Context

Having started out in the world of Napster & Limewire, I’ve always relied on public sources. It wasn’t until in the early '10s that I lucked into a Gazelle-based tracker that was started by some fellow community members. Unfortunately, I wasn’t paying enough attention when they closed shop and didn’t know how to move elsewhere. Combined with some life circumstances I gave up the pursuit for the time being.

It wasn’t until recently that a friend was kind enough to help me get back and introduced me to current state of automation. Over the course of a few months, I’ve since built up the attached systems. I’ve been having an absolute blast learning and am very impressed with all of the contributions!

After all of the updates due to BF deals, I put together the attached diagram as it was starting to get too complex to keep all of the interactions in my head. 😅

Setup

  • All of the services run in Docker containers.
  • Each container is a separate Compose file managed by Systemd.
  • The system itself is in a VM running on my home server (both Arch, btw).
  • Tailscale is used for remote access to the local network.
  • ProtonVPN is managed by Gluetun and uses a separate network for isolating services.

Questions

  • What am I missing or can be improved?
  • Is there a better way to document?
  • What do you do differently that might be beneficial?

Thoughts

  • I had Calibre set up at one point, but I really don’t like how it tracks files by renaming them. I have been considering trying to automate with the CLI instead, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.
  • I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a file-arr for analyzing disk usage, performing common operations, and exposing a web-based upload/download client so I don’t have to mount the volume everywhere.
  • Similarly, I’m interested in a way to aggregate logs/notifications/metrics. I’m aware of Notifiarr, but would prefer a self-hosted version.
  • I just set up Last FM scrobbling so I don’t have any data yet. I’m hoping to use that for discovery and if possible, playlist syncing or auto-generation.

Notes

  • Diagram was made using D2lang.
  • Some of the connections have been simplified to improve readability / routing.
  • Some services have been redacted out of an abundance of caution.
  • I know VPN with Usenet isn’t necessary, but it’s easier to keep it consistent.

Also, thanks for the recommendations to check out deemix/Deezer. That worked really well! 😀

Edit: HQ version of diagram

  • _//(0)(0)\\_English
    7•6 months ago

    #humblebrag lol

    Seriously tho, this is super awesome. I was gifted an 8 bay NAS several months ago and caught the bug again too. I’ve been slowly changing out the 4TB drives with the 16TB ironwolf pro’s and downloading all the things. I have sonarr, prowlarr, and syncthing working so far, but I have to say, that was a pretty big pain in my assholes.

    I have been running my server from an old 2018 Mac mini that I had laying around and just the other day found a good deal on a nicer NUC for Black Friday. I’d like to take it up a notch when I do the migration & add radarr, overseerr, and it sounds like dockerr and some others as well. This post was just the inspiration I needed!

    Do you have any resources you could share that you used, or at least that you wish you would’ve used to educate yourself and/or simplify things? Most of what I’ve accomplished so far has just been through random discoveries in forums & research I’ve done from there. It feels a bit amateur and I’m wondering whether or not I should just start from scratch. I’m assuming there has to be a site where I can read about all my options & how they interact.

    Cheers man, thanks!

    • XyreOPEnglish
      2•6 months ago

      The wiki is a great place to start. Also, most of the services have pretty good documentation.

      The biggest tip would be to start with Docker. I had originally started running the services directly in the VM, but quickly ran into problems with state getting corrupted somewhere. After enough headaches I switched to Docker. I then had to spend a lot of time remapping all of the files to get it working again. Knowing where the state lives on your filesystem and that the service will always restart from a known point is great. It also makes upgrades or swapping components a breeze.

      Everyone has to start somewhere. Just take it slow and do be afraid to make mistakes. Good luck and have fun! 😀