My first question would be, how familiar are you with the Linux cli? How much experience do you have with Docker containers? You are right, your list is quite extensive. and there is nothing wrong with goals, but I would caution to start small and slow. I would learn how to:

• Drive the Linux bus fairly well. I’m using Ubuntu Jammy for my servers, but there are other options. NixOS seems popular.
• Understand what reverse proxies are and how to deploy one. Caddy is pretty much dead simple with a small learning curve. There are many of them to choose from tho.
• Learn about various security implementations. Security is paramount. Fail2ban is a good start, but I would also explore Crowdsec, Wazuh, etc.
• Learn about Docker and how to set up Docker containers so that they are secure.
• Instead of mass deploying apps and containers, choose one. Get to know it on a personal basis. The installation process, the security aspect, etc. Things are easier when there is only one container to mother hen. Then as your knowledge base grows, add another…and so on.
• Document everything you do. Seriously. You can’t write too many notes. When you’ve successfully deployed your first app while documenting, go back and clean up your notes and make them a part of your 3,2,1 back up policy. I can almost guarentee you that 6 months down the road, you won’t be able to remember every command you typed in or what you’ve done. Documentation makes troubleshooting much easier.
• Speaking of backups, you’ll need a reliable way to make backups of your server. Borg seems to be quite popular, but there are others.
• Have fun!

purpose built homelab dashboard with custom built grafana dashs

I’ve seen them, but have had no hands on experience. Most of the ones I’ve seen are quite complex tho. Would be interesting.

As much as I like Homarr, it’s my dashboard of choice, I’m wondering, with all you have potentially going on, if Homepage would be more suitable. Homarr can do some metrics, but Homepage seems more suitable for lots of metrics. Other than that, it sure looks like you’ve got it wrapped.

Awesome man. KISS is pretty much the way to go.

I have one. Very neat little project. I see now that there is an AI interface for MagicMirror now. Looks intriguing.

Depending on the specs of your server/VPS you could run a modded Minecraft server. Back in the day I really got into Minecraft and ran a server modded out to the max with shaders, and all manner of accoutrements. It was for fun, but Minecraft is one of those games you can really learn from.

Url un-shortners exist.

Dude…one of the most cornball things I’ve ever heard in my life but has some truth to it is ‘You can’t fix stupid.’ It’s 2026! Spool up. I would guess that the biggest portion of those morons are boomers, yet still, it’s 2026. I’m sorry to sound so harsh but I really tire of the older set especially, but pretty much anyone in a technologically developed country claiming not to be technologically inclined. They had no flipping problem learning FaceBook. ‘How to Use A Computer Tutorial’ search turns up thousands of tutorials on that very topic. Unless you live in a remote area or a technologically underdeveloped country where technology is not readily accessible to the common man, then yeah. I’m a septuagenarian and I learned. I have no certs, or diplomas, or any thing, which should be obvious, but I get by pretty decent I’d say. It’s pretty much attainable by the vast majority of people if they’d only put a little effort into it.

/rant

Didn’t down vote you, but if someone clicks a link without, at the very least, mousing over it to view the url, then you get what you get. One of the most effective anti-virus programs you can ever deploy on any system is your own prudence and discretion. It’s not the fault of the url shortner, it’s the moron clicking indiscriminately.

The term “Dograh” refers to an Indo-Aryan ethno-linguistic group primarily found in the Duggar region of Jammu and Kashmir, India. The name is believed to be derived from “Durgara,” an ancient kingdom mentioned in historical texts.

Accurate? I always find it fascinating where devs derive the name of their projects.

I’ve read a bit about portainer, but I’m still learning

I started with Portainer, and I still use it. It checks all the boxes for me. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention there are other such platforms to manage Docker containers with such as Podman, Dockage, etc. Like I said, I started with Portainer, and I know how to drive that bus, so I stuck with it.

Most likely reasons people don’t document right out of the gate is excitement of the moment, and I’ve got this tutorial I found…why would I need to document? However, I’ve found that writing it down in your own words seems to make it stick more for me. The way I have my notes, I could format the entire drive, and using notes alone, have the server back up and running full production in a solid day’s effort. Don’t be lulled into the notion that you’ll be able to remember everything 6 months down the road. That’s the devil talking Bobby Boucher.

“If I could tell myself this before I set everything up, I would say…”

TAKE PROLIFIC NOTES! Do it as you go. Then, when you have whatever you were working on the way you want it, go back and clean your notes up, and make them a part of your 3,2,1 back up policy. Make a road map of how you want everything to operate. That way, as you add to your server/network, all the pieces will be much tidier and easier to troubleshoot.

I use IPv6 local only. Everything else is IPv4. Reason being, my commercial VPN does not support IPv6 and I have reservations about leakage. My ISP already ships with IPv4 & IPv6.

my bone count is still 0

Truly sorry to hear that my man. There are meds that can get that bone count up.

I found an 8-year-old project on GitHub that had similar ideas but is unmaintained and not quite what I needed.

In the back on my mind I was thinking ‘I could have sworn I had seen Dockwell somewhere before’.

It’s one night of work, so take that for what it is

The honesty is refreshing.

It’s interesting for sure. I was intrigued when I saw OG Dockwell, but like you, saw it was quite stale.

Certainly. I don’t discount that any exploit is ‘really bad’. I like my OS of choice to be as free of exploits as it can possibly be. However, some of the material I was reading involved areas of Linux that I have little if any knowledge of value with, so I thought I’d as the question.

RFC: As I understand it this exploit requires local access and cannot be deployed remotely. Is this a correct analysis?

a month.

I do it for a whole year. lol

If this is real, I honestly do empathize with your situation. Try some local community outreach programs like food banks, child services, etc. There is no reason to be embarrassed by being down on your luck. Anyone who has lived on this planet for any length of time has been there too. I am sorry that I cannot help with your situation further, and I certainly hope you get things back on track for you and your family. Best wishes.

ETA: I am not aware of any such forums here on Lemmy that could help.