Homelab & Self-Hosting Guides

GL-MT6000 Vanilla OpenWrt: Flash the GL.iNet Flint 2 and Build a Privacy-First Dumb Access Point

GL.iNet Flint 2 running a vanilla OpenWrt access point
From 3 Stuttering Cloud Devices to 1 Local Beast: Flash the GL.iNet Flint 2 (GL-MT6000) to Vanilla OpenWrt 🎧 Listen to the 60-Second Audio Recap: Why You Should Stop Tolerating Cloud-Dependent Mesh Systems Three TP-Link Deco units sound like a...
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Your Own VPN: Self-Hosting WireGuard with wg-easy for Secure, Private Home Access

how to setup WireGuard VPN server
🎧 Listen to the 60-Second Audio Recap: The Core Problem This Solves A self-hosted WireGuard VPN puts you back in control. Commercial VPNs do not make you private. They ask you to displace your trust: instead of your ISP, you...
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Block Every Ad and Tracker on Your Entire Network: Self-Hosting Pi-hole via Docker on Proxmox

Pi-hole beginner guide 2026
🎧 Listen to the 60-Second Audio Recap: The average news page loads trackers from over 70 third-party domains before you read a single word. Every one of those requests tells an advertising network your approximate location, your device type, your...
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Self-Host Your Password Vault: Running Vaultwarden (Bitwarden) in Docker with a Cloudflare Tunnel

Install Vaultwarden with Docker
Why a Self-Hosted Password Manager Beats the Cloud 🎧 Listen to the 60-Second Audio Recap: The Privacy Lens — Why This Service Specifically? Your password vault is the master key to your entire digital life. Every bank account, every email...
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Self-Host Your Own ChatGPT: Local AI with Ollama and Open WebUI

Illustration of a self-hosted ChatGPT alternative: Ollama and Open WebUI running with Docker on a private local AI server
🎧 Listen to the 60-Second Audio Recap: The Privacy Problem Nobody Talks About Every question you type into ChatGPT, every contract you paste in for a summary, every internal business query you run — all of it transits OpenAI’s servers....
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Matomo Self-Hosting: A Privacy-Friendly Alternative to Google Analytics in Docker

Illustration of a self-host Matomo analytics setup with Docker, showing a Matomo dashboard next to a private server
🎧 Listen to the 60-Second Audio Recap: Why Self-Host Matomo? When you self-host Matomo, you get a privacy-friendly alternative to Google Analytics that keeps all data on your own server. Matomo is an open-source web analytics platform. It allows you...
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Your Smart Home, Your Data — Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi vs. Google & Amazon

Home Assistant Raspberry Pi guide 2026
🎧 Listen to the 60-Second Audio Recap: The Privacy Problem — What Big Tech Does With Your Smart Home Data Every voice command you send to Google Home or Amazon Alexa leaves your local network, transits a third-party server, and...
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Solar Panels 100% Local: Hoymiles Inverters in Home Assistant with OpenDTU (No Cloud)

opendtu hoymiles home assistant
Your Solar Data Is Flying to China First — Here’s How to Stop It 🎧 Listen to the 60-Second Audio Recap: The Privacy Problem With the Official Hoymiles DTU This guide covers OpenDTU Hoymiles Home Assistant integration via local MQTT,...
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Smart Mechanical Ventilation: Control Your Itho Daalderop CVE Locally in Home Assistant (No Cloud)

Ithoitho daalderop cve wifi
This guide covers the Itho Daalderop CVE WiFi add-on for local Home Assistant control via MQTT, without any cloud dependency. Why depend on fixed speeds (1, 2, or 3) on a plastic remote, or pay for an expensive manufacturer “smart”...
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Free Your TP-Link Deco M4R from TP-Link’s Cloud — Flash OpenWrt for 100% Local Control

openwrt tp-link deco m4r
🎧 Listen to the 60-Second Audio Recap: The Privacy Case — Why This Matters This guide covers OpenWrt TP-Link Deco M4R installation via a TFTP exploit to permanently bypass the locked bootloader and replace the firmware entirely. Why should a...
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Ditch the Cloud: Local Control of Your Mitsubishi Heavy Industries AC with ESP32-S3 & ESPHome

Mitsubishi AC Home Assistant ESPHome
🎧 Listen to the 60-Second Audio Recap: This guide covers complete Mitsubishi AC Home Assistant ESPHome local control via ESP32-S3. The official Mitsubishi WF-RAC WiFi dongle works. It pairs quickly, the app is polished, and the integration is seamless. It...
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Stop Sending Your Door & Window Data to Big Tech — The Case for a Local 433MHz Gateway

RFX-RFX-433EMC home assistant MQTT
🎧 Listen to the 60-Second Audio Recap: The Privacy Problem — What Happens Every Time Your Front Door Opens This guide covers the complete RFX-433EMC Home Assistant MQTT setup with Auto Discovery. Every time a door sensor fires a 433MHz...
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Homarr Dashboard: A Front Door for Your Docker Containers

homarr dashboard docker portainer
🎧 Listen to the 60-Second Audio Recap: The Problem Every Homelab Owner Recognizes This guide covers the complete Homarr dashboard Docker Portainer setup. It starts innocently enough. You install Home Assistant. Then Jellyfin. Then Nextcloud, Portainer, Paperless-ngx, and a handful...
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Pair Your First Zigbee Sensor with Home Assistant ZHA — Keep Your Bathroom Data Off Foreign Servers

pair zigbee sensor home assistant ZHA
🎧 Listen to the 60-Second Audio Recap: What’s Actually Happening With Your Sensor Data Right Now This guide covers how to pair Zigbee sensor Home Assistant ZHA without a vendor hub. A Zigbee humidity sensor costs about $8. The hub...
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USB Passthrough in Proxmox: Connecting Z-Wave & Zigbee Antennas to Home Assistant

USB passthrough Proxmox home assistant
This guide covers USB passthrough Proxmox Home Assistant for dual-chip Z-Wave and Zigbee dongles in your HAOS VM, then configuring both ZHA and Z-Wave JS as active, fully local integrations. This guide assumes you already have a running HAOS VM...
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Install Home Assistant OS HAOS Proxmox VM Guide

install home assistant os haos proxmox
🎧 Listen to the 60-Second Audio Recap: This guide covers how to install Home Assistant OS HAOS Proxmox VM using the community helper script. Every time you ask Google Home to dim your lights, that command travels to a server...
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Homepage Dashboard Proxmox LXC: API Setup Guide

homepage dashboard proxmox lxc
🎧 Listen to the 60-Second Audio Recap: What Is Homepage Dashboard and Why Does It Belong on Your Homelab? This guide covers the complete Homepage dashboard Proxmox LXC setup. Homepage is a self-hosted, YAML-configured start page that pulls live data...
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18TB Proxmox Backup: ZFS Pool, SMB Share & Rsync LXC

proxmox backup ZFS
🎧 Listen to the 60-Second Audio Recap: This guide covers building a Proxmox backup ZFS pool with automated rsync and SMB. Google One charges roughly €10 per month for 2TB. Dropbox charges more. Over three years, that is €360 or...
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Network Boot Server — Install Netboot.xyz via Docker (And Ditch Rufus Forever)

Netboot.xyz Docker on Proxmox
🎧 Listen to the 60-Second Audio Recap: What Is Netboot.xyz and Why Should You Care? This guide covers the complete Netboot.xyz Docker on Proxmox setup. Netboot.xyz is a PXE boot server that serves operating system installers over your local network...
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Ditch Amazon Kindle & ComiXology — Self-Host Your Entire Library with Kavita on Proxmox

kavita
🎧 Listen to the 60-Second Audio Recap: The Privacy Problem — What Big Tech Tracks When You Read This guide covers a complete Kavita on Proxmox deployment via Docker. Every time you turn a page on a Kindle, Amazon logs...
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