The Approach

Self-hosting and Home-Automation are something that grow over time, getting more complex and elaborated. You start small, with some recycled hardware and makeshift cables to host some experimental services, then you start self-hosting important stuff. You add sensors, devices, IP cameras, and so on as yo udiscover new toys and interesting stuff to try out.

But then…

• One day your home internet connection is down and so you find out about reliability…
• One day power goes out at home, and you find out that an unexpected server reboot might cause side issues…
• One day, maybe during a hot summer day, your USB network card fails on you, when you are on vacation…
• One day that critical CalDAV service stop working due to a Python update and you miss an appointment…
• One day maybe you get hacked….

So you start studying and investing in UPS, reodundant ISPs with failover capability, advanced routing for your services, containers, backup techniques…

I went trough the process (except i never got hacked, maybe my security measures where good from the beginning, or i was lucky, o maybe i just never noticed?), and you will as well go trough it.

At the beginning i started out with a very simple approach, spent one year and half more or less expanding to the point where something a little bit more advanced was actually required.

You should stody both ways and pick yours, wihch can even be a good mix of the two, or even a third way that fits you better.

No matter which approach you prefer, the following are the very basics that i assume you will take into consideration, on which you should not even think to skip:

• Have a proper backup plan in place (see here), and verify your backups regularly.
• Have two ISPs to provide a failsafe internet connection (see here)
• Stored your data on some redoundant RAID array (see here)
• Have an UPS solution to protect your server / disk RAIDS from blackouts
• Maybe even have an additional 4G SIM card for last chance internet connectivity?

Still, bad things happens over time, and the above guidelines are just the bare minimum that is mandatory to start a self-hosting journey.

In addition to the above basics, i will illustrate two approaches. One, the simple one, will fit your bill but might prove limited over time. The advanced one, instead, resemble more how things are done at a professional level and offer better reliaiblity and scalability at a higher price range and complexity.