Rudy's Lab

I Moved My Blog Off My Home Server and It's Better for It

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The blog started as a Hugo site running on my home server. Markdown files in, static HTML out, served by Caddy through a Cloudflare Tunnel. It worked well. But the more I thought about it, the less sense it made to keep it there.

Why move at all
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The blog was the only thing on my server that needed to be publicly accessible. Everything else, Immich, Kopia, AdGuard, WireGuard, is internal. Private services behind a VPN, the way I want them.

Setting Up the Blog You're Reading Right Now, Using an AI in My Terminal

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This one’s a bit meta. The blog you’re reading was set up entirely by an AI tool running in my terminal. I didn’t write a single config file. I described what I wanted, and it happened. Twice, actually, because the first attempt was overkill and I scrapped it.

Why a blog at all
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I’d been documenting the home server build in markdown files on my laptop. Notes for myself, mostly. But the more I wrote, the more it started reading like something other people might find useful. The information I wished I’d had when I started.

What Hardware Do You Actually Need for a Home Server?

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I keep seeing this question come up when people are thinking about starting a home server: what should I buy?

My honest answer is: probably nothing, at least not yet. Start with whatever you have.

The machine I’m running
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It’s a Dell Latitude E6430, a 2013 business laptop I picked up cheap when my previous company was clearing out old hardware. It had already been upgraded over the years: 8GB of dual channel RAM, a 240GB SSD for the OS, and the CD drive swapped out for a caddy mounting the original 320GB HDD as a data drive. So by the time I repurposed it as a server, the hardware was already in decent shape.

Remote Access That Actually Works: Running Your Own VPN with WireGuard

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Having a home server that works at home is one thing. Having it work exactly the same when you’re out, on mobile data, at a café, anywhere, is what makes it actually useful day to day.

Getting this right was worth the effort.

Keeping exposure minimal
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The obvious shortcut for remote access is port forwarding: expose your services on port 443, put a login screen in front of them, done. The problem is that everything becomes internet-facing. Every service needs to be hardened. Every misconfiguration is a risk. And some things, like local DNS filtering, don’t make sense to expose publicly at all.

Clean URLs and HTTPS for Your Home Server (Without Touching a Port Number Again)

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Once Immich was running, I had a working photo server. But accessing it meant typing an IP address and a port number into my browser every time. Not the end of the world, but not great either, especially when you start adding more services.

There’s a better way, and setting it up opened a door I hadn’t expected.

The problem with IP addresses and ports
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When a service runs on your home server, it listens on a port. Your photo app might be on port 2283, your backup tool on 51515, your DNS dashboard on 3000. To access them you type something like:

Getting My Photos Off Google: The Immich Setup and the Painful Takeout Process

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The first thing I installed on my new home server was a photo management app. Not because I had a perfectly thought-out plan. I just wanted to see if this was even possible, and photos were the whole point of starting.

I ended up testing two: Immich and PhotoPrism. Both are open source Google Photos alternatives. Both run in Docker. I figured I’d try them side by side and see which one I preferred.

I Repurposed an Old Unused Laptop as a Home Server. Here's Why.

Sun, 08 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This started the way most tinkering projects do: a spare laptop, a vague idea, and stakes low enough that trying seemed worth it.

I’d had the laptop for over five years. A 2013 Dell business laptop I picked up cheap when my previous company was clearing out old hardware. I’d upgraded it over the years, used it here and there for small projects, kept it around as a backup laptop, but it never really found a permanent use. Mostly it just sat in various sort of drawer.