Short answer VPN no, cloud yes. That is, if the VPN server is on your network and you are not simply forwarding ports to an external VPN. If your choices are VPN vs cloud, I would recommend cloud as it is satisfying to be able to type in a URL and go to your site instead of having to go through VPN weirdness. If you keep sensitive data on your server then a VPN is definitely better (again, the local kind). I personally just forward 80 and 443 and use nginx to control what domains everything is on.

Not who you’re replying to but here are some answers:

1. For internet accessibility there will be things to consider. Do you want non-techy friends or family on it? If so you may need to port forward or use a vps. Some ISPs don’t allow port forwarding, but there are a million solutions to this. Otherwise you can use a VPN to connect to your network and have access to your server that way.
2. Old laptops are great for hosting. They are typically more power efficient than desktops, although the expansion options aren’t great if you don’t like jank.
3. Not sure.
4. Yes and kinda. It is super light unless you’re running it on really old stuff. It is easy once you learn. I recommend docker compose to keep everything in a single config file. You can use watchtower to keep things automatically updated.
5. I like Debian. I too use a rolling distro on my desktop, and some people do like rolling distros for servers. The idea of stable release distros like Debian are that they are consistant and you don’t have to worry about updates breaking things. The idea of rolling distros on a server is that you will only ever have to deal with small updates rather than giant ones that may break everything (like between Debian versions). I would not recommend manjaro on a server, or at all really. They have a habit of holding back packages for no real reason and causing dependancie issues. If you like rolling I would try Tumbleweed or Arch with Archinstall. There is also Endeavor OS which is basically easier Arch.
6. Letsencrypt is for https certificates. You can use self signed certificates, meaning they are made by your computer rather than letsencrypt’s servers, but you will get warnings in your browser and app interfaces for your services may not work. They are just as secure for personal use. Don’t do http on the internet. That is bad. You know the VPN ads that say hackers can steal all your bank passwords if you don’t buy their VPN, well that is not true because your bank uses https. If you access your services through http over the internet, someone will get your password eventually. Do whatever you want on home network though.

I don’t really want to try to get that to work. I wonder how hard it would be to create my own webui using gpt4all’s Python package.

I know the gpt4all models run fine on my desktop with 8gig vram. It does use a decent chunk of my normal ram though. Could the gpt4all models work on huggingface or do they use different formats? Sorry if I am completely misunderstanding huggingface, I haven’t heard of it until now.

I already have SSH keys set up but auto doesn’t work. I think fstab mounts things before network is up.

I don’t really know what that is. I could try it though.

Edit: I don’t really like having the files on all computers, I would rather just have them all in a central place where everything can access them.

Hey so uhh… I just formated the wrong drive. It’s recoverable but requires terabytes of network transfers so I’m thinking you may be right.

I need to start doing backups but storage costs money.

Im gonna hack u now

Debian. It is rock solid. If software doesn’t support Debian, chances are it supports something Debian based. You never have to worry about an update breaking your computer. It is the perfect “it just works” distro for a server.

Just rob a few banks, go to prison, meet a coke dealer, get out of prison and start selling coke, rise up the ranks until you can kill the current leader and become a drug kingpin, and finally realize that you still don’t have enough money for it because they are expensive as shit.

I just got an arc for jellyfin transcoding. Could you tell me more about your setup for that?

Thank you so much. I have spent so long trying to find this.

Please let me know what you find for jellyfin with arrs and VPN. I have found that the VPN always interferes with jellyfin and other stuff and haven’t been able to figure out gluetun.

I don’t have VPS recommendations, but may I suggest using a VPS as a proxy to your home server (running gramps) through wireguard? The lower system requirements would allow you to choose a cheaper server, and the fact that the server is only a proxy would simplify the process of moving to a different VPS if you need to.

Thanks for letting me know about LibreY. I switched it over now.

Thanks. I don’t currently have any raid or backup set up, so I should probably do that before it becomes a problem.

I have something 10 years old for jellyfin only, (other light stuff too, not important) and it handles it fine. No hardware acceleration but the CPU can keep up for just me and 1 friend using it. I got it for 50 bucks on eBay and it rocks. I don’t know about Minecraft servers though.

Edit: It didn’t come with drives. Don’t ever trust old drives.

This is what I did and I love it. I will add that sff is bad for upgrades. I wanted to add a gpu to mine and now I have to buy a larger case to put it in.

I would recommend trying to rent a vps for just long enough to transcode and using that. It would be way cheaper than buying new hardware.