I think everybody on here is constantly keeping an eye out for what to host next. Sometimes you spinup something which chugs along nicely but sometimes you find out you’ve been missing out.
For me it’s not very refreshing or new: Paperless-ngx. Never thought I would add all my administration to it. But it’s great. I probably can’t find the thing I need, but I should have a record of every mail or letter I’ve gotten. Close second is Wanderer. But I would like to have a little bit more features like adding recorded routes to view speed and compare with previous walks. But that’s not what it is intended for.
What is that service for you?
I’m hodsting my own Matrix server with WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord (you don’t need a bot for that, you can just share your login with the bridge) and Messenger bridge. I have all my IMs in one app, don’t have to install spyware on my phone, and I can make bots that troll annoying people that message me on any platform.
Hosting it was super simple, thanks to the Ansible project that’s extremely robust and well done, I literally just got a hosting, domain amd changed like 5 config values to enable the bridges I wanted, gave it an IP and ssh key, and ran it. And if I need to update, I literally “just update” (it’s all wrapped up into “just” tool), and it eve handles cases where I didn’t update for a while, failing graciously and telling me what I need to do maually, usually just rename some config values.
I wholly recommend it. You probably wont convince your friends to switch from <insert app here>, and this is the best compromise.
I’m using a small instance on Hetzner, for 6$ a month. You could in theory get a free oracle cloud instance for it, but I didn’t manage to get one.
And you can easily share it with anyone interrested, make them an account, so they can also consolidate their DMs. I’m sharing it with a few friends and colleagues.
You’ve just made me waste the next 2 days, because this sounds great! Only thing I’m a bit hesitant about is trusting all bridge makers. I’m a bit more aware that I use a lot of FOSS where it could be easy for the dev’s to just go rogue. But that’s still better than giving it away to some closed source company.
WhenI was setting it up, it took me only like two hours tops. The ansible project is well documented, has a clear setup guide, and the process is really just getting server with ssh access, changing DNS, changing around 5 values in the ansible config and running it.
Would you recommend the Discord bridge? I’ve always wanted to install that as well. Is there anything I want to know before putting in the effort to install and configure it?
- A puppeting (personal account) Discord bridge basically requires your own homeserver. You are trusting the homeserver owner / bridge host fully with your Discord account.
- It is technically against Discord ToS. While I don’t think anyone’s been banned yet, several people have started receiving warnings that they “spammed”, most of them after sending an attachment. These warnings are on your account for 2 years, and could contribute to an account ban.
- Voice chat is not, and probably will not be supported.
- Do NOT bridge a “large” server. You are essentially re-hosting the chats, which can be extremely taxing for large and active Discord servers.
I use mine for a single channel in a “medium-size” server (~2k people), a friend group server, DMs, and a few channels that follow a bunch of announcement channels on other servers.
Those are certainly valid points. But do I want to care about that? Honest question… Discord also doesn’t care about my privacy. Or making the internet a better place. So I think -in turn- I feel quite alright to ignore whatever client they like me to use. And their exact ToS.
What’s with the “taxing for large and active Discord servers”? Does it lead to issues if I’m not using their Electron app or website? I can’t imagine where this additional strain on their servers would come from?! I run my own homeserver, by the way. So I shouldn’t weigh down on anyone else’s server…
When you use the official discord client, it only sends to your device whatever chat channel you have open at the time, and when you click on a different channel, it just downloads the last 20 messages, and downloads more when you scroll etc. If you bridge a discord server to a matrix server, it sends all of the contents of all of the channels in real time across. If the server had 50 channels, bridging it to matrix would be the equivalent of you having 50 official clients open, one to each channel. Hence the additional load on discord’s side to send you a lot more data than they usually would.
(Disclaimer: this is all conjecture based on a general understanding of how the systems work, I could be getting some details wrong)
Thanks for explaining. That makes perfect sense. I was under the impression there might be something else.
I’m not interested in forwarding spam in the first place. I don’t think I have any use of channels where messages just fly by… So I think I should be safe.
@[email protected] which discord bridge? For Matrix? The one that operates as a Discord bot works perfectly. Don’t know about the ones that want your login token.
I was thinking of mautrix/discord. Is that the one you use?
I use mautrix/discord, it can work in both puppeting (sign into your account) mode and relay (bot account with webhooks) mode.
Thank you very much. I’m going to set it up then.
@[email protected] no. I use the app service one. It works well, but it’s basically for bridging public channels. The Mautrix bridges all work very well. I’ve used the Facebook one in the past. It’s just the limits those platforms put on the bridge (e.g. banning or locking account) that can be a problem. If your bridge is connecting from the same place as you normally connect to Discord from, you should be fine.
Thx. So far the mautirx ones have worked flawlessly for me. I got blocked once, years ago by WhatsApp when I first set it up. No issues after that, so I’m not really afraid of getting banned. And I’m not planning to use the apps or website much after I got the bridge running. That is if it offers all the features and I don’t have a reason anymore to log in myself…
Works great for me, too.
As far as I know the Discord bridge has some limitations, the major one being that IIRC it doesn’t atually support calls. But just for chatting across servers it has worked well for me.
There’s also the fact that you have to either trust the project with your password (as in, the the bridfe adds a matrix bot that runs on your server, but needs your pssword), since I think it uses the web version in the background (but then you can also use it for DMs and any server), or set up a bot on the discord server you want to bridge, which obviously cant be done if you’re not an admin. It’s a foss project, but there’s always a small risk of it gping rogue.
I think I’d be fine with that. I’m using lots of Free Software projects, have Linux on my computers, wifi router, use random projects and Fediverse platforms … So far every time one of my passwords got leaked it was some breach of a proprietary platform (last.fm, Facebook, …) while the Free Software has served me extraordinary well. Usually it even limits the insatiable hunger for private data those commercial platforms have…
Yeah, that’s my experience as well. In addition to being lazy with updating, so if some kind of supply chain attack happens, I usually sorts itself out before I get to updating :D
But I did limit my browser extensions, after I a cause with Nano Defender taught me a lesson - it was a mildly popular anit-anti-adblock killer that worked where other adblocks were detected, but the developer sold the extension to a company that turned it into a info-stealer malware and pushed an update through chrome store, which got accepted and propagated, and some of my social network sessions got compromised. So, I just stick to more popular projects where something like this shouldn’t happen, and don’t use random extensions.
There’s a matrix whatsapp bridge??
There is, but it requires you to log into the app every two weeks to maintain a session. You can setup a emulator to do it for you. I just have a separate profile on my Graphene with Only WhatsApp that I switch to and login whenever I get a warning.
When I was looking into matrix bridges I heard a bunch of stories about people getting their accounts blocked after using them through the bridges. Is this still an issue?
Once in a while discord signs me out and I have to do a bunch of extra sign-in steps on the official client. But otherwise I have discord, WhatsApp, Google voice, Google chat, Google messages (sms), Facebook, telegram, signal.
All the mautrix bridges are will made and robust
I’ve been using it for almost a year by now, and so far I didn’t have any problems. I’ve not considered that problem though, so it might be happening and I was just lucky.
Would you mind sharing the link t the ansible project?
https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy
Its pretty well documented and easy to follow, it took me only like an hour to setup.
Thank you!
I’m not OP, but maybe this one?
Thank you!
How do you get around the requirement to run the official app somewhere?
I run a WhatsApp and signal bridge, but not recommend running the official app on a phone
WhatsApp disconnects you if you don’t open the official app every 14 days or so. So you definitely need it. I run it on an old tablet. It’s supposed to run in a virtual machine (running Android) as well.
I’ve used an old phone just for this task… ;-)
Yeah, that part about WhatsApp is annoying. I just have a spearate profile on Graphene that has only WhatsApp installed, and whenever it wants me to refresh a session I just switch to the profile and log in.
Quickly send files, paste images/text snippets between devices.
I’m using the older Snapdrop (which PD was forked from) with some patches I made to:
- Work behind Authelia for SSO + 2FA
- Use the display name provided by Authelia instead of the random usernames it gives out by default
- Send transfers over the internet without dealing with the temporary “rooms” that Pairdrop uses (it’s behind Authelia, so only authorized users can get to it).
It has 100% replaced emailing things to myself or shuffling files to/from Nextcloud. I probably use it to send text (URLs, clipboard contents, etc) to/from my phone as much as I use it for sending files back and forth.
I just setup Pairdrop on my home server. Holy crap it’s amazing!
Nice! Yeah, I’ve been a big fan of it. Planning to eventually replace my custom Snapdrop with Pairdrop since they’ve made quite a few other improvements.
KDE Connect masterrace represent!
I love KDE Connect but I can’t figure out how to get it to work at work. Probably some firewall thing. It works fine at home, but can’t find my phone at work.
Definitely firewall things. Do you connect your personal phone to your work’s Wi-Fi? I would really not.
No I’m trying to use it with my work phone. I can’t connect my personal phone to the work wifi since it needs a certificate (802.1x) but there’s a separate guest network I can use if needed. Guest network is entirely isolated - different hardware, different backhaul, different IP range.
Somehow this one has had eluded me! Thanks for the rec!
Syncthing. Decentralized data backup that works with minimal setup. Now I can add cloud sync to most any app.
I setup my own with a bash script for backup years ago that uses rsync, feel too invested in that now to change
Watch out to enable “keep on delete” features. I didn’t do that and didn’t see that gigabytes of personal photos got deleted which I had to recover from an old backup. Still don’t know how it happened as I only found out a few weeks after the fact.
Sync is not backup! If there’s a software bug or a wrong setting sync can delete your files. Syncthing is pretty mature so I doubt this was a Syncthing bug, however you shouldn’t only trust Syncthing. I’m doing btrfs snapshots weekly and delete them after three years for important folders nowadays.
That’s easily Home Assistant. It got me into the whole home automation stuff and I have gradually included more and more parts into it - including some health related stuff. It really makes my family’s life easier and helps us organizing it.
Are you able to provide a few quick examples? I have it installed but don’t know what to do with it really.
The easiest thing: We use a motion sensor to automatically turn on the light for the stairs. You wouldn’t need Home Assistant for that, but with a little more configuration you can adjust the light levels and colour temperature based on the time of day (not as disturbing at night). We have two rooms which have problems with humidity in one a fan is automatically turned on (basic) in the other a dehumidifier is triggered based on the outside and inside temperature because there are large windows which are producing a lot of condensation otherwise. Now the really specific stuff: My daughter has Diabetes and we need to manage her blood glucose levels. There are alarms but ideally you would act before they are triggered. So we hooked her blood glucose levels to a light in our bedroom which turns on if her levels are getting out of bounds at night. That way she isn’t woken by the alarm, but by one of us and can go back to sleep much quicker.
Damned, I have to say that the glucose surveillance is quiet impressive, and the outcome is both unexpected and so sweet ! And shows how much can be done.
You’ve got a good point with Home Assistant. I have automations setup so that I barely have to do anything manually. So I almoat forget that Home Assistant runs quite a lot in my home. And especially in the beginning it was nice to setup but not really needed. Know it is needed.
A clone of 12ft.io but the old version before they got into beef with the New York Times and kneecapped it. It doesn’t work on every single article with a paywall but it works on the overwhelming majority (including New York Times articles)
And it doesn’t really count because I knew I’d use it but komga+komf+fmd2. I list it though because I didn’t realize I’d use this stack so much. I can now read with my phone, my laptop, my ereader, etc. tachiyomi/mihon works, reading progress is synced, and I never have to visit one of those garbage manga aggregation sites ever again
Would you mind sharing links?
oh duh
https://github.com/wasi-master/13ft/blob/main/docker-compose.yaml - this is the 12ft.io replacement i use. there are a few clones but this is the one I like, it’s real barebones and uses very little overhead
https://komga.org/ - komga library https://github.com/Snd-R/komf - komf - this isn’t strictly necessary but it fetches metadata for your komga library from sites like manga updates. can be a bit of a pain to configure https://github.com/Snd-R/komf-userscript - this is a tampermonkey script that makes komf MUCH easier to use https://github.com/dazedcat19/FMD2 - this is an app that rips manga from most of the “free manga” indexer sites like mangadex, bato, etc. docker and kubernetes version at https://github.com/ElryGH/docker-FMD2
you can read directly via komga web but frankly it kind of sucks for that. i prefer using an app. tachiyomi was the gold standard but companies threatened it and they stopped development. there are several forks now that are all good in various ways. i prefer mihon https://mihon.app/ but there are alternatives that have different feature sets
The one that was way more useful then expected is immich. I have over 100,000 photos I took during my life and it usually takes me DAYS to find a specific picture I need.
I installed immich and let it AI scan everything for a week or something. Now I can search for something specific like “it’s a black square in the middle of the photo and has a little knob on it” and it finds me the photo I need.
It’s also cool to see photos of people, organized by the individual by searching their name or clicking on their face.
I think that’s the last prod I needed to finally switch.
Is this local only? No clouds reported data?
Of course it is.
You can download different models as well. For me, without a GPU, searching for example ‘cat’ takes a few seconds, and it is not the most accurate, but still works OK.
This is exactly why I’d want a GPU in a home server.
That and transcoding. Wonder what the best option would be without breaking the bank/wasting too much idle power. All the GPU talk online seems to be for gaming.
AFAIK intel arc gpus are pretty good for that.
Local only.
Pet detection is sorta on the roadmap for 2025… I couldn’t be happier.
+1 for immich, if I didn’t already know I would be doing photo backups it would have been my entry. For things “I didn’t know I needed”
I’ve only just set it up, mainly for the facial recognition. I had no idea that it could do that type of search too. It’s going to be really helpful with my faulty brain and not remembering words 🙂
I think there one I never expected would be Kitchenowl. Shopping list, recipe list, planner for food, expenses… very useful for a joined household.
Kavita for my ebook collection—mostly tabletop RPGs, but some comics and sci fi as well.
I don’t actually use the web interface that often. I add books to my Kavita library, then scan the OPDS feed into my scratch-my-own-itch mobile app, Bookoscope, and download whatever I want to read onto my tablet from there.
Side note, PDFs are the absolute worst. Even reading them on a full-sized tablet is incredibly annoying. Anybody have any tips/tricks/apps for that?
I usually convert pdfs to epub if its something I actually need to read and not just scan/browse. Often I would bother to even edit the epub in Sigil to fix any problems with the conversion.
Side note, PDFs are the absolute worst. Even reading them on a full-sized tablet is incredibly annoying. Anybody have any tips/tricks/apps for that?
Try KOReader. It’s mainly for e-ink devices (initially, Kobo devices) but it handles PDFs better than most applications and gives you various options to address them.
It’s still not going to do miracles on smaller screens like phones, but I use a Kobo tablet/ereader and it works very well there.
https://github.com/Waterboy1602/Addarr
I use this all the time instead of opening Radarr and Sonarr
Isn’t this a bit more steps than using Overseer?
It’s more work to set up, but a much easier experience if you have users who can’t remotely access Overseerr. You always have to account for the “mom factor” when hosting services; Will your mom be able to learn how to use it? My mom can use Discord, but good luck getting her to learn Tailscale to access my Overseerr remotely.
The benefit is, I dont need to open a webpage (less data usage or if you are in a slow internet area) or login to a service to add media
Posted above, I’ll drop it here as well, requestarr performs the same service but via discord.
Never knew I needed? Another vote for Paperless-ngx. I still feel like I’m living in the future using it. The trick I’ve found was initially setting up a good document naming & management convention & following it religiously for every document. The search function is fantastic at narrowing down results. Used in conjunction with specific coloured tags I can immediately see what I need from search results.
Fired up Immich recently. Amazing. Will be donating as I like their stance.
I also enjoy Linkwarden. Switched from the also excellent Hoarder as I prefer the UI.
Most used? Nextcloud with Joplin.
@[email protected] funnily enough, I switched from Linkwarden to Hoarder. I like the smart lists. Just bookmark everything, check it later.
I’ve been eyeing that. Using linkding for ‘functional’ sites & linkwarden for articles at the moment.
I like linkding a lot, but am too lazy to tag things properly.
n8n
thought it was overkill. now does tons of things.wouldnt wanna live without it.
Actual Budget a selfhosting budget software. It helps me keep track of my finances
That looks nice. Added it to my list to look at. Thanks.
Yeah I left the massively overpriced closed source YNAB and Actual is actually better.
Immich, SearXNG, FreshRSS
I’m hosting it also, and the only regret is no android app, so don’t appear as a “share” possibility. But definitly perfect on PC browser :)
FYI, the repo has been moved and the link is outdated
What was disappointing about wallabag? I have an ebook reader, and Koreader has it integrated into it, and its great.
I found the UI to be horrendous, and managing tags was very painful. During the time I was paying for the cloud-service, there wasn’t any noticable development of the web-app, so I stopped using it. Mind you, this was pre-pandemic and things might have changed since then.
Self hosted Librespeed. Just so usefull to know if I or my ISP screwed up!
