Self Host Blocks

• Self Host Blocks
  • Supported Features

Building blocks for self-hosting with battery included.

SHB's (Self Host Blocks) goal is to provide a lower entry-bar for self-hosting. I intend to achieve this by providing opinionated building blocks fitting together to self-host a wide range of services. Also, the design will be extendable to allow users to add services not provided by SHB.

Supported Features

• Authelia as SSO provider.
  • Export metrics to Prometheus.
• LDAP server through lldap, it provides a nice Web UI.
  • Administrative UI only accessible from local network.
• Backup with Restic or BorgBackup
  • UI for backups.
  • Export metrics to Prometheus.
• Monitoring through Prometheus and Grafana.
  • Export systemd services status.
• Reverse Proxy with Nginx.
  • Export metrics to Prometheus.
  • Log slow requests.
  • SSL support.
  • Backup support.
• Nextcloud
  • Export metrics to Prometheus.
  • Export traces to Prometheus.
  • LDAP auth, unfortunately we need to configure this manually.
  • SSO auth.
  • Backup support.
• Home Assistant.
  • Export metrics to Prometheus.
  • LDAP auth through homeassistant_user LDAP group.
  • SSO auth.
  • Backup support.
• Jellyfin
  • Export metrics to Prometheus.
  • LDAP auth through jellyfin_user and jellyfin_admin LDAP groups.
  • SSO auth.
  • Backup support.
• Hledger
  • Export metrics to Prometheus.
  • LDAP auth through hledger_user LDAP group.
  • SSO auth.
  • Backup support.
• Database Postgres
  • Slow log monitoring.
  • Export metrics to Prometheus.
• Mount webdav folders

Repo layout

The top-level flake.nix just outputs a nixos module that gathers all other modules from modules/.

Some provided modules are low-level and some are high-level that re-use those low-level ones. For example, the nextcloud module re-uses the backup and nginx ones.

How to Use

You want to use this repo as a flake input to your own repo. The inputs field of your flake.nix file in your repo should look like so:

inputs = {
  nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
  sops-nix.url = "github:Mic92/sops-nix";

  selfhostblocks.url = "github:ibizaman/selfhostblocks";
  selfhostblocks.inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
  selfhostblocks.inputs.sops-nix.follows = "sops-nix";
};

sops-nix is used to setup passwords and secrets. Currently selfhostblocks has a strong dependency on it but I'm working on removing that so you could use any secret provider.

Also, if you ever want to hack on selfhostblocks yourself, you can clone it and then update the selfhostblocks url to point to the absolute path of where you cloned it:

selfhostblocks.url = "/home/me/projects/selfhostblocks";

Now, how you actually deploy using selfhostblocks depends on what system you chose. If you use colmena, this is what your outputs field should look like:

outputs = inputs@{ self, nixpkgs, ... }: {
  colmena = {
    meta = {
      nixpkgs = import inputs.nixpkgs {
        system = "x86_64-linux";
      };
      specialArgs = inputs;
    };

    myserver = import ./machines/myserver.nix;
  };
}

Deploy a Nextcloud Instance

Now, what goes inside this ./machines/myserver.nix file? Let's say you want to deploy Nextcloud, you would use the nextcloud.nix module from this repo as reference and have something like the following.

First, some common configuration:

imports = [
  selfhostblocks.nixosModules.default
  sops-nix.nixosModules.default
]

shb.ssl = {
  enable = true;
  domain = "example.com";
  adminEmail = "me@example.com";
  sopsFile = ./secrets/linode.yaml;
  dnsProvider = "linode";
};

Then, the configuration for Nextcloud which sets up:

• the nginx reverse proxy to listen on requests for the nextcloud.example.com domain,
• backup of the config folder and the data folder,
• an onlyoffice instance listening at oo.example.com that only listens on the local nextwork; you still need to setup the onlyoffice plugin in Nextcloud,
• and all the required databases and secrets.

shb.nextcloud = {
  enable = true;
  domain = "example.com";
  subdomain = "nextcloud";
  sopsFile = ./secrets/nextcloud.yaml;
  localNetworkIPRange = "192.168.1.0/24";
  debug = false;
};

services.nextcloud = {
  datadir = "/srv/nextcloud";
  poolSettings = {
    "pm" = "dynamic";
    "pm.max_children" = 120;
    "pm.start_servers" = 12;
    "pm.min_spare_servers" = 6;
    "pm.max_spare_servers" = 18;
  };
};

shb.backup.instances.nextcloud = {
  backend = "restic";

  keySopsFile = ./secrets/backup.yaml;

  repositories = [
    "/srv/backup/restic/nextcloud"
    "s3:s3.us-west-000.backblazeb2.com/myserver-backup/nextcloud"
  ];

  retention = {
    keep_within = "1d";
    keep_hourly = 24;
    keep_daily = 7;
    keep_weekly = 4;
    keep_monthly = 6;
  };

  consistency = {
    repository = "2 weeks";
    archives = "1 month";
  };

  environmentFile = true;  # Needed for s3
};

Deploy an hledger Instance with LDAP and SSO support

First, use the same common configuration as above. Then add the SSO and LDAP providers:

shb.ldap = {
  enable = true;
  domain = "example.com";
  subdomain = "ldap";
  dcdomain = "dc=example,dc=com";
  sopsFile = ./secrets/ldap.yaml;
  localNetworkIPRange = "192.168.1.0/24";
};
shb.backup.instances.lldap = # Same as for the Nextcloud one above

shb.authelia = {
  enable = true;
  domain = "example.com";
  subdomain = "authelia";
  sopsFile = ./secrets/authelia.yaml;

  ldapEndpoint = "ldap://127.0.0.1:3890";
  dcdomain = config.shb.ldap.dcdomain;

  smtpHost = "smtp.mailgun.org";
  smtpPort = 587;
  smtpUsername = "postmaster@mg.example.com";
};

Finally, the hledger specific part which sets up:

• the nginx reverse proxy to listen on requests for the hledger.example.com domain,
• backup of everything,
• only allow users of the hledger_user to be able to login,
• all the required databases and secrets

shb.hledger = {
  enable = true;
  subdomain = "hledger";
  domain = "example.com";
  oidcEndpoint = "https://authelia.example.com";
  localNetworkIPRange = "192.168.1.0/24";
};
shb.backup.instances.hledger = # Same as the examples above

Deploy a Jellyfin instance with LDAP and SSO support

First, use the same common configuration as for the Nextcloud example and the SSO and LDAP configuration than for the hledger example. Then, the jellyfin specific part which sets up :

• the nginx reverse proxy to listen on requests for the jellyfin.example.com domain,
• backup of everything,
• only allow users of the jellyfin_user or jellyfin_admin ldap group to be able to login,
• all the required databases and secrets

shb.jellyfin = {
  enable = true;
  domain = "example.com";
  subdomain = "jellyfin";

  sopsFile = ./secrets/jellyfin.yaml;
  ldapHost = "127.0.0.1";
  ldapPort = 3890;
  dcdomain = config.shb.ldap.dcdomain;
  oidcEndpoint = "https://authelia.example.com";
  oidcClientID = "jellyfin";
  oidcAdminUserGroup = "jellyfin_admin";
  oidcUserGroup = "jellyfin_user";
};
shb.backup.instances.jellyfin = # Same as the examples above

Tips

Deploy using colmena

$ nix run nixpkgs#colmena -- apply

Diff changes

"/nix/store/yyw9rgn8v5jrn4657vwpg01ydq0hazgx-nixos-system-baryum-23.11pre-git"

# Make some changes

$ nix run nixpkgs#colmena -- build
...
Built "/nix/store/16n1klx5cxkjpqhrdf0k12npx3vn5042-nixos-system-baryum-23.11pre-git"

$ nix run nixpkgs#nix-diff -- \
  /nix/store/yyw9rgn8v5jrn4657vwpg01ydq0hazgx-nixos-system-baryum-23.11pre-git \
  /nix/store/16n1klx5cxkjpqhrdf0k12npx3vn5042-nixos-system-baryum-23.11pre-git \
  --color always | less

Also, in lieu of nix-diff, a nice summary of version changes can be produced with:

nix run nixpkgs#nvd -- diff \
  /nix/store/yyw9rgn8v5jrn4657vwpg01ydq0hazgx-nixos-system-baryum-23.11pre-git \
  /nix/store/16n1klx5cxkjpqhrdf0k12npx3vn5042-nixos-system-baryum-23.11pre-git \

TODOs

• Add examples that sets up instance in a VM.
• Do not depend on sops.
• Add more options to avoid hardcoding stuff.
• Make sure nginx gets reloaded when SSL certs gets updated.