This Week in Self-Hosted (29 March 2024)

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This Week in Self-Hosted

Developers across the community were busy this week as I was able to round up a whopping 13 new projects spanning several categories and niches. And while all of them are worth checking out, my personal favorite is the new bookmarking app Hoarder – despite its current lack of love for Android devices.

In other news, VMware managed to escape the community's ire for just a bit as Vultr took the spotlight (Reddit was in a real mood this week), but a well-timed release from Proxmox brought the ESXi drama right back into the conversation. Unraid's new pricing model also took effect on Wednesday, and while consumers have been vocal about subscription fatigue, Lime Technology seems to be taking a reasonable approach to generating sustainable ongoing revenue.

Thanks to all who participated in last week's Raspberry Pi 5 subscriber giveaway – I'll be drawing and reaching out to the winner later today. Stay tuned for another site-related announcement-slash-release next week as I attempt to address the most common request I receive from subscribers.

Thanks, and happy selfh.st/ing!

In the News

Proxmox Has a New Tool To Save Users From VMware

Unhappy as a VMware customer? This makes it easy for you to switch to an open-source virtualization solution.

It's FOSS NewsAnkush Das

Portainer and Docker 26

On 20 March version 26.0.0 of Docker was released. There are a number of changes in this release to be aware of with one causing issues with Portainer.

Portainer.ioJames Carppe

Tailscale SSH is now Generally Available

We’re thrilled to announce that Tailscale SSH is now Generally Available. Tailscale SSH allows Tailscale to manage the authentication and authorization of SSH connections on your tailnet. From the user’s perspective, you use SSH as normal—authenticating with Tailscale according to configurable rules—and we handle SSO, MFA, and key rotation, and allow you to enforce precise permissions in ACLs. Combined with other enterprise features like user and group provisioning with SCIM, you can use Tailscale SSH to craft a fully zero-trust remote access sol

Vultr deletes user data ownership ToS clause after outcry

We know the average customer doesn’t have a law degree, CEO tells us

The RegisterTobias Mann

Software Updates

• AnonAddy v1.1.0 | Email Privacy: Alias updates including new fields, sort, disable, and API changes
• AppFlowy v0.5.3 | Workspace: New 'relation' database property type, Kanban filters, mobile toolbar improvements
• Immich v1.100.0 | Photos: Album ownership display, improved album creation experience, icons for context menu items, improved slideshow controls, job metrics for Prometheus
• LocalAI v2.11.0 | AI API: All-in-one images, vector stores backend, model defaults, pre-configured models
• Manyfold v0.59.0 | Asset Manager: Multi-user support, user roles, onboarding flow for admins
• Morphos v0.2.0 | File Conversion: Support for docx-pdf and pdf-docx conversion
• Note Mark v0.12.0 | Note-Taking: Search for notes and books, drawer data loaded in single request, keyboard shortcuts for indentation in editor
• ntfy v2.10.0 | Notifications: Support for message templating
• OliveTin v2024.03.24 | Remote Commands: Entities in dropdowns, support for Apprise notifications, argument suggestions
• Podman v5.0 | Containers: Rewrite of Windows and Mac code, hypervisor support, default to Pasta for rootless networking, improvements to containers.conf
• SimpleX Chat v5.6.0 | Messaging: Quantum resistant end-to-end encryption (beta), app data migration, continued functionality during audio and video calls
• Wanderer v0.2.0 | Trail Database: Drag-and-drop photos to trails, waypoint photos, editable Distance, Elevation Gain, and Est. Duration fields, disable signups
• Watcharr v1.37.0 | Watch List: Configurable data location via environment variable, user management, imports
• Workout Tracker v0.10.5 | Fitness Tracking: Auto-import, render notes as Markdown, initial support for distance-less GPX and FIT

New Software

• Anorak: Bridge between Jackett and torrent applications
• Get A Shell: Quickly spin up throwaway SSH servers for shell tests
• Hoarder: Self-hosted bookmarks with a touch of AI
• Latitude: Developer-first embedded analytics
• PerPlexed: Redesign of Plex's UI using the Plex API
• Pinchflat: YouTube media downloads and management
• Scriptables: Open-source orchestration tool for deploying production servers
• Secure Password Generator: Generate secure passwords or passphrases with customizable options
• Slink: Image sharing platform
• Tunwg: End-to-end encrypted secure tunnel to local servers
• WebStick: Miniature personal cloud drive designed for ESP8266
• yal (Yet Another Landingpage): Simple link hub for displaying and search links
• yt-dlp Web UI: Web UI for YouTube-DL

Community Content

The race to replace Redis

On March 21, Redis Ltd. announced that the Redis “in-memory data store” project would now be released under non-free, source-available licenses, starting with Redis 7.4. The news is unwelcome, but not entirely unexpected. What is unusual with this situation is the number of Redis alternatives to choose from; there are at least four options to choose as a replacement for those who wish to stay with free software, including a pre-existing fork called KeyDB and the Linux Foundation’s newly-announced Valkey project. The question now is which one(s) Linux distributions, users, and providers will choose to take its place.

LWN.netJoe BrockmeierMarch 28, 2024

Nginx — The reverse proxy in my Homelab

Nginx is a powerful reverse proxy that I use in my homelab to expose services to the internet. In this post, I’ll show you how I use it and how you can use it too.

Akash RajpurohitAkash Rajpurohit

Populating my single user Mastodon instance

Making your single user Mastodon instance feel more alive with extra relevant content

Real Men Wear Dress.esAdam Cooper

Goal Templates with a twist for weekly targets | Actual Budget Documentation

An example using Goal Templates for weekly targets

Actual Open Source

Content Spotlight: Fitbit Health Dashboard

Meet Fitbit Health Dashboard, a project and script built to fetch and write data from the Fitbit API into an InfluxDB for visualization in Grafana. Retrieved metric categories include heart rate, steps, sleep, SpO2, temperature, activity, distance, calories, and battery stats.

Users can incorporate the script into existing InfluxDB and Grafana installations, or use the provided docker compose file to build the full stack from scratch. The script does require a Fitbit developer account for data retrieval via API.

Links: GitHub

What We're Watching

• Deploy and Manage a VPN for your Docker Containers via Dockge! | DB Tech
• The Best NAS for Under $500 | Jim's Garage
• My NEW HomeLab automation platform // Kestra | Christian Lempa
• Immich Pt 2 - Easy Setup- Install, Connect, and Upload in Minutes! | Spaceinvader One

What We're Listening To

Hackaday Podcast Episode 263: Better DMCA, AI Spreadsheet Play, And Home Assistants Your Way

No need to wonder what stories Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Al Williams were reading this week. They’ll tell you about them in this week’s podcast. The guys revisit the McDonald…

HackadayAl Williams

Smart Home and Automation

How To Build a Stable and Robust Zigbee Network

This article is the complete guide to building a stable, reliable and robust Zigbee mesh network and fixing issues with your current network and devices.

SmartHomeScene.comSHS

Set a static IP address in Home Assistant OS

Full credit goes to this forum post. I found myself in need of dropping to the CLI for a fresh Home Assistant OS install on top of Proxmox after using the tteck helper scripts to set a static IP. To do this without access to the Home Assistant UI we

ktz.Alex Kretzschmar

Privacy

False security: Dashy’s client-side authentication

Update 3/27: I’ve found a GitHub issue indicating devs may be working on the issues I raise here. See details below About a month ago, I went looking for a dashboard for my homelab—something to help visualize the services I run. I found Dashy, a popular (14.6k GitHub stars) dashboard designed for self-hosters. I deployed it and started configuring it, but noticed that something about its authentication felt off. I started digging and quickly found its security to be borderline useless, permitting unauthenticated reads and writes of its configuration.

subract's blog

Upcoming Events

• 20 April 2024 | State of the Open Home 2024 (Home Assistant)

Nextcloud Enterprise Day 2024 - April 24 in Munich

The Nextcloud Enterprise Day provides IT professionals like project managers and decision makers the opportunity to define their own strategy to get the most out of their Content Collaboration Platform.

Nextcloud

Command Line Corner: column

Use the column command to view the contents of a file in an organized table or column format with options for specifying delimiters, width, names, alignment, and more.

In the example below, column is being used to display the example.txt file using a comma as the delimiter for the table.

/$ cat example.txt
  Task,Completed (Y/N)
  Research,Y
  Setup,Y
  Deploy,N
  Analyze,N
/$ column example.txt -t -s ","
  Task       Completed (Y/N)
  Research   Y
  Setup      Y
  Deploy     N
  Analyze    N

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

Related News and Content

Telegram’s new peer-to-peer SMS relay is an absolute privacy nightmare

Telegram aims to save some coin by sending login messages via some users’ phones

Android PoliceManuel Vonau

Apple is Incredibly Salty About the Digital Markets Act

Apple’s press release yesterday reads with the professionally and poise of a teenager throwing a tantrum, it’s amazing really. Apple announces changes to iOS, Safari, and the App Store in the European UnionApple announced changes to iOS, Safari, and the App Store impacting developers’ apps in the EU to comply

Jonah AragonJonah Aragon

From .com to .beauty: The evolving threat landscape of unwanted email

In this 2023-early 2024 email analysis, we examine how certain generic Top-Level Domains (TLDs) are primarily used for spam and phishing, and their evolution over a year. There are many trends in email threats to examine.

The Cloudflare BlogJoão Tomé

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