2w ago

Seeking advice for selfhosting critical data

Hello everybody,

my plan is to switch from Android to GrapheneOS. In this process, I want to get rid of my reliance on my google account as much as possible.

To this end, I'd like to selfhost some "critical" data, e.g.

contacts
calendar
online drive for files (e.g. google drive alternative)
some basic note-taking app (like google keep)

and so on.

I do some selfhosting already, though it is not that kind of "cannot lose this" data. So I'd like to share my thoughts and ask for your opinions and experience for the process.

More details for what I want

contacts

have to be syncable to the phone
if possible, some webinterface to edit / browse

calendar

has to be syncable to the phone
webinterface + sync to desktop / phone
if possible, send invite-links to events to others

drive

files of my choosing must be offline-available
ever other file should not use storage on the phone
if possible, able to share links to download files
if possible, able to share links to view with online editor (see below)

document editor

think google sheets / google docs
if possible, able to share links to view documents online

smartphone photos

auto-backup camera folder

There may be some things I'm not thinking about right now, but this seems to pretty much be it.

If possible, all of this should be accessible only via vpn.

What I already have

I have a pfSense physical appliance that's already managing my home network, got an OpenVPN already setup, dynamic DNS working properly for the lack of a static IP, etc.

I own 2 mini-PCs (some Intel NUC, some passive-cooled zotac with an intel with 4c/8t). One of them (zotac) is currently running as my Proxmox Virtual Environment Hypervisor, managing 3 VMs.

I also have a second PC which misses some critical parts, so it is not currently in working condition. I think there's an AM4 mainboard and 16 or 32GB of DDR4 RAM in there. I could make a NAS or a new hypervisor out of this, but the case (Fractal Design Define 7) is quite big and a full PC is probably worse for energy-efficiency than my 2 mini-PCs and is going to be more expensive.

Not much in terms of storage sadly

1x 6TB external USB HDD (used for backups)
1x 2TB external USB HDD (used for data)

What I plan to do

The kind of data I'm going to be hosting myself now is very import, so it cannot be lost or corrupted.

But the feature list doesn't seem to be overly complicated. This seems like something nextcloud could do.

This means, I will probably need to buy

2x 4 TB HDD for storage for data RAID
2x 8-10 TB HDD for backups
2x external RAID case

Then I could connect the data RAID to the already running zotac pc and spin up new VMs for nextcloud and whatever else I might need and start serving my data from home.

The Intel NUC will be used as a Proxmox Backup Server, connected to the backup RAID. Keeping some daily, weekly and monthly backups.

On the phone-side, I'd have the vpn always active. Whenever active, sync of contacts, calendar entries, photos etc. should be possible.

Questions

Is there anything I missed? Did any of you already try something like that? Does anybody here see a potential problem with any of the above?

Can anyone recommend a RAID-1 external enclosure without a fan and some quiet and energy-efficient HDDs?

75 comments

As far as the "what you want" stuff goes, Nextcloud can do all of it and I use it for exactly that.
- Oh, it's nice to hear somebody already did that, thank you!
  Did you have any hiccups or general problems with nextcloud or calendar/contacts/photos sync? Did you do any specific thing to harden security, other than using ufw, fail2ban and changing sshd config?
  
  Haven't had any issues whatsoever.
  I've done nothing special regarding security and have it exposed to the public internet. I intend on having fail2ban look at its logs but I've not yet set that up (entirely out of laziness).
  If you want to be very secure I would recommend having it entirely behind a VPN. I personally use tailscale+headscale for my internal only services but like I said I have Nextcloud publicly exposed as I want to be able to access it from potentially any device.
  
  Nextcloud does have a problem with the online editor. It frequently bugs out and moves things out of order or just doesn’t feel snappy.
  Some time ago there was also saving issues
  I only sync my computer and I have nothing to report. It just works. There’s just a small bug when you just create a file on windows and start editing it, the file shows as being edited by Nextcloud for a couple of seconds, but then it works. It’s just on the initial creation.

3-2-1?
- Thank you for your input!
  I also thought about the 3-2-1 backup rule, but am unsure if that is overkill.
  My VM-backups and file-level-backups are proxmox backup server (pbs) backups. Meaning, to have them offsite, I'd need to rent a dedicated root server on which I am able to install pbs to act as an offsite sync-target. With TB of backups, this is gonna get very costly very fast.
  I thought about regularly exporting encrypted calendar and contacts onto some free online storage, hoping I can automate this process.
  With what I have layed out in my post, to lose contacts and calendar events, both my intel NUC and the zotac mini-PC have to be corrupted at the same time. Or both RAIDs simultaniously failing both drives. Am I not paranoid enough or is that an acceptable level of failure-safety?
  
  The offsite rule is mainly in the scenario where your house burns down for example, or if someone steals your stuff. It can happen.
  Maybe your electricity will have variations and will fuck up all your devices in a specific location..
  
  What @AtariDump@lemmy.world said is correct, if it's critical data, 3-2-1 is necessary. I personally use BuyVM as my offsite as it's got pretty cheap storage (~$5USD/1TB/month), but if you've got family or friends with a decent internet connection, it's trivial to set up a remote sync job to any offsite Proxmox Backup Server, perhaps on a box stored at their house.
  Now, just to throw it out there, my actual 'critical data' is way smaller than my total backed up data, including my media library, random ISOs, etc. - it can be worthwhile to determine if you really need to backup everything offsite or if you can sort out some less necessary data, and only upload some data to a remote server. Maybe the answer is yes, and you'll need to account for that!
  
  I also thought about the 3-2-1 backup rule, but am unsure if that is overkill.
  Maybe you shouldn’t be home hosting critical data if you think this is overkill.
  
  Or a house fire, or flood, or lightning strike, or theft. Or just plain fat fingering something and deleting it all.
  If you really mean life-or-death critical, yeah, 3-2-1 is the starting point.

I've done this.
For contacts, calendar, and files, I use OwnCloud, although NextCloud is as good/better. I couldn't figure out Self-Signing certificates, which is supposed to be pretty easy, but I am kind of a dummy. NextCloud requires it. On my phone, I use DAVx5, and I replaced the GrapheneOS stock apps with Fossify apps as needed - although that is up to personal preference.
For photos, I use Immich, which is hands-down the best option.
NextCloud also has options for document editing, photo backup, and notes, but I can't testify to those.
Syncthing is an ideal way to seamlessly sync files and folders between devices, but you will end up with the files on both devices. I use it sparingly, and they are phasing out android support. It's still very useful to migrate large file libraries and act as a stopgap for other services.
There are tons of notes apps, and it largely comes down to preference. I settled on NotallyX, which can import your Keep notes directly (using Google Takeout iirc). It also has the option to store files externally, which means they can be synced for backup. There are also self-hosted web-apps, like Memos, or the slightly more adventurous Blinko.
I got a lot of great input from this community not too long ago.
The one Google feature I am not able to reproduce is Google Messages. If you use texting to any degree, there are some FOSS apps with pretty nice basic features (I'm using Fossify which is nice). However, there are none that have solid group-messaging features, reactions, and other RCS capabilities. It seems to be a technical/logistical/legal hurdle that is presently insurmountable. Lots of people don't use texting anyway, so it may not be a concern for you.
Edit: And of course, you need a way to tie everything together. I use Tailscale, which is ridiculously easy to self-host.
- Thank you for sharing your experience of the process!
  On my phone, I use DAVx5
  I'm a little confused after looking at the website. What exactly does DAVx5 do? The regular re-sync of contacts, calendar and files itself? Shouldn't that be done by the contacts app / calendar app on regular intervalls?
  with Fossify apps
  I just downloaded fossify calendar on my android a few days ago to test it and got to see the other fossify apps :)
  syncthing phasing out android support
  Oh man, I already use syncthing for ~5 GB of files and I use it on my android too. Seems I'll be trying syncthing-android-fdroid in the future then.
  There are tons of notes apps
  There really are a lot! NotallyX looks nice and simple, but memos also looks very interesting. And thank you for the link, I'll go dive into that tomorrow.
  The one Google feature I am not able to reproduce is Google Messages
  I do not need RCS-compatible messengers. What I send via SMS is nothing more than pure text, also no group chats. I use signal and element for my "fancy" messaging needs :)
  I use Tailscale
  I'll look into it some more over the next days, but on a quick glance, this seems like it is an online service where you need an account? If that's the case, I'd prefer using my already running OpenVPN server to do the job.
  
  DAVx5 basically acts as the connector between your server and your calendar/contacts/files apps. I would imagine that this could be built into an app, but there are a lot of ways that such apps can sync or operate locally. I'm guessing that it is just a little more specialized than most developers want to get.
  Thanks for the Syncthing-Fork tip! For now the official version is working for me, but I'll have to migrate myself soon.
  From my understanding, OpenVPN provides the same secure remote access as Tailscale, by a slightly different method. You should be fine to use what you've already set up.

I use Nextcloud (currently using their AIO docker images) for all of that. Not sure if it checks all the boxes perfectly, but if not it is probably as close as youll find ready-made.
- Not sure if it checks all the boxes perfectly, but if not it is probably as close as youll find ready-made
  That's a good point. To have cohesion and good integration, some sacrifices have to be made. This seems better than having 20 independent services working with (and sometimes probably against) each other.
- are you using any of the video/audio calls on that setup? how much horsepower does it need?
  
  I have only tested them a bit and it worked fine, but I havent relied on it "in production", as it were. I use that machine for too many things for it to be any kind of benchmark. Mine is running on an old HP workstation w/ a 7th gen iGPU chip. I am also relying on it for plex and unmanic using QSV for transcoding. It only ever has trouble if I over-tax it with those.

I assume you basically want protection against disasters, but not high uptime.
(E.g. you likely can live with a week of unavailability if after a week you can recover the data.)
The key is about proper backups. For example, my Nextcloud server is running in a datacenter. Every night I replicate the data to a computer running at home. Every week I run a backup to a USB drive that I keep in a third location. Every month I run a backup to a USB drive on the computer I mentioned at home.
So I could lose two locations and still have my data.
There is much written about backup strategies, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-2-1_backup_rule ... Just start with your configuration, think what can go wrong and what would happen, and add redundancy until you are OK with the risks.
- I assume you basically want protection against disasters, but not high uptime. (E.g. you likely can live with a week of unavailability if after a week you can recover the data.)
  Exactly. These are not business-data, but my personal data. No money or absolutely necessary thing is lost if I lose all of that.
  The key is about proper backups.
  Thanks to other commenters I realized, I can just export contacts, calendar events and photos every night to some on-disk location and back them up somewhere offsite. This would probably be a few GB only. The other ~1.5 TB of data is stuff like movies, music, old games that I'd probably never get anywhere else etc. My data is not life-threatening. It's just "critical" to me.
  Via google I found that you can export your calendars via a URL, so I my current backup plan is this:
  daily backup from onsite-hypervisor to onsite-backup server (all VMs and all data)
  daily export of calendar and contacts
  backup calendar, contacts and photos to offsite-location
  This way, I'd still be compliant to the 3-2-1 rule (just not for all my data), while saving quite some money on the offsite data storage.
  As you are already using nextcloud, could you verify if exporting calendars and contacts work with these 2 URLs?
  bash
  
  # calendar export https://${NEXTCLOUD_URL}/remote.php/dav/calendars/${NEXTCLOUD_USER}/${CALENDAR_NAME}/?export # contacts https://${NEXTCLOUD_URL}/remote.php/dav/addressbooks/users/${NEXTCLOUD_USER}/contacts/?export
  This is the command used in this tutorial. The website is in german, scroll down for bash, python, nodeJS and windows powershell examples.
  bash
  
  curl -L -J -O -u "$username:$password" "$downloadLink" --create-dirs -o "./$(basename "$url")"
  my Nextcloud server is running in a datacenter. Every week I run a backup to a USB drive that I keep in a third location.
  If you don't mind me asking, how much are you paying for your datacenter server and the third location?
  
  I don't use Nextcloud calendars or address books. But I assume they are included in regular backups.
  I pay about 50€ for all absolute overkill Hetzner dedicated server (128gb of RAM).
  I live in two different flats in different cities because of personal circumstances.

A few things. I also think nextcloud is the way to go for what you want. I've gotten rid of anything Google I can. Except for maps. Man, there just is no substitute especially when mobile.
I always do, but I'm going to suggest Unraid for a NAS. Pay the money and then just enjoy it. I fought with truenas for over a year before I succumbed. You can totally play around with zfs, striped arrays whatever. I do not recommend an external enclosure. I think you'll come to hate it for lack of ability. I recommend biting the bullet and building a machine or putting your current PC components into a real case with upgradability if possible.
Also, I wouldn't plan on running Nextcloud in a VM. Nextcloud is pretty beefy and a VM adds complexity that I suggest against. A docker AIO version of nextcloud running on as close to bare metal as you can is probably the best option for performance.
- If you don’t mind, what’s the problem with truenas?
  
  I don't think it's a problem per se, as much as it's a difference in priorities. But the docker implementation in TrueNAS is more of an afterthought. I think they've fixed some issues but checking out their forums, many of the issues I faced seem to still exist. Docker packages corrupting and not being accessible in any way, not updating, just seemingly, not robust. Also, I disliked the file permission structure but that's more preference I think. I would say TrueNAS is a great NAS just not the best hypervisor and NAS.
- Did unraid implemented a true raid already, or is it still periodical sync like snapraid? If not, this kind if solution would be great for the multimedia library that does not change often, but I'd go for the more traditional raid for critical data.
- Except for maps. Man, there just is no substitute especially when mobile.
  I thought there was an android app for open street maps, but I couldn't find any on play.google.com either.
  I do not recommend an external enclosure [...] you’ll come to hate it for lack of ability
  I feel kinda the same, but on the other hand, having a full-blown ATX system running in my living room isn't going to be my first choice. If I can't manage with the zotac mini PC, I can still take the drives out of the enclosure and put them in a full ATX case. That's more of a "last resort" though.
  A docker AIO version of nextcloud running on as close to bare metal as you can is probably the best option for performance.
  I'm not worried about performance all too much. The only thing constantly connected will be my phone, for syncing contacts, calendars and, every now and then, a new photo or two. Sometimes I open the calendar in my browser on my desktop or laptop to add / change an event. I really don't use it too extensively.
  And to aid in CPU and performance of the VM, I can always have a VM with the "host" CPU type, which should forward CPU capabilities and features to the VM.
  
  I think you can get Open Street Maps in the F Droid app store. But, as much as I appreciate OSM, it's just not the same as Google maps. The speed, accuracy and information doesn't seem to have an equal.
  You definitely can run Nextcloud in a VM. With decent hardware, it will do it. I guess I would say it depends on needs and expectations. My install is not snappy to me. I've got what I feel is a very beefy server but still. Just feels a little slow at times. Totally functional. Just has a small amount of lag when doing anything. I've read people say they have none at all. But when you're busy and relying on it, my suggestion is to eke out everything you can for it for a better experience. Not make or break by any means.

ZFS on the bottom, Nextcloud on top. Which distro is up to you. Mine is to be set up with nix on my next refresh this fall. Already in testing.
- Thank you for the tipp!
  Though I gotta ask: would ZFS still bring an advantage, considering that the RAID is going to be managed inside the external RAID enclosure, so ZFS would never see the actual disks? Or did I misunderstand how these enclosures work?

For document editing, I have had fairly good luck with OnlyOffice, although it is not without its issues. Others also recommend Collabora, which plays well with NextCloud and LibreOffice.
- Thank you for the tipps!
  A quick google search even reveals a nextcloud tutorial on how to install it . I'll definitely try that out.

Nextcloud with a 3-2-1 backup strategy is ace. Proxmox can auto-backup, it's slick.

Memos is pretty usefull for me. App on fdroid momemos is superb. Syncthig takes care of google drive ish needs. Immich for photos.
Mealie keeps food interesting.
Have not done calendar or contacts yet.
Running a few on a low power pi5 using docker for the most backup pihole runs on baremetal.
1 16tb external and 2 5tb external. Not the best but i dig it.
I need a nuc.
- Memos is pretty usefull for me. App on fdroid momemos is superb. Syncthig takes care of google drive ish needs. Immich for photos. Mealie keeps food interesting.
  I'm going to have to test a lot of new android apps, I guess. Thanks for the mentions!
  Regarding syncthing, according to gedaliyah's answer here, syncthing will be dropping the android app :(
  
  For whats it's worth I've been running a fork of the syncthing android app for well over a year now and it's not skipped a beat.
  https://github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-android
  Up to personal preference if you trust a fork for this work. But with sufficent backups I'm comfortable with it.
  
  Ah yes forgot to mention in my family we run syncthing fork from fdroid also.

Went through the same thing. Paused between Murena (at that time they weren't providing my personal domain / email address solution) and nextcloud, and proton. I went with proton. I could in theory do nexrcloud +proton. You do you.
And for notes, I went markdown route and obsidian.
- Proton also seems to be interesting. Privacy by default and being swiss based definitely are plus points.
  Thanks for the mentions!

75 comments