This is a collection of docker-compose files for my home lab. There will be a video added for each service over time. I will be using Hostinger for all hosting. Visit Hostinger for more information. If you sign up for anything there, use coupon code mattw for 10% off.

Services

• n8n
• searxng
• perplexica
• firecrawl
• openwebui
• qdrant
• budibase
• postgres
• caddy
• watchtower

Goals

I want to have a home lab that is self-hosted and runs on docker. I want to be able to access all of the services from the internet. But I don't want to let anyone access them...just me. n8n will be publicly accessible, but require authentication. The main thing that allows for this is Tailscale, which has a free plan that will let us do all we need.

Video

This first section is covered in a video on my channel, sponsored by Hostinger. Embed will be added after its posted.

Hostinger

If you want to follow along with everything I am doing, you can sign up for a Hostinger account at Hostinger and use the coupon code mattw for 10% off. Select the KVM2 plan. You can choose any template you like, but I am going to start with just the Docker install. Once it is setup, SSH into the server as the user root and we need to do a few things.

1. Create a new user account. You could use the default ubuntu user, but I prefer to create a new one for my name, matt. You use your name. adduser matt.

2. Allow the user to sudo: usermod -aG sudo matt

3. Add your user to the docker group: sudo usermod -aG docker matt

4. Log out and copy your public key to the server: ssh-copy-id -i keyname matt@<your-server-ip>

5. SSH in as the new user: ssh matt@<your-server-ip>

6. Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config

   a. Change PasswordAuthentication from yes to no

   b. Change PermitRootLogin from yes to no

   c. Change UsePAM from yes to no

7. Delete /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/50-cloud-init.conf

8. Restart the ssh service: sudo systemctl restart ssh

9. Log out and log back in as your new user.

10. Clone this repo to your home directory: git clone https://github.com/technovangelist/homelab.git

Tailscale

The first step is to get a Tailscale account and add you home machine to your tailnet. You can do this by downloading the Tailscale app from the Tailscale website.

After its installed, you need a key to add your docker containers to the tailnet. I found the easiest way to do it is to add the key to a docker secret.

1. Create a folder called ~/.config on the home directory for the user you are logged in as.
2. Create a file called tsauthkey in the ~/.config folder.
3. Go to the tailscale admin page, click on Settings. On the left go to Keys. Click the button Generate auth key....
4. Enable Reusable. Click Generate key.
5. Add the key to the tsauthkey file.
6. Make the file only readable by the user: chmod 600 ~/.config/tsauthkey

n8n

1. Navigate into the n8n directory: cd homelab/n8n

2. Copy the example.env file to .env: cp example.env .env

3. Edit the .env file.

   a. N8N_HOST should be the hostname of your server. b. WEBHOOK_URL should be the URL of your server. In my case they are the same. c. GENERIC_TIMEZONE should be your timezone.

4. Start the n8n container: docker compose up -d

Watchtower

This will update all the containers to the latest version every day at 4am

1. Navigate into the watchtower directory: cd homelab/watchtower
2. Change the Timezone to where ever you are.
3. Start the watchtower container: docker compose up -d