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+---
+title: "Building First Homelab Server | Devlog Week 1"
+description: Documenting my journey of getting started with a homelab server
+pubDatetime: 2024-10-27T17:08:35.681Z
+draft: true
+tags:
+  - devlog
+---
+
+I recently got my father's old computer, which was in working condition. And since I always wanted to dab my feet in setting up a homelab and playing around with self-hosting, I decided to use it. I know nothing about when it comes to homelab-ing and I will be documenting my journey in these devlogs. Perhaps you'll find these valuable for getting started yourself or find the misaps funny!
+
+## Table of Contents
+
+## Acquiring the hardware
+
+- how I recieved the hardware
+- the shitty state of the motherboard/cabinet
+- specs of the machine
+- monitor doesn't work -> it was cable -> no monitor -> it was cable all along -> my diy surgery to fuse two working cables to fix this. I disassembled the monitor in vain.
+- keyboard is crap, no mouse
+- [attach some pics]
+- working state ready
+
+## Choosing an OS & putting it on the home network
+
+- I originally wanted to install freebsd, but couldn't because the installer kept crashing
+- because it didn't play nice with ventoy
+- so installed ubuntu server, but I've not connected this computer to the internet because this didn't have wifi and I don't have a very long ethernet, so decided to install pop and setup w/o internet at first w/ my usb thetering w/ my mobile
+- then I found an old router dusting on the self from last year,
+- so I wondered if I could set it up such that it connects wirelessly through my internet router and then use ethernet to connect that router to the server computer??? SHOW THE PROCESS: how did I setup this router to work this way? WISP
+- and it worked, albeit w/ pathetic speed of 70Mbps (this is an old 2.4GHz 300Mbps router)
+- I went ahead applied updates, installed zsh, neovim, and ssh
+- Since it was my first time setting up ssh server, I didnt configure it much, just the defaults and after it was on my home network ssh'ed into it with my user account password. I want to change this to use public-key auth...
+
+## First homelab project: Self-hosted media backup library using Immich
+
+- I go ahead install, docker, system is a bit janky at this point
+- and follow the docker guide on the docs to have the immich up and running
+- for a couple of minutes, the immich app was not reachable and wondered if I messed something up, but it finally was reachable, probably computer getting laggy
+- setup admin, a couple users for my family members
+- I used immich-go to upload my google photos library to the server from my other computer on the server
+- and it became very slow,
+- after the upload was complete, accessing the library with immich client was soooo slow, that it was unusable - at that point I didn't realize about the immich jobs that generate thumbnails, facial scanning and smart scan jobs etc. which were loading the docker container/computer
+- I left it as it to process everything but later disabled all the jobs
+- I was going to setup backup scripts for Immich but:
+- I am considering doing a clean reinstall but with ubuntu server this time, coz that would be much lighter than popos, and likely more reliable as a server
+
+## What next?
+
+Well, I am still in the foreplay stage w/ homelabbing and having lots of fun experimenting so who knows hahaha. I'll probably, try setting up a custom webserver, flash freebsd on ubs stick and try installing it again, or create a minecraft server just because... I also have two arduino uno boards, which I'm thinking of slapping in my setup somewhere.
+
+![computer server](https://media1.tenor.com/m/dDhEzrPZifYAAAAC/nitrado-last-oasis-servers.gif)