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Cloud Pi is my attempt to have a cloud-like infrastructure in my home without spending a lot of money in install it or a lot of time maintaining it.
My primary goal is to provide file hosting and automatic synchronization, similar to Dropbox or One Drive. I'm also hoping the few Apple devices on my network will integrate as well, since they refuse to do traditional CIFS/SMB file sharing with Samba.
Secondary goals include a Home Assistant home automation system. I would like to have this running as a Docker container, rather than as a dedicated stand-alone piece of hardware. Along with Home Assistant, I want a message queuing server (MQTT) to integrate with Internet of Things (IoT) devices that support it. A containerized version of Node Red will be installed as well to enable more complex automation than Home Assistant supports out of the box.
The hardware used is a single Raspberry Pi 4 2G model. I'm using a 32GB high-endurance microSD for the operating system and a 256GB USB 3 low-profile flash drive for data storage. The reason for using two devices is to ease data recovery in case something goes wrong. Even with a high-endurance microSD and an official Raspberry Pi power supply, Raspberry Pis are notorious for corrupting SD cards. Keeping data on a separate device makes recovery as easy as removing the flash drive and plugging it into another system.
I'm using Raspberry Pi OS lite for the operating system. It's going to be running as a headless server in the basement, so there's no need to use a GUI. For easy and consistent installation, Ansible configuration management is used for all other software packages. Advantages to this approach are: less time typing commands and easier recovery if the system ever needs to be reinstalled.
Other than that, I'm going to assume that this isn't your first Raspberry Pi project and you know enough about Ethernet and TCP/IP to administer a small home network. If all of this sounds like something you'd like to do, head on over to the Hardware Install page get started.