Thank you. I actually saw this earlier today, shortly after making my post. I’m absolutely planning on trying it. Also, great advice on the documentation, so thanks for that too 😊

When looking at installing pi-hole, I found this thread on reddit (RBR850 as a router is trash) explaining that:

Want to have your own DNS pi-hole? Nope, NG is harvesting that data via their DNS proxy that you CAN’T turn off and to apparently support orbilogin.com…when they could have just used Bonjour and not had to hijack it’s usability. Without static IP’ing everything in the house, you can’t use your DNS to see things that may potentially be compromised because all DNS traffic coming from DHCP-connected devices…now comes from your gateway rather than your device. Causing rate limit issues on your pihole and causing your entire network to go down due to failed DNS if you’re not running a dual stack.

Want VLANs? The option is there…does it work? Not correctly.

No prizes for guessing which router I have. Yay! The OP mentioned using it as an AP instead with a real router in front of it, which would require a new router.

All this to say, I have actually given this thought and done some reading. Sometimes my brain just makes my life unnecessarily hard, and I’ve learned when to admit I need individual help. So thank you for all your time replying to me, but I still want to hire someone.

That is very kind of you to offer. I’m also on CET, so I might take you up on that offer.

I’m not interested in self-hosting to save money, though. It’s more disillusionment and loss of trust with proprietary tech, which has me wanting to have more control. Also, I usually like to tinker with things. It feels as if self-hosting should be something I enjoy but for some reason I’m not managing to get out of my own head and start. If it was a purely technical thing, I’d have asked the question by now, promise.

Anomalous State of Knowledge is a new term for me, thanks 🙂 It’s so true though, knowing what questions to ask usually requires you to actually know what you don’t know.

Thank you for the offer, that’s very kind. I’ll definitely be coming back to this community once I manage to get going.

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I want to self-host various personal services for myself though, not a piefed instance.

It’s natural to share different parts of your life with different people, at varying levels of intimacy. Something doesn’t have to be illegal or shameful for you not to want to talk about it at work. Using throw away accounts allows both parties the opportunity to keep a potential professional relationship separate from their personal account, which may give information about their private life that they don’t wish to share. I’m not ashamed of my main account, I’m just a big fan of sandboxing 🙂

A coach is the right word, thank you for that. I edited my post to clarify.

This isn’t a New Year’s thing - I’ve been debating this for a few months now. It’s also not about using money as a motivater because that doesn’t work for me. I just find that body doubling / external accountability really helps me. Sometimes you just have to accept who you are and pay the ADHD tax 🙃

My list, in order of complexity:

1. Set up the pi-hole I bought. The thing holding me back is that I suspect I might need a new router too but the local ISP doesn’t work with all routers. This question I could ask on this forum but it is quite hardware specific, so probably not the right place.

2. Set up a jellyfin server on my home network. I have a 2012 iMac for which I’ve upgraded the ram and replaced the hard drive with an ssd. I’m hoping I can use it for this, and anything else I decide to host locally.

3. A server (or servers) that I can access over the internet, including:

• cloud storage for files and photos;
• a calibre web instance;
• maybe bitwarden and linkwarden (or similar)?

The 3rd part is where I freeze. I believe I could manage 1 and 2 on my own.

Thank you for your detailed answer.

1. I really do mean big picture, you’re talking about all the detail in that picture. My brain works best with a clear overview structure and an understanding of connections. It gives me a way to organise and keep track of the detail. I want to present my current understanding to someone and get their feedback on it. If I finally get my overview properly documented, I’ll happily share it on this community for others.

2. That’s my point - it’s a really big field and very individualised. That’s why I’d like someone to help me figure out an initial setup based on what I have and what I want.

3. The network access is exactly the piece that scares me, which is why I want to be sure I’m getting it right.

4. I expect that will be true once I’m into it. However right now I’m simply feeling overwhelmed and blocked. This is not a rational thing, it’s emotional.

Regarding money, those rates are in line with my expectations. I have some hardware that I can potentially use but I will need to do some investment there too. I’d prefer to spend some money up front on planning, rather than overspend on unnecessary hardware.