To host services on your own server you need a simple way of running them. A great combination here is Docker and docker-compose for running your services. After some initial setup this combination is very simple to use, easy to Read more
Having backups of your servers data is essential. But what if somethings goes wrong with the backup process? An automated backup check can be an incredibly important tool. I wrote a small script to check for new backups on my Read more
Home Assistant helpers can greatly improve automations and make more complex ones possible. Normal automations can be very powerful but they miss one feature that is sometimes needed for more complex interactions: variable storage. Fortunately there is another feature – Read more
A printer is part of most households. Integrating a printer with Home Assistant is the next step to get some cool automations and nice graphs. I recently had to buy a new printer and will describe here how to add Read more
Building a home server includes taking care of user management and (network) file shares. This can be a tedious task and chmod and samba shares’ configurations can be tricky to create. I created an Ansible script, including everything I learned Read more
Some actions in a smarthome still need a manual trigger. This is where cheap wireless buttons like the Aqara mini switch come in very handy. Just put a couple of those in the right spots to start a scene or Read more
ZFS is a super robust file system made for servers with great features like snapshots and build in checks for data security and integrity – with no special hardware needed. In this guide I will describe how to use it Read more
Self-hosting important software and data on your own home server has a lot of advantages but can be a daunting task to get started with. I have been running my own server for a couple of years now and will Read more
You can use the full power of your smart devices by making them all work together and add automations to get rid of reoccurring tasks. I use open source software (currently Home Assistant) to automate all my devices and built Read more
Running a lot of Docker containers for your smart home and other software needs generates a lot of logs. A simple tool for log aggregation to view all of them together can help a lot. Professional software like the ELK Read more
