Good day, friends. Since catching the self-hosting bug, I’ve set up a couple of Proxmox home servers with a bunch of services I enjoy.
Now I’d like to set up a server and local network on my sailboat so I can self-host servarr, pihole, and other services while traveling. The tricky part is that everything on the boat is 12V and I would rather not use an inverter, if possible. Also, it needs to be ultra-low power so I can leave it on at all times and not to deplete my batteries too much.
Criteria:
- ultra-low power
- Small form factor
- runs on 12V
- 10 TB of storage plus ability to make full local backup
- Capable of hosting servarr, audiobookshelf, freshrss, etc. via docker
- HDMI output
- Full local mirror/backup of the entire file system, including the media library.
- We will have two laptops and two Android phones to access the server, so the server doesn’t need to run a desktop environment.
I’ll have a mobile wifi router and a cellular signal booster (or maybe Starlink eventually) for internet access. Since internet bandwidth will be limited and expensive while traveling, I don’t want to have to re-download a massive media llibrary if the storage media fail. Thus, I want the media library to be mirrored or fully backed up or synced locally.
What hardware and Linux distro would you use in this situation?
Post this in a piracy community and it goes full circle
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters NUC Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers NVMe Non-Volatile Memory Express interface for mass storage PSU Power Supply Unit RAID Redundant Array of Independent Disks for mass storage SATA Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage SSD Solid State Drive mass storage VPN Virtual Private Network
7 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 7 acronyms.
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Don’t forget to think about how to keep the salt air from corroding the electronics. Either build a spare or two that you keep sealed in plastic, or find an airtight case with an integrated heat sink or something.
Edit: you might want to look into conformal coating and dielectric grease (for the connectors) as well, although I don’t know enough about that to competently give advice beyond the mere suggestion.
Came here to say this. I’ve worked on systems for a restaurant on the beach and it was corroded as hell. We had the wireless access points in cheap “weatherproof” boxes and they got corroded. We replaced them once a year or so because it was so bad.
I run a NUC and a few other network things off a 125W elcheapo $20 bestek(?) inverter off the house battery.
Sure it gets converted twice but actual watts wasted are minimal in a low power scheme, and the juice is cleaner in the end.
And consider DIYing a big house battery. The cells are cheap now. I built a 1200Ah LFP bank just because it fit nicely in the compartment. Then throw some solar at it.
And for backup, just get a large spinning external and plug it in occasionally to sync a copy. Put it back in the Tupperware for cold storage.
Ed: why the downvote?
I’d like to design a similar off-grid system. What do you have in mind for mobile wifi router and cellular signal booster?
I was looking at something like this mini-router with OpenWRT:
GL.iNet GL-AXT1800 (Slate AX) Pocket-sized Wi-Fi 6 Gigabit Travel Router, Extender/Repeater for Hotel&Public Network, VPN Client&Server, OpenWrt, Adguard Home, USB 3.0, Network Storage, TF card slot https://a.co/d/0iP7qaKj
For a signal booster: weBoost Drive Reach Overland - Cell Phone Signal Booster for Off Road Vehicles | Boosts 5G & 4G LTE for All U.S. Carriers - Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile & More | Made in The U.S. | FCC Approved https://a.co/d/00PNi0AE
That travel router looks good. Will you also be using it to connect to the internet using a phone hotspot or just using it for a local network?
I think you have a taste vor expensive Hobbies 😜
Uh-oh, you’ve triggered one of my favourite topics: cost-conscious cruising. Get ready, because I do enjoy dispelling myths about sailing. :)
People think sailing is expensive, but it is absolutely within reach for the middle class, as long as you are willing to put in the work to do your own maintenance and repair. Look at your average small-city marina and you’ll see that most of the sailboats are 30 to 40 year old fiberglass production boats. They basically last forever if you take care of them and at that age their cost depreciation curve has plateaued. So, the cost of entry is reasonable and relatively risk-free.
If you have any interest in sailing, I recommend checking out your local marina to see if they have a weekly keelboat race. Many sailors love to race and they always need crew. This is the best way to learn to sail for free. If you don’t like the pressure of racing, you can sign up for a learn-to-sail course for a couple hundred dollars.
If you enjoy that experience and want to cruise, I suggest reading a few practical books about cost-conscious cruising. Don’t watch the hot young video bloggers sailing million-dollar catamarans for YouTube and Instagram. Much like Linux vs Windows or open-source vs closed-source, sailing is as much about philosophy as it is about execution. You can spend big bucks on the latest and greatest, or you can buy old hardware and revive it with some learning and elbow grease.
The most common question in cruising is, how much does it cost? And the answer is, strangely, it costs as much or as little as you want to spend. You can spend millions or thousands of dollars, depending on your skills, your willingness to learn, and what you are willing to live with. I know a couple that lived for a year sailing the US East Coast in a 22-foot sailboat that they got for free. That’s an extremely small cruising boat, by the way, with just a bucket for a head.
Think of sailboat cruising like living in an RV: you can live in an old 1965 VW camper van or a tent trailer or fancy stainless steel Airstream or a huge diesel Winnebago. It’s up to you, but there are trade-offs. You can probably buy a broke-down old camper van on the cheap right now, if you are willing to learn to fix it up and then live in a very small space. Or you can work and scrimp for half a lifetime to afford that huge Winnebago. Most of us would pick something in the middle, making trade-offs between comfort, time, and cost.
A good book to start thinking about the philosophy of cost-conscious sailing is “Get Real, Get Gone” by Rick Page. Their philosophy is that small and simple is better than big and fancy for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which is affordability and the ability to get started sooner than later. But be careful. If you read it, you may ditch your life ashore and end up a sea gypsy floating around the Caribbean in a small boat learning to fix diesel engines!
Also, by the way, there are plenty of smart, nerdy, do-it-yourself sailors. There is significant overlap in attitudes and mindset between the do-it-yourself sailor and the self-hosting computer nerd.
But truly, I hope I have convinced you that sailing is not only for the rich. It is for the adventurous. As a matter of fact, I’m heading out today for a week of wilderness sailing on board my very affordable sailboat. Maybe I’ll see you out there one day!
Wow thanks for that explanation I don’t think sailing is for me tho I live like 6 to 8 hours away from the sea and like the closest larger lake is also a couple of hours. I thought of it more like one of those hobbies where there isn’t really a limit on how much you can spend like self hosting and analog audio as I’m really bad with self control when I get into something ^^ but thank you for taking the time to explain and giving me a new perspective on sailing.