Setting up a CHEAP and EASY Homelab Linux Server
Setting up a homelab doesn't need to be an expensive hobby. You can use your old desktop, laptop, SBC, or even a budget-friendly mini PC. We will install Ubuntu Server, use a single command to install CasaOS, and drive right into spinning up some useful services. Geekom MiniAir 11: amzn.to/45vSgLy
Thanks to Geekom for sponsoring this video!
www.geekompc.com/geekom-minia...
CODE: TechHut
Ubuntu Server Full Guide: • Install Ubuntu Server ...
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00:00 - Introduction
01:02 - Cheap Intel PC
04:12 - Install Ubuntu Server
06:20 - Installing CasaOS
08:43 - CasaOS Login
10:00 - Network Share Folder
11:08- App Stpre
11:34 - Photo Backup
13:48 - Portainer Install
14:53 - CasaOS Dashboard
15:17 - Terminal Access
it's nice seeing a linux user who knows how to line up his beard looking clean bro
Right? He can't do the neck beard 😂
We like our beards to be free like us! 😂😂
We need a tier list of Linux beards
😂😂
That’s gay as fck bro 😂
BTW. For those user's of Linux Mint, Casa OS Installed and runs perfectly on that distro.
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.
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.
Dude I appreciate your speedy approach to explaining the process like we're not complete newbies, well done.
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.
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.
Be sure to check the health of the external drive. I hope all goes well with your home lab.
and plese do mirrored hardrives
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.
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.
Thank you again, this is seriously cool
Oh wow. Just installed it on my homelab. Was searching something like that for a while
Great! I might set this up as a VM on my Proxmox host. Thanks Brandon!
Thank you for an Amazing Video; A guide for Non techy like me who could start our first step towards "setup home lab".
use to put smoothwall on older boxes. worked great. mmm ill have to check to see if smoothwall still around..
Thanks for the great video! I have exactly same issue with wrong storage size, did you find a way how to fix it?
great video! following the context of this video, what's the best way to backup all the files AND the OS configuration?
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. =)
where do you get the old nucs?
@@Morgan_eBay
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!
Nice Anne really easy to follow video. Thanks How to passthrough the igpu to jellyfin though, it’s a bit over my head😅
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.
Great demo.
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
Setting up public key authentication and a static DNS entry for a hostname is also a good idea. then you can just "ssh hostname"
Perfect. My old c2d pc is live again. Thanks
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... )
Do you have any recommendations as far as manufacturers?
i personally got myself a Fujitsu Primergy TX1310 M1 super cheap, used, more than enough performance for most of the homelab stuff @@der363Productions
@@der363Productions I'd recommend Dell servers, they pretty good and not so much hide behind a pay wall unlike HP
Hi, I just installed server on my old debian system with 2gb ram running i3wm. it runs very well.
Arrrrrrr (11:27) 😎 interesting. Mini PCs even Alder Lake N Series can do a lot nowadays. Nice video, thank you.
great tutorial
Very nice, thank you.
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.
Had a mini PC in the closet for 4 years. Gonna dust it off and start my home lab. Thanks for the inspiration.
VERY NICE & USEFUL - THANK YOU ! ! ! 👍👍👍
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
That casa os thing is really impressive
Are you running it at all?
thx for good content
I run CasaOS myself on Ubuntu server with plex sabnzbd sonarr and radarr and it is great runs on an hp desktop i7
does hardware transcoding work with plex? when running it in cassa os
@@GodOfChaos_HeXa yup I have yet to see any limitations or restrictions
Thank bro 🎉
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
How do you point your other machines to the pi-hole running on your server?
@@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)
@@cesarvarela5438 thanks!
Good video.
I have casaos hosting my twingate reverse proxy on a Raspberry pi 4B
Can you also easily add external storage with Casa OS?
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?
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.
CasaOS is the best one I've found for the Raspberry Pi 4b
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.
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
Can you do a video on how to access this home server remotely?
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...
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) ?
You need to set up a reverse proxy. I'm no network expert, my current reverse proxy is built into Synology.
@@TechHut thanks. That gives me a place to start looking
Cloudflare has reverse proxy services called "Cloudflare Zero Trust"
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...
RPi is a great for a home server. RPi 5 8Gb costs $80, so it's a little cheaper than you offer.
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.
I have NOT been able to get casaos or open media vault to work i have success just using server os & samba ONLY
Can’t seem to find this mini pc anywhere
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 :/
It's so weird to see Powershell in a video these days.
So, this is basically like a Synology server that you can install in your own hardware.
You can also install Synology's actual OS on your own hardware, with the Xpenology project
yes a raspi 5'll work too
Something worth pointing out, CasaOS is based out of China. Could be a concern for some, and not for others.
Yeah, If you're a government employee don't use it.
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.
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?
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
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?
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.
CasaOs says my cpu is at -11000 degrees celsius😂😂😂
Peak performance
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...
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?
it's also just a shared folder and not a server with self-hosted applications
Can you use mismatched drives without losing space? Can the pool be expanded?
I don't want any SBC or PC with intel management engine in it. That is why I picked a rpi.
how do i get the ip for the ssh
how do i make the server auto start when a power cut, so i dont need to click the power button on the server
How do I get casaOS to use my full nvme???
wish i knew about this casaOs in January when I started with ubuntu server. at this point it would probably be a huge pain to transfer my container from docker-compose while keeping the volumes and all that
I've had very mixed experience with CasaOS this spring. The idea is great, but back then the execution was bad.
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 :(
There are linux distros like antix that still support 32 bit, you could i stall one of those and revive it that way
@@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
Did I miss why you are using Ubuntu Server instead of Debian Server?
Portainer! 🙂
GREAT VIDEO! Can this be done on a vm?
Of course! Definitely makes it easy to run that way and test out.
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.
Say I buy one of those mini PCs... Is it ok to keep them on all the time?
that's the whole point. 24/7 service.
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)?
Cooooool
The Photo Backup isn't free ?
Kensington lock, not Kingston lock ☺️
ken sin ton . lock. yes.
Can anyone be kind enough to tell me what the use cases for this server is?
price seems to have gone up. nearly £200 now
Typo in App Store timestamp.
can someone tell me what you would do with this?
Is there a way to do it on an old rooted phone(s9+)?
I am confused. Is HomeLab the same thing as CasaOS?
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.
He literally mentioned it TWICE.
@@AlmightyEye when
How about privacy?
Kind of a broad question, but when installing an app on casa, I understand that it’s working as a Linux container but I assumed that portainer wouldn’t see those apps. For reference, I’ve always installed docker, put apps on it and used portainer to manipulate them. Is there any benefit to putting docker on casa OS or would you skip it all together.
Based off the video casa uses docker containers so you should be able to use portainer
too many problems with Debian 11, no "curl" comment, can't install it. User not in sudo list. I guess if you are linux wizzard it works fine, but not if you just want this to work for casual user. Nice video though.
What does he mean by R applications?
wiki.servarr.com/
awww man in Germany the MiniAir11 cost 100 bucks more -.-
Just buy a used business PC like a Lenovo ThinkCentre. Cheap and pretty enough for most use cases.
Damn, mini air 11 is gone and the 12 is $250 now.
everytime I put in my password it says its wrong. made sure to spell it right and everything
Geekom MiniAir 11 Amazon Link is dead now.
I don't get why needed a third party sware to make a server? doesn't ubuntu server encompass all capabilities and related oem sware by linux developers? why the hell, all videos around keep showing how to make a server ONLY with other GUI progs?is it a MUST?
Ubuntu Server is the base OS and by default it doesn't come with a GUI. Something like CasaOS or StartOS makes it easy to manage things for most people who don't want to do it all on the command line (if you're comfortable enough to manage it all using the command line by all means go ahead). Brandon just wanted to show his viewers how easy it can be to get a Docker-based homelab/homeserver going quickly and easily.
I came to ur video as it said cheap. Is $500 cheap?
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.
It's portainer, not protainer lol
Maybe I'missing something-- but WHY would one WANT a "server" at home?? Seems like overkill to me..
Hosting my own media is the number one reason for the server. Because of that, I don't need multiple subscription services to a bunch of garbage. Also, local backups of all my personal pictures is super awesome. You can't trust cloud services for everything. Leaving decide one file doesn't look to their specifications and just outright delete your account.
@@TechHut YEP- that's kinda what I thought.. but just wanted to see.. and I don't trust CLOUD crap for ANYTHING..
because it's cheaper than cloud and in nearly all cases more secure
@@marcogenovesi8570 I have all my stuff on this ONE computer-- and a backup for security... but I don't MOUNT it so no one can enter it wthout My permission.