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This Week in Self-Hosted (19 January 2024) 9 min read
This Week in Self-Hosted
This Week in Self-Hosted

This Week in Self-Hosted (19 January 2024)

Self-hosted news, software updates, launches, and a spotlight on wg-easy, a WireGuard management container with a web interface

By Ethan Sholly
This Week in Self-Hosted (19 January 2024) Post image
This Week in Self-Hosted is sponsored by Tailscale, which takes the headache out of configuring WireGuard tunnels between every device and service on your network. Simple, secure, and free for personal use.

In the News

The Broadcom Touch

Earlier this week, technology company VMware confirmed End of Availability for a number of free license products in anticipation of a switch to subscription model pricing. The change comes hot on the heels of Broadcom's acquisition of the company late last year and will likely impact a number of self-hosters who leverage VMware's hypervisors to deploy their own infrastructure. Fortunately, community-endorsed alternatives like Proxmox, Xen, and XCP-ng exist for those looking to make the jump and avoid a subscription-based product.

Enter the [Matrix]

Due to publication timing, I often don't include updates from the Matrix Foundation in this newsletter (they typically post on Friday afternoons – too late for the current newsletter, too stale for the following week), so I'm giving them a little extra love this week. Late last year, the foundation announced they're electing a Governing Board to oversee and support the project's goals. The board will consist of representatives from the foundation, ecosystem contributors, organizations using Matrix, and community members. This is a huge step towards community governance and ensuring the project continues to meet open-source standards as it evolves (hopefully setting a precedent for other large projects as well). Unrelatedly, they also publish a weekly newsletter titled This Week in Matrix (❤) for those looking to stay up-to-date on the project.

I Can't Even

In unrelated and unsurprising news, Plex is rumored to be launching a store for television shows and movies next month. If this gives you déjà vu, it's because this isn't the first time we've been through this. In the past few years, the company seems to have pivoted away from a focus on self-hosted media and instead has doubled down on features that draw other paying customers in. All of these changes likely indicate the existing Plex Pass subscription model funded primarily by self-hosters just isn't profitable enough for the growing company.

Stand and Read No More

Self-hosted comic and manga readers were disappointed to learn this week that Tachiyomi – the well-known open-source reader for Android devices with integrations for Komga and Kavita – will no longer be developed due to legal issues with application extensions that made it easy for users to access pirated material. The news was particularly surprising given the project's recent announcement that extensions were being removed as they transitioned to a bring-your-own-content model (à la Plex). As with all open-source initiatives, it's likely that viable projects will begin popping up in the coming weeks to fill the new void.

Software Updates

New Software

Help keep the newsletter (and me) running ☕

This Week in Self-Hosted is an independent publication supported by the community. Consider buying me a coffee, signing up for a monthly donation on my site, or sponsoring the newsletter to help offset the costs associated with running the publication.

Community Content

Migrating from Substack to self-hosted Ghost: the details
I migrated Citation Needed from Substack to self-hosted Ghost. Here is exactly how I did that.
Citation NeededMolly White
Nextcloud for bands - Jim Willis
Playing in a band generates all sorts of files that you want to share with your band mates, from live show recordings, videos, promo materials, charts, etc. Some of us were getting tired of shelling out the money to Dropbox to accommodate this sharing. So, this past weekend I spun up a self hosted Nextcloud […]
Jim Willissjwillis
Immich Logo Design Contest · immich-app/immich · Discussion #6318
Hello, Immich fan! As Immich started as a personal hobby project, I didn’t expect it to grow as big and as fast as it is. The logo and the font for the name were quick iterations to develop somethi…
GitHubimmich-app

Content Spotlight: wg-easy

Meet wg-easy (WireGuard Easy), a WireGuard container that simplifies the configuration and administration of clients with a web interface. Once installed, wg-easy can be used to easily create, edit, and delete clients while also providing a toggle to enable and disable them as needed. Other functionality includes QR code viewing for easy pairing, configuration downloads, and statistics with TX/RX charts for connected clients.

Installation is limited to Docker container deployments and does require basic networking knowledge about your infrastructure (network device name, public hostname).

wg-easy screenshot of sample clients and functionality.
Screenshot from the project's repository

Links: GitHub

What We're Watching

What We're Listening To

Unintended Consequences
We kick off the new year with new apps in our home lab you’ll want to try and a new way to do networking.
Self-HostedJupiter Broadcasting

Smart Home and Automation

Best Presence Sensors for Home Assistant
Dynamic overview of the best and worst mmWave Human Presence Sensors for Home Automation, all tested in Home Assistant via Zigbee or Wi-Fi (ESPHome).
SmartHomeScene.comSHS
Building a fully local LLM voice assistant to control my smart home
I’ve had my days with Siri and Google Assistant. While they have the ability to control your devices, they cannot be customized and inherently rely on cloud services. In hopes of learning something new and having something cool I could use in my life, I decided I want better. The premises are simple: I want my new assistant to be sassy and sarcastic. I want everything running local. No exceptions. There is no reason for my coffee machine downstairs to talk to a server on the other side of the country.
John's Website

Upcoming Events

Voice Assistant Contest - Let’s build and win some prizes!
We are organizing a voice assistant contest between the 17th of January and the 10th of March. You can win some Home Assistant Green, some Home Assistant SkyConnect, and a chance to be on a livestr…
Home AssistantJean-Loïc Pouffier
Creative Freedom Summit - Hosted by the Fedora Design Team
The conference dedicated to the features and benefits of Open Source creative tools. Be inspired and learn how you can enjoy more creative freedom!
Creative Freedom Summit
FOSDEM 2024 - Home
fosdem-2024
Webinar on Nextcloud Hub 7: featuring advanced search and global out-of-office features - Nextcloud
Join us in this webinar about Nextcloud Hub 7!
NextcloudAuthor Neha Mishra

Fediverse Chatter

I just locked myself out from the #Proxmox admin... again... It just confirms the golden rule of #HomeLab: first coffee then root

@[email protected]

Privacy

Reddit must share IP addresses of piracy-discussing users, film studios say
Reddit says First Amendment rights protect it from having to disclose users’ info.
Ars TechnicaScharon Harding

Command Line Corner: yes

In Linux, the yes command outputs a string of characters until stopped ('y' by default if a string isn't provided). This is helpful when executing recurring tasks or writing scripts that include commands with prompts for user input.

And while this can be useful for those times you'd like to step away while a process runs, there's a reason many commands require manual user input – so be cautious when using yes to automate those you aren't familiar with.

/$ yes This Week in Self-Hosted
  This Week in Self-Hosted
  This Week in Self-Hosted
  This Week in Self-Hosted
  This Week in Self-Hosted
  ...
/$

/$ yes | bash docker_restart.sh
  Restart Docker service? y
/$

Click here to view an archive of commands shared in previous newsletters.

Other News in Tech

Pushover Updates- Upcoming Discontinuation of SMS Backup Delivery
Upcoming Discontinuation of SMS Backup Delivery
Samsung is making a smart ring
Details on the Galaxy Ring are still slim.
The Verge

Share Your Content in a Future Newsletter

I'm always looking for new and existing self-hosted content to share in This Week in Self-Hosted. Reach out using the button below if you'd like to have your own content featured or have a suggestion for content types you'd like to see featured in future newsletters.

Let's Talk 💌

By
Ethan Sholly
This Week in Self-Hosted

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