2026-06-26

I Don't Maintain My Homelab

I don't maintain my homelab... it maintains itself.

Table of Contents

• 1. Infrastructure

  • 1.1. Server

  • 1.2. Network

• 1. Software
• 1. The Outcome

It's true. I don't maintain my homelab… it maintains itself.

Have I reached nirvana? Is this the ultimate goal of homelabbers? It seems that I've somehow automated myself out of a job (hobby?) by building a resilient homelab.

Let's figure out where it all went "wrong".

1. Infrastructure

1.1. Server

I have used a few different servers over the years, but have since consolidated all of my services onto a single server (build guide here), reducing the complexity of my environment.

Because of the single-server setup, maintenance is down 75% (from four servers to one). Yes, clusters and hypervisors and hybrid cloud solutions are shiny and fancy and popular, but I just don't care for it. Instead, I have a single metal box I can pick up with my hands sitting in my basement.

I do have one more "server": a Raspberry Pi 4, but it uses Home Assistant OS, updates itself, and requires literally zero maintenance. Is that really a server? I guess, by technical definition. But it certainly doesn't feel like it; it feels like I've turned a potential server device into a self-sustaining IoT device instead.

1.2. Network

Aside from the server itself, I have a mini rack of UniFi gear (server is in the same rack). A UniFi Dream Machine Pro, a switch, and a couple of access points (APs) constitute my personal data center sitting in my basement.

Again, it really just maintains itself. UniFi supports automatic and scheduled updates, allowing you to disconnect from any manual maintenance of the hardware. UniFi truly is a "set it and forget it" platform.

2. Software

There's a single crontab line on my server, which runs all updates for my Docker services on a weekly basis.

0 0 * * 0 docker-update

Which is an alias for:

for d in ~/docker/*/; do (cd "$d" && sudo docker compose pull && sudo docker compose up -d); done

I do run a few crontab schedules via the root user as well, to account for permission issues. These jobs are really just for backups, to be honest. I've never required a backup, but it's good to be safe.

# Generate a daily system report
0 8 * * * /home/cmc/daily_sys_report.sh

# Backup
SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin

## App-aware database dumps
45 1 * * * mkdir -p /tank/cloud/server/backups/immich && sudo docker exec -t immich_postgres pg_dumpall -U postgres > /tank/cloud/server/backups/immich/immich-postgres-$(date +\%F).sql
50 1 * * * mkdir -p /tank/cloud/server/backups/piped && sudo docker exec -t piped-postgres pg_dumpall -U piped > /tank/cloud/server/backups/piped/piped-postgres-$(date +\%F).sql

## Backup files to ZFS pool
0 2 * * * rsync -aHAX --delete /var/lib/plexmediaserver/ /tank/cloud/plexmediaserver/
5 2 * * * rsync -aHAX --delete /var/www/ /tank/cloud/server/web_server/
10 2 * * * rsync -aHAX --delete /etc/nginx/ /tank/cloud/server/nginx/
15 2 * * * rsync -aHAX --delete --exclude='**/postgres/' --exclude='**/postgresql/' --exclude='**/mysql/' --exclude='**/mariadb/' --exclude='**/redis/' --exclude='**/valkey/' --exclude='**/database/' --exclude='**/cache/' --exclude='**/tmp/' --exclude='**/logs/' /home/cmc/docker/ /tank/cloud/server/docker/
20 2 * * * rsync -aHAX --delete /home/cmc/.ssh/ /tank/cloud/server/ssh/

Aside from this, the only other required updates are running apt update and potentially restarting. This requires about 60 seconds of time whenever I want to do it.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y && sudo apt autoremove -y

3. The Outcome

So, what's the end result? I've approximated it somewhere around 15 minutes of maintenance per month, barring an emergency.

If that's normal to you, congrats - you've peaked in life. However, that's absolutely absurd to me. I used to spend days on end building, maintaining, and debugging various aspects of my servers, databases, apps, etc.

You know what's even crazier? If I don't have 15 minutes in a month to ssh into my server and update things, it literally does not affect anything. I could probably go 6 months (maybe more?) without touching it and it wouldn't break.

(This is not a challenge, please don't break my server.)

What a great situation to be in - especially for someone who's become as busy in their career as I have. I feel like I've struck a fantastic balance between privacy, security, and convenience.

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