I have a really bad “server” (just a laptop) that runs Fedora Server and uses Docker Compose to host Jellyfin. It has been very annoying to update (the web GUI for Fedora doesn’t even work half of the time), updating is painful, and it’s a pain to manage. I am trying to redo my entire setup, so I will be getting a NAS to store all of my media. However, I still want to host apps like Nextcloud and Jellyfin, but I’m probably just going to use the NAS as storage for such apps.
Should I:
- use CasaOS, Yunohost, or a different easy to use server OS
- stick with Fedora server
- use a different distro
If I should use a conventional server distro (Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu), suggestions for management GUIs, easy to use Docker management GUIs, and ways to set up file sharing (Samba configuration seems like a pain) are greatly appreciated.
(side note: I use Docker bind mounts and they seem to allow me to update my Jellyfin content through SFTP/whatever the SSH-based file transfer protocol is. Is there a point in me switching to volumes? I haven’t taken my container down manually since I first started it up)
Regarding management UIs I’m a fan of Cockpit (https://github.com/cockpit-project/cockpit https://cockpit-project.org/)
Regarding management UIs for docker I believe most use either portainer (https://github.com/portainer/portainer https://www.portainer.io/) or dockge (https://github.com/louislam/dockge https://dockge.kuma.pet/).
Regarding Samba most NAS devices simplify it a lot, but it isn’t that complicated to do on Fedora either and once you’ve got it setup it’s not gonna need a lot of tinkering. (https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/samba/)
Whether you invest in a NAS or not I recommend you invest in a USB disk large enough to act as a backup for the storage disks. That’s not an investment for later but one you want right away. And do make certain it takes backups, not replicates data. A popular option is Borg Backup (https://github.com/borgbackup/borg https://www.borgbackup.org/)
If I went for a NAS I would Borg Backup the laptop to the NAS and then use the NAS own backup software to backup to the USB.