u/Novapixel1010

# TLDR;

Made some major updates added a lot to the guide. Seeing what the community thinks about the guide.

Some the things I changed/updated

- add info about my setup

- kanidm

- Caddy

- DNS (powerdns and coredns)

- how I choose what to self host

- much much more

---

I made a post I want to say about almost a year ago now that I was working on a self-hosted guide. When I find the link, I'll link it to this post too. https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/s/5sa8IqZIDz I started making this guide because all too often did I run into a guide that was unfinished or have to use several different guides. I wanted a place that just had a guide for all the software that I have set up on my server. Also, I've read a lot of guides that are just covered in ads some so bad that you can barely even read the guide because the page keeps reloading an ad. Lastly, I would love to see more people using self-hosted stuff. I would actually love to see even companies get on board with this and stop centralizing all of our data into one single point.

So once again, I am here to ask the community what they think of it and what you guys think I should improve about the guide. What would help you more on setting up your self-hosted environment.

The [guide](https://guide.hypernovat.com/s/tech-guide)

I noticed today day when I booted up my VM that it was saying there was corruption to the hard drive. The file system is BTRFS. I also had a hard drive that died in the same computer, started getting an awful clicking sound. Luckily enough there was a warranty on that drive.

But seeing this in the second drive that might be experiencing some issues and worried it's my hardware. So I'm running a RAM test.🤢

I ran the smart test through Gemini and it says that the hard drive is using its "emergency brake". (40,000 Emergency Retracts) but the drive only has 54 power cycles.

Some smart test data:

''''

the smart log: === START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===

Device Model:     WDC WD101EFBX-68B0AN0

Serial Number:    VHGR7M0M

LU WWN Device Id: 5 000cca 0c8ca1cbe

Firmware Version: 85.00A85

User Capacity:    10,000,831,348,736 bytes [10.0 TB]

Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical

Rotation Rate:    7200 rpm

Form Factor:      3.5 inches

Device is:        Not in smartctl database 7.3/5319

ATA Version is:   ACS-2, ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4

SATA Version is:  SATA 3.2, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)

Local Time is:    Tue May 12 13:58:00 2026 MDT

SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.

SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===

SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16

Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE

  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000b   100   100   016    Pre-fail  Always       -       0

  2 Throughput_Performance  0x0004   127   127   054    Old_age   Offline      -       112

  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0007   148   148   024    Pre-fail  Always       -       599 (Average 499)

  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       388

  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   005    Pre-fail  Always       -       0

  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000a   100   100   067    Old_age   Always       -       0

  8 Seek_Time_Performance   0x0004   128   128   020    Old_age   Offline      -       18

  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0012   097   097   000    Old_age   Always       -       25456

 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0012   100   100   060    Old_age   Always       -       0

 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       54

192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   067   067   000    Old_age   Always       -       40019

193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0012   067   067   000    Old_age   Always       -       40019

194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   154   154   000    Old_age   Always       -       42 (Min/Max 20/45)

196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0

197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0

198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0008   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0

199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x000a   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1

No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1

No self-tests have been logged.  [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1

 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS

1        0        0  Not_testing

2        0        0  Not_testing

3        0        0  Not_testing

4        0        0  Not_testing

5        0        0  Not_testing

Selective self-test flags (0x0):

  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.

If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

also

194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   158   158   000    Old_age   Always       -       41 (Min/Max 20/45)

'''