Setting up a CHEAP and EASY Homelab Linux Server

[@DiscoLizzard]

it's nice seeing a linux user who knows how to line up his beard looking clean bro

[@njpme]

Right? He can't do the neck beard 😂

[@punkrockllama]

We like our beards to be free like us! 😂😂

[@kittenfrompicture]

We need a tier list of Linux beards

[@NomadicReacts]

😂😂

[@aripsp]

That’s gay as fck bro 😂

[@willk7184]

Dude I appreciate your speedy approach to explaining the process like we're not complete newbies, well done.

[@user-ic6xf]

Anyone watching this video in 2024 don't get the Intel Celeron anymore. Get a Intel N100.

[@Brwzzz]

100%

[@AArrad]

Is the EM780 a good mini-PC for this? I know the Ryzen 7840u has capable graphics and cpu but I’ve heard that Intel has more benefits… Am I able to set up something like a NAS (with storage bay connected to the mini pc), home security footage, smart home features, virtual machines, etc. on it?

[@maniac0303]

@@AArradOf course it would be run perfectly, but a waste for this machine, because the Ryzen 7840u is overkill for this tasks. A cheap Intel N95 or N100 would be more than enough. I use an several years old minipc with intel i3 6100 with 16gb RAM and 1TB of SSD. for this and it's more than capable as a homeserver.

[@cesarvarela5438]

Just today I bought a Aoostar R1 with a n100 processor, waiting for it to arrive to immediately put CasaOs on it and make it my new home server(starter until I can muster up more money to get something much better)

[@bsheets5888]

haven't used celerons in over 20 years.

[@fluorophoremusic3679]

If you can't access CasaOS from your browser with the correct IP:port address, it's probably because you need to open that port in Ubuntu; in terminal "sudo ufw allow 81" should work for you (CasaOS works through port 81 on my install). I know this is likely very basic and understood by most, but if you're a complete newb to linux/networks, this is something you may not think about and I'd like to save you time searching and reading forums for an otherwise very simple fix.

[@thatroykid]

I appreciate this advice as somebody that's completely new to linux as of 24 hours ago, I didn't run into this issue (I'm not even running CasaOS yet) but I've been pulling my hair out recently with getting jellyfin setup in portainer and in almost all of the forums that I've found online so far commenters are saying something along the lines of "read the documentation and figure out linux first. you should have done that already" which is really discouraging tbh.

[@wesholmes9012]

@@thatroykidYeah the community is pretty crappy a lot of times.

[@PCman50]

BTW. For those user's of Linux Mint, Casa OS Installed and runs perfectly on that distro.

[@WitchRegen]

Great video! Just did something similar myself recently with a ~$60 mini PC off ebay and a 4TB external drive I got for free a few years ago. Running ProxMox with OpenMediaVault as my NAS OS, with enough room to spin up some other VMs/Containers to play with. Works great, much better than the Pi4 I had running my NAS before this.

[@elijah_9392]

Be sure to check the health of the external drive. I hope all goes well with your home lab.

[@human-x8b]

and plese do mirrored hardrives

[@harbinjar]

Had a mini PC in the closet for 4 years. Gonna dust it off and start my home lab. Thanks for the inspiration.

[@timkaldahl]

I've always purchase old servers from Ebay and bought cheaper hard drives for them. Your solution is def less expensive, and a great way get experience.

[@DestinationCorporation]

Thank you for your very short and detailed video. Just started using Linux and can't wait to finally get off all the cloud services.

[@chaturvedirishab]

Thank you for an Amazing Video; A guide for Non techy like me who could start our first step towards "setup home lab".

[@MrAnonymous878]

thank you so much for this video for the past few days i've been trying to just simply make a file server and a jellyfin that i can connect to my tv, looking through google i was so overwhelmed with people's how tos and setup and all the unfamiliar lingo and jargon that overcomplicate things now it's done literally within an hour so truly thank you

[@AuggieGreg]

Tysm for this, got me really excited with the new cheap server I bought to play around with!

[@Satorl]

i built a machine for a server months ago and after trying other alternatives with no much success (mainly cos im a dummy and i dont know much linux stuff) this was surprisinlgy easy, i had it running in like 15 minutes, so yeah, thanks!

[@Driveby-2]

Glad you mentioned NUC's , the used ones dont get the love they should. I bought old engineering samples of the original NUC i-5's for 20 bucks each with RAM and 2.5" hdd included.........,I scored 9 of them. Nucs, the old ones, are a dime a dozen and work REALLY well for this. A Nuc -i5 /16gbRAM /SATA SSD for less than 100 bucks cant be beat. =)

[@Morgan_]

where do you get the old nucs?

[@dannythedabbler]

​@@Morgan_eBay

[@soulofangel1990]

This is a cool little that can save you a bit power cost and space, but I'd rather go with a used server for a more enjoyable experience ( VMs, Containers, webhosting etc... )

[@der363Productions]

Do you have any recommendations as far as manufacturers?

[@Nepoxification]

i personally got myself a Fujitsu Primergy TX1310 M1 super cheap, used, more than enough performance for most of the homelab stuff @@der363Productions

[@soulofangel1990]

@@der363Productions I'd recommend Dell servers, they pretty good and not so much hide behind a pay wall unlike HP

[@khalfrankisatool1162]

@@der363Productions Lenovo thinkstations are cheap af, only $200 for a good starter with 32 gb ram and 16 core Xeon

[@OtarBediashvili]

Oh wow. Just installed it on my homelab. Was searching something like that for a while

[@nimbusarch]

Casa has so much potential and I'm enjoying it on my Pi. Can't swap to it fully until it has the options for multiple users and individual folder permissions.

[@ricardopinho630]

7:09 You can configure your config file in windows under %USERPROFILE%\.ssh. That way you can make 'aliases' to your connections, you don't need to be always specifying the host address or port, or user

[@davidgoodalis1391]

Setting up public key authentication and a static DNS entry for a hostname is also a good idea. then you can just "ssh hostname"

[@eidodoos]

i use hp compaq 8300 sff(unused pc). i install proxmox, pfsense, nextcloud, portainer. i boight 4 port ethernet card also. so i have modem+firewall, more ram, have raid for storage and all i need so(so far). i think this setup is enough for me. mini pc is expensive, not have pcie, single port ethernet, no extra ssd. but mini pc use lower power consumption. that all.

[@JordanFayter]

Great video, it's very helpful. I've been running a Raspberry Pi 4B. It's nothing much especially since it's running Start9Labs StartOS. It's a great little setup and an easy setup. I plan on upgrading to something with more power than a Raspberry Pi 4B. I also plan on setting up some more servers running StartOS. It would make a nice video going over the OS, trying it out, and giving your thoughts on running a server with it. They're more targeted to the less technical and up. This is from they're website: Just as Windows and macOS made it possible for anyone to own a personal computer, StartOS makes it possible for anyone to own a personal server.

[@jdavid82]

Nice video, thank you. I don't go crazy on large hard disks and/or raids. I just connect my servers to cloud-based external storage.

[@DordeKaurinovic]

Perfect. My old c2d pc is live again. Thanks

[@jhonyortiz5]

I have a 2015-ish surface pro 4. Keyboard is broken, screen is cracked, internal ssd has erros. I use an sd card on the back for the OS, Ubuntu server lts. An external 4tb hard drive and thats enough for the basic services i run. Obviously i want something nicer but this is good enough for now. Usually the wifi is thr bottleneck and not the processor or ram. I think its an i3 or an i5, might be dual core, not even quad core. It can do hardware transcoding okay-ish. Just saying, if you really are a beginner like me, you can get started with almost nothing. Even raspberry pis are pretty expensive this days. Using this Ive learned a lot about severs. I know there is a lot left to learn but I'm learning as i go. Solving one problem at a time, getting one service at a time figured out. Also, tried yo figure out how to access hardware transcoding using docker in rootlets mode but it never worked. Anyone knows how to do this?

[@blakerichardson414]

By default Ubuntu sets the volume size as 100GB, if you want to use the full disk you need to specify that during install. It can be done after the fact using something like Gparted.

[@chromerims]

Arrrrrrr (11:27) 😎 interesting. Mini PCs even Alder Lake N Series can do a lot nowadays. Nice video, thank you.

[@greekmanx]

I run CasaOS myself on Ubuntu server with plex sabnzbd sonarr and radarr and it is great runs on an hp desktop i7

[@GodOfChaos_HeXa]

does hardware transcoding work with plex? when running it in cassa os

[@greekmanx]

@@GodOfChaos_HeXa yup I have yet to see any limitations or restrictions

[@Ichvan]

yo bro, you are the man! you did a good job! i really appreciate you make this vids.. thank you !

[@janMawisa]

Great video, helped a lot, though I'm not exactly a fan of CasaOS. I will probably look around some more, but this is a great starting point. Thank you!

[@XPFTP]

use to put smoothwall on older boxes. worked great. mmm ill have to check to see if smoothwall still around..

[@Alpha-kl4jo]

I just set up my noob debian home server without any these management tool (I have been a windows user in my whole life). I wish I stumbled on ur vid sooner. Dealing them through CLI manually, going back n forth from rdp to each app web ui were such a hassle tbh

[@omarashraf27]

That casa os thing is really impressive

[@BrianThomas]

Are you running it at all?

[@yerunski]

Great! I might set this up as a VM on my Proxmox host. Thanks Brandon!

[@M167A1]

Thank you again, this is seriously cool

[@AggressiveHayBale]

For a second I got heart attack that you unknowingly posted your address then I realized its your office one :P Anyway really nice and approachable video on how to start home server

[@Michael-tu4gm]

I appreciate your knowledge however the title says "easy". As a beginner like myself, this serves as a very fast and difficult video to follow. I found this video by searching beginners build of a linux box.

[@mlokish]

Thanks for the great video! I have exactly same issue with wrong storage size, did you find a way how to fix it?

[@RecycledSkills]

@TechHut, what kind of applications? R? I need something more to google off of.... You peaked my curiosity.

[@ThePressurizer]

So, if I got this right: Ubuntu Server is the actual server OS, CasaOS is kind of a dashboard combined with several services like Samba, sitting on top of Ubuntu?

[@TechHut]

Exactly

[@kamertonaudiophileplayer847]

RPi is a great for a home server. RPi 5 8Gb costs $80, so it's a little cheaper than you offer.

[@IdZ3r0]

CasaOs never heard before. I was just in the progress building something like CasaOs by myself, so maibe i can stop and just use CasaOs.

[@newmfat]

Can you do a video on how to access this home server remotely?

[@drreality1]

Nice Anne really easy to follow video. Thanks How to passthrough the igpu to jellyfin though, it’s a bit over my head😅

[@clutchcassidy420]

CasaOS is the best one I've found for the Raspberry Pi 4b

[@krishnaprasadkn69]

Hi, I just installed server on my old debian system with 2gb ram running i3wm. it runs very well.

[@tigerscott2966]

Home Lab.... That's a great idea 💡... Thanks.. Linux developers and users have no equals when it comes to creativity, enginuoty and managing minimal resources.

[@asuperrandomguy8266]

8:46 just for the sake of confirmation, this dashboard is on cloud right? Does that mean I can set everything from my phone? Not for the setup until then obviously, but I mean after casa os is already installed.

[@JavaManRules]

I have casaos hosting my twingate reverse proxy on a Raspberry pi 4B

[@cesarvarela5438]

I've been using CasaOS for around a month now and have had no problems or downtime at all, plus what I use it for(pi-hole and jellyfin) it's way more than enough, I've been thinking of also installing a Minecraft server on it but that would require a slightly better hardware so for now it'll be an ad-blocker and streaming server

[@newmfat]

How do you point your other machines to the pi-hole running on your server?

[@cesarvarela5438]

@@newmfat I don't I just setup the whole network to work directly through pi-hole all the time But basically you just need to configure the DNS of the device to be the IP address of the server, however just the server, not the pi-hole's final 4 numbers(idk the technical name right this second)

[@newmfat]

@@cesarvarela5438 thanks!

[@roncanfil]

great video! following the context of this video, what's the best way to backup all the files AND the OS configuration?

[@worldgate989]

A SFF pc will give you better performance than those SBC will. I have an RPI 4B 8GB and never use it for anything anymore after i picked up a 9010, put in a sff radeon card and upgraded it to 32gb of ram. have a second one i use for my media server. might get a third one from all the spare parts i have laying around.

[@alericjohansen6775]

sadly, it looks to me like casaos doesn't support 32bit. which, that isnt surprising considering how old 32bit is and how many others are dropping it. i recently fished out an old desktop from a dumpster, and its a pentium 4 system, aka a 32bit CPU. its able to be a samba server, and is able to install qbittorrent. but beyond that, it seems it won't be able to be used much. which is a shame, the system runs fine. i wanted to use it till it actually died, ie the drive itself burns out, the power supply burns up, motherboard croaks, etc. but it being a samba server with torrent client will at least do something for me. just not as much as i would have liked because of its 32bit CPU :(

[@ricardo5622]

There are linux distros like antix that still support 32 bit, you could i stall one of those and revive it that way

[@alericjohansen6775]

@@ricardo5622 whats funny is that antix is EXACTLY the system i was referring to when i said that qbit and samba were still able to be installed. however, that is still a limit, as most other programs are dropping 32bit support. which means that even my antix pentium 4 system will eventually not get updates for the various programs i want to run, and that would mean it would be a security vulnerability. which then would mean id HAVE to retire the system

[@davidturcotte831]

It's so weird to see Powershell in a video these days.

[@KoljaMineralka]

followed this video as my first goto ...few notes for others, for example I have an old smart TV, so logging in through the browsers doesn't...basically I'll be trying to install full version of ubuntu with gui +CasaOS or windows + jellyfin...

[@dmnddog7417]

So, this is basically like a Synology server that you can install in your own hardware.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

You can also install Synology's actual OS on your own hardware, with the Xpenology project

[@dm3035]

VERY NICE & USEFUL - THANK YOU ! ! ! 👍👍👍

[@SchwitzendeTaube-n8c]

CasaOs says my cpu is at -11000 degrees celsius😂😂😂

[@starleighpersonal]

Peak performance

[@EdBender]

It's a superconductor! lol

[@iPard2]

Can you set up a RAID array on these mini pcs though? It doesn't look like they have any space in them to allow that...

[@gmontenegro9711]

Why would we want to transcode video from 4k to 1080p? Why not play it directly as 4k? Assuming this is in an internal environment? And if externally, how about a web server (nginx)?

[@ti_vo]

Great demo.

[@fandibus]

Can you use mismatched drives without losing space? Can the pool be expanded?

[@muhabmahmoud4104]

Today is day 1 with Ubuntu and I was hoping you could help me with 2 questions. First, I started installation using a different video and switched to yours when I found it. The other video had me install docker with terminal right after installing Ubunutu server (so right before you install Casa OS in this video). Will the fact that I installed Docker before Casa OS in anyway interfere with my setup? My second question relates to using Portainer with Casa OS and how they work together. Is it better to install apps using portainer, or directly from the Casa OS app store?

[@archziac_]

Can you make an updated video on this?

[@taidee]

Very nice, thank you.

[@lamar9525]

Did I miss why you are using Ubuntu Server instead of Debian Server?

[@steaksoldier]

I plan on getting an intel n305 machine to run my router, pi hole, proxmox, vpn, and maybe a tf2 server if I have enough overhead left, all in casa os

[@mattb7406]

ubuntu server done, casaos done and real nice. but pihole and adguard will not install due to port 53... did it manaul with curl, still problems...

[@George-mk7lp]

great tutorial

[@g65_]

Say I buy one of those mini PCs... Is it ok to keep them on all the time?

[@TheJason13]

that's the whole point. 24/7 service.

[@ДжониКейжд-э2б]

thx for good content

[@valramos2003]

Hi. Any recommendation on how to load back CasaOS after a shutdown? The PC cannot find the CasaOS installation.

[@zerog456]

I have a secondary drive with all my plex media files on it. How would I go about making the plex docker communicate with that mounted drive?

[@Renni-kg6vf]

A cheap intel PC is just not the way to go. You can get a much better machine for a server off of Ebay using something like labgopher. Cheaper and better for the job. Got a server with 128gb of DDR4 ram, 2 14 core 2.6ghz processors etc. For around 240 with shipping. Sure it's a beast of a machine with a lot of power draw and it's very loud, but you can still get a smaller less powerful machine for dirt cheap. There are good options in the 60-70 dollar range.

[@Piedra84]

Can you also easily add external storage with Casa OS?

[@mushfiqhasan7098]

Portainer in CasaOS or Portainer Standalone?

[@veterantruthtube3298]

I don't want any SBC or PC with intel management engine in it. That is why I picked a rpi.

[@nelzackleo]

What if you want to access outside of the network? And, how to update the containers when there's a new release for the app (say PhotoPrism) ?

[@TechHut]

You need to set up a reverse proxy. I'm no network expert, my current reverse proxy is built into Synology.

[@nelzackleo]

@@TechHut thanks. That gives me a place to start looking

[@marcogenovesi8570]

Cloudflare has reverse proxy services called "Cloudflare Zero Trust"

[@Walid-lz1et]

Nice video..ive followed your steps and managed to setup my first home server using a mini pc. Thanks. My issue now is that when i leave my server for a while it goes to sleep/hibernation mode and cant access it from my desktop until i restart my server. Do you know how to prevent this?

[@Clash-333]

You might be able to change this under the bios settings. I would google your mini pc + bios and see if there is a setting in there to prevent sleep.

[@TommasoMinuto]

quick question: how do you select the services to be restarted in the kinda purple kernel screen that pops up? i couldnt figure that out :/

[@gatosssss1]

You didn't mention mini air 11 can only take up to 1tb drive. That's a huge limitation that you didnt mention at all.

[@AlmightyEye]

He literally mentioned it TWICE.

[@gatosssss1]

@@AlmightyEye when

[@perry4078]

@@gatosssss1 At 3.06 mark

[@theRayzz]

Does this setup can be exclusively on external drives? I have multiples external drives, 2x3tb and a massive 12tb. Can I use the 2x3tb in raid (redundency) and the 12tb stand alone (like a giant usb key) like 2 different sources? Is there a way to make them wake up if they go in sleep mode? I have the NUC and I want to build this setup with the gear I have

[@r1kaz897]

Can you use regular Ubuntu for this?

[@trinhnv1205]

Thank bro 🎉

[@Tech-nicallyBlack]

GREAT VIDEO! Can this be done on a vm?

[@TechHut]

Of course! Definitely makes it easy to run that way and test out.

[@benarcher372]

Portainer! 🙂

[@czanderrr]

Anyone have any recommendations for a mini PC that's powered by USB-C? My best use case with my current setup would be a mini PC that could be powered by and send display information across USB C, so it can be connected to my existing KVM switch setup (replacing the laptop in the configuration I have now).

[@Gigely_Strudels]

So I have basically follow the video to a T, idk why I can't get ssh to work and idk why no matter how many times I have tried, CasaOS just doesn't show an IP address and when I connect to the servers ip it doesn't show anything. Their discord wasn't super helpful and I am not sure what is going wrong.

[@roberthopgood1894]

I have NOT been able to get casaos or open media vault to work i have success just using server os & samba ONLY

[@RyderCragie]

Typo in App Store timestamp.

[@Draculah79]

Anyone just tried connecting an external harddisk to the usb port of the home router and turning it on as a SMB shared drive? If you are not doing NAS-like RAID stuff, this is easier isn't it?

[@marcogenovesi8570]

it's also just a shared folder and not a server with self-hosted applications

[@HaiLsKuNkY]

how do i make the server auto start when a power cut, so i dont need to click the power button on the server

[@d7584]

yes a raspi 5'll work too

[@crushlux]

The Photo Backup isn't free ?

[@kadenabbott3073]

Can’t seem to find this mini pc anywhere

[@YannMetalhead]

Good video.

[@EricOnYouTube]

I am confused. Is HomeLab the same thing as CasaOS?

[@JadedAmber]

price seems to have gone up. nearly £200 now

[@masseysan]

Something worth pointing out, CasaOS is based out of China. Could be a concern for some, and not for others.

[@BrianThomas]

Yeah, If you're a government employee don't use it.

[@dump1124]

Hello! How to upload a server to access it on the Internet?

[@rhiv2c]

Can anyone be kind enough to tell me what the use cases for this server is?

[@kadenabbott3073]

How do I get casaOS to use my full nvme???