this with SSL certificates.

We need to take a step back to explain how to access our local-only services via the secure channel provided by a VPN. This is quick, easy and one of the most secure ways to access our home network services.

Now that we have Uptime Kuma running in our Docker LXC Container, we can start monitoring our other services in our Homelab. We can also alert us if one of the services goes down, with the help of the ntfy instance we have running that can send notifications to our phone. Let’s get started with…

Any respectable homelab has quite a few services running that we need to be notified of if they go down. This is where Uptime Kuma is our best friend, so let’s get in included in our Home Lab.

With ntfy secured with a username and password, we can still also secure the communication with and SSL certificate.

Seeing as our ntfy is open to all guest users to send and receive, we need to lock it down behind a username and password. Let’s get the default changed and some credentials set up.

Now that we have our own ntfy server up and running that can send notifications to our phone, we probably need to get those notifications when we are not at home as well. Let’s get it set up from outside of our home network.